Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I will try and speak quickly. I'll try and respond to some of the points and questions that were raised. I'll start with the member for the ACT Party David Seymour and the questions he raised around benefit increases and the increase to the winter energy payment. We made it very clear that the timing was appropriate given the need for an economic stimulus package and the fact that we understand that those in this country who earn the least will spend the money and that that will go back into the economy. That was not the only reason though. We have been looking at income adequacy through the welfare system as part of our confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party. We did have a list of recommendations that came from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG). We had already said that we couldn't do everything in the first Budget but we did do indexation we did lift abatement thresholds we repealed section 192 and there's a whole lot of culture change work that is going on as well as the investment in work-focused programmes. So the timing was appropriate and I'm glad that we were able to implement those as part of an economic stimulus package. They are not time limited. There are income adequacy issues in the welfare system. So it is appropriate that that is ongoing.We're not the first. The previous Government did lift benefits by $25 as well. The difference there was that they focused only on those on benefits with children and we extended it beyond that because we recognise that actually through the WEAG report a lot of people suffering hardship in this country are actually single and living alone. Many of them have health conditions and disability and are on benefits so we did not want to exclude them from that package.Can I also just refer to questions that were raised around our focus on employment and questions that were raised on our effectiveness with respect to supporting people into employment. What we did see was that actually in June if we're talking about that financial year we had something like 9.7 percent of the working-age population on benefit. That was lower than most if not all years that the previous Government were in. We also had an unemployment rate that surpassed any of the efforts under the previous Government. In June 2019 the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent. I know that the other side likes to focus on one set of numbers but we can't look at them in isolation from each other. I'll also say that the investment that we put into work-focused case managers in June last year already started to pay off in September last year where we actually saw a 13 percent higher level of cancellations of benefit for people who were going into work. I want to emphasise that strongly because we've always been focused on supporting people off benefit into employment and I really feel that under the previous Government often it was just supporting people off benefit with no real vision and support for where they might go to next. I think that that is a point of difference. I've been asked questions here about Mana in Mahi. It is actually our Minister of Employment that has responsibility for Mana in Mahi. But I would congratulate him on the job that he has done. At the end of March 2020 we had placed 717 clients into Mana in Mahi—and lots of other good results here. I know that the other side of the House likes to talk about the fact that they see the retention rate as being really low. But actually 68 percent of clients are either still actively participating or have completed the 12-month programme; 16 percent exited and have gone on to alternative pathways not back on benefit; and then 16 percent have exited and are currently on benefit and we will continue to support them and work with them so that they can realise their potential. But given the young people that we're working with I think that that actually is not a bad statistic. So I do want to recognise Minister Jackson in his work with Mana in Mahi. I was asked questions about the housing register and homelessness more broadly. I as Minister for Social Development do not have responsibility for the Homelessness Action Plan. That is led by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) although the Ministry of Social Development is an important partner. I want to acknowledge the fact that HUD has increased the number of public housing available I think in that financial year by over 2000 places. We came into Government there was a housing crisis and as a Government we were committed to fixing it. We stopped selling State houses and started building them.