White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): I rise in support of this bill. It's been a very interesting thing to listen to both the National Party and the ACT Party make such a plea and yet fall so far short of anything that they can say that's positive about what has happened here. It actually does speak to a total lack of energy on the other side that they just cannot muster anything in this situation.We're in a situation where we have a Budget and a bill that's all about vision. It's about a vision for a better New Zealand and it comes after what was admitted by the Opposition to be one of our greatest economic crisis. This was a time which we could have actually very much failed at. Yes we are an island but the right calls were made at the right time and as a result we have actually survived a very catastrophic event and we're doing very well. This Budget doesn't just look backwards to that but it looks forwards to what sort of society will be absolutely resilient in the future. So we have a Budget that actually looks at pulling children out of poverty and it looks at building jobs and it looks at actually changing the way that this economy works so that it's environmentally actually sustainable and I'm extremely proud of this.What do we need to do to make those things happen? Well we've heard my colleagues talk about things like Lunches in Schools but we also need to get some of those fundamentals right. We need to make sure that families can sustain themselves and that means we need to lift wages. It means we need to make sure that our hospitals are actually working well and so are our houses—they need to be warm and dry.I was talking to Dr David Gellar during the campaign in 2017 and he was talking about when he had started in his practice he had started working in trauma because that's what happened in a hospital—there was a lot of trauma coming in—and by the time he had matured as a doctor the actual reason people were coming into the hospital was different. It was chronic disease and that chronic disease came out of things like bad housing. We had children with rheumatic fever and we were just ignoring that situation and we had children living in cars. That was one of the reasons that inspired me to come into politics. It was actually being in a situation where a Government had turned a blind eye to the fact we had children in those kinds of conditions. So it is a holistic approach. It is about bringing children into stable housing bringing them off the street out of the cars out of an underclass and back into the mainstream of our society. One of the things we've done with regards to that is we've put benefits up. We are going to have people at a dignified level right across the board and alongside that the working class. Most people in our country are going to earn a decent living and a lot of this is supportive of that so when people need retraining they will get retrained. They will actually be able to do an apprenticeship in something that will be helpful. In addition to that we will put work out there that actually makes this place a better place to be. I'm extremely proud of the amount that's being spent on infrastructure because for all the hue and cry there wasn't actually money being spent on maintaining our roads and there wasn't actually money being spent on looking forward to a situation where public transport would do what it must do in a world which is challenged by global warming. Now we're going to have a situation where we not only have better roads but we're thinking carefully about how we use them and we're making the best use of things like public transport and we're bringing back a sense of community. So when we are building things we're not just building them by rote. Recently there was a look at the infrastructure spend on roads. The Mill Road project got redesigned so that it is much more efficient. It is going to be one that builds itself around actually public transport and our suburbs in Auckland will be built around transport hubs and that will be a wonderful thing. One of the real roadblocks to that was that the councils were also being starved for money so they are going to be helped by a huge package. It was announced in the Budget but actually a lot of the detail was announced today. That is $3.8 billion of Infrastructure Acceleration Fund and that will be something that is available to people to actually jump start a lot of housing in Auckland. As an MP based in Auckland I am thrilled to see that because it was stopping that growth. This is a situation where we are going to apply that first $1 billion on the basis of criteria that were announced today. So money will be granted and it will be granted to councils or iwi or developers where it is going to mean that we can intensify greenfield or brownfield sites that we will be developing and giving money to groups that wouldn't otherwise get it so it would have been road-blocked. We'll be spreading the projects into different regions and we'll be making sure that it goes into situations where there might be co-funding by third parties so it actually brings about enough funding for those things to happen. We're very considering of things like the pipeline of work so it will absolutely make a difference right now to the ability to build housing and those councils and iwi and developers will be able to get that money if they want to do feasibility studies or design and they will be able to build all of the infrastructure which is actually stopping them at the moment. So we will be actually moving in an area that's extremely important to really bringing children out of poverty and creating a much better society. So this is a Budget that's all about vision. It has one at its centre. It's not just wellbeing; it's what wellbeing means. What wellbeing means to me is a much more equitable society where if you're on a benefit you'll be able to live—it won't actually stop things happening—and where the children in those situations won't be punished just depending on what kind of family they were born into. It's a really important development and it wasn't happening before this Government actually took the reins. So that's leadership—that's what's important. There's a whole lot of money that really has gone into making sure that we have been protected as a society from COVID and it was money absolutely well spent. But there's also a lot of money that's going into a vision for New Zealand and it's a vision I'm extremely proud of. Now I just wanted to talk about walking and cycling in Auckland because I for one am extremely proud of our commitment to build a walking and cycling pathway from the city centre into the North Shore and I just wanted to point out to people something about that. That actually means that you'll be able to get from Lincoln Road which is in the west and you'll be able to cycle along—and I actually do cycle along. I go on my scooter along that pathway. You'll be able to cycle right into the city. You'll be able to go across K Road right down you'll be able to go across the bridge and you'll actually be able to go as far as Takapuna. That's a beautiful thing. I think we forget that some of this is about having a good life that that makes a huge difference to New Zealand and when the original bridge was built it was actually built without thinking about that stuff. People were basically living in two separate cities with the bridge connecting them. This is one city and it's a very beautiful city and it's going to be even more beautiful after the announcements today that were made about the Hauraki Gulf and protecting it. This is a cohesive plan people and that is what the Labour Party has. It has vision. It has a cohesive plan and it's about equity and inclusiveness and fairness and a good good quality of life for New Zealanders—the ones who get the lunches at the schools and the ones who actually have parents working trying to make those ends meet beyond that—because it's become a very difficult thing and it's got to become easier for all walks of life in New Zealand. I'm extremely proud to be part of a Government that's doing that. I commend this bill to the House.