Halbert ShananSHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Mānawatia a Matariki Mr Speaker and it's always a blessing to speak about the North Shore of Auckland in this wonderful House. Can I take a brief moment to acknowledge destination manager Kae Condon and the Birkenhead Town Centre Association for organising the very well-attended Birkenhead medieval fair last weekend. It's not often that I'll get to dress up in a tunic around in my community. The fair was supported by Minister Nash's Reactivating Tāmaki Makaurau fund and achieved its aim of encouraging locals and visitors alike to confidently come out into our town centre enjoy our wonderful hospitality and visit our local retailers now that the COVID wave has peaked. It was an excellent local example of how this Government is securing our recovery from COVID-19 and today I want to speak about how some of the initiatives in Budget 2022 are giving my community better resilience to face our local challenges.Last week I brought together our community leaders in Beach Haven—school principals Māori wardens the North Shore community patrol New Zealand Police Kāinga Ora church leaders councillors and our local board and our marae—to develop our own locally owned youth engagement strategy. People in my community want to give all our young people better options to stay connected to their learning and positive activities. It's the opposite of what the Opposition are currently doing locally. We see them seeking to inflame community tensions about gang activity in the North Shore opportunistically jumping on the recent gang incidents that we experienced but offering little on the ground.Because of the investments made in Budget 2022 we know that Government agencies are able to partner with us as we develop local solutions for our local young people. For instance I'm speaking of the increase in community policing on the North Shore. We've added 116 extra police on the beat in the Waitematā district since 2017 and just this month a new dedicated community policing team has been established in the area of the Kaipātiki with extra community constables and a new sergeant position as well—services that were cut under the National Government in the Beach Haven area closing our Beach Haven station. But Budget 2022 also invests $94 million in Police tackling gangs across our country and organised crime and $114 million to respond to family and sexual violence. Again these are the issues that our community on the North Shore wants to get on top of.I'm also particularly pleased to see the focus on truancy and attendance management in the Budget. We all know that young people struggled with their learning during COVID lockdowns especially so in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland at the end of last year. The Opposition decimated our truancy services on the North Shore and I'm a big supporter of ensuring that truancy services are back in schools again working with our whānau and building relationships across the community to get our young people engaged with learning again attending school and supporting community organisations to work in this space too.The funding increase for He Poutama Rangatahi means that the Kaipātiki Community Facilities Trust will now deliver the programme on the North Shore. It targets 15- to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment providing individualised support to connect to training and employment. Extra funding for trades training in the Budget will support more of our young people into apprenticeships and local employers tell me how badly they need trained staff across all sectors. These initiatives more community policing properly tackling gangs and focusing on young people reengaging in their learning trades training—these were identified by our community leaders when we came together in Beach Haven.We want local solutions that meet our local needs and secure our future. Budget 2022 delivers the resources we need to achieve this and I look forward to seeing this impact on the North Shore of Auckland. Happy Matariki.