Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise with great pride to take part in this debate around the Budget. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson and the team around him who worked so very hard to get this Budget—outstanding Budget I will say—in place in a short amount of time with not a lot of preparation going into it.Before I begin my contribution properly I just want to comment on a couple of things that the Hon Mark Mitchell brought up; the first one being that this Budget should consider supporting small businesses to grow digitally via e-commerce. Perhaps he should read the Budget because it's actually in there. Then he also talked about—he used Jamie Strange and his life at home as an example of how one might be affected by this and he just assumed that it was Jamie's wife that might go grocery shopping. Well I don't know why that would be but one should not just assume that it's just the woman that goes grocery shopping in my view.Anyway I want to talk about the small business and early childhood education in this Budget. The other day we had an online Zoom meeting if you like with the Hon Grant Robertson and the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. They wanted to talk obviously about the Budget and all the things that were in it for business etc. We hear quite frequently from the members opposite that the wage subsidy doesn't support the business it supports the employees. Well firstly I would say that any business who has employees—if you can't support your employees through something like this with the use of the wage subsidy you have no business. Your employees are your business and they are like family and they are valuable to the ongoing success of your business. So I say that the wage subsidy does benefit the business by looking after the employees and keeping them employed.Wendy Smith the CEO of the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce in her opening remarks said something along the lines that We would like to acknowledge the wage subsidy scheme. We recognise and show our appreciation for the subsidy. It is bringing $133 million to $139 million into South Canterbury. And it has provided a lifeline for many small to medium sized businesses across South Canterbury." And I am hearing that with many many businesses that I speak to.I want to come back to early childhood education (ECE) because I've only got a couple of minutes to go. So ECE the $278 million for the reinstatement of the 100 percent funding band. Now I can remember working in the sector when that was cut—around 2013 under the previous Government. The sector felt a sense that that Government didn't value early childhood education by the way they were consistently stripping money from it. They got rid of the 100 percent funding band but said "Oh you know well we'll get rid of that but we will allow you to have primary school teachers in your centres." There's nothing wrong with primary school teachers but they do learn a little differently for school as opposed to working in an early childhood setting. So I want to acknowledge the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins for being a Minister who listens to the sector he hears what they say and he acts on it. He shows that this Government supports the early childhood sector acknowledges just how important it is to have quality early childhood educators in front of our children because we know that a good quality early childhood education sets our young children up for life in fact and particularly those from lower socio-economic groups.I also want to just briefly talk in the time that I've got left around the increased funding for increasing the minimum salary that early childhood teachers will be receiving because we know that it's been an area of contention for many teachers. Wages were increased for the kindergarten sector many years ago but not the early childhood education sector. So we will see the minimum salary go up from around $45000 to $46000 right up to $49000 from 1 July 2020. So again I want to congratulate the Hon Grant Robertson and the Hon Chris Hipkins."