Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and join our caucus colleagues in actually critiquing this Budget. But before I get into some of the critiquing that I have to do for this Budget—because I have specifics that I wanted to mention—I want to acknowledge all of the members of Parliament who over the course of the lockdown and through level 4 level 3 and level 2—it's been amazing the work that they've done in their communities. It's really lovely to see all of the members in 3D rather than 2D on a computer screen using a Zoom committee and it's really lovely to see everyone.I've lived in New Zealand since 1988 and over the years as a member of the community as a member of the public and as a member of Parliament I have seen different Governments actually produce Budgets. Budget times can be very exciting. It has ranged from austerity measures to lolly scrambles and there have been numerous names. I think this Budget the Government has called it Rebuilding Together" and I'm not so sure if that's an indication that it's going to fail because in terms of building this Government hasn't been known for building a heck of a lot. I mean KiwiBuild was one of those things and also the light rail that they intended to build along Dominion Road has actually been cancelled. So if they call this the rebuilding Budget I'm not so sure if that is an indication that they didn't really have much of a plan. But having said that it is an incredible amount of money.I understand that it is actually not a time to talk about austerity because the Government needs to spend the money to help New Zealand rebuild. I totally understand that. Having said that it is an incredible amount of money that we are putting every single person in New Zealand into debt for. So the total budget that the Government has talked about is $140 billion but if you look at a document called Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2020—I think it is on page 28—the total borrowing goes up to $317.3 billion. That amount of borrowing if one divides the total number of New Zealand's population which is 5 million becomes something like $63460 of debt for every woman man and child in this country—that is $63460 debt for every child woman and man in this country. That is the total borrowing that this Government is putting New Zealand into.I guess when I look at some of the ways that this Government has actually worked and my idea that perhaps the rebuild idea is not something that they're going to do very well it's because during the lockdown one of the things that I have experienced is that the Government didn't seem ready Government wasn't aware and Government did not prepare well enough—for example one of the things that I experienced as an ethnic person is that the information that went out to the ethnic communities in regards to COVID-19 information was very lacking. Often people did not have information as to what they could do during lockdown what they could do during level 3 or 2 and the translation services were not available or the information the posters that should have been in different languages was not available.I'd like to take this opportunity if I may to thank from my community the COVID19 Han In Yeon Dae—that translates to the "COVID-19 New Zealand-Korean alliance"—and the Korean Students' Association and the medical doctors and nurses who spent hundreds of hours translating Government PR and information about COVID-19 because that was essential for the ethnic particularly for the communities who weren't getting the information fast enough.During the lockdown MPs actually have contact with the elected officials' email and one of the things that I was constantly asking was: when is the Korean translation and when is the Chinese translation going to be online? Because these are the things that people were contacting me to find out if that information was available—it wasn't.I heard earlier during question time the Hon Willie Jackson talked about the fact that he cared about the Māori Pacific and ethnic communities and he actually represented them. I hope that he takes this lesson: there were a lot of things that were done that could have been done better. This is not necessarily a criticism saying that you didn't do it; it's saying that it was very late. This information is really really important—for example when the Government made a decision to not publish weekly publications and said that they weren't part of the essential service. Guess what! The ethnic newspapers fell into that so-called non-essential service. That means that ethnic communities could not publish in their ethnic language. I had to write to the Prime Minister and appeal to her sensibilities and say "Actually the information that the ethnic communities require is in those newspapers and they need to be allowed to publish." Eventually that happened.The other thing is: what ever happened to the halal butchers? Initially it was going to happen immediately and then it took a week. I don't know how long it was before they actually decided that it wasn't going to happen. So this kind of information delay is what costs people money what costs people jobs and what costs people their business.One of the things that I was actually hoping for in this Budget was a tremendous contribution from the Minister of communications. One of the main things that happened was that because most people were working from home because students were studying from home people were trying to run their businesses from home connectivity became a major issue for a lot of New Zealanders. For people who were living in urban areas who had signed up to fibre connections it was perfect: their entertainment was available on fibre or internet—any kind of connections—commercial videos on demand that they signed up to. But many in the rural sector many in the regions have terrible connectivity. That was one of the many many complaints that I received where their upload speeds were terrible. They could not run invoicing they could not do banking and they could not have their children educated—when they have more than one child how many children are connected to their work while the parents are also trying to work? I'd like to acknowledge the telcos—some of them—who have tried to help and assist by maximising the data actually removing the data cap. But the data-cap removal happened only between midnight and 9 a.m. which was absolutely useless for people who were studying. I was hoping that perhaps the Government would contribute more in the Budget to expand the connectivity issue to resolve some of the issue. I know there were earlier Budget announcements in terms of extending antennas and whatever but the thing is that I thought maybe we would have seen a little bit more.There are many people in the ethnic communities who run businesses. I have had numerous emails and phone calls where people are having to mortgage their homes having to remortgage their homes having to cut staff numbers because they just cannot make ends meet. During the lockdown the very fact that some of them are actually running groceries they're running butchers they're running bakeries—they could not open even though dairies could open using that one in one out rule. They could have safely done that as well but it was deemed that they can't and that they weren't essential services.There are many people in this country who come from different ethnic backgrounds and who run tourism businesses. I know it's very tough because we cannot just open the border and allow people to come in because a lot of the infections actually happened from people who came from overseas. There are many people who run export education where students from overseas who come to learn the English language as well as different kinds of tertiary education courses cannot run their businesses because currently they cannot open their business. For those people the wage subsidy does not help. It is a help in the sense that it pays for their staffers so that they are not at risk of getting I guess the redundancy but it is coming very very close where they're hanging on a by a sheer thread to hang on to their business that they don't have to actually cut the numbers of employees. But they are saying it is tough. This Government has done nothing and this Budget has provided nothing for them. Loading them with more debt is not helping New Zealand.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call's a split call."