Wedd CatherineCATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I rise with great pleasure to speak about the Budget Policy Statement as we prepare for the 2024 Budget in just eight sleeps. As we've heard from our Minister of Finance this Budget is going to be all about strengthening our economy and investing in our front-line public services. We will cut wasteful spending get money out of the back office and into the front office invest in infrastructure and deliver tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders who haven't had any tax relief for the past 14 years.Our tax relief package will increase the taxed take-home income of 83 percent of New Zealanders 15 and over and 94 percent of households across this country. This is what the New Zealand public voted for and this is what on this side of the House we will deliver. It is what we need to rebuild the economy and beat inflation. It is what low and middle income earning families need to get on to top of the cost of living crisis. It's what the Government needs to get the books back in order to rebuild the economy restore law and order and deliver public services. On this side of the House we respect hard-working New Zealanders. They are not a bottomless ATM machine where there are more and more tax withdrawals. It is time for them to keep more of what they earn and spend it how they want to spend it not see it wastefully frittered away by bureaucrats who think they know best. It is time to get Wellington out of farming and out of growing because our farmers and our growers deserve the respect. They work hard from dawn till dusk to make a living and we're going to stop treating them like villains and be aspirational for our primary producers who are the backbone of our economy and we will make sure we get this economy driving forward. Our Government is all about the action delivery and outcomes and we have been busy already with a raft of actions in just the few months that we've been in Government. We started by cancelling the ute tax last year and now we are slashing through the fields of red tape modifying delaying and cancelling a raft of rules and regulations including freshwater winter grazing or slope rules for all those farmers. We're also putting together an extensive infrastructure pipeline—yes infrastructure—eliminating the bottlenecks to growth which have had the brakes on our businesses across the country. These actions are significant for my home region of Hawke's Bay which is a huge export region and will play a big part in helping us double the value of our exports in the next ten years. This Government's plans for infrastructure will be life changing for people across our Hawke's Bay region. Building the four-lane expressway will create efficiency and drive more productivity. Our actions so far are already restoring business confidence and confidence on the farm where inflation has been at record highs. I've been out talking to businesses across my electorate and talking to farmers and there is aspiration once again. It's early days but inflation has come back to 4 percent from its peak of more than 7 percent. Food inflation has dropped to just 0.8 percent with fruit and vegetable prices falling from this time last year. Average mortgage rates are slowly showing signs of softening. But lets be real: it is tough out there. We have a lot of work to do to get the books back in order. We've achieved billions of dollars of savings across Government agencies which is going to make a real difference. We're committed to guiding Kiwis through the current economic challenges and already we've made practical amendments and actions. We've announced $1.9 billion in investment to enhance safety and rehabilitate offenders. And also as we've already heard we've invested in education—$67 million into structured literacy because we know if we're going to drive this country forward we need to invest in education in our children and lift performance in the classroom. It's been going backwards and we need to ensure we are driving forward. We need a more productive economy with higher living standards and more opportunity. We will achieve this through many of the things that we've already announced; a country where Kiwis can return home in search of a better life instead of leaving in pursuit of higher incomes overseas; public services delivered and evaluated through the lens of social investment—getting in early funding distributed to communities so Kiwis achieve their potential leading to better lives.Our Government has just announced today a boosting fund for Surf Lifesaving New Zealand and Coastguard as we've heard earlier—$63.64 million over the next four years. This is the type of thing on our front-line services which will make a real difference. I would be a strong advocate for that because in my region of Hawke's Bay the Hawke's Bay Surf Lifesaving played a critical role in Cyclone Gabrielle saving hundreds of lives through the Pakowhai communities and the Eskdale communities. It's these types of investments which will make a real difference—putting funding into the front line across the country putting funding into our communities moving it out of the back office and into front-line services.And there's a comprehensive response to climate change on track to achieve our ambitious emissions targets and resilience to the challenges of more weather events like we saw in Hawke's Bay. In my electorate of Tukituki Hawke's Bay we have so much potential to grow. Just last week I visited one of our largest indoor strawberry growers with 14 kilometres of strawberry plants which they supply to the local markets. They had plans to export this as well to Asia where they can fetch a premium. I was out with ExportNZ Hawke's Bay recently meeting a delegation from South-east Asia and they were so pleased to see our Prime Minister our Minister for Trade and all our Ministers out there around the world facilitating relationships building relationships and creating market access opportunities for our New Zealand products because we need to drive more innovation technology and more capital investment.That is what this Budget Policy Statement is all about—productivity. We want our country to be a better place to do business to invest to innovate to take risks to build things to make things to hire people to grow and to raise our children. We will responsibly deliver these lower taxes for low and middle income earning families by fully funding a tax relief package where there are careful savings and targeted revenue measures because this is what is going to make a huge difference in a cost of living crisis. We've already heard about our housing crisis in the House today; we have seen rents go up by $170 a week in the past six years. We need to drive those down again. That's where we are investing in practical solutions like restoring interest deductibility and bringing the brightline test back to two years. We are stopping the wasteful spending we are going to fiscally manage this economy a lot better and not drive this country into more and more debt—over $100 billion. Interest on that is more than we spend on education. We need to drive more focus into our front-line classrooms with our children and our hospitals with our nurses and doctors and patients; on the front line with our police where we're making a real difference in this country. I'm pleased to say that this Budget Policy Statement will ensure we're getting this country back on track.