Ardern JacindaRt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Over the last few weeks we've heard that the Leader of the Opposition has this habit of calling almost every document she happens upon a secret agenda—from a commissioned piece of work to something she finds on a website to possibly even her own caucus minutes. I thought I'd get right in front of that claim for this Budget. Here is our agenda: good decent jobs—in fact 221000 people are projected to gain employment over the next four years. Unemployment is forecast to fall to 4.2 percent lower than National ever got in the aftermath of the global financial crisis when apparently they called our economy a rock star economy. Our agenda is an economy that is growing. Our strong recovery is expected to continue with annual average real GDP growth of 4.4 percent in 2023. That puts us back to pre-COVID levels and importantly our agenda is to leave no one behind. The changes we have made as a Government mean more than 100000 families will be more than $175 per week better off and child poverty will reduce. This is our agenda and I am proud of it. But the Leader of the Opposition in her rebuttal to the Budget shared what I can only describe as clearly a pre-scripted speech. That's the most generous way that I can acknowledge that she clearly did not engage in the facts that were included in the Budget. The Leader of the Opposition talked about debt and that completely ignores the fact that according to Treasury's projection our debt levels are forecast to be lower than they had previously been described. That is because of the decisions and the investment that we made.And as if to make the point the Leader of the Opposition decided to draw comparisons with Australia. Well let's do that shall we? On real GDP Australia's four-year average is 2.9 percent; New Zealand's is 3.5 percent. In terms of employment by 2024 not only are we currently lower we are due to finish at 4.2 percent; they're at 4.5 percent. Our operating balance is healthier and our net debt is lower—our net debt is lower.I will tell members about my view on the idea of ambition and aspiration. Ours is not to be somebody else; ours is to carve our own path and our own path has been successful. But I would also say it is time for us to look at debt in more than just fiscal terms. Decisions that we make whether we choose to invest or whether we choose to cut determine whether or not the next generation carries a social debt. Now we saw the tendency of National Governments of old. The Budget in 1991 chose cuts. They chose user-pays and they left a burden of debt that generations have carried for decades. We are still paying for that decision.From there I would've shared more rebuttal on the Leader of the Opposition's speech but once we got past roughly five minutes of describing the Collins dictionary" definition of what a border is I wasn't left with very much because ultimately I didn't hear anything about how the Opposition would deal with those big challenges we have. What would they do about the housing crisis they left us? What would they do about child poverty? What would they do about climate change? They would do absolutely the same thing they did last time they were in office which was nothing—absolutely nothing.On climate change yes they went overseas and they signed New Zealand up to international targets as they well should but they never had a plan on achieving them. And now when they stand up in this House all they tell us is we need to trust everyone in order to achieve them—trust every sector that's involved—but they have shown a complete lack of trust in one of the most important things and that is science. The science tells us that we cannot wait. When it comes to this issue we cannot wait and just hope and that is a good message not only on climate change but on Opposition politics I would say.Yesterday I want back to the Budget speech that our Minister of Finance Grant Robertson gave in 2018. It was our first Budget at that time as a Government and our first Budget for Minister Robertson as the Minister of Finance and the title of that Budget he gave was "Foundations for the Future" and in it he said "Budget 2018 lays the foundations for New Zealanders to have better lives in the decades to come. … We want an economy an environment and a society which are sustainable productive and inclusive. … This means caring for our environment as a core value not as an after-thought. … We have to work smarter build our skills and resilience explore new innovations and adapt to change. … Our economy must be more inclusive too. This means a society where everyone has an equal chance to fulfil their potential to contribute and to live meaningful connected … and fulfilling lives. … we want New Zealand to be a place where everyone has a fair go"Mr Speaker much has changed in the last four years since Grant Robertson gave that speech—you have not! The Leader of the Opposition has a few times and the world most certainly has and yet for all of that the driving force the motivation and the focus of our Minister of Finance has remained. I want to pay tribute to Grant Robertson. He has one of the hardest jobs in this place—one of—but never have I questioned what motivates him what brings him here every day. He is here for people. He is here because he believes that the economy is there to serve our people and he's here to make changes that will leave the next generation better off than the last. Thank you Grant.It was no accident that that Budget at that time was titled "Foundations for the Future." Our intent as a Government was to make sure that that Budget and every one thereafter built on the legacy of the last. We have never viewed Budgets in isolation because we are not just here to govern. We are here to make progress. So in 2017 we began. We cancelled the tax cuts that the then National Government had planned. We created the most substantive redesign of support for low and middle income New Zealanders that this country has seen in decades. We introduced the now much-loved winter energy payment. We brought in the payment for children called Best Start. We increased the family tax credit and of course we extended paid parental leave. It was a $5.5 billion package and it represented change for New Zealand families and it represented change for children in poverty. But when we introduced the child poverty legislation and we started working on our targets to halve child poverty over the next decade it became clear to us that much more was required and so we kept going.In Budget 2019 we made what the Children's Commissioner has called one of the most significant changes you can make for the long-term health and wellbeing of our children in poverty and it was to index benefits to wages. Then COVID hit. Some Governments might have seen this as a cause for as I've said austerity or cuts but we saw it as a time to invest in our people. We lifted main benefit rates by $25 a week—the first time we've seen a general lift in benefit rates in decades. The last National Government of course targeted solely beneficiaries with children. We also made changes to the in-work tax credit in recognition that it would be likely that individuals may lose some of their working hours and we did not want them to lose that tax credit as well. But as the reports that we released just in the last week have shown our child poverty indicators show that there is still more work to do. In New Zealand we currently have nine measures of child poverty. They are a mixture of relative income measures that tell us how well our children and whānau are doing relative to others. They also include material deprivation measures. They tell us whether or not families have the basics that they need. In the last two years we have seen improvement across all nine of those measures. We have already exceeded our three-year target on one of our measures: 43300 fewer children are in poverty since 2017-18 when we factor in their income after housing costs. But there is still much more to do.More than 200000 children live in poverty in New Zealand and it isn't just a number. It means for instance that 20 percent of children are in households where food runs out sometimes or often. This rises to 30 percent when we look at Māori children and a devastating 46 percent for Pasifika children. Now some might ask the question and I believe I heard the question being asked while finance Minister Grant Robertson was outlining our plans in this Budget: can we afford to take the next step in addressing child poverty in this country when we are in the middle of recovering from COVID-19? My answer is simple: we cannot afford not to.So today we lift main benefit rates by between $32 and $55 per adult in line with the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. And due to the urgency we are beginning the increase on 1 July and completing them in April 2022. This is a major next step in our measures to address child poverty and inequality in New Zealand and the reason for all of this work over the last four years is still quite simple: we must address need in this country. This is about the basics: the ability of someone to put food on the table their ability to pay their power bill or as the Minister of Finance said the basic need of just placing shoes on the feet of our children. We are targeting what we need to do in New Zealand with these decisions. They are the most basic of needs and it is the right thing to do.This is also a bit of double duty because we do it at a time when we need to maintain extra stimulus in the economy. We know that lifting the incomes of those who have the least discretionary income means we'll see that effect on the economy. It will go to food it will go to services it will go towards the things our children need to thrive and that will happen across the country including in our local economies.But there will be some who question whether the substantial changes we make today have gone too far and I note from some of the interjections across the other side of the House that they are amongst those who would ask that question. To them I would answer with numbers: $315. With the changes we have announced today that is still how much a job seeker will receive as their main benefit per week from April next year. No one can argue that we lack incentives to work in this country. We have those incentives. What we have been lacking is dignity and that is what we are working to bring back today. I would use another number to the Opposition and that is 30 years. That's how long it has taken to get benefits back to the rates they were before the "mother of all Budgets". Now yes we have made progress for families with children but for those who are single or those who are couples with no dependants it has taken us 30 long years. And I say to the Opposition: 20 percent. That is how much Treasury predicts that the number accessing a job seeker benefit and emergency benefits will fall over the forecast period. Finally a last number: 33000 the number of children that will be lifted out of poverty.There are a number of other changes that we will make that will make a difference to children and families in this Budget. Of course they include things like the training incentive allowance. It includes movement in childcare assistance to more low and middle income families and continuing investment in health and education. But we know job opportunities are critical too and this is where once again our challenge becomes our opportunity. We have a massive infrastructure deficit in this country. When we took office we saw it everywhere be it public transport classrooms hospitals or the lack of State housing. We continue to right that wrong today. Budget 2021 sees a 50 percent increase in the Government's multi-year capital allowance to maintain momentum around job creation and to build critical infrastructure. If you want to see a graphic representation of what that means over the years it looks a little like this [Holds up graph]—a significant increase in critical infrastructure which is part of our recovery plan. It grows jobs good jobs up and down the country.I do want to dwell on one particular infrastructure challenge we inherited and it is housing. That is why we are pulling every lever that we have. We are building more public houses than any Government in decades. We are fully funding the 18000 houses that we want to build but also we've already delivered more than 7600 public housing places. We have more building consents issued than at any other time in our history. We've closed tax loopholes. We've banned foreign buyers. We've extended the brightline test. We've introduced progressive homeownership. We've expanded support for first-home buyers. And meanwhile one third of the 100000 New Zealanders who have taken up the offer of free trades training are in the construction sector. They will pick up tools and work on the pipeline of infrastructure that we have created as a Government.We've also brought in the healthy homes standard supported insulation and home repair schemes. We've got rid of letting fees and limited rent increases to once per year. This House is well familiar with the $3.8 billion Housing Acceleration Fund to build the infrastructure we need to support new developments. Today we are ensuring that $350 million goes to greater partnerships with iwi to build houses on whenua Māori. And with Māori homeownership rates at a devastating 30 percent these are exactly the partnerships we need. The third long-term challenge that I want to address today is the issue of climate change. We've already seen the investment and the announcements we've made around decarbonisation of the public sector. We're also working with industry particularly agriculture with $37 million going into integrated farm planning systems $24 million into greenhouse gas mitigation research and you have already heard of course the Minister of Finance make that really important signal that we will be hypothecating emissions trading scheme revenue into climate mitigation in the future not to mention the quadrupling of course of Minister James Shaw's established Green Investment Fund. That will continue to invest in green climate solutions.The final and most present challenge the issue of COVID-19. It has highlighted how critical it is that we have strong health services but there is no question that people who work in health are exceptional but they too know that our health system can and should be better. Our health system for instance is failing Māori. In this Budget we start the largest health reforms we have seen in this country in decades as we establish Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority. In total a 45 percent increase in health funding when you compare this Budget to when we took office in 2017.But the reason we can do all of this the reason we are securing our recovery today is because of the decisions we have made every day since 2018. It is because we have chosen to invest to back our small businesses and our employers to support vocational training and education to invest in significant infrastructure. That is why we have unemployment rates that are half of what were estimated. It's why we're doing so well compared to the rest of the world and Australia. And in response to COVID-19 we banded together. Now we ask that we continue to do that as a nation as we take our next challenges. I am proud of this Budget. It will leave a legacy for the next generation and start to do undo the harm of the last."