Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker and what a grim speech to follow. I think it's completely in contrast to the mood last night when many of us got together to celebrate our one year in Government because it's been a stunning year full of absolutely brilliant achievements. Somebody asked me—Hon Member: Is that why you will look so hung-over?SPEAKER: Order! The member will not reflect on me in that way.Dr LIZ CRAIG: —to write a piece reflecting back as a new MP on what surprised me the most about our first year in Government. I think the key theme that I was thinking about was (1) escaping Groundhog Day—and I'll explain a bit about that in a minute—but secondly just how quickly a Government can move on the things that it decides are important. I think many of us know that I got into Parliament because I was interested in addressing the issues around child poverty. You know we were seeing high child-poverty rates thousands of kids getting into hospital with poverty-related diseases. When the global financial crisis hit back in 2008 we were thinking we were going to be having these huge rises in unemployment. A lot of us got quite concerned and we set up this thing called the Child Poverty Monitor. What we said is that we would monitor the well-being of children every year until their economic position improved. I think what came to pass is something a bit like Groundhog Day. So every year we would update that monitor and every year the findings would be exactly the same. We had high child poverty rates. We had thousands of sick kids coming into hospital for poverty-related diseases. As a group of child health advocates we got together and we always advocated for exactly the same three things. We wanted measures to address child poverty to improve family incomes we wanted measures to improve cold damp crappy housing and we wanted kids to have better access to GPs and primary care. Every year we would say those same three things and every year there would be a huge outpouring of public concern but what happened was once the media coverage abated nothing happened. The same old same old and we turned up and did it all over again. I think what surprised me the most coming in as a new MP was just how quickly the new Government acted on measures to address child poverty. We got into Government in October and by Christmas sitting in the House we were passing that legislation. So what the Families Package did was it put 60 bucks extra a week into the back pockets of families of newborn babies and that extended right out into the third year for low and middle income earners. We increased the accommodation supplement. We increased Working for Families. For families on benefits we gave them an winter energy payment so that they could turn the heater on so kids could be warm in winter and not get respiratory infections. So we did a whole lot of things immediately upon entering Government including extending paid parental leave so parents could stay home and care for their kids that little bit longer. So for me it was quite an emotional moment. I remember sitting as the Families Package passed probably just over there at the back of the House and looking down at that bill and thinking of all the stuff we'd been advocating for over those 10 years. It all at the time seemed really really hard but all of a sudden it was so simple. It was just in law. Then we went over Christmas and had a bit of time just to reflect but coming back the first thing up was the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. I remember sitting again listening to the debates in the House under the previous Government about how hard it was to actually measure child poverty—how we couldn't do it—but within that first 100 days in Government we had the legislation in saying We will measure and monitor child poverty we will ensure that Governments are held to account on their performance on child poverty and we will make sure that strategies and plans are in place to address it." So for me just thinking through—as an advocate it seemed so hard and so many of us fought for so long and yet coming in when the new Government made up its mind to do those things and to move on those things it was just so simple. But the problem is that I actually also live in a community and I'm also very aware that some things are easy to legislate for but that others will take time. Down our way we've sold off so many of our State houses it's going to take time to rebuild them. We've got this huge shortage and an acute emergency in social housing. It's going to take time to rebuild. Many of our families have been living on low incomes for many many years. Their reserves are gone and they're in debt and as those incomes rise it's going to take time for those reserves to build back up. We've put massive investments into health and into education but again it's going to take time to filter through so that those workforce pressures and other things start to ease. But irrespective of the hard journey ahead I'm absolutely proud to be part of this Government and of our first year and what we've achieved. Thank you."