Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): The 2017 Budget is good for Whangarei good for Northland and has been very well received in my electorate. The Budget continues to advance the economic gains that Northland is seeing as real GDP growth as reflected by last week's ASB scorecard which has Northland up seven places. It is up to a four-star ranking and it is the second-highest growth region. Many in Northland will make the greatest gains from this Budget. We always said: Work with us through the tough times and together with fiscal responsibility and a stable Government we will share in the benefits." Well Northland families will now share these benefits as part of the $2 billion Family Incomes Package. These benefits will flow as increases to the tax thresholds increases to Working for Families and increases to the accommodation supplement. We know with this Budget that 1.3 million families will benefit by an average of $26 a week. Northlanders will share that benefit. We know that 20000 households will lift above the threshold for severe housing stress. Northlanders will share that benefit. We know the number of children living in families receiving less than half the median income will improve. Northlanders will share that benefit.Health matters to Northlanders and in this Budget there have been big programme announcements with direct relevance to Northland. The health budget goes up an extra $879 million. Northland District Health Board (DHB) in fact receives an extra $21 million top-up. The National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme is further supported with $385 million. In 2010-12 Northland had the fourth-highest colorectal mortality rate with 20.5 deaths per 100000 people so this is really important to Northland. I would also like to reach out at this point of my very brief talk to my young Northland cousin who has metastatic bowel cancer and wish her well with chemotherapy and the best possible outcome.Mental health is important to Northlanders and this Budget adds an extra $224 million over 4 years. A few weeks ago I was at the opening of He Tupua Wai-Ora a million-dollar Northland DHB programme for mothers with children under 3 who have drug and alcohol addiction. They will be further supported through this Budget.Disability Support Services receives an extra $205 million over 4 years. A few months ago in Whangarei I was able to participate in the opening of a disabled people in work programme called EmployAbility. The senior official from Silver Fern Farms out towards Dargaville gave a wonderful example of the benefits of employing disabled people including the fact that they actually have fewer sick days.Double-crewing for road ambulance call-outs receives $59.2 million. Northland DHB has some of the greatest rurality and single call-outs have high risk so the people of Northland will benefit from this announcement by having two sets of skills. This lets you do several things. It lets you do something called "scoop and carry". What that means is you can have someone actually driving the ambulance and someone else resuscitating in the back. That is very important when you are looking for short transit times to get people to hospital quickly particularly in incidents like stroke when you have got a window to have an intervention that makes a difference. So double-crewing ambulances is going to be very important for the people of Northland.Rheumatic fever was commented on by a member earlier. I wanted to just comment that they focused on one risk factor that serves one agenda—that is the housing agenda—and completely ignores all the other factors that are relevant to rheumatic fever including a higher incidence of pharyngitis with group A streptococcus and access to healthcare. This is really important because access to healthcare is one of the single biggest interventions that this Government has done. While we may have changed some of the targets we have been able to do that because we have made healthcare for those under 13 more accessible and that has been able to reduce the risk and improve the rheumatic fever rates particularly in places like Whangaroa Harbour which at one point in the early 2000s had the worst incidence of rheumatic fever outside Soweto. So we are really making a huge impact on that. I do want to say that I do accept overcrowding—so I am not diminishing what the member was saying—is a risk factor but I am just saying let us tell the whole story.Medicines matter to Northland. An extra $60 million over 4 years will enable access to the new medicines that our specialists tell us are important. There are so many areas to comment on but I have tended to focus a bit on health as an area that I have an interest in. This Budget is good for Northlanders. They are telling me that they are seeing it and they are touching it. This is a good Budget. Thank you."