Wedd CatherineCATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I rise to support the Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill because this Budget is about getting New Zealand ahead moving us forward out of the dark daily struggle to a brighter future enabling hard-working New Zealanders to keep more of what they earn strengthening our economy once again and delivering that tax relief that people have not seen in New Zealand for 14 years. It's a fiscally responsible Budget and delivers on our commitments to put more funding into our front-line health services education and police.That's right.Hon Dr Deborah Russell: What about the Supplementary Estimates?CATHERINE WEDD: On this side of the House we're reducing the ballooning bureaucracy—I am getting to the actual votes in Estimates—because we are taking money out of the back office and we are moving it to the front line.I'm an electorate MP standing up every day for the people of Hawke's Bay and this Budget respects those hard-working people in provincial New Zealand. Regional New Zealand has been neglected for the past six years as the previous Government treated provincial New Zealand like a bottomless tax ATM machine spending the money in Wellington on consultants and ballooning bureaucracy taxing hard-working people in businesses and strangling our productive sectors with regulation. Budget 2024 respects provincial New Zealand because we are aspirational and we reward success.So our tax-relief package in the Budget will increase the take-home income of 83 percent of New Zealanders—83 percent of New Zealanders. It is in here—this is what the New Zealand public voted for and this is what this bill will be delivering on 31 July. It's time that hard-working New Zealanders can keep more of what they earn. Our tax package gives the average-income households up to $102 a fortnight plus the family boost childcare of $150 a fortnight. This is significant to many low and middle income earning families who are really struggling at the moment after years and years of neglect. Our Government is finally taking action to bring down inflation bring down those interest rates and strengthen our economy.Budget 2024 also puts a heavy focus on health. We're investing in and increasing front-line services such as emergency departments primary care medicines and public health so New Zealanders can have the health care they need.On this side of the House we're laser-focused on education. You will see in those Estimates and in our 2024 Budget a heavy focus on education because education creates equality and we are investing in our children and in the future of New Zealand looking forwards not backwards like the member said earlier. It's not about lowering the bar; it's about getting more of our kids above the bar and on a positive pathway to a job and a better future.This Budget commits—yes this Budget and the Estimates commit—$1.5 billion for school property building and maintaining classrooms getting more value out of the money we spend and a real focus on our front-line classrooms ensuring money is going into our teachers and children not wasted on the bureaucracy in Wellington. We have committed $67 million to roll out structured literacy across our schools. I have 61 schools in the Tukituki electorate and I have been out and about visiting these schools meeting the amazing teachers seeing how they've been rolling out structured literacy and hearing about the huge difference that it is making for our children—seeing them sounding the words seeing their faces light up as they can suddenly read. We need to lift performance across education and this starts by getting our kids back to basics.Our Government is also committed to cracking down on crime and keeping our communities safe. In this Budget we are investing $2.9 billion to restoring law and order—more front-line police officers more support for our police on the beat $1.9 billion to front-line corrections officers more prison capacity and more rehabilitation for offenders and support the victims of crime. We are focusing on youth offending including a military-style academy pilot.Infrastructure is another big area in Budget 2024 because there has been an absolute deficit in our infrastructure and we're going to be investing $68 billion in infrastructure over the next five years. This is a record investment in infrastructure and when we talk about infrastructure we aren't visualising and dreaming and thinking ideology of light-rail projects that haven't seen a metre of track built or of cycle ways across the Auckland Harbour Bridge which again is absolute ideology. We are not a Government that talks about it; we are a Government of action and delivery on this side of the House getting stuff built fast-tracking consenting and getting on with the job to tackle the infrastructure deficit in this country.This is significant for Hawke's Bay which is a huge export region and will play a big part in helping us double the value of exports in this country over the next 10 years. This Government's plans for infrastructure will be life changing for people across our region. Four-laning the Hawke's Bay expressway is a top priority and is a road of national significance. The Hawke's Bay expressway is crucial to driving more productivity in our region getting our apples wine meat and produce to the port more efficiently and off to markets around the world a lot faster. We are also delivering on our commitment to boost funding for pothole prevention as the member over here alluded to. During the campaign people would often complain to me all the time about the hundreds and hundreds of potholes across our State highways and our rural roads because on that side of the House they failed to invest in infrastructure. In fact we're seeing over $82 million going into Hawke's Bay's potholes. So maintaining our roads is a top priority. Actually that's an increase of 51 percent and it's this type of investment that is going to make a huge difference a focus on provincial New Zealand stopping the centralisation in the bureaucracy and focusing on our regions.Speaking of our regions I'm going to make a reference to the cyclone rebuild and recovery funding that we have seen in these Estimates because Hawke's Bay is also getting an extra funding boost for cyclone recovery to ensure we can rebuild quickly and efficiently. Already our Minister of Transport Simeon Brown has been to the region and he's been speaking with our regional leaders just to see how we can rebuild more efficiently and faster and make sure that we are investing in that crucial infrastructure. That includes the State highway network including State Highway 2 and State Highway 5 and there will be an investment of $609.3 million over three years to complete the State highway recovery works in the areas that have been affected by the North Island weather events. This is significant for my region.Also there will be an investment of $330 million over two years to continue the response and recovery work on local roads and it's this funding that will ensure the vital transport links are repaired so people and freight can get to where they need to go quickly and safely. Our Government is absolutely committed to cyclone rebuild in the Hawke's Bay region and ensuring that our region gets back on its feet and it was absolutely heartening to see such a significant investment in Budget 2024 which is going to make a huge difference for the people of Hawke's Bay and a lot of those people who were devastated in Cyclone Gabrielle.This Budget is focused on getting more value out of the money we spend returning to surplus stopping the ballooning public debt that we've seen in the past six years and restoring discipline to public spending. We're putting money back into the front line and giving hard-working New Zealanders tax relief and that's getting New Zealand back on track.