Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): It's a privilege and an honour to follow my colleague the Minister of Finance. Normally at this point in the debate I would offer some witty riposte—I daren't do that with Mr Robertson. But I do want to say what a privilege it is to work alongside a finance Minister who works in the truest and finest traditions of Labour Party finance Ministers who takes grip of the economy and makes it serves the interests not only in the short term but in the long term as well; not only in the interests of today but in the interests of working people in the long term and I'm going to come back to that.This Labour Government has operated in a world climate that is facing some major challenges: not only the aftermath of the pandemic—and we're still working our way through that—but now with the war in Ukraine that is putting major pressure on economies around the world. But we have reason to be optimistic in New Zealand. We have reason to be positive about the outlook in New Zealand because as the Minister of Finance has just said you look at what we have achieved in New Zealand—even though people have had a tough winter and had a tough year this year—and look at the record. We have low unemployment. We've had one of the highest levels of GDP growth in the last quarter of any country that we choose to compare ourselves with. And all the while we have maintained as well vital public services we've looked after them and we've kept focused on both the short and the long term. This Labour Government is doing what Labour Governments do and is doing it well. We tackle the hard problems and we tackle the problems of today as well. And we don't just deal with the easy stuff; we deal with the problems that our predecessors left in the bottom drawer left in the too-hard basket—which is what the previous Government did. This Government has laid good foundations in the five years we've been in place. I look at our Minister of Education and the work that he's done in our education system to improve its performance. I look at our track record—as the Minister of Finance just did—on our COVID pandemic performance where we saved lives and kept pressure off our public system and we've now invested more in our public system than we ever have before. As I said the results speak for themselves: GDP growth; inflation tracking better than many other countries. We've got low unemployment—that doesn't mean to say we don't have the challenges of labour shortages we do. They are challenges that the world is experiencing and we've got them here. But that's why I look to our Minister of Immigration who's doing an outstanding job of repositioning our immigration policies our immigration platform getting more people across the border and focusing on the skills we need along with our Minister of Education and others who are focusing on investing in New Zealanders to play their part in our economy and their part in the future as well. So we'll continue to work with the hospitality sector. We'll continue to recruit the nurses that we're recruiting offshore now—400 applications I think since July more than 300 approved three quarters of them for our public health system a quarter of them for the private sector—things are going well in that respect. But I want to deal with one very important policy initiative that the National Party in their typical fashion has decided they're allergic to but is actually very important and that is a social income insurance scheme. It's very important and I want to acknowledge the work that the Hon Grant Robertson has been doing on that. That is a programme that deals with the unfortunate incidence of redundancy that happens. And it is there to support the thousands of New Zealander workers who face the prospect of redundancy but without any redundancy benefits because they don't have it in their employment agreement collective or otherwise—well some do but many don't. But it also deals with those who fall sick during their working life get cancer or get some other sickness and need time out and who don't otherwise qualify for support. Without this sort of scheme those are the people who are plunged into poverty and uncertainty. And of course it's not just good for workers either. This is a scheme that's good for business. For those who do have a redundancy scheme it alleviates pressure off their balance sheet for one thing; they don't have to carry the contingent liability of redundancy. They don't know when it's going to be triggered but they know that they have to have the means for it if they sign up to employment agreements with it. But it's actually good for them too because it gives them certainty about their workforce when something untoward happens and a worker has to take extended time out. But it means that worker is supported and then is available to come back if that's what they and the employer choose to do. Or it means that worker—if that's the situation they're in—can get other training to be an active member in the labour market when they recover from their sickness or otherwise are ready to go back to work. That's what that scheme does; that's why it's so important. It's a good progressive Labour scheme and I'm proud to be part of a Government that's putting it in place.