Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): This Government is focused on outcomes not outputs. Our social investment programmes are about putting the citizens at the heart of what we do about delivering durable positive outcomes—outcomes that change their circumstances for the better and for the long term. Whether it is in reducing welfare dependency improving educational outcomes improving health outcomes or improving job prospects and incomes this Government is focused on the things that work. Because we live in an information age we are also focused on using information to pinpoint and target the areas for our investment—information that permits us to target the right policies and to deliver the right outcomes to the right people.We see this and we have seen this for some time in welfare—where a joined-up Government can understand its citizens and can understand them not only as citizens but as customers who are reliant on services that they receive from Government agencies. This is a Government that can use that information to understand its customers better to understand their needs and understand what will work for those individual customers and then set the machinery of Government to deliver just that.Let us contrast that for a moment with the previous Labour Government. That Labour Government was not focused on outcomes; it was focused on outputs. It was focused on looking like it was busy and not on what that apparent busyness actually achieved. This Government focuses on measures: on what actually changes on what the outcomes are that we have received—Hon Annette King: What have you measured?BRETT HUDSON: What have we measured? Well thank you Mrs King. What have we measured? We have measured for instance 300000 more jobs since the heart of the global financial crisis. There are another 170000 jobs forecast by 2020. We have an economy that is growing at 3.6 percent and is forecast to continue to grow strongly over the coming years. What does that mean Mrs King? It means more jobs for Kiwi families and it means higher incomes. Average wages have grown 25 percent over the last few years—25 percent. They are picked to reach $63000 by 2020. Why? Because the Government knows that by focusing on how to drive the economy stronger we deliver better outcomes for our citizens.We do that on welfare too. We started when we focused on teen parents—solo parents—whom we could understand tended to be out of the workforce or out of training or education. We gave some wraparound services and mentoring services and encouraged them back into either training or work. Why did we do that? We understood that by doing that you would create better prospects for that individual and for their children. You help to break the long-term dependency on welfare. That is the sign of a Government that actually cares about its citizens that cares about what influence its services are actually delivering and how you can change someone's life for the better.We do this in education too. As the Hon Hekia Parata told us we are investing enormous amounts of money into providing the learning environments for our children to teach them what they need for tomorrow not for the past. The worst thing that we can do for our children is educate them for the past. Instead we are making the investments to help them to gear up and be ready for the jobs of the future. Along the way we are also taking the data—taking the information—about the most at-risk children in terms of learning outcomes across our schools and then targeting more operational spending at those schools so that they can apply it to the areas—to those at-risk children—so that they too can achieve to the very best of their potential in education.This is a Government that cares about not only doing things but what actually those things achieve. It is a Government that understands that it is not just an agent that acts upon its citizens it is also a Government that has a responsibility to help to ensure that they can lead the very very best lives available to them. It is a Government too that understands that a strong economy is the vehicle for giving the Government the revenues to continue to invest in those sorts of social programmes and those sorts of outcomes. It is investing in the prosperity and the brighter future for all New Zealand citizens. This Government is doing a wonderful job. It is doing a job that is about outcomes not outputs and I think that we can look forward next year to a contest in the wider electorate where perhaps they may return us for a fourth term.