Lees-Galloway IainHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. This Budget is an important part of this Government's efforts to transform our economy from one which is low wages and low skill and low productivity into one that is more productive that is more sustainable and that is more inclusive. More productive by investing in things like research and development tax credits; more productive by investing in education to make sure that young Kiwis have the skills that we need to grow more productive higher technology higher wage-paying business that are export-driven and that can lead us on the global stage to ensure that we are delivering real improvements for people in their lives.More sustainable: more sustainable by investing in green technology green businesses—our Sustainable Development Fund to invest in those businesses that will lead us through the transition to being carbon-neutral and to being more environmentally sustainable but also more sustainable from the perspective that we need our businesses to be strong. We need to be able to compete in the global economy. We need to be able to go out there and compete against businesses from all around the rest of the world and that means we need to have our settings in this country in a way that supports strong businesses.And more inclusive: more inclusive in I suppose the obvious ways like the Families Package that took those tax cuts that the previous Government was going to implement that were going to make every single one of us in this House better off and actually directed that money to the people who genuinely need it—those middle and lower income families that have the costs that come with raising kids the costs that come with soaring house prices and having to pay the bills. Those are the people who need that money far more than any single one of us so of course we're more inclusive in that fashion. But more inclusive through things like the Provincial Growth Fund more inclusive of all different parts of the country—all the different regions in the country need to be able to participate in our economy and need to be able to feel the benefits of a growing economy and that's what this Budget is all about.We are a Government that is focused on transformation but in order to truly transform the economy first we have to do some rebuilding. After nine years of our public services being starved this Budget was all about rebuilding those core public services that actually allow our businesses and our communities and our people to thrive. So yes a huge investment in health because it's not good enough that we've got hospitals literally leaking at the walls because of the under-investment of the previous nine years. I'm particularly pleased with the massive investment in education because if our youngsters today are going to be able to participate in the economy of tomorrow we must sort out our education system.So Budget 2018 has seen the biggest increase in education investment in over a decade providing a nearly 50 percent increase in new operating funding compared to National's last Budget. The most important part of the education budget to me is the investment in early childhood education because what I think a lot of people overlook is that those early years are just so important for building those foundations. Our investment in early childhood education and the opportunities that kids get in early childhood education actually have an enormous impact on the outcomes that they will get throughout their lives more so than just about any other part of the education system.Often people kind of downplay early childhood education. They put it to one side. They say the real work happens at primary and secondary and tertiary. I disagree. The foundations are built in early childhood education and that investment where we're seeing around 200000 Kiwi kids and over 4000 providers benefiting from the additional investment in Budget 2018 is I think something that this Government can be incredibly proud of.I want to talk very briefly about my own portfolios. One of the things that I have been committed to for some time is increasing the number of labour inspectors that we have here in New Zealand. Sadly for too long too many employers and too many industries have been built on the back of exploitation of their workforce—in particular the shameful exploitation of our migrant workforce. This Budget takes the first steps. It certainly doesn't go the whole way but it takes the first steps with an investment of $8.8 million to allow us to increase the number of labour inspectors so that we can have people out there on the ground proactively enforcing our employment law so that we don't see more cases like Smiths City where workers are expected to come to work and not get paid for the work that they do and so that we don't see more cases of migrants coming to New Zealand and having to pay their employer for the privilege of having a job. That is what that's about. New Zealand should be a place where people are proud to work where we take care of our workforce and not a place that has a reputation for exploiting its migrant workforce.Speaking of migrants another area that we've put more investment into is making sure that our Immigration Service is able to look at those people who are vulnerable to exploitation and make sure that our immigration system actually works to ensure that people who are coming to New Zealand are coming for genuine job opportunities and are genuinely able to engage in our economy and make the most of their opportunity when they come here. We have had too many cases of people trafficked to New Zealand to be exploited by their employer and the more that we can do to prevent that from happening—let alone detecting it once it has already happened—the better we can do to serve our migrant population and the better our reputation will be on the global stage.One area that I'm particularly proud of is the investment that ACC is making alongside the New Zealand Police and other agencies to support the survivors of sexual violence. We are establishing a lead agency to lead the Government's work on supporting survivors of sexual violence and putting more money into the provision of support for survivors of sexual violence. This is a piece of work that parliamentary under-secretary Jan Logie has led—the idea of bringing together different agencies around that issue and making sure that the investment from across those agencies is sufficient to provide the support that those people urgently need—and is one piece of this Budget that I am very very proud of.Overall what this Budget does is it builds the foundations on which we can actually achieve the transformation that we need. We need to see higher wages in this country and that is why this Government is pursuing reform to our industrial relations framework to ensure that working people can bargain for a fairer share of a prosperous economy. It is the right thing to do and for too long New Zealand has been an outlier. We have not followed the rest of the world in ensuring that working people do have a strong position in the workplace that they do have strong unions and that they are able to bargain for good terms and conditions and that is going to change under this Government.We are also reforming our immigration system to ensure that it provides the skills and talents that New Zealand needs. When people come to this country they bring their skills they bring their talents and they should have the opportunity to use them to their fullest. But at the moment under the previous Government's settings we've seen too many migrant workers going into low-paid low-skill jobs and not having the outcomes that they deserve when they come and make that decision to shift their lives here to New Zealand to participate in our society our community and our economy. We need to ensure that our immigration settings are giving those people the best opportunities they can but also ensure that they are supporting a growing economy a more prosperous economy and an economy that is focused on being productive sustainable and inclusive.I'm proud of what this Government has done with this Budget. We came to the last election saying that there was a lot of work that we needed to do and we came with a programme of work that would endure through this term of Parliament. There is a lot to fix and we were never going to fix it all with one Budget. That is a programme that is going to take at least three years and then there will be more. But this is the first opportunity that we have had to change the settings. It is a rebuilding Budget. It is an opportunity to build the foundations for a stronger more productive more sustainable and more inclusive economy where people's lives will be better and we are very proud of it.