SpeechANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill and it is with great pleasure that I do so. I have spoken before in this House about how in the good old days when I taught economics we would have parties on Budget day. Yes there are people in this country who are excited about this process and I think it's because they understand this is a democratic way that we decide as a society how best to invest in our nation.But I'm wondering if actually it would be better to have our little party on this day because what we've had an opportunity to do since Budget day is go out into our communities and listen to people when they say Oh it's wonderful that you've continued to invest in this great project." or "It's great that you've decided to back us in this way."—whether it's been with public housing whether it's been in health whether it's been in education or infrastructure we have made sure that we are investing in our society and I think it kind of feels like today is a much more appropriate day and I'll be giving that advice to my former colleagues who are excited about economics in their classrooms.So this Budget has been pretty unique and I can understand why the Minister of Finance was so proud of it. That ability to balance the significant challenges being faced every day by New Zealanders around the cost of living but at the same time moving to a more sustainable way of approaching a budget—having that more sustainable approach while we have still been able to push back with COVID investment and sustain and build our public services that everyone holds so dear and also to respond to those significant weather events in January and February. How do we manage to do this? How do we manage to pat our heads and rub our tummies at the same time? I think I'd like to reflect on a few parts; but I'd like to start with the really big really global context and pull it right back to a particular example in education. So when we talk about our Wellbeing Budget—and this is not the first one but it is world-leading. The fact that our Budget is built on OECD and best practice internationally; and it is world leading. We have a Living Standards Framework that allows us to be inter-generational in our thinking and our investment. This isn't about just what others would call "just spending money". When we keep hearing challenges from the other side it's all about making cuts to spending when what every line in this Budget is about is investing.When you look at our Living Standards Framework and you look at the dashboard and it talks about the indicators of the wealth of Aotearoa New Zealand you'd think from the other side that would simply be the financial and physical capital that our nation possess but that's only one aspect of wealth. We've heard so many speakers speak since Budget day about our natural environment—the wealth that that provides us—and this Budget invests in that. Our social cohesion our human capability—these are aspects of wealth that our Treasury values and makes sure is considered when we put our Budget together. So that approach—that ability to be thinking inter-generationally to be progressive to be ambitious for our nation for our economy our people our whenua—is why this Budget looks very different from anything that could possibly have been suggested from the other side of the House.So I'm just going to narrow it down a little bit and I am going to talk about wealth with regards to human capability. When we think about education we've heard about the thousands of classrooms that have already been built and the commitment in this Budget to building 300 more. The four new schools the 175 small rural schools that are getting retrofitted. The significant investment in the place within which our students learn and our teachers teach we've got to make sure that they are warm they are dry they are fit for purpose. We invest so much in our students and they deserve to have good places to learn so we're investing in them.We're investing in our tertiary system. We know that not just the Apprenticeship Boost which is going to be enabling tens of thousands more workers to become more highly skilled—that's 57000 to date; another 30000. This is about enabling a just transition. This is about making sure that we invest in our human capability and capacity to make sure that we are where we want to be in a generation's time. We've had the largest increase in investment in our university system in 20 years because we know it isn't just the significant commitment we've made to the reform of vocational education through Apprenticeship Boost and supporting employers who are taking on those magnificent people who have so much potential but in our universities as well. At the other end we've heard a lot in this House about the 20 hours' additional early childhood education. We know that by having these incredible early childhood educators these experts who really are at the most critical part of human development being able to support families and support children as they start off on their lives—it's really exciting. And talking about having to think intergenerationally I think that's such a fine example.The continuation of school lunches and of course making sure that not only do they have full tummies but actually they can get to school. The continuation of under-13s having free public transport. For our young people under 25 every penny counts to be able to have half-price public transport. That isn't just about making sure that life's a little bit more affordable for our young people but that's about having a modal shift and making sure that you get into the habit of using that train or that bus—that's an investment not just in our environment but in growing a great society.At this point I want to talk about—because I could talk about a huge number of wonderful things that are happening in education but I just want to come on to one more in particular; narrow it down a little bit more. I want to talk about alternative education. It is our most vulnerable students the ones who are at risk or are already disengaged from mainstream education that we've seen those students and we're investing in them because we know that they have such potential and they deserve our backing.I just want to reflect for a moment about what an alternative budget might look like from the other side of the House. While we choose to invest in our schools with buildings with investing in our teachers with supporting the schools through investing in those who are trying to bring their students back to class who've been absent we see on the other side of the House that they intend to—when they see the challenges that our public education system is facing they say "Let's just abandon them." On the other side they want to abandon our public education system. They want to say "Good luck. We'll cash you up and you can become a charter school." That's what they want to do.I want to be very clear in this House today what charter schools are and where they came from. We know they are a direct result in the United States when in 1954 as a result of Brown v Board they outlawed segregation in public schools in the United States. So there were parts of that community who didn't like integration so they decided to set up schools where there was more choice. That choice isn't for our most vulnerable students and their families; that is a choice those who sit outside of the school. What charter schools do is they give more choice for those who are inside the school gate to exclude students and say "You know what we're just going to look after the ones we want to look after and good luck to the rest of you." That is not an investment approach. That is not something that I can see Treasury supporting when we are looking at building the wealth of human capability and that is one thing I'm really proud of in this Budget. So I commend it to the House."