Lee Melissa: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16288. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): I would like to start my contribution by talking about what Miss Ardern talked about. She seemed to discount the fact that immunisation forour children is important and that home insulation is important. These are very important factors. These are the deliverables that we have delivered as a Government.As Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic Affairs I am often meeting dignitaries from many different countries who visit our shores and often their conversations turn to compliments about New Zealand and how New Zealand is in an enviable position with our economic outlook even with the devastating earthquakes that Canterbury has gone through. New Zealand is in fact on track to deliver a surplus in 2014-15 when most other countries are in deficit. What this means is that we start to pay off our debt. What the Opposition members do not seem to understand is that when they borrow the money to pay people whatever they actually promise they are putting our future and the future of our children and our grandchildren in debt for a very very long time.More jobs have been created. Seventeen thousand fewer people were on a benefit in December 2013 compared with the year before. There are 12000 fewer kids in benefit-dependent homes than there were in December 2012. Long-term welfare dependency is falling and we are continuing to help families and older New Zealanders with income support. In the past year this Government helped 80000 people off welfare and into work. Paid work is the best route out of hardship for families who are finding it difficult to make ends meet. I remember a saying that is something like this: give a man a fish and it will feed him for a day but when you teach the man how to fish it will feed him for a lifetime. When you just give him a handout he may be able to feed himself and his family for a day but when you actually teach him to work and go and find a job he might be able to provide for himself and his family for the rest of his life.There was an extra $900 million in the last Budget alone that was targeted for vulnerable children and their families. I am very proud of what this Government has actually provided for New Zealanders in the last 5 years of being in Government. This is a very different picture from when voters elected the National-led Government back in 2008. The worst global financial crisis had struck New Zealand and New Zealand was already in recession. Treasury advice signalled that we would be in Budget deficits and increasing debt for a very very long time. The debt projection was actually $150 billion and the current debt projection is around $50 billion. That is like cutting $100 billion off the debt—not million but billion. If you look at it in a family situation imagine that a family has a $150000 mortgage and they work really really hard to reduce the mortgage debt down to $50000. That difference will make a humungous difference to the family and what they can do as a family and the budget that they actually have. That is what this Government has delivered for New Zealand: $100 billion off our debt. That I have to say is an amazing outcome that this Government has delivered for New Zealanders.This Government is focused on growing our economy to provide more jobs and rising incomes to provide a positive result for New Zealand. But many families and businesses are still finding it quite difficult. I know. I have heard from even my community from people within the ethnic communities that often they are the ones who are in fact struggling because they come from other countries often they do not speak the English language and they find it difficult to get into careers or jobs that they were used to in their home countries. Yet they actually celebrate the fact that they are living in this country which is very generous compared with where they come from. We provide for New Zealanders. On average wages are increasing faster than inflation and business confidence is at its highest level in 20 years.