Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): As we stand here today debating Budget 2020 in New Zealand with one active case with several weeks of new cases on a daily basis with an extremely low mortality rate and with the real prospect of the elimination of COVID-19 in New Zealand in sight it is very easy to forget that a global pandemic still rages around the world. That there are thousands of people dying every day; tens of thousands of new cases; over 100000 dead in the United States—a country that now has an unemployment rate of around about 25 percent—that our nearest neighbours our cuzzies in Australia still have hundreds of cases of COVID-19 with new outbreaks happening most days. The first thing that I want to say in this contribution is that we cannot take for granted or overlook the enormity of what our team of 5 million here in New Zealand have achieved together in beating back COVID19. Under our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern we have had a decisive health response to beat back COVID and that is what gives us the opportunity now for an economic recovery to rebuild and to give New Zealanders the wellbeing into the coming years that they deserve.That wasn't by chance. It didn't just happen. It wasn't easy. People made sacrifices at every level and in every sector of our society and it ill behoves members of this House to write that off just to say We've got a big moat" as I heard earlier on in this debate from across the House "So of course it was going to be easy for New Zealand." People stayed at home. People shuttered their businesses. Some people lost their businesses and their jobs. Kids didn't go to school. Churches mosques and synagogues didn't open. People came together in the spirit of solidarity to save the lives of their fellow New Zealanders. What is so important about the approach that New Zealand has taken—and our Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance Grant Robertson have said this right throughout and throughout the Budget—is that the best health response was also the best economic response. We did not say as countries like Sweden did that we'd effectively sacrifice lives. We said we would not do that because not only is that the wrong thing to do—New York City let me give you an example of that. In the over-75 age group in New York City one in 60 people have died. That's what we face potentially. So not only have we saved lives and done the right thing but because of that decisive action because we did go hard and we did go early because our lockdown was strong—and yes I say to members on the other side of the House it was stronger than most other places and that was the right call—because we did that we are in this position where we have substantially beaten back COVID where we're on the cusp of elimination and we now have amongst the freest economic and social conditions in the world with the serious prospect next week that we might be able to free things up further if the evidence continues to stack up. That is a significant achievement for New Zealanders and it is also due to the decisive leadership of our Prime Minister and of the Government.This Budget is a Budget which now gives us the opportunity to rebuild and to recover. I've got to say a word about the utter incoherence of the Opposition on this today. We've heard a line that they've been parroting over the last week or two since their leadership transition. I think their focus groups told them that their criticisms of the Government's public health approach were not sticking because they were plainly so wrong. So they start everything by saying now "Yes we give the Government credit for managing the health situation well." They then follow that up by undermining every single public health measure. A member of the House on that side who spoke within the last half hour compared social distancing to Nazi Germany. At every step along the way whatever level we've been at they have agitated and undermined and said that we need to go faster and make things more loose. Then when we do because we've got the results and done it at the right time they just go to the next level. That's what we're hearing today in the constant petty baying at every single step to just go down a level regardless of what the evidence says. Well that's not the approach that we're going to take on this side of the House.It's the same in terms of their analysis of this Budget and their analysis of the economic path to recovery. Because what we've heard from those members today is: there's too much debt we're spending too much but also we're not spending enough and we need to give businesses more. So let's take the policies that they've announced over the last couple of weeks. The policy to give $10000 for every new employee—regardless of whether that person lasts for a week or not the employer gets it. There are so many holes in it it's just absolutely incredible. It's been costed by a credible economic commentator at between $8 billion and $10 billion to create the number of jobs they say it will. But they're saying we should be spending less and have less debt.They say in their speeches that Government doesn't have a role in stimulating the economy and can't create jobs. But then in the very next breath tell us that we need that policy and we need their GST policy to support businesses and create jobs. It is an incoherent mess. And it is no surprise to me that a party that cannot govern itself isn't capable of putting together a credible plan to help New Zealand recover and rebuild from one of the greatest economic and social crises that we have faced since the Second World War.I am incredibly proud of the Budget. There's been a lot of focus on the big stuff in there—the wage subsidy scheme over $11 billion that supported 1.67 million workers to retain their jobs through COVID-19 and will extend for a couple of months to come; the work that's gone into providing cash flow to small businesses $3 billion coming back into businesses through the tax loss carry-back scheme; $1 billion of interest-free loans to help those small businesses keep moving; the $1 billion investment in environmental jobs giving people jobs while also making environmental improvements in our country; the massive investment in trades training. As Grant Robertson said in his Budget speech this Government won't do what the National Party did at the depths of the 1991 recession and leave our young people on the socio-economic scrap heap. We will give them jobs and skills and training and opportunity. That will support those young people and their wellbeing and it sets our country up for greater productivity in the future as well. I'm proud of the fact that in this Budget we are funding 100 percent qualified early childhood education teachers because while we are dealing with the crisis of COVID-19 we're not going to take our eye off the ball of the things that make a difference for New Zealanders and few things make a bigger difference in our society than quality education of our young people.But as well as that big stuff I wanted to touch on some of the smaller initiatives in the Budget that haven't got so much limelight but I think really speak to the character of this Budget of this Government and of the recovery that we are building—an inclusive recovery for all New Zealanders. There's $3.5 million in here to improve walking access for people because we believe that it's important that New Zealanders are able to experience the incredible beauty of this country. There's $5 million dollars in there for National Animal Identification and Tracing because yes as members of the Opposition have said and I completely agree with them we've relearned during this crisis the critical importance of our primary producers. So we're going to support them to make sure that we have integrity and safety within that sector. We've increased the screen production grant seriously because not only do we want to support the arts and culture and see more New Zealand stories on screen it creates jobs for people in the creative sector. We've supported the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra because our cultural institutions shouldn't go to the wall because of COVID-19. Bread and roses. We've put more money into the Commerce Commission for them to be investigating misconduct and deterring misconduct because when we come out of recovery we want a flourishing economic scene that's based on fairness and good competition between businesses not the big guys rorting the system as has happened in the past. We've put money into the innovative courthouse in Tauranga because we believe that we do need to change our justice system so that people who have got alcohol and drug dependency problems and mental health issues get the support that they need to get their lives back on track. The final one I want to touch on here is one that we are all so proud of on this side of the House and is such a totem for the difference between this side and that side and that is the investment in restoring adult and community education. When that Government on the other side faced an economic crisis 11 years ago they slashed it. They killed it. They cut it. One of the important bits of social fabric in our country. This Government is investing in people. This Budget recognises that because of the decisive health response led by our Prime Minister we have the opportunity to rebuild and recover to bring people along with us to build an inclusive economy and society. This is a Budget that is about rebuilding together. I am proud of it and I commend it to the House."