The hard truth is that Chris Luxon doesn't want to admit that we inherited an employment and training system that the welfare expert advisory group said "had been badly neglected for years". It was a world where case management services had been run down to the point that front-line staff were spending significantly less time on front-line, work-focused case management, and that's what we set about fixing. This included money for 263 more front-line, work-focused staff in 2019, and followed by year-on-year investment thereafter. Despite the pandemic, we never saw the skyrocketing numbers of people on benefit that Treasury had forecast. We are now seeing record exits off benefit into work. As part of our efforts through Apprenticeship Boost, we've seen 50,000 people go through; 18,000 people with Flexi-wage; 5,000 people in Mana in Mahi. The results are reflected in our unemployment rate—record low rates of 3.3 percent—and, finally, the closing of that persistent gap between Māori and Pacific and everyone else: 5.5 percent and 5.4 percent respectively. 