Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It was 31 years ago that this side of the House introduced the Public Finance Act. It's been interesting over the course of the period that this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill has been before us in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I want to acknowledge my colleagues over the other side of the committee. We've had the opportunity to hear from economists from Treasury and from a whole range of very interested stakeholders as to exactly how this bill and particularly the measures that we are introducing—it is about how we measure wellbeing. To take the point of my learned friend who just spoke prior Louise Upston she was concerned that we were introducing a bill that was a mere piece of fluff. Look she didn't sit on the Finance and Expenditure Committee so she didn't have the opportunity to engage with some of the incredible minds that we did and I look forward to some of the contributions from other colleagues that were engaged in these discussions since last September. But the key task before us was: how do we measure? How do we ensure that we are measuring the right things when it comes to making sure that all of the whole person all of the community and all of the things that we value dear to us are being measured and attributed tracked and if I can say traced—how can we ensure that we are doing that?This bill is a simple bill but it is something that's taken a long time to get to this point. We were in a position to be able to implement a measurement a yardstick by which we can ensure that we are measuring the wellbeing of New Zealanders across multiple fora not just the mere fiscal GDP measure which we all know is a blunt tool and there's been numerous speeches in this Chamber over the past 2½ years speaking to that extent so I won't go into those anymore. But the key task here was right we know that there are other things beyond GDP that go towards the way that we as a nation need to feel well as an overarching society. So Treasury they developed the Living Framework Standard. They did that under the last lot. This bill—Andrew Bayly: Last lot?KIRITAPU ALLAN: The last honourable governance—it was a long time ago now. So it's good that we can implement and put into law actual yardsticks by which we can measure things that now require the finance Minister—they every year are going to have to come back to this Chamber and account to how we are tracking when it comes to these environmental wellbeings how we are tracking when it comes to these cultural wellbeings economic wellbeings and the like.Now our friend who hasn't been a part of these conversations—the honourable member for Taupō—seemed to get a little tied up and a bit concerned about how the rest of the world was seeing this. Well a lot of people are looking towards New Zealand because they want to understand how we have implemented these measures and rightly so because people know that GDP has been a blunt measure. It's not sufficient; it's an insufficient tool to track how we can measure the things that we need to in our modern day society. So we are at the precipice and we have been as we were when we introduced the Public Finance Bill back in the late 1980s. We at that point too were a point which many other countries looked to because it was a radically new way of measuring and putting a yardstick to the public sector effectively.Well now we're doing this again. It's been a long time between drinks but rightly so. I am incredibly proud of our finance Minister the Hon Grant Robertson. This has been something that he has championed for long before he was in the position that he is in now. He's now in a position to give full credence to the aspirations of the Living Standards Framework and he's doing that by way of this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. This is an absolutely incredible day for New Zealand and one we should all be proud of. So without further ado I commend this bill to the committee.