Robertson Grant; Mallard TrevorADDRESS IN REPLYDebate resumed from 26 November.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister): It gives me great pleasure to rise in this debate. Before I return to the Address in Reply specifically I do just want to note that on this side of the House we stand proudly behind our Minister of Housing and the development of housing supply. This is a Government that built more houses than any other Government since the 1970s. This is a Government that on coming into office turned around a policy that saw in the middle of a housing crisis the mass sale of State houses. That was their response; it was a housing crisis and they decided to sell houses. As the Minister has already said today if the previous Government had been building State houses at the rate that this Government has been building them there wouldn't be a waiting list. So if the members on the other side of the House want to look at the reason for our housing crisis look in the mirror.When the Prime Minister stood in the House last week to respond to the Address in Reply debate she made clear that New Zealand and the New Zealand Government had three priorities from here. The first of those is to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID19. On that score every member of this House I am sure would join me in thanking all 5 million New Zealanders because while the Government can lay out a plan and a strategy for what we need to do that only works if every New Zealander buys into it. That is something that has been quite unique about New Zealand's response to COVID19: that New Zealanders have got in behind the strategy and they've stuck with it. They saw a Government that had a plan and stuck with it didn't flip-flop about what it wanted didn't change its mind about alert levels; it stuck to the plan and New Zealanders backed that and I am very grateful to them for that. So from here it is a matter of the Government continuing that strategy on. The elimination strategy is built on multiple lines of defence.While I'm on the subject of congratulations I want to say thank you" to those who work in our managed isolation and quarantine facilities. This is a very very difficult job under trying circumstances. Many of them have had to put on hold critical parts of their lives the work they do in communities and the time they spend with their families. We have to be very grateful for them. In return along with that gratitude we will continue to strengthen what we do at the border: our testing regimes our infection control mechanisms and the staffing that we provide there. Also is the work that we do on contact tracing and surveillance testing; all of that has gone well and all of that must continue.But what we do want to focus on as we move forward is the ability to deliver a free and effective vaccine to New Zealanders—and as was traversed in question time today a lot of work has gone into that. It will be something that will happen over time. We will need to prioritise our health workers. There will be population groups that we have to give that to first. But New Zealand is in a strong position to do this because of the response that we have taken to now.We said from day one that the best economic response was a strong public health response and that has proved to be true. Earlier in question time I ran through some of the economic data. Exports are doing well. Retail sales are up. All of that is possible because we took a strong public health response because people can be back out in the community spending. Businesses know that; they are working alongside the communities to make sure that jobs are maintained and retained. That will be critical to any recovery. On this side of the House we will always put people first in New Zealand when it comes to the way that we run our economy.Our job now is to accelerate that recovery. We've done well but we can do better. We also have to acknowledge that there are some people who have lost their jobs and some communities who are still struggling. We will be alongside them at every step of the way. That comes from investing in our people.Minister Hipkins has already mentioned today the success of the initiative around apprenticeships. We were never going to repeat the mistake of the previous Government in the wake of the global financial crisis because what they did then was stand on the sidelines and let apprentices be laid off in business after business. Not only did that affect those people it also meant that when the recovery came we didn't have the skilled workforce we needed to actually be able to build the houses and build up the businesses that we need. So that's why we made apprenticeships free. That's why we've invested in trade training. To hear about the thousands of New Zealanders taking that up warms my heart and I want to that Minister Hipkins for advocating for that so early on in the piece.In addition to that we will be taking measures to support people into work including the return of the training incentive allowance for those degree courses. On this side of the House we will never pull the ladder up behind us and that's what we saw over there when the training incentive allowance disappeared last time. We want every New Zealander to be part of this economic recovery. We have got a comprehensive plan of investment there. These numbers can sometimes be mind-boggling especially for a Minister of Finance: $42 billion going into infrastructure over the next few years to futureproof our economy and create jobs. That's $9.6 billion for Waka Kotahi the New Zealand Transport Agency; $3.8 billion on those education facilities that were left out of the plans of the previous Government. The same in our hospitals as well; we are making sure there are facilities being built right across New Zealand along with the work that Kāinga Ora is doing as the Minister has already said today to deliver 18000 public and transitional homes. This is about making sure that the policies that we enact not only accelerate our economic recovery but also start to address some of the long-term issues that New Zealand has. This is the opportunity for us to build back better.Part of building back better is another part of our economic plan and that is the preparation for a low-carbon economy. We can bring forward the 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2030. We will prohibit the building of new thermal baseload electricity. We will get those dry year storage options such as pumped hydro up. We will get green hydrogen going. On this side of the House it's not some kind of "or" when it comes to the environment and the economy; it's an "and". We only get a strong economy if we have a sustainable environment and we will address those issues.We will continue to back our small businesses. Again I want to give credit to the way that small businesses have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. They've pivoted they've been innovative and they've been supported by a Government that has got alongside them with the wage subsidy scheme and with the small business cash-flow scheme. On the other side of the House they like to undermine things like the way we're going to regulate merchant service fees. All that does is show how out of touch they are with small business because every member on this side of the House knows that when we went around in the election campaign and you mentioned that policy retailers' eyes lit up because they knew that they were being ripped off and we're going to do something about it.Alongside all of this we can't forget our position in the world. I want to give credit to both the current and former Ministers of Trade for the work that they've done to get us into a position now where we have the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership being signed we've made progress in our upgrade of the China free-trade agreement we're working on the EU and UK deals that we see in the future but we're also out there in the world supporting our businesses to make sure they can get profitable and get more business in an era where they need to be in the digital space much more often. So we've put an extra quarter of a billion dollars into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to be able to support all of that.But none of that takes away from the issues that New Zealand was facing before COVID-19 arrived around issues of climate change of child poverty and of housing. We must and we will be taking further action in those areas.When it comes to child poverty we all know that the Government that Jacinda Ardern leads will put that at the centre of what we do. What we also know is that the statistics that have been thrown up by the National Party over the last couple of years are actually about when they were in Government. When we see the full impact of the Families Package on those child poverty numbers we know that that's lifting hundreds of thousands of families out of poverty. We know that the winter energy payment has made sure not only that our low-income people have been able to keep warm but also that our older New Zealanders have as well. The dignity that is offered to New Zealanders by that should never be underestimated by a National Party who opposed all of that.So we have a strong plan. We have a five-point economic plan that we are rolling out. We are focused on the long-term issues that have bedevilled New Zealand for so long. But as the Prime Minister says it's also about the way we work. This will be a Government that is marked out by the way we continue to improve Māori Crown relations and by the way that we support one another across all parts of Government to be able to improve the wellbeing and the living standards of New Zealand. I believe the agenda of this Government is something to be extremely proud of; it will change New Zealanders' lives for the better; and it will ensure that we keep our people safe we accelerate our recovery and we make sure that we build the foundations for a strong and prosperous future for all New Zealanders.SPEAKER: Andrew Bayly—a five-minute call."