Sepuloni CarmelGENERAL DEBATEHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business.What a start to the day: two weeks out from the end of the year and the Opposition is feeling it. I remember being 16 years old at secondary school and staging walk-outs just like that but I had principled reasons for doing it and I'm concerned that actually on the other side of the House it's just general frustration and they've given up—they've given up.We did notice who was left behind in their chairs though and couldn't help but notice that it was the members who would probably contest the leadership. We had Judith Collins we had Mark Mitchell and who was the other one? I think we had Amy Adams left behind at the end of that wonderful walk-out. Then there were the few who probably have aspirations but wouldn't have the votes: people like Nathan Guy and Michael Woodhouse. And then of course there's always that one person who likes the drama and that of course was the Rt Hon David Carter who stayed behind to observe what was going on. But while that side of the House is staging walk-outs in frustration and because two weeks out from the end of the year they just can't handle it anymore and they just want to go home this side of the House is just getting on and doing the business.One year into it and here we are on this side of the House with quite a lot to celebrate. In fact listening to my colleague the Hon David Clark responding to questions from the Opposition it may as well have been a patsy question from that side of the House because he had the opportunity to talk about the mental health inquiry and the report that's come out a report that was commissioned by this side of the House because we care about mental health and we know that it's been neglected for far too long because of a Government previously who took no action with regard to mental health. He was then able to reply that we haven't been paralysed because of an inquiry and in fact over the course of the last year he was able to tell Matt Doocey Keep in mind we put $200 million towards district health boards—ring-fenced—for mental health Matt Doocey."Keep in mind that actually we just announced the extension of the community services card which is going to see hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders get access to low-cost primary health care. Keep in mind that we've rolled out nurses to decile 4 schools so that more of our children get the care they need. Keep in mind that we also rolled out the Mana Ake programme to primaries and intermediates in Christchurch and Kaikōura. So any accusation from that side of the House that we have been paralysed in the mental health space because of an inquiry is false and clearly we've got lots of evidence to prove that that's not the case.That's mental health. There are so many areas that I could talk about but the one in particular—given that this will probably be my last chance in a general debate at the end of this year—after a year as the Minister for Social Development that I really wanted to touch on was of course the Families Package. We came into Government very clear about what our priority was and that was low to middle income New Zealanders. We showed that commitment by within those first 100 days committing $5.5 billion to those families. It was a shift away from the previous Government's commitment to wanting to cut taxes with a large proportion of those tax cuts going to the highest-income earners in this country. It was much more targeted and it was the right thing to do.I want to say that I'm very proud of the fact that we have rolled out changes and lifted the threshold with regards to Working for Families and that we have a new Best Start payment that recognises the importance of babies in this country in those first three years in particular. I'm very proud of the fact that we've rolled out a winter energy payment that's targeted towards beneficiaries superannuitants and those on veterans pensions. I'm very proud of the fact that all of those measures were done under this Government and were done with the right intentions and are targeting the families who need the support in this country.A year into it we're energised. We could keep going. We don't even need a holiday. Meanwhile that side of the House is staging walk-outs because they just can't handle the heat."