Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I'm not sure if the Opposition have got the same Investment Statement that we have on this side of the House because it makes great reading and it's an impact Investment Statement which shows resilience in the New Zealand economy. That resilience is because of careful financial management from our Minister of Finance. It's from responding appropriately with a health response to the COVID pandemic and it is also of course because of the hard work and the pulling together of ordinary New Zealanders.Now the balance sheet shows what the Crown owns and what it owes and the balance sheet is a good indicator of our ability to reach wellbeing outcomes. If we look at the numbers GDP is up 5.1 percent from a year ago. The official unemployment has edged up to actually 3.3 percent not 3.2 percent in the three months to the end of June and wages have lifted to 3.4 percent which is what the Minister of Finance has predicted would happen. In fact in the private sector it's up to 7 percent which is the largest increase in wages since 2008. House prices are dropping and so all the indicators are showing that there is a market correction and that's from the past three decades where labour productivity growth has almost doubled wage growth. Now these are not my words. These are the words of the FIRST Union in Stuff today saying the tight market input is pushing employers a bit harder to attract and retain staff. That's a good thing and long overdue. The Capital Economics economist Marcel Thieliant reported in Stuff today that inflation has already peaked so we are really heading into a period at the start of next year where inflation will either stabilise or fall and wages will trend upwards and that is exactly what the Minister of Finance had said would happen.Now it doesn't mean that it isn't tough out there. We understand that it is tough for New Zealanders. We understand that it is tough for workers and we like to call them workers over on this side of the House rather than Mr Watts' word labour units". They are people and we need to acknowledge that and understand that it's really difficult for them. But we're not the only country going through this. The inflationary effects of COVID and of the war on Ukraine have affected virtually every country in the world. And if I look at some research from the Pew Research Centre it says that inflation rates have doubled in 37 out of 44 economies over the last two years.Interesting and unfortunate fact: the highest inflation rate is in Turkey—54.8 percent. That's incredible. Out of those 44 countries New Zealand is 12th lowest. Now the bottom three are China Indonesia and India. There are some question marks around their figures. Nevertheless with their low inflation that doesn't say anything about the deaths. We know in India for example they have a death rate from COVID of over 500000. Now the reason I'm saying this is because it's all inter-related. The balance sheet the COVID recovery the response to COVID are all inter-related. Economies around the world have struggled with COVID with supply chains and we've seen what the war in Ukraine has done to petrol prices in New Zealand and around the world. That's why this Government has tried to ease some of that pain with the cost of living payment that's going to 2.1 New Zealanders. It'll be in their bank accounts about now—that squeezed group that haven't been able to access the winter energy payment but are still feeling the inflationary effects on things like blocks of cheese. That's why we have continued half-price transport till the end of January and we've extended the fuel tax cut. And actually we've extended half-price transport for community services card holders permanently. The winter energy payment: massively important for the people in Taieri where I have my electorate—very cold there at the moment. That is making the difference to my constituents for many of them of being able to have both a warm house and food on the table and not having to choose between them.We have moved to disband the supermarket duopoly an excellent piece of work by my good friend and colleague Hon Dr David Clark. Lots of feedback coming in about how unfair the million dollars of excess profit per day the supermarkets have been making. That's going to make a real difference to our constituents. Free lunches in schools: more than 45 million lunches have been delivered to 921 schools. My son goes to Bathgate Park and it's a decile 3 school. I've seen the huge difference that those lunches have made to many of my son's friends. And we have also increased superannuation benefits minimum wage and the winter energy payment. These are all some of the really good outcomes that we have been able to achieve by having a good balance sheet. I'd like to quote Dr Caralee McLiesh who's the Secretary to the Treasury. She said in evidence at the select committee that "New Zealand has fared really well throughout the pandemic and that's supported by statements from some of the international organisations and rating agencies as well. So that gives us confidence then that both the health and economic response have delivered positive outcomes." and she is referring there of course to the two triple A ratings that my colleague Hon Kiritapu Allan referred to.One of the other members raised the idea that perhaps our fiscal policy had not been done prudently. Well I go on to quote Caralee McLiesh in saying "One of the lessons from the pandemic is how powerful fiscal policy can be in providing targeted support where it's needed to keep workers attached to jobs to help businesses to keep operating and to provide confidence in the market." If we had a high unemployment rate those people would simply not be able to meet their mortgage payments. That would be the beginning of a spiralling effect of recession of people not being able to keep their homes and it would put us in a deep dark place. Now if I go back to what the alternative reality might have been had National got in when COVID happened. If we look back at March 2020 the then leader Simon Bridges called for a complete border shutdown for non-residents. On 23 April 2020 The Spinoff said that one of the best case scenarios for unemployment was 8 percent. Now we have seen today's figures—3.3 percent very low; 3.2 percent recently. The best case scenario back then was predicted to be 8 percent. It is this Government's fiscal management which has been able to keep that all important indicator in the right place. May 2020 when the UK death toll was 30000 Simon Bridges was asking for our borders to be reopened and I hate to think what would have happened not only to our people but to our economy had that happened prior to the vaccine roll-out. Now of course the rest is history. We had a change in leader in the National Party then 53 days later another one. We're up to the fourth leader. The reason I raise that is we can't have economic stability in a country that is led by a political party on the other side that cannot even keep its own house in order as far as leadership and political stability. They don't have a plan. They complain about debt but the only way that they want to tackle debt is to give tax cuts to the rich so I'm not sure how that would help. So it's a bit rich of them to be talking about fiscal prudence and financial management when the leadership has already changed so many times. There's been a flip-flopping of ideas about whether to keep the borders open whether to keep the borders closed. Have we got too many people coming in? Have we not got enough people coming in? These are all issues that are related to the financial stability the balance sheet that needs to be managed prudently and carefully.That is what our Minister of Finance has done. He knew that this year would be difficult. He has messaged that to people. We have targeted our support for those who need the most support from the most deprived communities and we know that from 2023 onwards the wage rise that we have seen in today's figures will continue to go upwards and that is going to help close the inequality gap and that is what most of the members on this side of the House came to do when we came into Parliament was to try to make New Zealand a fairer place. My colleague Kiritapu has referred to the fact that in fact inequality during COVID even—and the report says this and I've got evidence here again from the Treasury. During COVID it shone a light onto the inequalities in New Zealand but actually it also helped to marginally close that gap. Now time will tell in due course whether that's going to be further closed but I would feel very confident with the targeting that this Government has done that we have done everything in our power to make sure that New Zealand has been in the best possible position to weather what has been a COVID storm and to weather what has been the really dramatic and unexpected war in Ukraine that has sent the world topsy-turvy. So this is a good statement and I would encourage the Opposition to read it properly. Thank you.SPEAKER: Andrew Bayly—but just as I call the member I'm just going to remind Mr Bishop can he please keep his mask on. I know that he was eating something for a period of time but he shouldn't be eating stuff to the point where he has to have his mask off. If he's chewing a lolly keep the mask on."