Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I would like to start first of all by thanking the speaker for her comments on the Budget. I would also like to congratulate Minister Joyce on this first Budget of his. I think it is a very good Budget and I think it is a very good Budget because it does what it says it is going to do: it delivers for all New Zealanders. It has a particular emphasis on some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders. Our Government has always been focused on growing the economy. We are focused on growing the economy because that means people can get jobs and we know that when people have jobs they do not have to be on a benefit any longer. We know that in the last few years 50000 more young people are not living in a family that is on a benefit. So we unashamedly want to grow our economy to grow jobs. What has happened in the last few years is that by growing this economy we have been able to deliver a better quality of life and better well-being for New Zealanders. What I would like to talk about today is about disabled people because disabled people often tend to be some of our most vulnerable and also about Cantabrians who have had a pretty rough time over the last 6 years as well. Of course the centre of this Budget is the $2 billion a year Family Incomes Package. That is really important because that will ensure that Kiwi families—every Kiwi family—can share in the benefits of the growth of this economy. What that Budget package does is it makes changes to tax thresholds. It also makes changes to Working for Families and it makes changes to the accommodation supplement.The accommodation supplement is something that has been under pressure for the last few years and it will make a significant difference to help Kiwi families get ahead. This Family Incomes Package has been carefully designed especially to help low and middle income families particularly those with young children and particularly those who have high housing costs. I can give you an example of that. For example if you take a family in Christchurch with three children if both parents are working but perhaps on a pretty minimal wage this package will deliver over $100 a week to them. That is $5000 a year which can make a significant difference to that family's life. It really shows that the benefits of managing the economy well growing the economy and trading with the rest of the world can deliver for all New Zealanders.I would like just to take a minute or two to talk about disability and disabled people. This Budget invests an extra $205 million over 4 years to maintain and improve Disability Support Services. The sector will get this extra funding and it will mean that in 2017-18 this coming year we will be spending $1.2 billion on Disability Support Services. It is a large amount of money but it has to cover quite a lot of services. For example it will support community-based home support when people come into the house of a disabled person and look after them at home to keep them safe and secure in their own homes. It also pays for personal carers. Some of our disabled people have to have people come into their homes a couple of times a day to help them with their personal care to make sure that they can get out of bed get looked after get showered and be fresh for the rest of the day. It also helps with caregiver support and residential care and also that money will help with some equipment services. Those equipment services can often make a big difference to a disabled person's life.This money is on top of the $1.6 billion for carers and that is particularly significant for disabled people because the relationship a disabled person has with a carer who may come into their home a couple of times a day is very close. They have been telling me for a long time that they feel that they should get a higher wage and they are pleased to see that and they are also pleased to see that they have a greater opportunity for more education and training because some of our disabled people really do have some complex caring situations. So this money will support 32000 New Zealanders and their families and make sure they can get the services that they need across New Zealand. One of the most exciting things about this Budget for me is the $27 million investing in Enabling Good Lives. Enabling Good Lives is about ensuring that disabled people have more choices and more control in their lives and more choice and control over the services that the Government delivers for them. It is really about giving them more opportunities to live a good life because disabled people just want to live a life like anybody else. We know that the current system does not work well for all disabled people and so we are working towards developing a new system that is based on the Enabling Good Lives principles and visions. That will include individualised funding. Right at this moment the Government is working with a co-design group to work out the changes that can be made and what they will include. The sorts of things that they will be including are access to independent facilitation. We talk about independent facilitators as maybe a navigator or a tūhono. These are people who will work with a disabled person to make them think about what a good life would look like for them and then also work with them to develop networks so that they can feel connected to their community. It will have a strengths-based assessment process and that is really important because that is about focusing on what disabled people can do rather than what they cannot do and making sure that we give them the opportunities that they can enjoy. It will also have a personal budget for disability support and that budget could be funded from several Government agencies. It could be Health it could be Education it could be perhaps ACC. Because it is funded for multiple agencies it has more flexibility and choice. Also we must make sure that the way we deliver that flexibility and choice is matched to the individual as well. Some people will be able to manage that themselves and other people will need to have a management system around it as well. We are going to make sure that there is some capacity building for the disabled people themselves and their families and that is so that they can make the most of these opportunities that are coming their way. Finally there are referrals to other agencies. This is for additional services a type of social investment approach where there may be a service or a good that can be bought one-off that will improve the quality of life. The transformation of the service is first going to be focused on the middle of the North Island for people who get Disability Support Services around the Palmerston North area but with the excitement and the energy and the looking forward to this co-design process we are hoping that we can roll that out across the country further. I am really looking forward to seeing the results that they come out of the process with because they are very aware that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the way we deliver disability services. These services are really important to disabled people. The way that the public thinks about disabled people has changed enormously over the last 20 years and therefore the services must reflect that.I would also just like to make couple of comments about Christchurch. This Budget gives a wide range of further investments for Christchurch and Canterbury and of course that is on top of the $19 billion that has already gone there since the post-earthquake period. But there are a couple of unique things I would like to draw to your attention. The first is $812 million for the reinstatement of the State highway between Picton and Christchurch. This is enormously important for Christchurch and Canterbury. It connects us to the rest of the South Island and it is important for everybody who is along that road. We want to make sure that people can travel up and back across the South Island but also that our tourists can come there and support our businesses in the area.A second thing that is important in Christchurch is $9.6 million for investment into our Antarctic programme. Of course Christchurch is the gateway to Antarctica. We work with several different projects down there. We have the Americans we have the Italians and we do science backwards and forwards. It is a very important part of the Christchurch and the Canterbury economy. So that is to support science going further to Antarctica.The third thing I would just like to comment on is nearly $5 million for the Port Hills fires. We seem to have had every disaster in our area—earthquakes and fires—and therefore we need to fund for that.