SpeechHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): The next leader. Sorry thank you just to follow on from the Hon Amy Adams who probably should have been the current leader to be perfectly frank. It's lovely to see her back and it's lovely to know that she will be here for some time. It was a great sadness when she decided that she would step down but it's lovely to see that she has rescinded that decision and this House is going to have the benefit of her intelligence for some years yet—on the Opposition benches but for some years yet so that's always a good thing.However I do want to pick up on some of the comments of my colleague who just resumed her seat. I believe that the article she's referring to was actually written by—or the quote that she was giving was from—Roger Douglas. I noticed that—I don't know; I haven't read the article. I'm sure perhaps I'll go and search out but if it is by Roger Douglas I doubt I will read it. And of course it may very well have been by Ruth Richardson somebody else that the National Party likes to well not really talk about any more do they? Because that's exactly the point. Naming those two names the very reason why this Budget is the way that it looks is because New Zealand First as part of this coalition Government absolutely refused to allow this Government to shift into austerity measures absolutely refused to allow what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s happen again to New Zealanders.I find it fascinating that the Hon Amy Adams stands and talks about a plan a plan a plan"—we're rolling out the plan and yet their current leader cannot articulate any plan at all. Apparently there are 55 of them working on it and according to the current leader they're all talented they all have depth—e.g. that doesn't matter what number you are then and where you sit. But they keep talking about the fact that they want to see a plan. This Government has articulated it with the amount of money that we have already put forward in Budget 2020.Hon Louise Upston: That's not a plan!Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I find it also fascinating that the Hon Louise Upston who is shouting out at the moment—that the Hon Amy Adams just said "We do not argue against spending money on our people." but the Hon Louise Upston stood up and said "Why are you giving New Zealanders a temporary income support? Why are you giving New Zealanders temporary income support?" She also argued something about the ethnic background of the New Zealanders that might be receiving the temporary income support but it's a complete flip from the ethnic background that she used to talk about before there was COVID—now there's another ethnic background that she doesn't believe that the Government should be supporting.This Government will support New Zealanders. We did so with the wage subsidy to start with. We've just announced an extension to the wage subsidy. We have announced that we will do a temporary income support package. There are other packages that are coming forward. There is an enormous amount of work going on by Ministers in this Government. We are incredibly aware of the one-in-100-year shock that our people are going to experience. We know it every day by the people we talk to. We know it every day by the numbers that we see signing on to income support and signing on to the wage subsidy. We know exactly what we are staring down the face of.The other thing that this Budget has done is it has built on some of the investment that we had in the previous Budget. The Hon Amy Adams talked about: absolutely there is a process for Budget. I led priority D of the Wellbeing Budget and we were right at the end of that and then COVID-19 struck and instantly all of that process all of that work needed to change. It needed to swing into place to support our people. One of the things that we got in the 2019 Budget was $7.7 million for seniors and part of that was working around the gold card. Online providers started working with the gold cards the Office for Seniors around how can we incentivise how can we help our seniors to get online and make sure that they can continue to get some form of discount to stretch their dollar while we've asked them to stay at home. So those people just shifted their work from where they were enhancing the gold card in the physical environment to now trying to enhance it in the digital environment.We had 600 learning support coordinators announced and funded in the 2019 Budget. During the lockdown those 600 learning support coordinators not only were continuing to professionally develop but they were contacting families; they were making sure that they talked with Special Education Needs Coordinators and Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour to build a picture so that those children who had learning support needs the moment that we were able to—either through online learning or back into their classrooms—were immediately supported. Oranga Tamariki for example we had got a budget a $1.1 billion budget over four years in 2019. Part of that was to digitise up our workforce. Oranga Tamariki was able to immediately start working from home immediately continue to do their work to try and keep their eye on children by handing out devices to our families our carers and even handing out phones on some occasions to some of our parents so that they could stay in touch with their children. We worked with Whānau Ora to make sure that when they were delivering Oranga Tamariki put some of that money into Whānau Ora and the emergency and sanitation packages that were being delivered and we asked them "While you're there please check on the children." We know that we actually had others of our providers step up.We have been working on transition support on prevention and early intervention and we continue to do that because we know that one of the side effects of COVID-19 if I speak as the Minister for Children is that more of our families will be under stress. And when our families get under stress bad things can happen to children. So we need to as a Government make sure that we move in with assistance much faster than we've ever done before before families start to break down start to have the raruraru within them escalate to a level where there is—whether it be verbal abuse or physical abuse sexual abuse or whatever we move in earlier.And that is part of what this Government has put in and some of its investment into continuing to build on what has been the amazing capacity of community to come together to look after each other. We're going to build on that New Zealand; we're going to take the team of 5 million and we're going to invest in the team of 5 million. We're not going to move to austerity measures. We are going to now take that spirit of community that we have rediscovered—something we've never seen in our lifetime—and we're going to build on it and invest in it and we're going to enhance it and we are going to make New Zealand better out the other side of COVID-19 because this coalition Government in which New Zealand First holds a key anchor will not allow austerity measures to be part of what goes on but we will not allow our people to get to a cliff face either. Any solution that this Government puts in place—if it's temporary we will have an exit plan; if it is permanent we will make sure that it can just transition through as our economy recovers. Because we won't have a cliff-face again like the subsidies that were lifted off our farming communities that brought them to the brink of destruction in earlier times—we will not allow that to happen.So we're very proud of the Budget that we have put forward in 2020. It delivers what it needs to deliver. We have more to come because we must. The Opposition talks about $20 billion as a slush fund. They can't give you a plan New Zealand about what they would spend your money on and again I find it fascinating that the Opposition talks about this as taxpayers' money. These are the very taxpayers that again just today they argued should not get the temporary income relief. Again these are the taxpayers that they say "Why would you invest in those taxpayers' children and their children's education? Why would you invest in those taxpayers and actually helping them make sure that there are loans for the businesses that they either own or are employed by?" It is a strange and confused message coming from the Opposition. It hasn't got any clearer with the change of leader but I can tell you now that this side of the House is particularly focused. Our vision is incredibly clear: we're going to get New Zealand up we're going to get it back out and working and we're going to make sure that we are stronger than when we went into COVID-19. This is the opportunity for the reset New Zealand and from here there's only up."