Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker members of this House I ask you to cast your minds back to a year ago. A year ago when we returned to this House after the summer break and after the celebrations at Waitangi and at that time the first rumours the first knowledge of a new coronavirus was making its way to New Zealand. We were looking at the stories coming out of other countries and starting to realise that this could be very serious. At that time the virus had not even been named it was still the novel coronavirus. It was only I think towards the end of February that it acquired the name COVID-19. How much our world has changed since then how much it has changed and how much our response to COVID19 has had to shape what the previous Government did the Government in the 52nd Parliament and what this Government in the 53rd Parliament will be doing and I'm proud to be part of that Government.We have three overarching objectives set out in the Speech from the Throne. We will be keeping New Zealand safe from COVID-19 we will be accelerating our economic recovery we will be laying the foundations for a better future. Those are the overarching objectives of this Government. Our work to keep us safe is ongoing. It's in the border controls it's in the increased testing at the border it's in the requirements for pre-departure testing it is in our contact tracing if ever a case of this virus makes it out of the border as indeed it does from time to time as it is a tricky virus and that's where we all have a part to play with scanning—we're recording where we're going through Bluetooth tracing and so on. So that ongoing work carries on. That's what we're doing to keep New Zealand safe and so far it is working.We are accelerating our economic recovery. We started with the wage subsidy right at the start to keep people in jobs and to keep businesses going. We carried on with training and free apprenticeships we had no- and low-cost loans for businesses all designed to keep business and jobs going. It has turned out to be an excellent response. The latest employment data from Stats NZ shows that our unemployment rate is down to 4.9 percent. Of course we'd like it to fall further of course we are very worried about employment of women and of Māori and Pasifika where that unemployment rate is higher for those particular groups. Nevertheless this is a good outcome compared to Australia at its 6.8 percent 8.7 percent in Canada and the OECD average of 6.9 percent. We are doing well on employment and that will accelerate our recovery.And we are laying the foundations for a better future particularly where we work on climate change and on child poverty and where I want to focus on housing. There was an impassioned speech from a previous speaker about what is going on in the housing market. To that speaker and others I say the market is doing as markets will do—it is responding to signals. I perhaps prefer not to think of it as market failure but as a market delivery that does not deliver the social outcomes we want and the social outcomes we want are warm dry secure affordable homes for New Zealanders. If ever there is a case for Government intervention it is in the housing market and that is precisely what we are doing with our focus on new social housing. So instead of selling off social houses we are building them and increasing dwellings to ensure that there will be many more places in social housing. We have social housing places going in all around the country and especially in Auckland.I want to talk of the 300 or so new dwellings that have been built or are being built in my electorate right now. Just a few months ago with Minister Megan Woods I visited the Thom Street development—80 new dwellings 80 families with warm dry secure homes. Close to public transport close to shops close to schools homes where people can build a life where they can develop where they can be secure where they can be part of a community where they can hold down a job because they have a warm dry secure home provided through Kāinga Ora. It is this focus on social housing that will be critically important to solving at least part of the housing problem and I am very proud to be part of a Government that is looking after our people and making a better New Zealand.