O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's indeed an honour to speak for the first time this parliamentary year and to support the Prime Minister's statement. The most important question the one asked by the youngest New Zealanders the children is: Why?" I've always believed that that is the most important question they ask and we should ask always. There have been over the last couple of years here in facing the COVID challenges thousands of decisions made by my colleagues often shared with members of the Opposition—a heads-up on these things. They are hard decisions and the question of "Why?" is a reasonable one that everyone should ask about those decisions. There are people outside the Parliament here who are somewhat confused. Their answer is not the answer that we would provide. I believe that the PM's "why" through her statement is the one shared by Māori. My good mate Willie Jackson would say I'm a very poor student of tikanga Māori. He's probably right but I do keep trying. Māori have a saying: "What is the most important thing in the world? He tangata he tangata he tangata." Everything that we have done in Government through COVID and before that is for people for New Zealanders. There was some wisdom in the previous speaker Brooke van Velden's statement but there was an underlying view that we are here for business. What a ridiculous statement. We are here for people. The view that people are here for business is not true. Businesses are here for people—the owners the customers the employees—but we're not here as the slaves for business. We are here to support people—New Zealanders first and foremost.When COVID broke out we reached out to people who were researchers around the world. We reached out to them for their knowledge to develop the vaccines. We reached out to healthcare workers. Fortunately we weren't confronted with the realities of COVID like other countries but we had the wisdom to stay ahead to ask the questions to ensure that we put in place provisions to protect our people at every part and stage and sector of our community and society. We remain committed to that and we'll always remain committed to that. He tangata he tangata he tangata.We realise that the people we needed were not just doctors and nurses but actually supermarket workers truck drivers and people who worked on farms and we moved firstly to protect them from what could have been a flood of COVID and then to ensure that we had assistance for them through the wage subsidy. We ensured we had assistance to business to ensure that the people who owned businesses—not the businesses; the people who owned them—were in a position to be able to continue to keep that business going if they thought it was viable.We moved to cushion the blow that was going to occur to our economy but we focused on the people and we will continue to. And it worked. Our economy bounced back. Firstly we dealt with COVID. Then we had the onslaught of Delta and that set us back a little bit and now we have Omicron but we worked our way systematically through those challenges and yes it has interrupted business and yes it's interrupted people's lives but the facts speak for themselves. The lowest level of deaths and hospitalisations in the OECD: something each and every one of us should be proud of. It's not us; it's every New Zealander who has committed to do the right thing and I thank them for that.But the question of why we've done this is important. There are businesses out there and there are business owners and people who worked in those businesses that might have lost jobs or lost all their savings. Take the primary sector where because of the border closures we didn't have the people working in to do the jobs across many of the sectors. So firstly we got alongside the training establishments the people who could help upskill those people taking on board the fact that many people had lost their jobs in tourism and assisting them to transition across. We did that from the top of the country to the bottom and we kept places like Taratahi and Telford going. In fact we built them up after they'd been run down by the previous National Government. We built them up to provide the courses to provide the skills to people who needed to transition into other jobs. It may be temporary; it may be long-term.We are approaching $50 billion in primary sector export earnings—never ever before achieved—through the COVID pandemic. Yes it has been challenging. Yes I acknowledge the changes and challenges for people in those sectors but congratulations—we have done it because we're Kiwis and because we've built on the values of egalitarianism and equality of opportunity but ensuring there are safeguards and protections for those people who are unfortunate. It's not for business. If we have good well-trained healthy people we will have vibrant businesses and a healthy economy. The facts speak for themselves. The $50 billion is a success story through COVID and I doubt that there's any other country in the world that's achieved that sort of growth that sort of success. Yes there are some sectors like tourism and hospitality that are doing it hard and we'll work through to help them. We have a trade agenda. We've always been as a trading nation focused on trade but we now have a new agenda called Trade for All. There was growing concern that trade was just benefiting some people some businesses and not flowing through to each and every New Zealander. Our Trade for All strategy ensures that what we negotiate through trade agreements what we do to facilitate trade through the Government agencies—New Zealand Trade and Enterprise the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and all that good work—enables all New Zealanders to see the benefits of that. Because we had in summary still a low-wage economy we lifted the minimum wage. We had to do that. There is huge pressure on people on low incomes. We need to lift that up and for a nation that is proud of its innovation that's enjoying the success of record commodity prices at the moment we have to keep in mind that sharing some of that wealth will ensure that we have a better future. Build back better—that's been said a lot around the world. Well we have to do that not just talk about it. So sharing that wealth that we create among all of society is absolutely crucial to ensure that all New Zealanders benefit.There is a lot happening in the trade area. We have of course just announced the date—7 April—of the free-trade agreement with China negotiated in 2008 by the previous Labour Government and now upgraded by this Labour Government to give us growing opportunities into that big market. But that's not enough. We have to diversify. We have to open the doors in the UK and the EU and work across the globe to ensure the fine high-quality products and services we produce can be sold around the world to generate the wealth we need. We're reconnecting with the world. It has been hard to bring New Zealanders in. No the ACT Party is completely wrong to say we didn't bring in healthcare workers. Those are misconstrued facts mistruths the kind of misinformation that goes out to the people in front of Parliament to fuel their unfortunate ignorance and views.We will allow people in as long as we can ensure that the hard work that Kiwis have done to save lives in this country is not undermined by a rush for a few months a month here or two to get people back. We know we need them. We know that in viticulture and horticulture there are seasonal pressures and we're doing all we can to alleviate those pressures and then moving on through into dairy. But so too are other sectors and the one that is most important—and there's no wealth without health and if we think we can run our healthcare workers into the ground through a COVID pandemic and outbreak they'll be packing their bags and leaving through exhaustion. We need to look after them. I want to thank them for what they've done to prepare. They will be facing more infections and a healthcare system under pressure but I have confidence in what my colleague the Hon Andrew Little is doing to bolster the healthcare system and in what we are doing as a Government to focus on people: he tangata he tangata he tangata. That is why a Labour Government is in power. That is who we govern for: the people of this country—all of them."