Chen NaisiNAISI CHEN (Labour): Mr Speaker—Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: Naisi Chen. NAISI CHEN: Can I first—SPEAKER: I'm just going to say that that pair of members have not distinguished themselves in the last week. Naisi Chen—starting again.NAISI CHEN: Thank you Mr Speaker. Just before my colleague Helen White walks out the door can I introduce—to the member over there Simeon Brown who's just resumed his seat. This is my colleague the beautiful Helen White who is an absolutely amazing list MP based in Auckland Central. We've got equally an amazing MP based out in Taranaki - King Country called Angela Roberts who unfortunately isn't in the House this afternoon because she's just been—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is not allowed to draw attention to the absence of a member.NAISI CHEN: Sorry Mr Speaker. So Helen White is in the House who has just taken a call. It gives me immense pride to take a call in this general debate in regards to securing our recovery. I still remember on my first day of work here in Parliament that I shared with my colleagues that I have four areas of New Zealand that I'm extremely passionate about which are extremely close to my heart those two sectors being the digital sector and the arts sector and two communities being rangatahi and also the migrant community. Throughout this year and since COVID has started—actually since we've become Government—this party the Labour Party has really delivered for those four communities. We supported 80 organisations in our arts sector during the COVID relief fund. We spent $4.5 million to make sure that our creative sector did not fall over during the hardest times in maybe their whole entire career.We've supported our migrant community because tomorrow we're going to announce and we're going to launch the new Ministry for Ethnic Communities and this is so exciting. On the back of the recommendations that we received this is going to be a milestone for us. For the rangatahi for our students and young people we have boosted $3.3 billion to their benefits and student loan support. That is amazing. So that our students can truly just be students and that they don't have to worry about more than just their studying. They don't have to worry about their income. But today I just really wanted to speak about our support to the digital economy. I saw a member saying to my colleagues on the first day of work that I'm really passionate about e-commerce not just because I contribute a lot to it every single day with my internet shopping but because I believe that is where the future is at. I sit on the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee where we have to hear from New Zealand Post every year as part of the State-owned enterprise portfolio that the committee oversees. I still remember New Zealand Post coming to our select committee and saying that they had to deliver 3.5 million—3.5 million—parcels during alert level 3 of the lockdown we had last year. They had been seeing absolutely historical figures of 200 parcels per minute. That is absolutely astounding that they have to deliver 200 parcels per minute. We know that is where the future is heading in terms of economy. Right now New Zealanders are spending more than $5.8 billion—we spent that in 2020—online. That's about $1.2 billion more than in 2019. That is an amazing and astounding growth rate in our e-commerce sector and what is this Government doing you may ask to support this economic growth to actually excel New Zealand into that trend? Well for a start—and just keeping to New Zealand Post—we've invested $170 million into infrastructure especially here in the Wellington region where we're building a hub so that our parcels can be delivered more efficiently. Who doesn't want to get their parcels faster—right?Hon Member: Right.NAISI CHEN: Yeah so this is exactly where we're heading. Not only is it a global trend but for New Zealand this is the trend of our country. Right now online shopping takes up about 11 percent of all of our spend our shopping right now but right now compared to global the UK the US and China are spending over 20 percent of all its spending. They're doing it all online. So we can see that is the global trend. I'm proud to be of a Government who is actually investing in the future because in the 2021 Budget we have put $44 million into supporting our small to medium enterprises. We are supporting them so that they become more savvy in this digital economy world. We're supporting them to enable small businesses so that they can actually take advantage of all the opportunities in this e-commerce world as we all recover from the global impacts of COVID-19. We know that is so important so that's why I'm proud to be on this side with the Government.