Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. After that speech I do feel the need to bring it up a notch and bring some positivity back into this House. It's actually a real pleasure to take a call today because it has been a week of some great steps forward in our recovery and rebuild.Just to start with a couple of headlines: health Minister Andrew Little announced more support for mums and whānau struggling with alcohol and other drugs. Sport and recreation Minister Grant Robertson and economic development Minister Stuart Nash have welcomed confirmation that New Zealand will host the opening ceremony and the opening match of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.Then of course we had the housing package and we had the announcement yesterday of the opening of the quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia giving our economic recovery a further boost. But wait there's more—of course! On 1 April we had a raft of changes that will come into force that will raise incomes for more than 1.4 million New Zealanders. It includes a boost to the minimum wage but also a 3.1 percent increase to main benefits and superannuation. We also are seeing the largest rise in abatement levels in two decades. Basically that means that people who are on a main benefit and who are also working part-time will now be able to receive more of the money that they earn. So lifting the minimum wage is really about fairness for our workers and roughly around 175000 people will receive a pay rise in that time.So if we look for example as a comparison during their nine years in Government National increased the minimum wage by $3.25. In comparison since 2017 when we got into Government we have already lifted it by $4.25. In real terms that means that a full-time worker on the minimum wage now earns an extra $170 before tax thanks to Labour's changes. For a Kiwi working full time on the minimum wage they will be earning an extra $44 a week before tax and it's estimated that in the economy that will mean an extra $216 million going around. And that's not a risk to the economy; that is a responsible and compassionate step to give Kiwis more money in hand and help New Zealand with its economic recovery.Many of the people who will benefit from this rise are also the same people that we all benefited from in our COVID response. Now my colleague Willow-Jean the MP for Northland already mentioned this of course but these are the people that kept us going during COVID and we can't say this enough and I again would like to take this opportunity to actually mihi our essential workers who kept New Zealand going during those most unprecedented times. These are our supermarket workers our security guards our cleaners our bus drivers and all the other essential workers that we depended on so heavily when we had this lockdown last year.The people who will benefit from this pay rise of the minimum wage are exactly the people who will need this and the minimum is after all exactly what it is: it's just a minimum. And the workers who are getting it went above and beyond for us and they deserve not only our gratitude for what they did and continued recognition for what they did for the country but they also deserve this minimum wage increase. So there is obviously a lot more to do and our Government does recognise this but this is positive progress in the right direction that will see New Zealand better off. And of course when compared to some of the rhetoric that we hear from the other side it is very clear who New Zealanders picked to lead them through the unprecedented times and the challenging times that we've had over the last year—that was our brilliant Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leading our team of 5 million all through hard work and sacrifices to get us on top of this epidemic and make sure that we compared to other countries are able to kick-start our economies. So we are united and we are focused and we are getting on with the job of getting Aotearoa New Zealand through an unprecedented time in our history.We already did this before the pandemic arrived on our shores. We were sowing the seeds of change we continue to do this and we have actually only been able to accelerate it due to the fact that we went hard and early when COVID arrived on our shores. We do also know that we won't be able to solve all of our problems overnight—they are longstanding issues—but we have already laid the foundation for change in our first time and of course first term and we are continuing in the right direction.I will also express my aroha for Kiritapu Allan.