Hudson Brett: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4155. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. It is an absolute privilege to stand in this House to speak in my first Budget debate but I am absolutely delighted that I get the opportunity to speak on this Budget in particular. It is a Budget that continues on with the strong economic and fiscal responsibility that this Government has now shown for 7 years and that takes advantage of the settings that the country sees itself at now and into the future to help those in the most need.The previous speaker from the Labour side of the House Louisa Wall bemoaned the number of days it is going to take before our $790 million package for families in need takes effect. Well I say to her and to those members in Opposition that they may count the days until this package comes into effect but what we know and what New Zealand knows is that it took more than 43 years for a Labour Government to raise benefits in real terms. We can only speculate as to how many more years it might have taken if this National-led Government had not done it right now. The families that are going to benefit from this package are the beneficiary families with a $25 a week increase in real terms to their benefits. That will impact in a positive way 108000 families and 194000 children. This Government is doing something real to assist those in need.Along with that improvement to those in the most need we are continuing with our plan to grow the economy and to increase jobs and incomes—a plan that has seen 194000 jobs created since 2011 and a forecast of a further 150000 jobs over the next 4 years. We have seen average wages growing faster than inflation. Average wages have grown over 15 percent over the last 5 years and are forecast to continue to grow faster than inflation. But there is more: on 1 July an additional 400000 children in this country will be able to take advantage of free doctors visits and prescriptions through the policy we announced at the last election campaign to extend those visits and those free prescriptions to children under the age of 13.This Parliament has been busy. We have increased paid parental leave which we will do again in 2016 and we have also increased the parental tax credit the first Government to do that in many years. On top of that we have also seen this Parliament and our ministry put into action the investment of over $350 million that we announced to improve educational success for all of our children—investing in teachers and in school leaders to get better outcomes and a better future for our children.This Government has shown and shown again with this Budget a very strong concern and an action to help our most vulnerable and our future. So in addition to the money we are giving to beneficiary families we have also announced for low and very low-income working families an additional assistance of between $12.50 and $24.50 a week because we recognise that although work is the best means to lift our families out of hardship simply getting a job is not enough for every family to get them to the place where we and they aspire to be. On top of that we are increasing our guaranteed childcare assistance payment from $4 to $5 an hour and up to a maximum of 50 hours a week. So that sees some 41000 lower-income families anticipated to benefit from that assistance over the next year.The industry that I come from is the information and communications technology industry. It would be remiss of me to finish without noting our continued investment in rolling out ultra-fast broadband and rural broadband across New Zealand. There is an additional $350 million boost for our world-class connectivity $210 million from the Future Investment Fund for ultra-fast broadband to expand it to cover 80 percent of the New Zealand population and an additional $150 million of funding to extend rural broadband capability to make sure that rural New Zealand can also share in the benefits of such connectivity. This is a commendable Budget one that I am extraordinarily proud to stand here and represent and I commend it to the House.