Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): We've heard that speaker Grant Robertson crow about the Prime Minister's video about the two years of delivery. Well let's just do a bit of fact-checking. Actually no the New Zealand Herald have done that. Let us talk about the bits that they don't want you to hear. They don't want to hear 22000 extra people on the jobseeker benefit—on the dole. Rents are up $50 a week. The number of hardship grants is higher than it's ever been before because more and more Kiwis are doing it tough. In the three months to September benefit advances—in most cases people have to pay them back—were over 200000 in a three-month period. The number of young people is tragically up 25 percent since they took office—that's young people on the dole. Electricity and gas hardship payments are up 5000 on the year despite supposedly having a winter energy payment. The number on the social housing register is over 13000 people and they're waiting far longer than they've ever waited before. The one that is tragic though is the number of children in benefit-dependent homes has increased by over 4000 in just three months. So those are not the figures and the facts that the Prime Minister will be crowing about. She wants to hide those figures because this is the truth of how hard some of our Kiwis are doing it under the Labour New Zealand First and Greens Government. Instead on this side of the House we've been doing the work. We're looking for solutions that actually break the cycle of benefit dependency and support individuals and families getting into work. The previous National Government raised benefits in 2016 for the first time in over 30 years. All this Government's done is to actually lift the cost of living. So we know on this side that when people are in need what we need to do is provide them with the ability to get back up on their own two feet and to give them a hand up and we do believe that Kiwis should always and must always have a safety net in their times of need. So our social services discussion document focuses on giving Kiwis targeted and tailored solutions that will help make the biggest difference in their lives and yes we want to measure that success through targets because actually we know that's what makes the biggest difference. That's what channels the efforts of the thousands of Government department employees who are tasked with improving the lives of New Zealanders and targets support them working together to achieve that. So targets—for example reducing the number of children who live in benefit-dependent homes because we know 60 percent of the children living in material hardship live in benefit-dependent homes. This side makes absolutely zero apologies for focusing on those kids and their needs. So that's why we are reintroducing the social investment approach because that is about changing lives: making sure there are fewer children in benefit-dependent homes and making sure that gang members and their associates cannot access welfare if they are already deriving illegal incomes. We'll partner with community housing providers and continue to support Housing First which of course has been incredibly successful in supporting those who are homeless. But we're also committing to increasing post-natal care so that every mum for every birth gets at least a three-day stay in a facility of their choosing because this side of the House knows and supports the evidence that says the first thousand days of a child's life set the direction and the path for the rest of their lives. We also want to make sure that parents can take paid parental leave at the same time—thanks to my colleague the Hon Amy Adams—we also want to make sure that superannuation is no less than 66 percent of the average wage and we want to also provide a nationwide action plan to help communities with parenting support and resources because there's not a week that goes by when Kiwis don't say the thing that would make a difference for them is parenting. We know on this side of the House it's not kind or caring to pile on extra taxes and costs on Kiwis and that's exactly what Labour New Zealand First and the Greens are doing. More and more Kiwis are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their house. We'll fix it.