Omer IbrahimIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Mālō e lelei Mr Speaker. Thank you. I rise to take this short call on the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2021/22) Bill. The Wellbeing Budget 2021 is all about securing recovery from COVID-19. COVID-19 has taught us a lot of lessons and that is what really matters most in life is people. Our recovery must be balanced to reflect this. It must be one that never leaves behind but yet what we hear from the Opposition is just negativity. There is no solution whatsoever. There is nothing about people. We have heard a lot about the fiscal responsibility but yet nothing about people. I would like to open with a quote from the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson who said This is the biggest lift in benefits in more than a generation" because that's what you do when you value people when you put people first or when you prefer people over fiscal responsibilities. We have to tackle the systematic issues through investing to address the long-term challenges like inequality. Inequality in this country became chronic. It moved the country from one of the most egalitarian countries to one of the most unequal countries. Low wages have been persistent. Hard-working Kiwis—in the last nine years of National Government there were hardly increases in wages. Our essential workers—we heard some of the Opposition members the other day singing praise to our essential workers yet they don't talk about increasing their wages. Singing praise is good—it's a good gesture—but it's not going to put food on the tables of these hard-working people. The Opposition needs to realise this. That's why this Budget is all about putting people first. This 2021 Budget has seen the biggest benefit increase in generations. That increase will give families food it will help families feed their kids and it will give dignity the families deserve. The 2021 Budget also sees $776 million allocated for the use in 2021 to 2025 for three initiatives to fund the lunches in schools that have been identified as having the last concentration of students who come to school with no lunch. Two months ago I was in Timaru with my colleagues from the Education and Workforce Committee. Our local MP down there Jo Luxton hosted us. We visited some of these schools and we fed about 422 students who told us what a difference the free lunches are making in their lives. We have spoken to teachers who couldn't emphasise enough the difference the lunch was making in the students' lives. Yet the Opposition can't see this. All they see is negativity complaining after complaining. It's OK to complain because that's their job but they also need to come with solutions. The reality is if we keep leaving people behind then we are doomed to fail. A society that doesn't look after its most vulnerable a society that doesn't look after its most hard-working people—but yet they don't get paid enough—is doomed to fail. That's what we don't want to do. This Government this Budget are all about people. It's all about putting people first. I look forward to a few more wellbeing Budgets in the next few years so we can bridge the inequality gap that's persisted in the last many years. On that I commend this bill to the House."