Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare—very nice to see you sitting in the seat there. It's a real pleasure to take a call in this general debate because so many good things have happened lately. I know that the many people listening and watching this debate—and my parents up there in the gallery—will be hugely surprised to hear of all the good stuff that this Government has done in its very first year. With our focus on supporting the well-being of all New Zealanders we started this year with the announcement of the Families Package in December 2017. This package was rolled out on 1 July. It's making a huge difference to people because it's also our response to child poverty and after nine years of neglect this is really overdue. We're getting on with the job and we are making a real difference. The Families Package is lifting the income of 350000 families. What it does is it lifts out of poverty 64000 children 26000 more families are now eligible for Working for Families and we have 384000 families with children that are basically better off by $75 a week on average and this is amounting to the largest income boost that we've seen in a decade. On top of that we've also had the winter energy payment which is warming an extra 1 million people during the winter months. It's helping people that either are on benefits or are having to make do on super with their bills to heat their homes because what this Government doesn't do is it does not accept that we have people in New Zealand that are getting sick and ending up in hospital because they are living in cold damp houses. We are making sure that renters are getting a fair go with our Healthy Homes Guarantee Act which is starting in July 2019. This Act will require landlords to ensure that there are minimum standards for insulation and heating because people need warm dry places to live in. They also need affordable homes and this is something else that we've been doing. We are bringing property speculation to a halt. We've stopped the State house sell-off and we're helping young Kiwi families to get into their first homes. What we've also done from today is we've removed the letting fees to make life better for renters. Over these summer months when a lot of people are looking for different homes tenants won't have to worry about the pressure of having to come up with all that money and this will make a huge difference for families that are currently struggling. We've also lifted the minimum wage. That started in April this year. We lifted it to $16.50 and that is a start to making some improvements to their struggles. But what is going to make a real difference are the changes that this Government has made to the Employment Relations Act. Only last week it was passed the Employment Relations Amendment Bill or as my colleague—fabulous colleague—the Hon Clare Curran likes to refer to it the Fairness Bill". That is quite appropriate because that's exactly what it does. It brings fairness respect and dignity to the workplace. So what this new Act will do is it will do simple changes like giving working people a break during their working day but it also has a very important change in it with regard to collective bargaining towards higher wages for working people. Now of course we know that rents and mortgages are astronomically high at the moment but wages have not kept up with rising costs. Over the years we've seen a decreasing share of the economy go to working people and their families and we've seen a common theme amongst low-wage workers where they can't provide for their families. They can't afford to make ends meet. We've heard during the select committee process from families that are living off noodles toast and eggs in order to feed their children. It's absolutely appalling. Undermining the working conditions over the last years has basically put us in a race to the bottom and that is going to stop because pay rates can't stay low while the economy does well. Now the evidence is really clear that the best way to get a pay rise is actually through collective bargaining and the stats are really clear on this. [Holds up chart] People on collective agreements—that's the lines in blue—are twice as likely to get a pay increase as the people on the green lines which are the individual agreements. So once again it pays to be with a union because virtually all jobs in collective agreements—virtually all jobs that are with unions—are getting a pay increase. It's really good to see union membership is up from 381500 to 411500. We are very proud of this coalition Government which is doing so much for this country and for working people. Thank you."