Doocey Matt: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11747. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the appropriations debate.New Zealanders are voting with their feet. Many New Zealanders are coming back home because New Zealand is a fantastic place to live but what we should not lose focus on is that thousands of young Kiwis every year continue to go overseas on that great Kiwi tradition the OE. It is fantastic for our young Kiwis: they go overseas—London Europe further afield—and they expand their world view. All these young Kiwis will travel to a range of countries around the world and they pretty quickly realise that in a globalised world countries choose to be competitive—and if they are competitive they improve the well-being of their people and they protect the environment—or countries choose not to be competitive. It is as stark as that. It is a choice and it is great to live in a country that has a competitive economy engaging in a globalised world that is improving the well-being of our people and protecting our environment.As deputy chair of the Social Services Committee I just want to focus briefly on the announcement of $652 million into social investment. There will be many economic boffins trying to explain social investment as allocated efficiency where you cut up the pie to get good returns but the people on the street in my electorate in Waimakariri know that social investment is about spending money wisely and getting the best bang for your buck.That is exactly what this Government is doing. In our welfare manifesto we set out that we are going to reduce welfare dependency by 25 percent and reduce the future liability of welfare dependency to the New Zealand taxpayer by $13 billion. What we are going to do in this Budget around social investment is that we have got $61 million that goes directly into expanding our youth services—that is working with our vulnerable young people and getting them into education employment and training because we know that when you look at people who go on the benefit 70 percent of long-term beneficiaries go on the benefit before the age of 20. For those young people who go on the benefit by the age of 18 or 19 the average time they spend on it is 13 years. But what we do know is that for those young people who get off the benefit 70 percent of them do so in the first 6 months of getting on the jobseeker allowance. So we know that we have got a 6-month window of opportunity and that is why the $61 million investment will be supporting vulnerable young people to get into education to get into employment and to get into training.The focus of our youth services is not only to reduce the risk of long-term dependence on the welfare system; it is to improve social outcomes. Many of the young people in youth services have children of their own. The focus is also to ensure that they get National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 to go on and be productive members of New Zealand. When you talk about the $61 million it will be in intensive and active wraparound services. These young people have complex and challenging needs and we need to make sure they get the wraparound services that they need. When you look at this cohort of young people 38 percent have been victims of domestic violence 76 percent have been victims of emotional neglect 5 percent have been homeless 5 percent have been victims of sexual abuse and pretty much all of them have disengaged from the mainstream education system. That is why the $61 million of social investment in our vulnerable young people will get them into education employment and training.We know this works—research shows that $1 invested into our youth services reduces a future liability of $2.53. That is smart investment that is a smart Budget and I commend the Budget to the House.