White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you. Salam alaikum. I start that way absolutely deliberately on this day when there was such a terrible outcome for people and I just wish to express my condolences and my thoughts to the people who are most impacted by that. In the past few years we've had some very very big crises. We've had a pandemic we've had floods in Auckland we've had cyclones and we've even had a war that has really impacted on us in terms of inflation—and obviously the people of Ukraine much more. Those kinds of crises have been coped with by this Government. This Government has had to stand by its people and I'm incredibly proud of the way that we have done that. We've learnt some lessons out of that. We've learnt that we need an absolutely sound health system; we've learnt we need warm dry homes; we need mental health support for people and we need a response that is meaningful and dramatic to climate change. Now those kinds of things are absolutely—and I'm going to use a term that's been used rather a lot now—bread and butter" for this side of the House. This is what Labour does. It understands that actually Governments have a role in making sure things go well for a population. What is a great difference is that the response is targeted and actually supports those most in need. Now I have to contrast here; I cannot let what has been said on the other side of the House go entirely unchallenged. We can't just have platitudes. We need a difference in policy in this area and this Budget Policy Statement does that. We have a difference in policy in areas which affect our most vulnerable. We are changing things right now so that people like my parents who rely on their superannuation will get $100 a fortnight more. That's real change for them; that's real support. We have to build up our health system because actually in a "let's just cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes" kind of mentality guess what suffers? Actually our health system our hospitals—those things suffer—and we're not ready for floods we're not ready for pandemics if that attitude prevails. What actually has to be the heart of a governing group is the welfare of people but it can't just be just platitudinal. It can't be saying "We're for wellbeing."—it's got to be doing the mahi on wellbeing. That means that we need to deal with things in a local way. We've just had floods and cyclones and the response that you're seeing from this Government is targeted and in partnership with the communities affected because actually in these particular crises the effect is not all the same for everyone and people on the ground will tell you that. So we need to make sure that hard-earned taxpayers' money goes to the people who need it the most—and that's happening. I want to make another contrast here because I was on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when we had the Clean Car Standard came through. We were told it was a terrible thing. You know it's been absolutely wonderful for transforming this economy. We have 57000 low-emissions vehicles in place as a consequence. Contrast that with this focus on utes which has gone on. Let's remind New Zealanders: which utes get the tax; which utes? The utes that are firsthand utes. They're not the farmers that are actually needing them—those are the second-hand utes. The firsthand utes are the most wealthy New Zealanders. Those are the people who can afford to pay tax—those people. Actually this myth that we are undermining the value of those people needs busting because actually we need to remember who needs these low-emissions vehicles. We all do. We all do because we'll pay the price by cyclones and floods in our communities and it's not good enough. Thank you. I commend this."