Hipkins ChrisGENERAL DEBATE Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for the Public Service): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. After a long winter spring is here and I would like to begin today with an acknowledgment of all those who have worked tirelessly over the last 2½ years on the front lines of our response to COVID-19. We are as a country indebted to those people who have gone to work every day striving to keep New Zealanders safe during a global pandemic.We now come to the point where we are past the emergency response and we can look back on our COVID-19 response as a country with a great degree of pride. We have achieved one of the lowest case mortality rates—when it comes to COVID-19—in the world and the credit for that belongs to all New Zealanders: all those working on the front lines those working in our health systems who have gone the extra mile to keep Kiwis safe—New Zealanders who did their bit whatever that bit may have been over the last 2½ years in order to ensure that we achieved that remarkable result. As I say thank you to all New Zealanders for that. I hope we all have a good summer—Wellington's spring is a typical Wellington spring; some nice days and some bad days and you never quite know which is going to be which—but I hope that we will have a summer where New Zealanders can relax and reflect on the last 2½ years and they can do so with a degree of pride.We said when we entered the COVID-19 response period that we believe that the best public health response would also be the best economic response. And the numbers that we are seeing now and the record over the last 2½ to 3 years has shown that that is exactly the case. Our GDP rose 1.7 percent in the past year. Unemployment continues to be at a near-record low of 3.3 percent. We said as we went into the COVID-19 response that we wanted to keep New Zealanders in jobs and we have done that. New Zealanders kept their jobs during COVID-19 and they did that because the Government backed them and backed the businesses that employ them.It is interesting to note—now that the Government is being criticised for untargeted spending—that most of that untargeted spending was things like the wage subsidy which kept people in jobs. So two years ago 18 months ago even a year ago we were being criticised for not doing enough and now Captain Hindsight" and his team have decided that we wasted money by doing those things—that's not what they were saying at the time. And I am very proud of the track record of this Government when it comes to keeping people in work. We kept New Zealanders in jobs and our economy is that much stronger as a result of it.We also kept our apprentices on the job; not only did we keep apprentices on the job we grew the number of apprentices who are in training during our response to COVID-19. That is a stark contrast to the global financial crisis when the last National Government cut the number of apprentices. We see the results of that today in the shortages that we've got—particularly in areas like building and construction—where firms are crying out for skilled labour and the skilled labour is not there because the last National Government didn't train them. They chose to cut during the global financial crisis. At the very time when we should as a country have been investing in upskilling our people they decided that that was the time to cut that level of investment. That is not a mistake that our Government's making. We are very proud of the fact that we've got more apprentices in training now than we did at any point during the last National Government's tenure in office; that's something that should be celebrated.We have also used that opportunity to invest in critical infrastructure. The last National Government was more than happy to add another million people to the New Zealand population—they didn't build the houses required for that. They didn't build the infrastructure required for that; we are. We are catching up. We have built record numbers of houses during the tenure of our Government and we are incredibly proud of that. It is going to take some time to undo the damage done by the nine years of neglect that we inherited but we are making good progress. We are building houses; we are building houses and getting Kiwis into homes. Our agricultural experts have reached a record $53 billion. That's happened because of the good sound economic management of our Government and because of the success that we have had on the international trade circuit; far more success than the members opposite who like to talk a big game when it comes to trade but just can't seem to close the deal.Unlike them I'm proud of the work of our Prime Minister and our Minister for Trade and Export Growth who actually know how to get ink on the paper when it comes to international trade agreements. Summer is coming. We've got a lot to look forward to and we have a lot to be proud of."