Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Deputy Leader—Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. The member who just sat Nicola Willis asked the question Have any of the Labour MPs spoken to a superannuitant?" And let me tell you that I have spoken to a superannuitant and what that superannuitant said to me is "Thank you. Thank you for leading us through the biggest financial crisis in a century. Thank you for guiding our country through that crisis. Thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for keeping us alive. Thank you for the spending—the money that you have put into making sure New Zealanders are protected from COVID."She also asked about the results that we've been getting from the spending. Well I can tell you that a 3.2 percent unemployment rate is fantastic value for that money. But I'd just like to join in the congratulations of that superannuitant to our Finance Minister Grant Robertson. Grant Robertson has done an incredible job at leading New Zealand through this most challenging this most difficult of both financial and health times. Grant Robertson had our economy at the point where we were able to ride out the COVID crisis better than most countries around the world. Grant Robertson needs to be thanked over and over again for his incredible leadership when it comes to running the Budgets. Now I keep saying that my father once said to me "Doing what is right is not always easy but it is always right." And what Grant Robertson has done in guiding us with his Budgets over the last couple of years has been right because it has kept New Zealanders alive. We did hear from the ACT Party yesterday that they don't place much value on human life; instead they have other measures of success but human life is not one of them. And things aren't easy right now; we understand that. We understand that New Zealanders have been doing it tough for the last couple of years. But it would have been a lot more difficult if we didn't have the leadership of both Grant Robertson in the finance portfolio and the Prime Minister.We have protected New Zealanders from the ravages of the virus that takes no prisoners and if it had been left to run its course would have devastated our country. And I've spoken about my whānau being one in the last 100 years that has felt the impact of the influenza pandemic when my great-grandmother passed away in 1919—leaving my grandfather and his three equally young brothers without a mother. And as a Government we had a couple of options: one was to do nothing one was to do a little bit and the other was to go for broke. And we decided that we had to go for broke because it was the right thing to do. Leaving more boys and girls motherless or fatherless wouldn't have been right; it would have been a dereliction of duty. So we had to act and we had to act fast without the benefit of a manual to guide us.And did we as a Government ever believe that we would receive unanimous support for the path that we took? No never. Did we as a Government believe that making the hard decisions was going to win us universal adulation? No never. Did we as a Government ever think that political opponents would see this as an opportunity to belittle and deride everything we did to promote their own personal political aspirations? Of course we did. But we're up for the challenges and Grant Robertson has shown that he is up for the challenges because being belittled and derided by political opponents and those challenged by reality is simply the price a Government pays for doing what is right.So closing the borders was the right thing to do and lockdowns were the right thing to do and vaccinations and boosters are the right thing to do and vaccine mandates were the right thing to do and wage subsidies were the right thing to do and the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme was the right thing to do. All of those things cost money and yet we hear Simon Bridges sitting there saying that it was excessive. Now tell that to all the people who would have lost their jobs tell it to all those workers who were supported tell it to those businesses who were able to keep their doors open that Simon Bridges and the National Party believed with all their hearts that all that support—that financial support—was excessive.But we can see light at the end of the COVID tunnel and winding back those protections safely is also going to be the right thing to do. But none of them have been easy and none of them have been unanimously popular. There are always those out in the communities who wanted more and there were businesses that wanted more—they wanted more for themselves for their niche needs—there will always be those that throw out criticisms and personal insults and threats because they don't get what they personally want. And those criticisms those threats and those personal insults aren't easy to do deal with but that is the price a Government pays for doing what is right.As the finance Minister said the Government is continuing our work on our wellbeing approach and we're continuing to make progress against our core goals and those are: continuing to keep New Zealand safe from COVID-19 and accelerating the recovery and the rebuild from the impacts of COVID-19 and laying the foundations for the future including addressing the key issues such as climate change such as housing affordability and such as the child poverty response. And I as a Māori Minister know how important it is that we supported Māori through COVID-19 and to helping with the future. We created the $120 Māori Communities COVID-19 Fund to support Māori as we moved to the protection framework. And we built on this and recently announced the $140 million to support Māori and Pacific health providers to support their response to Omicron. And overall in health we allocated over $250 million to support Māori communities' response to COVID-19 and you can also see our commitment to Whānau Ora. Since the onset of COVID-19 this Government has contributed—or has invested I should say—over $150 million to support the Whānau Ora COVID response. But again Simon Bridges has said that all that investment in keeping people alive keeping Māori alive is excessive. And it goes to show how little value that not only the ACT Party but also the National Party put on human life. So the strength of this Government is in the way that we work with iwi and other community organisations. And that has been highlighted in the response to COVID-19 where we have met consistently with the National Iwi Chairs Forum with other iwi leaders not associated with that forum with other iwi leader groups in geographical-specific areas such as Tāmaki-makau-rau. Even this afternoon I have another three separate meetings with leaders from those significant Māori groups to continue to see how we can make sure that our response for Māori is successful.We've got to remember: we have had 65 deaths too many over the course of COVID-19—65 too many but we've got to remember that's not 65000 deaths that we're talking about. That's not 65 deaths a day. The investment that this Government has put into addressing COVID and will continue to put into addressing COVID is going to continue.These results continue our record of delivering for Māori and our record of delivering for our people. This Government has been well led and this country has been well led by Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson. And I go back to the very first question that I addressed: have we spoken to superannuitants? Of course we have and they are saying "Thank you." We know that there are people out there who are so grateful for the investment that this Government has put into keeping New Zealanders safe and we will continue to keep putting money into keeping New Zealanders safe because that is the right thing for us to do as a Government."