Radhakrishnan PriyancaHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Talofa lava Mr Speaker in recognition of Samoan Language Week. It is an absolute delight to stand and take a call and be part of this Budget 2021 debate today and it is a delight because there's so much in this Budget to speak of to talk about to highlight and that I'm proud of. It builds on the Budget of 2020 which was very much a Budget that laid the foundations and took us through an incredibly difficult period that we are basically still going through. However it was a Budget that invested in saving lives and livelihoods. It is quite unfortunate that the member who just resumed her seat chose to term that reckless spending". It was spending that as I mentioned saved lives and livelihoods and basically was an economic plan that we see is working. It is what has gotten us to the point that we're at today where we can actually look at investing further to address the infrastructure deficit that we've inherited to invest in ensuring that we take all New Zealanders with us when we improve the economy or mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19.We are in a pretty good position. We are seeing for example one of the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD. Growth has increased compared to what was forecast. Our debt as a nation is lower. But I do want to just point to something that the Prime Minister has said before: that there was no costless recovery when it comes to COVID-19. We basically had two paths that we could go down as a Government. There was the pathway of austerity and cuts which would have seen jobs disappear which would have seen a reduction in welfare spending. I just want to point to something that my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni—a point that she made when she spoke earlier today. She really highlighted what that austerity spending—what we've seen as a result of that. What we've seen in terms of hardship that families have gone through when they've lost their jobs and cuts in benefits as well is the entrenched intergenerational poverty that we are trying to reverse through successive Budgets. That's partly the trajectory of that that we're seeing through Budget 2021 as well.It is a careful cautious Budget. It takes into account the fact that we're in a much better position than was forecast at the start of COVID but it also recognises that we're not out of the woods yet. So it balances spending in some of those areas that I touched upon earlier and will go into a little bit more detail on but it also balances that with keeping a lid on the debt that we had to incur to invest in saving lives and livelihoods as I mentioned previously.When our Government took office this term we were very clear on the three focus areas for this term for us. The first of course was to continue to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19. The second was to focus on securing our recovery in the face of the economic impacts of COVID-19 and doing so in a way that was sustainable. The third was to continue to focus on addressing some of those long-term challenges that we face as a nation challenges like the housing crisis climate change and child poverty. That is exactly what you will see what members will see through Budget 2021 as well and I'm as I said at the start incredibly proud of it. It is a Budget that focuses on creating jobs and we know that about 221000 New Zealanders will be supported into employment as a result of Budget 2021. Just going back to that point about keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID though we see $1.5 billion that is still kept aside through Budget 2021 and is allocated to support the COVID-19 vaccine programme. We know that there will be enough of the Pfizer vaccine for everyone and I want to underscore this point: everyone regardless of immigration status across Aotearoa New Zealand.Going back to the economic impact of COVID and the steps that Budget 2021 takes to mitigate that impact we see that there is budget to support the infrastructure spend and address the infrastructure deficit that I alluded to before. The infrastructure investment now totals $57.3 billion over the next five years to increase for example housing supply and Minister Woods outlined in her contribution earlier today the $3.8 billion that goes towards the Housing Acceleration Fund. That will make land build-ready and speed up the building of new homes as one of the steps to address the housing crisis.So as I mentioned it takes our spending in infrastructure up to $57.3 billion and that is money that will be invested into our rail network roads schools hospitals housing—as I mentioned previously—and energy generation. It is what others—the economist Joseph Stiglitz for example—have mentioned is doing double duty. It's about doing what's right for us as a nation and also creating jobs at the same time.Speaking of jobs though I just want to also highlight the Training Incentive Allowance which we have reinstated expanded. As Minister Sepuloni mentioned in her contribution it was one of the first cuts sadly that the National Government made back in 2009 that locked out a whole generation of people who wanted to retrain upskill and transition into careers particularly to be able to take up educational opportunities at those higher levels. We are reinstating that and that will support 16000 New Zealanders into jobs.Speaking of the support that we're providing I'll just touch on support for small business because I know that as the Minister for Diversity Inclusion and Ethnic Communities that is often an area that is raised with me. We know through the support that we've provided to small businesses in the previous Budget that one of the areas that came up as an area for further investment was to support our small businesses to be part of the digital economy and to take up opportunities in that space. Small businesses we know are crucial to our economy and so I'm delighted to see $44 million invested to support digital business skills training and the package that includes advisory services to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) as well. That of course is in addition to the wage subsidy scheme the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme and the COVID-19 Resurgence Support Payment that we've seen previously. We know that about 30000 SMEs will benefit just from the Digital Boost training scheme and 15000 small businesses through the advisory services specifically as well.I also quickly want to touch on the boost to weekly benefits as well because it is a huge part of the philosophy of this Government where when we talk about the economic impact of COVID and mitigating that impact we know that economic shocks like COVID-19 don't affect us all in the same way. They disproportionately affect those who are particularly vulnerable or marginalised and so I'm incredibly pleased that we will see a lift in weekly benefits from between $32 and $55 per adult. That will roll out completely by April next year and will lift up to 33000 children out of poverty on the after-housing cost measure in 2022-23. So that coupled with reinstatement of the Training Incentive Allowance gives me great cause for pride really.I just want to use my time remaining to touch on the additional $5.3 million over the next four years to establish the new ministry for ethnic communities which I'm incredibly proud of and I want to take this opportunity to put on the record that many from across ethnic communities have been advocating for this and I'm proud that our Government is delivering that. As of 1 July we will have a new ministry that will take the place of the Office of Ethnic Communities keeping of course the expanded community engagement function. We almost doubled the resourcing to the office in the last term and increased the Ethnic Communities Development Fund eightfold. Now for the first time this entity will have a chief executive solely focused on lifting the wellbeing of our ethnic communities and driving the Government's policy programme in a way that also benefits our ethnic communities to take up the opportunities that they have often felt left out of.Can I just take the last few seconds of my contribution to pay tribute to the Prime Minister to the Minister of Finance and our Government for putting this Budget together—a Budget that will continue to lift the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. It's an inclusive Budget and it's one that I'm incredibly proud of. Fa'afetai lava."