Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Despite the doom and gloom that the Leader of the Opposition was trying to convince himself of and the rest of New Zealand the sad news for him and members opposite and the good news for the rest of us is that New Zealand's economy is doing well particularly relative to many of our counterparts and especially given the current context which is one of global volatility. We've heard from the finance Minister that the books are in surplus unemployment is low and even if we're not immune to them we are in a position to withstand economic headwinds. That being said what's even more exciting is what we're actually doing with that economic growth. As members before me have said we know that as of Monday net superannuation and veterans pension rates went up 2.6 percent. We know that New Zealanders are living longer. We know that about 780000 people are receiving either one of those benefits and must be able to lead fulfilling lives and to age positively. We also know that the minimum wage increased by $1.20 to $17.70 on Monday which was the biggest increase in dollar terms at one go. That translates to about $48 per week for those on the minimum wage who work a 40-hour week. Compare that to a total of $3.75 over nine years of the previous Government according to Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment data that we have. Now why is it important? Why is it important that we actually work to increase the minimum wage? We know that the cost of living has gone up but what does that actually mean? It's gone up steadily over the last decade. We know that food prices fluctuate because of different seasons because of weather conditions because also the previous Government increased GST from 12.5 percent to 15 percent to pay for income tax cuts. We also know that rent has increased faster than inflation we're told by people like the New Zealand Property Investors Federation. We know that power has gone up drastically since 1990. Residential prices have gone up 79 percent when adjusted for inflation. What does this mean for people though? It reminds me of an elderly Indian woman I met last year who told me she works for a company that I won't name but it's a big company. She's worked with them for about 26 years and for 26 years she's been on the minimum wage. So if Governments don't increase the minimum wage what it really means and we can stand here and argue ad nauseum about—what was it hiring costs or whatever—Hon Jacqui Dean: Intentions.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —intentions thank you Jacqui Dean—hiring intentions and things like that but if we don't increase the minimum wage it actually boils down to people not being able to eat. So for an average family of two adults and two children after you take away the various costs of living what I'm told is that they have about $40 to live on on average. If we don't increase the minimum wage people cannot eat. So I'm incredibly concerned and incredibly worried when I see for example a tweet by Henry Cooke who's a senior political reporter for Stuff who said yesterday and I quote Simon Bridges refused to rule out lowering the minimum wage if elected in 2020 when I asked him today". That was yesterday. So an Opposition a previous Government that makes noises about how people should be cared for and that they care for those on the lowest wages and so on and so forth—but their leader will not rule out cutting the minimum wage if they're elected. So I think of the 200000-odd people who have benefited from this increased $48 that this Government has put in place for them and I say that we should all be very afraid. We should also be afraid when the Hon Amy Adams talks about the Minister of Finance "waffling on about well-being" and I say to her: he aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata. We need to walk the talk and the well-being of the people that we're elected to serve in this House should be central to all that we do. We shouldn't just be talking the talk. We should actually put that into principles and make sure that everything we do here benefits the people we're elected to serve. Thank you Mr Speaker."