Lees-Galloway IainHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): The good people of New Zealand are excited by the Wellbeing Budget and all that it brings in dealing with things like taking mental health seriously; delivering cheaper education for families; delivering housing for the homeless; lifting Kiwi children out of poverty; and delivering low unemployment low debt and a strong surplus. New Zealanders are excited about their Government. They're not excited about Simon Bridges—they're not excited about Simon Bridges. I think the National Party has hit on a new strategy and that is to deploy Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi to stupefy the population of New Zealand to hypnotise them with his long drawn-out speeches like the one we've just had. But there is no curbing the enthusiasm and excitement from New Zealand about the Wellbeing Budget. But before we can have a Wellbeing Budget we've got to make sure the Government manages the books responsibly and I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the finance Minister Grant Robertson because in all the excitement I think what people might have overlooked is that the fundamentals of the New Zealand economy are incredibly strong and that's because we have a Government that is focused on wellbeing but is equally focused on managing our economy and maintaining those fundamentals. So this Budget does deliver a strong sustainable surplus and strong sustainable GDP growth and it maintains the Budget responsibility rules that the Labour and Green parties agreed to before the last election. Net core Crown debt as a percentage of GDP is forecast to be just 19.9 percent by 2021-2022 delivering on our promise to get net debt down below 20 percent. That strong surplus is projected to grow to $6.1 billion by 2022-23. And of course we all know that unemployment is now stable at a little over 4 percent. In fact going around the country and talking to employers from Cape Reinga to the Bluff I hear one story over and over again and that is that the thing that employers need more than anything else is people to fill the roles that are being created in this strong economy. Over the last 18 months 70000 new jobs have been created. And I would say even more importantly the average income for New Zealanders is up by $65 a week. That means wages are rising at a faster rate than inflation. That means that working people are better off in real terms and no small part of that is the fact that the Government has lifted the minimum wage to $17.70 an hour. So people are not only in jobs they're in good jobs that pay well put a roof over their head food on the table and clothes on their children. That ultimately is what budgets and governing are all about. The other person that we all must acknowledge in this Budget debate is our Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern who has chosen to lead with kindness and compassion and as a result the world is watching New Zealand. The world is impressed with what they see and the world is deeply impressed with the Wellbeing Budget because it is a Budget that puts the real wellbeing of people and families at the centre. The biggest set piece—the biggest single piece of funding: $1.9 billion—went to finally taking mental health seriously. In this Government we do want to make sure that all New Zealanders who are in need can access free mental health and addiction support and support that works for them that they have choices about what that support looks like that they can get it when they need it—that when people present with a mental illness or they present with an addiction they are able to get the support and treatment that they need immediately when they are looking for it and that they can get it where they need it whether it's in cities whether it's in provincial towns or whether it's in our rural communities. It's important that that mental health support is delivered through our primary care system so that people can go to their local health centre and they can talk to someone who knows how to respond to the issues that they are presenting with. We need intensive support for those who need it including suicide prevention services. We also need to support the people who are bereaved by suicide. Suicide can do enormous damage to families and communities. We need to make sure we are not only doing a better job of preventing suicide but we are supporting people who deal with its fallouts. Investment in mental health and addiction facilities: we need people and we need the bricks and mortar the facilities that people can go to to get the support that they need. We need to provide better mental health and addiction support to those in our corrections system to help break the cycle of addiction and of reoffending. This is a very good example of the approach that this Budget takes where we don't work in our departmental silos but we actually get cross-portfolio bids like the mental health bid that covers health education corrections and a variety of other portfolios to make sure that we are taking the holistic approach that is necessary to deal with those significant ingrained community issues that New Zealand expects their Government to work on.We're reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing including addressing family violence. We're committed to tackling New Zealand's persistent and long-term challenge of child poverty and making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. We're addressing family and sexual violence through the largest ever investment in family and sexual violence support and support services. The package to address New Zealand's long-term record on family and sexual violence includes funding and support for sexual violence crisis support services for children and young people enabling victims of sexual violence to give evidence in alternative ways to reduce the risk of further trauma dedicated funding for a kaupapa response to sexual violence and covering one million New Zealanders with integrated safety response sites. These are the interventions that are needed to break these long-term and ingrained cycles and it's only by making this kind of investment and setting the improvement of child wellbeing as one of the priorities of a Wellbeing Budget and looking at things through a wellbeing lens. That's the only way that we're going—Barbara Kuriger: Where's the money going to come from?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —to address these issues. Now the member opposite is asking Where is the money going to come from?" Well this is the brilliant thing. It is all budgeted for and there is a surplus—a surplus that is going to grow to $6.1 billion. We've reduced debt. We've done something the National Party was not able to do in its nine years in Government. We are on track to reduce core net debt down to 19.9 percent below 20 percent—something the National Party was never able to do. So I say to the member Barbara Kuriger who is a reasonable member who I have respect for—a reasonable member I have respect for—that actually it's not about where the money is going to come from; it's about priorities. It's about setting your priorities and determining as a Government what you're going to do. And if you run the books sustainably if you manage the books responsibly you run surpluses you get debt down you can find the money to pay for the services that make a real difference in people's lives. I spoke earlier about housing. We do have a housing crisis. That is something we inherited from the previous Government—an enormous housing crisis that they were not prepared to deal with. And yes this Government is ambitious and yes sometimes when you have ambitious plans things won't always go right the first time but I want to point members opposite to the enormous investment in public housing. There are 1200 additional public housing sites 1200 additional families in public housing new State houses going up all across the country—getting the people who are in greatest need into the warm dry secure affordable homes that they need. That has been an enormous success over the last 18 months but more is needed. We all know more is needed such was the scale of the crisis that this Government inherited that it was never going to be fixed in one year two years or even five years. This is a decade-long project that this Government has the ambition to tackle something that the National Party did not have when it was in Government.So I want to acknowledge Grant Robertson the finance Minister. I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern our incredible kind and compassionate and visionary leader who has led the work on this Wellbeing Budget this new approach to doing budgeting and governance in New Zealand and I commend this incredible Budget to the House."