SpeechIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. Happy New Year to you and it is good to be back in this House. The Prime Minister and some of my colleagues have comprehensively covered everything—what this Government has achieved in the last two years—and the list is so long and all that was while fighting COVID-19 and keeping New Zealand and New Zealanders safe.At the start of 2020 when COVID-19 hit China I was in East Africa seeing my parents for the first time in almost 18 years. At the time we knew very little about this COVID-19 and we thought it was going to be contained in no time—but here we are two years on; we're still fighting it. At the end of 2019 when I left New Zealand the country was in a mood of celebration for Christmas and the parties—it was a good time. Six weeks later I returned back to a different country where people were scrambling to stockpile food and the streets were quiet which somehow reminded me of the wartime back in my home country. This is when I realised that we were up against a tough tough enemy that was already taking so many lives but I am proud the core of our response came from an empathetic leader who prioritised saving lives. When the Prime Minister stood at the podium explaining the lockdown guidelines she was sombre and she was balanced and she was reassuring as she is today but not hiding the alarming circumstance that we were about to face.While we fought COVID-19 I'm proud to say that the Government have never lost sight of other issues that are important to our people and particularly I'm really proud of what this Government has achieved in the last two three four years for low-paid people. And this has proven to be a Government for all New Zealanders rather than a tiny sect in our society. And I want to talk about essential workers. I know that so many times we have talked about the bravery of our essential workers but often I don't think we talk enough about their struggle. When this Government decided to increase the minimum wage to $20 they were at the forefront of the Government's policy; when the Government decided to give the living wage to the core Government workers they were at the forefront of the Government's policy; and when the Government talked about the fair-pay agreements policy they were at the forefront of the same policy. But I want to reflect on the speeches from the Opposition today. Everything we heard was really negative; there was nothing positive about it. I was hoping that they'd come with some sort of positive remarks as we move forward to the next phase of fighting COVID-19 but what we have heard is all negativity. But funny enough in the last few days and weeks we have heard about the Opposition now wanting to change their approach and that they want to fight poverty and that's a good thing but how do you fight poverty while you are denying an increase in the minimum wage while you're denying workers an increase in the living wage and while you're denying everything that the Government have been trying to do for low-paid workers and rejecting the increase on benefits as well? That's quite ironic and I've been talking to a lot of workers and when I shared this with them they just seemed as confused as I am.We have achieved everything; we have achieved the high vaccine roll-out and now we are ready to open for business and we've got the five-phase plan of reconnecting New Zealand to the world and I'm one of the people that will be looking forward to this because for the last 2½ years I haven't seen my family and I'm looking forward to that. But this is not just about me; this is about all of us. While we all were looking forward to seeing our families we also all understand why the borders were closed because our borders were our first line in our fight against COVID-19 and they have served us well and I am very proud of everything this Government has achieved. Kia ora.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Jo Luxton—five minutes.