Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (remote): Today marks a huge milestone and it really shows we are out of the COVID response and into COVID recovery. Today we announced the opening up of our borders to tourists from 1 April and closing our border was one of the first actions we took to keep people safe. It worked. We have one of the lowest COVID mortality rates in the world and one of the strongest economies to emerge from the pandemic and it's now time to open up. Like so many New Zealanders I am grateful that we had the borders closed and we had time to get vaccinated and we had a plan to keep our economy going despite the significant challenges. People are doing it hard. The cost of living has risen. That's through international events pushing up inflation. We've had a pandemic. There's a war in Ukraine. We've had a housing crisis which has been decades in the making. National has a script which involves a tick every time they mention cost of living crisis". We heard that admitted in this House last week from the shadow Attorney-General Chris Penk. So Paul Goldsmith and Simeon Brown well done today but it wasn't enough to get either of you National's finance role. But let's do some myth-busting about the National Party. Yes people are doing it hard but the myth is that National actually cares about those who are doing it hard. The fact is that National is planning to target tax breaks to the highest earners rather than those most affected by rising prices. National wants to get rid of the top tax rate of 39 percent a tax that affects only the top 3 percent of earners. So we've heard that those earning $250000 per year or more would get a $5000 tax break. Meanwhile the lowest-income earners—cleaners and so on—would get $2.15 per week and those lower-income earners are mainly women. Women are doing it hard. Mothers are doing it hard—mothers who are juggling kids and jobs and working from home and dealing with historical pay gaps that see some groups of women earning an average of close to 30 percent of Pākehā men. So myth number two is that National and ACT care about women. National and ACT are election bedfellows so it's good to test how that marriage might work. Chris Luxon says he's a feminist even though he has spoken against abortion reform and voted against safe areas for women having abortions. David Seymour has even said on record that he would cut the Ministry for Women. Now it's great that National finally has a woman in the National Party finance role and I congratulate Nicola Willis. I would ask that member: would she agree to cut the Ministry of Women and would National and ACT delete free period products in schools—something introduced by this Government? I raise that because the Opposition maths doesn't add up. If they are cutting tax without reducing infrastructure spend then the money has to come from somewhere. The indications from the so-called feminist Opposition benches is that the first place those cuts will take place will impact on women. Why is that important? Well we know that policies which support women make a significant difference to ending child poverty because the most at-risk children are in one-parent households led by women. Now the data shows that we have a lot of progress there but there's still a long way to go. So I'd like to hear what Nicola Willis has to say about that too because child poverty can't end without policies which elevate the financial status of women. Myth number three is that National is better at managing the economy—not true. There's report after report that comes to the Finance and Expenditure Committee which talks about the good performance of the economy—outstanding performance—record unemployment and so on. We've heard about record manufacturing results in today's question time from the Minister of Finance and that success has been deliberate. We have used economic stimulus to keep people in jobs to maintain confidence and certainty and part of our response to the business sector has been targeted COVID support payments. That is to continue our commitment to provide cash flow and certainty for business. Now under National how can we have confidence and certainty when there's a constant change in leadership flip-flopping on borders a succession of finance spokespeople fiscal holes in their budgets and policies which actually advantage men in the workplace? What is true is that National is better at increasing the inequality gap including inequality for women. We have heard many of the things today around housing. We have heard things about "Who do we trust?". Our recovery is already well on track. We've heard from my colleagues about the difference that we will make to people by increasing the minimum wage from $15.75 in 2017 to $21.20 from 1 April next month. Now that's something that Chris Luxon complained about in November last year. He said that that was something that business would have to stomach. Well I say to the member women have had to stomach pay inequality for decades. The women—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time is up."