Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I had the privilege on Friday of being at Lake Brunner/Kotuku Whakaoho and it's there that this Government is giving another example of the practical policies that it is putting in place to provide resources to the regions which both restore nature and create jobs. Hon Dr Nick Smith: We provided a grant for that.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Te Kinga—well the National Party talked about Predator Free 2050. They had a lot of vision but it didn't invest the pūtea to make that vision real. Hon Shane Jones: No pūtea. No sense.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: So what the Provincial Growth Fund has done—thank you Matua Jones—was last February $19.5 million was granted to Predator Free 2050 Ltd a Crown company to invest in making predator-free Aotearoa real. So Mount Te Kinga Lake Brunner is getting $4.5 million to take the 3700 hectares of that magnificent podocarp forest on Te Kinga and make it possum-free: eradicate possums so there won't need to be further work done there and potentially eradicate rats too. It's an example of a brilliant project where you've got Te Papa Atawhai—the Department of Conservation—working with Predator Free New Zealand Ltd the West Coast Regional Council and local landholders in the Lake Brunner conservation care group. That group of landholders has been involved in initiatives to protect water quality for a number of years. So here we've got the Government through the Provincial Growth Fund investing in pest control that will not only benefit biodiversity but will also benefit farming because this area is an area where there's been tuberculosis (TB). OSPRI's been doing predator control for a number of years. If we get rid of possums we get rid of that vector for spreading TB. There were in the 1880s naturalists such as W W Smith who talked about kākāpō being there talked about flocks of tīeke or saddlebacks. Māori call the lake lake Rerenga ki taonga o ngā manu ki Kōtuku Moana the refuge of treasured birds belonging to Kotuku Whakaoho/Lake Brunner. This is vision. This is vision supported by funding. The previous speaker the Hon Dr Nick Smith talked about National's response to the global financial crisis (GFC). Well National's response to the GFC was under that Minister to crash conservation funding slash it with the loss of 200 jobs in the department and it has been this Government over the last two years which has had to rebuild the legacy of neglect that that Government created: the loss of expertise across the country the failure to invest in the protection of nature. So this rebuilding is what this Government has been about. I am very glad that we have this Government in power and not National because otherwise we would see that same slash and burn Budget that characterised National's response to the GFC. What we have seen instead in Budget 2020 and this Government's response to COVID is $1.1 billion invested in nature-based jobs. As we have heard from others this Budget is about jobs. So this $1.1 billion is spread across Vote Environment Vote Conservation Vote Primary Industries and Vote Land Information. It is an investment which will pay dividends in terms of restoring nature which supports us as people and the services it provides are the basis of our food and fibre export industry and are the basis of tourism which will recover. We want an economy that is prosperous but one that also is more resilient more equitable and one where nature is in good health. As Green Party co-leader James Shaw said in his Budget contribution what we need in the long term is not a recovery but a renewal a renewal of our relationship with the natural world and with each other. That's what this $1.1 billion investment is going to help do and provide 11000 jobs at the same time to protect the livelihoods of families across Aotearoa so that they can put food on the table and support their whānau.So it is ironic. Under the previous National Government they slashed conservation funding. This Government is investing and we are also investing extensively in pest and weed control so that the Crown is a very good neighbour of private farmers and other landholders and so that we can really get on top of the scourge of pests and weeds: $315 million going into biosecurity including pest and weed control. Part of that funding is $148 million for the Department of Conservation to ramp up Predator Free New Zealand to work with iwi like Te Whānau-a-Apanui and Ngāti Porou to restore the Raukumara Range forest to health because we have seen under nine years of National deer numbers in those forests getting so high that the deer browse on tree bark and ring-bark trees and kill them. We're seeing in this Budget $27 million for the Ministry for Primary Industries to deal to wallabies in Otago in Canterbury in Waikato and in the Bay of Plenty. There have been years when wallaby numbers have been increasing damaging the health of the forests there and yet nothing done. We are seeing $100 million in new funding over four years to tackle wilding conifers. We will see in the term of this Government wilding conifers controlled in the Craigieburn Forest Park where they have been a scourge on the landscape for decades as they have spread from previous forest research plantations. Getting rid of wildings in that high country landscape will benefit landholders with grazing and will benefit the landscape values and biodiversity. And we are creating jobs. These jobs in wilding conifer control can assist those who've lost jobs with the downturn of forestry as a result of COVID. This Budget is about investing in people and investing in nature so that we have got a more resilient country economy and so that people can get through the economic insecurity which is accompanying COVID. Land Information New Zealand is getting another $40 million over four years so that it can invest in controlling aquatic weeds in areas like Lake Wānaka Lake Wakatipu Lake Karapiro the Te Arawa Rotorua Lakes and so that it can invest in keeping our riverbeds in the South Island—the Rangitata and the Rākaia—and the Rangitīkei in the North Island clear of pests and weeds so that the Crown can be a good neighbour. This is a massive investment to create jobs across the country to think about what our long-term vision is as a nation. And there's $433 million going into environmental restoration particularly in the freshwater space. A large part of that funding is going to restore the Kaipara Harbour and a major chunk of it is going to assist the recovery of rivers and lakes—awa and moana—around Aotearoa. Under National we saw a very weak national policy statement (NPS) under the former speaker; this Government has strengthened that NPS for fresh water: new national environmental standards and the strongest reforms for water in a generation to make sure that we are on a track to having rivers that are swimmable within a generation not rivers that we had under National with the failure to control agricultural intensification that were getting more and more degraded higher E. coli levels and higher nitrate levels. So this Government is strengthening the regulatory base and investing in jobs to assist a lot of the landholders who are moving to fence off their rivers to protect those riparian margins to prevent sediment pollution and to prevent nutrient pollution. One of the things I was most pleased to see in the Budget was the $16 million which is being invested in adult education and courses because again this was another example of this Government having to repair the neglect under National. In Budget 2009 National slashed funding for adult education from $16 million to $3 million. People going to night classes plummeted; the number of schools able to offer those courses plummeted. This investment in Budget 2020 will enable a more modern adult education system and will enable people to get that digital technology training that they need. And that is part of a much bigger $1.6 billion investment in education apprenticeships and training which will assist those who need the training to get jobs and is investing in the people. This Budget is about investing in people and planet so that we have a resilient future and a country that comes through COVID as well economically as we have done in terms of our health. I'm pleased to commend the Budget to the House. Kia ora.