Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe. Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I would like to start my contribution in this debate by acknowledging all those in our team of 5 million who have worked so hard to make sure that we could get on top of and stay on top of this virus. Minister Hipkins in fact started off this debate today by thanking the businesses for what they have done to ensure that they did the best by their staff and their businesses. But there is one group in all of the speeches that hasn't been singled out yet for a big thankyou and those are union delegates. Now a large part of being a delegate is standing up for your colleagues and for their rights and it includes ensuring that certain disputes may not escalate. It makes the person who stands up for their colleagues often more vulnerable because they speak up where others stay quiet. And they often put their own interests behind anyone else's because they look at the greater good and their colleagues' wellbeing and manaakitanga. So over the last month the jobs of these union delegates have become increasingly pressured because over the lockdown we had issues with regards to the wage subsidy leave provisions sick leave health and safety and many times it is the delegates that have been supporting their colleagues in those difficult circumstances often in the same circumstances that they were facing: redundancies restructures and losing their jobs.Now I know that at the moment in Air New Zealand there are several working really hard with the company because Air New Zealand has to cut 3500 staff off their books. That's a really tough thing to do. I was in the same position in 2009 having to go through that kind of exercise but it was nothing compared to now. The scale of this is absolutely heartbreaking and gut-wrenching and my heart goes out to the people that are helping their colleagues doing what they can to work through that.Now union delegates are our unsung heroes and it's great to see that in the latest birthday honours. If I can just mention Marianne Bishop she was recognised for her services to the union movement and the community and she is an absolutely deserving woman working with Kristine Bartlett during the equal pay claim. But back to the Budget. We have of course started with the wage subsidy to ensure that we would protect as many jobs as possible give businesses the opportunity to work through their options and find out ways to keep their businesses viable and that started paying out straight away. But in five days I believe the first cash was rolling out and it has immediately helped businesses and over 1.7 million people have benefited from that. A couple of comments that I've received recently from businesses—now there's one here: I would like to say thank you to the Government for helping me with the opportunity to keep my business afloat. Regardless of the final outcome the Government provided me with a $48000 wage subsidy which at least gave my business a chance." And this one from a Rodney business: "Over the past 12-week period we've had a 60 percent drop in revenue with expenses remaining the same. We have 14 staff and are proud we've been able to keep them all employed at 100 percent of their wages." And this is a living wage employer; I know that: "Without the Government's quick offer and payment of the wage subsidy we absolutely would have been reducing wages and making redundancies." So this is really great stuff and there are lots of big ticket items in this Budget that we've heard people talk about. But also there are many detailed smaller much needed investments that we haven't heard much about because they're tucked away in the Treasury's detailed Budget documents. One of those I'm thinking of is the funding for the Coastguard and Surf Life Saving New Zealand where volunteers of course are doing that crucial work to keep us safe. In the northern region where I'm based that means that the places between Mangawhai and Ōrewa from Red Beach to Muriwai are benefiting from that. Bringing back night classes is the other really great one that we get so much feedback about. People really really love that. I don't know why that was cut in 2010 by the previous Government but that was absolutely well received. We are having a $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme. Projects like Penlink are finally coming through; one that our Government has committed to where the previous Government only ever really talked about it without funding it. So the silver lining that our Minister always talks about is there. We need to rebuild and we need to build back better because the pre-COVID economy certainly wasn't one that we want to go back to. So we are creating new jobs training people to have the skills that they need for the jobs that they're going into and we are supporting people to either keep their jobs or go back into work. That's what this Budget does. It's a great Budget. I thank the Minister and I commend it to the House."