Twyford Phil; Kuriger BarbaraHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you Madam Speaker. It was 22 February when the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson came along to the Finance and Expenditure Committee to talk about the Budget Policy Statement and it was obvious that the carefully prepared talking points had to be put to one side because only six days prior Cyclone Gabrielle had ripped through the North Island. It was the most extreme weather event anybody can remember doing massive damage to the country's productive capacity. It had serious impacts on half the country's population and half the country's GDP and it's obvious that this Budget Policy Statement which contains a lot of value about the Government's strategy and about where we're going with the economy basically has to be reread in light of this natural disaster. I'm glad to say that while New Zealanders pull together in times of crisis and expect their Government to lead and support the people of this country in times of crisis we have a Government and a finance Minister in Grant Robertson who's committed to using all of the levers available to him as finance Minister to give struggling Kiwi households and businesses the support they need to navigate their way through the aftermath of this disaster. He'd been newly appointed as the cyclone recovery Minister and the finance Minister foreshadowed at the select committee that morning a rolling maul of initiatives that the Government would be bringing forward in response to Cyclone Gabrielle. The Government has announced $17.5 million to support communities and social service providers with the immediate welfare response. We've seen $26 million in grants funds for farmers and growers we've seen $3.25 million in funding to support the immediate mental health and wellbeing needs and today we see the second tranche of the $50 million programme to support businesses affected by the extreme weather events whether it's the cyclone or the Anniversary Weekend floods. It's a locally administered scheme to support businesses that were knocked around by those weather events. The finance Minister also signalled—and I think this is very important—three key things about the Government's response. One is that substantial work is under way on a programme of support that will assist those New Zealanders who are in flood-prone at-risk areas where homes or businesses are located in harm's way. They are now going through getting their insurance claims processed and paid out and they've got some very tough decisions to make about whether they repair and rebuild and what do they do to address the often acute risk that many of them are facing. The Minister has also said that he understands that there's urgency about this. I know that in my electorate I've got people who have had a metre of contaminated water flow through their homes. Their homes are effectively wrecked and they're staring at the wall wondering do they rebuild do they repair—what do they do? They're often in untenable situations and it's not just the people of West Auckland. It's Esk Valley it's Wairoa and all over the Hawke's Bay it's the North it's the Coromandel and it's different parts of Auckland. The Minister has also signalled that the Government's response will be localised. It will be tailored to different situations in different regions and it will engage the communities—the affected residents in those places—in the design and roll-out of those programmes. I'm very comforted by that and the people in West Auckland that I represent hundreds of whom have been devastated by these floods—I know that they will take some comfort from those words. All of that is going to cost money and it will affect the Budget that this Budget Policy Statement sets the platform for. But the good news—the good news—is that this country after five years of financial stewardship by Grant Robertson is in an exceptional state and is prepared and ready to deal with a disaster of the proportions of Cyclone Gabrielle and the Anniversary Weekend floods. We've had years of sustained high levels of GDP growth. The economy is much much bigger than it was five years ago when we took office. We have some of the lowest levels of debt in the developed economies 2.8 million New Zealanders in work and very low levels of unemployment and all of that is recognised by the ratings agencies and their AA+ rating of New Zealand's economy. So that's all good news but there's no question that the extreme weather events have challenged many of the assumptions that the Budget Policy Statement is built on. The Minister said that particularly the cyclone in Hawke's Bay will have an immediate contractionary effect on a part of the country that produces some 40 percent of the fresh produce that ends up in our stores and our markets. There will be pressure and there is pressure on food prices. We're already seeing pressure on a tight labour market and the construction sector which has been going gangbusters in building the houses and the infrastructure this country needs will be stretched even more. On top of that the stimulus created by the rebuild financed by Government and insurance payouts will have an effect on the overall economic indicators. So many of those assumptions have changed. The environment's changed but I think that it's true to say that Cyclone Gabrielle and the floods changed everything and didn't change everything. Absolutely the cyclone is going to require that the Government wholeheartedly gets behind families and businesses and backs them and uses everything at our disposal from legislation changes and policy changes to the mobilisation of the Public Service and investment in the rebuild and the recovery including a huge infrastructure rebuild. That is going to happen and there's going to be a full-throated approach by this Government in doing that. But in a sense it also doesn't change some of the key fundamentals. Our Government is going to continue to provide and prioritise the economic security for New Zealanders through a very difficult year in the global economy. We're going to continue to run a prudent fiscal policy and return spending to the normal levels following the COVID-19 recovery and as the Budget Policy Statement says Budget 2023 will again focus on New Zealanders' wellbeing and the long-term goals of improving child wellbeing and mental health and the transition to a high-wage low-carbon economy. I wanted to touch on one aspect of the economic plan that was released earlier this week by my colleague the Minister for Economic Development Stu Nash who has released what is an excellent piece of work. It's the industry transformation plan developed by the Government in conjunction with industry and the labour movement. It's a plan for the transformation of our advanced manufacturing sector a sector that is rich in skilled highly paid jobs and that plays a predominant role in our non-agricultural exports. It's one of the sectors that we must invest in for the long-term prosperity of our country. It has the potential and there's the opportunity there if NZ Inc." mobilise behind that industry to grow New Zealand firms that are capable of taking on the world and competing successfully in our international markets: developing intellectual property in New Zealand selling it to the world making stuff—technology—and delivering services that the rest of the world wants. It is one of the best examples of a high-value high-skill low-carbon industry. It's exactly the kind of future this country wants and the industry transformation plan document that Minister Nash released this week is a fantastic blueprint for us to get there. Finally just let me pay tribute to the finance Minister for this Budget Policy Statement and for all of the work that he has under way. He's a classic reforming Labour finance Minister preparing the country for the rainy day with prudent cautious financial and economic management but he's ready to invest when this country needs it. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): This is a split call—five minutes."