Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister): It's a pleasure to follow the member Nicola Willis funnily enough just as we did this morning on our way out to the Transmission Gully opening where the member sped through at Grays Road the amber and red light on her way there. It's the perils of driving in a branded car. Perhaps the member might have considered the option that she took when she became the deputy leader of parking her branded car in the basement going out somewhere and coming back in a black Mercedes because that's what the member did when she became the deputy leader. That shows you just how out of touch this National Party is.There was a much better example and sadly a much more tragic example of that when Christopher Luxon spoke on Newstalk ZB just last week and this is what he said: we don't just do bottom feeding and just focus on the bottom. We focus on people who want to be positive and ambitious and aspirational and confident. Right?" Well on this side of the House the notion that if you perhaps are struggling or if you are perhaps growing up in a household where there aren't people in work or that there are people who are sick you are somehow a bottom feeder or that you are somehow a person who lacks aspiration who lacks positivity and who lacks confidence is a disgraceful notion.But what it tells you is that the National Party of today under Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis is exactly the same as the National Party of old. Be it Christopher Luxon calling people in New Zealand bottom feeders or be it a tax policy that delivers thousands of dollars to the highest-paid New Zealanders and two bucks a week to the lowest-paid New Zealanders it's the same old National Party: favouring those who are the best off and ignoring those who are the worst off. I think Christopher Luxon needs to reflect for a minute because he tried to explain this away and justify it. But let's be absolutely clear: he doesn't think that people in New Zealand who are in receipt of income support or who are struggling at the moment have aspiration. He doesn't think that they have confidence. He doesn't think they deserve to be positive.I can recall on the night that Justin Lester was elected as the Mayor of Wellington listening to Justin speak and Justin has talked about this very openly in public—that his family was one that relied on a benefit when he was growing up. That's a person who went on to start a successful business. That's a person who went on to become the mayor of a major city. That's a person who's now a successful entrepreneur. Here's what Justin said on election night in 2016 for local government: "Tonight proves it doesn't matter where you come from it doesn't matter how much money you've got in the bank it doesn't matter if you have two parents or just one. It [just] matters if you work hard and stick to your values [and] achieve great things." On this side of the House we stand for every New Zealander having that opportunity. We don't run New Zealanders down and say they're bottom feeders just because they might not be able to be in work at the moment but that side of the House once again return to their old roots of making sure that they favour themselves that they favour their mates and they leave people behind.Well on this side of the House we simply do not agree with that and this week on 1 April the proof is in the pudding because this side of the House has said that those on low and middle incomes actually deserve the chance to be able to get ahead. That's why we put in place the largest benefit increase in a generation in last year's Budget which gets paid out in its final form on Friday and that is turning around the 1991 benefit cuts—that's turning around Ruth Richardson's legacy of saying that people at the bottom don't deserve the support. That is the National Party of 1991 and very sadly it's the National Party of today as well. There is no plan from the National Party to support those on the low and middle incomes and thank goodness that we have our 1 April changes coming through that also include the lifting of the family tax credit that also include lifting superannuation and student allowances and making sure that we help people to deal with the cost of living crisis.We heard from the IMF this week that they congratulated New Zealanders on the fact that we got through COVID-19 not just with one of the lowest death rates in the world but also with an economy that continues to deliver. Tourists are about to come back on to our shores. More workers are about to come back on to our shores. New Zealanders are confident in the future because they know that they have had a Government that has backed them and they have backed each other. We on this side of the House are about making sure we lift up every New Zealander not divide as the National Party would have and that's why I'm proud of this Government."