Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. So if you walk into any pharmacy around the country and you look behind the counter you're likely to find either a shelf or in some cases big plastic boxes and what they're filled of is little brown paper bags with labels on them. They're the prescriptions that never got picked up. A recent survey of community pharmacists asked them about the effects of these prescription cocharges on people in their community. I'd just like to read you some of their responses. One said Every week we go through the shelf and check for prescriptions not collected. We fill two big baskets with items. When we ring them to say 'What's the reason?' the same thing comes up all the time: 'We can't afford it.'"Other pharmacists spoke of patients waiting to see if their infection got worse before taking their antibiotics. For others if there was a charge then they didn't pick up their medication for things like diabetes heart diseases gout kidney disease asthma mental health—some really significant conditions.One talked about how it was heartbreaking to see patients trying to choose which medication is most important. Another talked about a patient who came in with strep throat. She was in so much pain but she only had $5. She wanted to get the prescription for the anti-inflammatories to relieve the pain but instead the pharmacist encouraged her to take the antibiotics because of the risk of rheumatic fever. So what the pharmacist did was let her put the painkillers on her account; the person never came back to pay them.This illustrates that while $5 doesn't seem much for many people particularly those on low incomes or who are having to take multiple medications it can mean the big difference between taking everything on their script or leaving some of their vital medication on the pharmacy shelf.That's why I'm pleased that in Budget 2023 what we're going to see from July is the $5 copayment be scrapped. That will not only make it more affordable for people to be able to get their medication I think it will make a big difference for our stretched health services. If you've got people delaying their antibiotics to see if it gets worse if you've got people not taking their medication for diabetes or gout they're going to be the ones that end up in the emergency department.For me I was I guess quite dismayed to hear National say that if they come in they're going to be reinstating these co-payments although they'll be taking a very targeted approach and making maybe some exceptions for those who desperately need help. Unfortunately for women needing contraception and things like that I don't think they would fit that category.So I'm really proud of what our Government is going to be doing to make sure that people can afford the prescriptions they need by reducing and removing that $5 co-payment.But there's quite a few other things that Budget 2023 also does to help households with their living costs. I'm just wanting to highlight a few—particularly for families with two-year-olds so including 20 hours of free early childhood education from March next year makes a huge difference to those who are actually having to pay those costs. Free public transport for children under 13 and half-price fares for those under 25—I think that will make a difference for example for tertiary students going to their studies. Expanding the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme: this will make quite a big difference down where I live where we've got a lot of old housing stock that hasn't been insulated or renovated in many cases. So what this will mean is that more homeowners who are on low incomes or who live in low-income areas will be supported to insulate their homes or get clean heat sources.This Budget though is not in isolation. It builds on the work we've already been doing over the last 5½ years to support families to support households with their living costs. Can we imagine—it's really tough right now but what if we didn't have those increases to superannuation or the increases to the benefits or the increases that we put in to the minimum wage. So many households now rely on the winter energy payment. It's something that we still get feedback on every single year: people are now being able to turn the heater on without worrying about the cost. Low-cost doctor visits for community services card holders—that's something that we now take for granted but it was something that we brought in very quickly when we came into Government.This is a Government that really cares for people and for households and for supporting people through the cost of living. This is a brilliant Budget and I'm very very happy to commend it to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon Gerry Brownlee—full 10-minute call."