Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Last week was a fantastic week because it was Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. I was really encouraged by the positive crowd out on the forecourt who came here to remember the 50-year commemoration or anniversary of the petition for te reo Māori. In that vein of te reo Māori and so that we don't lose momentum as I notice all of my colleagues around the House post on their social media fantastic Māori words and phrases let's continue with a few other Māori words this week outside of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. The first one is ka rawe" which means "awesome". Ka rawe sir—awesome. And that's exactly what's happening as we've looked towards the economic growth in this country. It is awesome. We compare ourselves to other countries and I can tell you our GDP and our economic recovery is favourable on a world standard. I want to thank our Minister of Finance for the work that he did and highlight too the point that was made by Minister Hipkins when he was right in saying that on the other side of the House we were told we're not doing enough; we need to invest more money into our businesses. So we did that through the COVID response. Now we're hearing from the other side "Oh no no you need to cut back on that. Actually we need to make sure that we don't waste the money." Well I can tell you every business that I went to in particular Māori businesses in Tāmaki-makau-rau said to me "Ka rawe." That's another word for us today. The next one is "ngākau rorotu". For those who don't know what that means that means "optimism" and optimism is really abundant in our communities. Why? Because we've come through COVID and they felt supported through COVID. We looked towards a summer where—for example just yesterday at the Whānau Ora conference the optimism there was huge because our whānau are better off having come through COVID with the support. We are far better connected to the services that we need we are doing the mahi to make sure that that momentum isn't lost and the optimism amongst those families and those people that work with those families is absolutely huge. And I want to thank them all for their mahi through COVID-19. So that word again just for the House is "ngākau rorotu"—optimism. The next one is "mahi". Some translate that as "work"; I'm going to translate that today as "employment". And what we've seen from this Government and its stewardship of the economy is record low unemployment. In fact when I started—in fact you and I sir started in this House at the same time; class of 2014 kia ora. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: It's your anniversary.Hon PEENI HENARE: It sure is. And I can tell you sir that Māori unemployment rates when you and I started in this House were double digits—double digits. Today it is record low unemployment numbers for Māori; record low unemployment numbers across the country. And that's because of the strong stewardship of this Government with our economy with our employers with the sectors right across this country that continue to employ our people to support our people and our communities and I'm proud of those numbers. But we've got more work to do and we don't deny that fact. We know that there are lots of places screaming out for kaimahi screaming out for workers. I want to reiterate the point of Minister Hipkins: training them our workforce and training our own people is really important and we've got to invest in that and this Government has done that. Apprenticeships training upskilling—we took the opportunity through COVID-19 to make sure that we can have an opportunity to train and upskill our workforce and we're doing that. But I want to be clear on this: yes we might look towards immigration to relieve some of the pressures but it cannot be the only answer for the future of this country. We believe in investing in our own people to make sure that they can meet those demands into the future. The next phrase is "haere tonu" or "get on with it". Just last week I attended the 75th birthday of Hawkins Downer one of the large construction companies in this country. They said they're getting on with the mahi with the support of this Government. And I want to point out the Ōhākea build that's happening at Ōhākea base right now. Over $250 million into that local economy over 450 people employed through that entire project and it's on time and it's on budget and we're really excited for the first arrival of the P-8 in December. So that's the phrase "haere tonu"—just getting on with the mahi. The last one is "whakapono"—belief. Whakapono is important because I believe that this country coming into summer is going to enjoy a very good summer. Tourism numbers will rise the optimism will continue to grow and our people will do well. We look forward to enjoying the summer and I look forward to celebrating it with our communities right across this country. Kia ora."