Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to commence my remarks today by echoing something that the Hon Paula Bennett said earlier today when she said It's great people love her." The difference is when we say on this side of the House "It's great that people love her" we're talking about the captain of our ship the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. On this side of the House we are exceptionally proud of the work of our Prime Minister and of the statement that she has tabled today which sets out a clear vision and a clear plan for building a better more prosperous and inclusive New Zealand for every person.Why is it that there is such huge and building support for our Prime Minister and her style of leadership? I think it's because she's a leader who is caring but it's also because she is a leader of significant substance. She is focused on leading a coalition Government that will build a stronger inclusive economy that deals with the issue of well-being so that our economic growth is actually felt by the people in our communities and makes their life better. She is a leader who if she is on the international stage if she is representing the Government at the most grassroots levels in our community makes Kiwis feel proud. It was only one week ago that I was at the Chinese New Year celebrations hosted by the Auckland Chinese Community Centre in Auckland. There was an incredible reception for our Prime Minister when she appeared at that event and the overwhelming feeling that I got from that is that people want to be with her because they know that she is there with them and she is there working for their best interests and for the well-being of them and their families.But of course when Paula Bennett said those words "It's great people love her" she wasn't speaking about her leader. She was speaking about Judith Collins. I think it is instructive that she couldn't bring herself to say those words about her own leader. I think it's because over the last six to nine months or so the leadership of the National Party has been completely rudderless. We have leapt from bizarre Breitbart-style conspiracy theories about the UN migration pact to fearmongering around sensible reform of our cannabis laws and from the Leader of the Opposition just anger—so so much anger every time that he speaks. In my view this stems from the failure of the Opposition to get over the fact that 18 months ago or so the people of New Zealand chose a different direction for this country and they simply cannot let go of that old-style National Party arrogance and the belief that they have a divine right to govern. Well they don't. The people of New Zealand choose who will govern and they chose a different direction.I don't actually particularly blame Mr Bridges for these difficulties. In fact I think I feel sorry for him. He is simply a symbol of the incoherence of his party in the post-Key era. That previous Government was one that for nine years coasted along on the charisma of that man on his skill with the selfies and the talkback radio pumping economic growth up through heightened immigration and a house-price boom. They got through and as the Prime Minister said did and delivered very little in those nine years. So in the vacuum that has appeared in the post-Key era we don't actually have anything coming from the Opposition—virtually nothing positive and forward-looking in terms of the ideas that they present.I thought it was incredibly instructive that there was basically one thing that Mr Bridges got passionate about in his speech—one thing—and that was tarmacking as many acres of New Zealand as he possibly could with four-lane highways. Was there any ambition or any word about lifting kids out of poverty? Was there any ambition or any word about getting our young people into sustainable employment and building up their hopes for the future? Was there any word about tackling the challenge of climate change? There was virtually nothing but boy was that man excited about building four-lane highways. That was about the beginning and the end of the vision from Mr Simon Bridges the Leader of the Opposition.I was sitting in my office late last night listening to the greatest rock band in history Pink Floyd and their timeless track from The Dark Side Of The Moon "Time" and some words came on in the penultimate verse of that beautiful melody that I thought might apply to Mr Bridges as he surveys the landscape at the moment:Hanging on in quiet desperationis the English wayThe time is goneThe song is overThought I'd something more to sayBut the good news is that this Government has a lot to say about our plans for the year ahead and I hope for many years ahead in fact. This is a Government which is focused on building an economy that doesn't just work for the few but for the many. It's true that in this country we have had around about 10 years of solid economic growth. That is a good thing and some credit goes to some of the management of the previous Government for that. But what is the point of that economic growth if we have people who don't have houses if we have kids living in poverty and if we have rivers and streams so full of cow manure that people get sick from wading within them? That is what makes this Government different. We have a focus on the well-being of our people our families and our communities that goes beyond the narrow dry dusty accounting standards that the previous Government held itself to account for. This is a Government that believes that well-being actually matters that we have to work harder and go deeper and think more carefully about the decisions we make if we want to make sure that all of our kids all of our tamariki have hope for the future and can live good lives if we want to make sure that we have strong families and if we want to make sure that that growth actually benefits the people that all of us in this House serve. The Government over the last year has made an incredibly strong start in this area.It was instructive as the Prime Minister pointed out that one of the first things that this Government did on coming into office was to cancel the tax cuts put in place by the previous Government that would've most benefited people like the members of this Chamber on high incomes. Instead we replaced that with a Families Package the overwhelming benefit of which goes to the low and middle income families of our country where the needs are felt most keenly. I was so proud that as part of that package we implemented the winter energy payment because I cannot believe that anyone would accept that the older people of our country our respected seniors should have to sit and shiver through the winter because they're afraid of turning on the heater because they can't afford the bills. Well this Government did something about that. We said that was more important than tax cuts going to members of this Chamber.I'm proud that on the well-being front this is a Government which is actively supportive of the living wage because it's our view—it's the view of the Labour Party the party that was founded by the working people of New Zealand; I know it's also the view of our coalition partners New Zealand First and our support partners the Greens—that every working New Zealander who gives their labour who goes to work who contributes to the productive economy in New Zealand should be paid enough to live a dignified life on. There's a lot of talk from the other side of the House about the importance of work and wanting to crack down on bludgers and all of this sort of stuff. Well if we value work so much then why don't we pay people enough to live on?So I'm exceptionally proud that in the Budget last year this Government actually said that we're going to pay our core State servants the living wage. Because of that direction—because of the movement and the work done by people in the trade unions in the churches and in the community groups who pay the living wage—it is a movement that I think is unstoppable and with this Government in power more and more people are going to be paid enough to live a dignified life on.A bit more of a word on well-being from a portfolio perspective. I'm very proud to work alongside our Minister for Ethnic Communities the Hon Jenny Salesa who is doing exceptional work in this area to make sure that New Zealand's ethnic communities—over 600000 people in our country—are included in our country and are supported to contribute to making this a better country for everyone. I'm very proud to serve as her Parliamentary Under-Secretary and one of the privileges of that role is that I get to see what is happening on the ground. I get to visit the gurdwaras in Auckland where the people in those communities are coming together to feed people on low incomes and to feed the homeless people of our city because they see the need there. I'm proud to see the work of organisations like Gandhi Nivas a community organisation that is doing incredible work to make sure that we get alongside the men who are the perpetrators of family violence and we surround them with the support they need and bring them to a place of well-being so that they can change their ways.What I'm coming to with this is that there's sometimes a critique of well-being from the other side of the House that it's somehow a woolly academic concept that comes from the 12th floor of Treasury or something like that. Well-being is understood at the grassroots in our communities. Our communities instinctively get it because it's the glue that makes our communities work and the difference between this Government and the previous one is that we understand that and we're going to get aside our communities and we're going to fund them and support them to deliver that well-being. Our focus is not simply going to be on cutting taxes and hoping that the market takes care of it. We're going to be a Government that says that well-being matters and we're going to work with communities to deliver it.I'm exceptionally proud of the statement that our Prime Minister tabled this morning. It speaks to her qualities as a leader it speaks to the vision of this Government and the three parties that make it up and it speaks to our belief that the people of New Zealand deserve a Government that supports and enhances their well-being. It's going to be a busy year and I look forward to it. Thank you."