Wood Michael; O'Connor GregHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): The Budget debate that we're engaged in is an important part of the parliamentary process so I do want to start off with some acknowledgments to colleagues around the Chamber. The first one that I want to say is a big tēnā koe—that's thank you"—to the speaker who's just spoken to us for the last 10 minutes Nicola Willis. The second thing that I would do is thank every other person in this Chamber for their mahi or work for enduring the last 10 minutes of the member's speech. Finally could I just acknowledge the pīkarikari hunahuna or rare misstep of the member opposite earlier this week as he chose to try and make a tacky little culture war out of my colleague Kiri Allan's work to try and bring in bilingual signs across New Zealand. His mistake of course was that he didn't speak to Chris Bishop Chris Luxon or any of his other front-bench colleagues who have run away from that tacky little culture war just as quickly as they could and I thank the member for Pakuranga for his efforts in that regard.That particular episode laid bare the small petty negative and divisive approach of the party opposite at the moment. This is a party as we heard over the last 10 minutes that is entirely negative in its outlook has no new solutions to offer New Zealanders and is focused instead simply on creating division for political advantage—and cuts; cuts wherever they can find them. That contrasted so strongly with the speeches in the Budget debate from the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister speeches that were focused on national inclusion on how we extend a hand of help and a hand up to New Zealanders who are finding things challenging in the current environment but most importantly on how we plan for the future of our country. There was nothing that made that contrast between this Labour Government and the negative National Opposition so clear over the course of Budget week than the issue of prescription charges. This is a policy that every single member on this side of the House and I daresay on that side of the House has received volumes of feedback about over the past couple of weeks.Let's be very clear and have this on the record. It is the policy of this Government to make it cheaper for Kiwis to access the medicines they need when they are sick and it is the policy of the "coalition of cuts" to make Kiwis pay more for their medicine when they are sick—no bones about it. And that tells you and everyone who was watching this Budget debate everything that they need to know about the priorities of this Government and the priorities of the "coalition of cuts." I am proud of that investment. I've heard from community members I've heard from pharmacists up and down my electorate of Puketāpapa Mount Roskill who speak to the fact that this is the right thing to do to ensure that folks in our community don't have to worry about getting that medicine and that we take their cost of living pressure off them. It just makes sense. We heard from the previous speaker who likes to make so much of the National Party's economic credibility. But this is a party that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing to the detriment of the long-term interests of our country. What happens when a person can't afford or is worried about having to pay for their prescription charge and they don't go and get it? We had 130000 people who didn't pick up their scripts last year. What happens to those people that can't afford five bucks to pick up the prescription charge? Well very often the answer is that they will get sicker and they will need more healthcare potentially in the hospital system. Now that's terrible for that person and their whānau—none of us should be happy about that—but it's also the most economically ludicrous and stupid thing that you could hope to do. It is far better to invest up front in the health and the wellbeing of our people rather than deal with the long-term consequences of that which will erode human capital erode human wellbeing and cost us all more as a country in the end.I turn to another significant Budget investment that speaks directly to that as well and that is one that I know that every member on this side of the House is exceptionally proud of and that is our investment in bringing back the training incentive allowance. We hear so much from the other side of the House about the upgrading of people and the value of work and that people should get off the benefit and into work that they should improve themselves and that they should get into education and climb the ladder. But when it comes to actually providing a little bit of support a little bit of a hand up to people in that situation who are on benefit and who want to climb the ladder and want to get into tertiary education the record on that side of the House was to pull the ladder up. It is this side of the House and Minister Carmel Sepuloni who has led that change. It means that from this point forward that training incentive allowance will be there. Boy people will still have to work hard for it. People on benefits sole parents and the like often have so much that they have to deal with. These people are going to still have to work damned hard to get that degree to get that diploma to get into work but with a little bit of support a little bit of belief in those people this Government is going to back them to make their way through. And that is what our Government believes and that is the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House.There is so much else to be proud of in this Budget in terms of what we're doing for supporting our young people as well. I want to ask the other side of the House: how about the Apprenticeship Boost? This is a policy that our Government put in place during COVID that period when employers were facing hard decisions about whether they kept people on or not. We saw what happened during the global financial crisis under the previous Government where often the first people to lose their jobs—last on first off—were the young apprentices and we were determined not to see that happen again because firstly we want to support those young people and secondly if you have a long-term view about the future they're exactly the young people that we need to invest in. They're in there building skills and confidence building and growing our economy. So the Apprenticeship Boost which we brought in during COVID has supported around 200000 of our young people to make sure that they sustain their apprenticeships contribute to their whānau build skills build great careers in the trades and contribute to our economy. We're making it permanent—we're putting the Apprenticeship Boost in there to make sure that those young people and their employers have that little bit of backing from our Government. Here's my challenge to that side of the House who are negative negative negative all the time: what would they do about the Apprenticeship Boost? Would they take it away again and see our apprenticeship system crumble as it did under successive National Governments in the 1990s and the 2010s? One final thing on education one that hasn't been spoken about all that much. On the evening of the Budget after Grant Robertson had read it out I received a text message from a champion bloke in my community who leads a team of social workers working with our young people often with really tough backgrounds. He said "Thank you for the investment in alternative education a sector that's done it really tough over a long period of time. But this is a sector that often picks up our young people who have fallen through all of the other cracks fallen through the education system in the primary sector—don't even worry about tertiary education—kids that have dropped out of school often have the most difficult and complex backgrounds and the kids who are powder kegs if we don't get around them and get them on to a better path and help them to realise their potential. And it's often alternative education that does that." The additional $30 million through Budget 2023 is going to help that sector provide that support to some of the people in our communities who need it the most.Finally I do have to turn to some of the outstanding initiatives in the field of transport that came through in Budget 2023. I'm really proud of the fact that this is a Government that is going to make it cheaper for over two million Kiwis to use public transport around our country with free fares for our under-13s half-price fares for under-25s and everyone with a Community Services Card and half-price total mobility fares for our disabled community. This is double- or triple-duty—it's about easing cost of living pressures for those families. It's potentially a $30 a week saving for a Kiwi family with two kids using public transport. It's about reducing congestion and reducing carbon emissions by getting people on to more public transport as well. It's a policy that wins all round and it's just going to help Kiwis that little bit more with some of those cost of living pressures. This is the biggest public transport package that any recent Government has offered—cheaper fares for Kiwi families better pay for our bus drivers and a huge investment in the lower North Island trains to more than double the services on the Wairarapa and the Kāpiti lines so that more people in this region can get on to clean modern tri-modal trains to make journeys around the regionWe've also invested in the electric vehicle (EV) charging network. Our Government has taken New Zealand from being one of the worst-performing countries in the world to one of the best-performing countries in the world for EV uptake and with our $120 million to build out a nationwide EV charging network with fast-charging stations around the country public charging stations in every small town of more than 2000 people we're going to open up that opportunity to more and more people. This is a Budget that is about securing things for Kiwis in difficult times now but planning for the future. What a contrast with the "coalition of cuts."DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call—Damien Smith."