Davis KelvinGENERAL DEBATEHon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I think it's apt to acknowledge the leadership of this country. When we look at the example that our Prime Minister has displayed not just since 15 March but in her whole time as the Prime Minister what we are seeing is somebody who leads with care and compassion and is getting the results.What this Government is doing is focusing on the issues that matter most to New Zealanders. The things that matter most are health housing education mental health. As Minister of Corrections I'm in the position where I see up close and personal the results of a system of a Government over the previous nine years that neglected those very areas that are most meaningful to New Zealanders. I get to see those people in prison who didn't have the best of educations who weren't cared for by the Government who the mental health system missed out. They missed out on what they needed and unfortunately under the previous Government despite a declining crime rate the prison population was skyrocketing and that was mainly because they simply didn't believe that there was anything that they could do.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Lock them up—that's how you get crime down.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: We're focusing on a strong economy and we're focusing on surpluses. Now I hear Mr Brownlee is shouting out there Lock them up—lock them up." That's exactly the mentality that proves that the previous Government absolutely didn't care about New Zealanders. The reality is that when people end up in prison it's often because things have gone wrong in their lives in these areas where Governments could have intervened earlier to make sure that New Zealand is a safer better place.The Minister of Health my colleague David Clark—he inherited a mess. He inherited a system that was rundown. The infrastructure was rundown the system was rundown health was under-resourced and now he's having to patch up the mess that was left over the previous nine years. Then I think of my colleague here the Hon Chris Hipkins who also inherited a mess in the education system—a demoralised teaching workforce under-resourced. Mr Hipkins has now set in place a plan that is going to address the issues that he's inherited. Teachers were leaving the profession at a great rate of knots. We're now having to undo that mess that they left behind.But mental health is one of the big things that we're really having to address and I have to acknowledge the work of Jan Logie the under-secretary. She's doing fantastic work around family and sexual violence. Now I was talking to Mike King New Zealander of the Year and he's been doing a lot of work around mental health and I've got to acknowledge the work that he's done. I said to him "Mike just what exactly is the link between family and sexual violence and suicide?" He said to me that it is the number one cause. It wasn't until this Government came along that we actually started to address the number one cause of youth suicide and mental health issues in our young people. It's long overdue and I'd just like to acknowledge again the work of Jan Logie and the fact that this Government is putting an emphasis on these very areas.So what else has this Government done? The minimum wage went up on 1 April. It's now increased to $17.70 an hour. A couple will be $100 better off because of the decisions that this Government has made. So $100—what are people going to spend that $100 on?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Ten thousand more job seekers.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: On their bills. They're going to spend it on food for their families—and I don't know why Mr Brownlee is opposed to families having a bit more money to spend on food for their family or for clothes for their children. Mr Brownlee there is calling out. He doesn't care about the impact that his previous Government's policies had on families and on young people. So the winter energy payment is something that this Government has come up with. Now I was talking to a kaumātua up north—this was last year—and I said "Did you get the first winter energy payment?" And they said "Yes." "What did you spend it on?" "Power bills." That's the very reason that we have the winter energy payment. Kia ora."