Maiden Statements

I’ll now intervene and say that in accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, I call on Penny Simmonds to make her maiden statement.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ōku rangatira, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa, karanga mai, karanga mai.

[My esteemed ones, warm greetings to you all, call me, call me.]

Mr Speaker and parliamentary colleagues, I proudly represent the people of the Invercargill electorate, which takes in the communities of Invercargill, Bluff, Stewart Island, Riverton, Tuatāpere, Ōtautau, Wyndham, and Edendale. Its boundary to the east is the Catlins Conservation Park, to the west it extends into Fiordland National Park, and to the south it takes in Rakiura National Park. It is a region of stunning, rugged beauty, important rural and manufacturing industries, and innovative, hard-working people.

It is a region that produces its wealth from farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, tourism, and aluminium smelting. Much of this wealth comes from the consistency of our rainfall, which, despite the often unflattering comments by the misinformed about our climate, is the lifeblood of our industries. As our famous mayor, Sir Tim Shadbolt, prophesied many years ago, water will one day be more valuable than oil.

My foray into politics has perhaps been more of a surprise to me than to many of my supporters. After several decades of involvement in the communities of Invercargill and Southland, many saw my move into politics as logical or even inevitable. However, it was anything but for me. I loved my work at the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), and in various community organisations such as the Community Trust, Hockey Southland, and in the implementation of the Southland Regional Development Strategy. However, the foundation industries of our southern community are coming to critical junctions where decisions will be made that will impact on several generations of Southerners, and I want to be part of that decision making, not just subjected to them.

I would, however, like to first refer to the influences of my early years growing up on a farm in Riversdale in northern Southland. Ours was not a traditional farming family with land passed down generations. My parents’ first farm was a returned serviceman’s settlement block, acquired after my father served in the army in World War II and after many years of working as a shearer. My father was the oldest of five siblings, and when his father died at a young age, my father, at the age of only 14 years, became the family breadwinner. This experience and the kindness shown to him and the opportunities given to him by many people in the northern Southland rural communities shaped the values of his and our lives. He carried a deep sense of fairness and looking out for others until his own relatively early death.

My mother came from a large farming family of—well, to be blunt—fairly stroppy, high-achieving females. She, like her sisters, excelled in many sports, with three of her sisters playing hockey for New Zealand and two of them captaining the New Zealand team. My father, and indeed most of the male in-laws in our extended family, had to quickly adapt to being regularly thrashed at tennis, golf, bowls, or any other sport they might have the misfortune to compete against their wives in. This laid the foundation for a highly competitive spirit and instilled the notion of “girls can do anything” long before it became a popular slogan. It also supported a number of us in subsequent generations to achieve national honours in hockey.

My mother was also a skilled pianist. She had to turn down a scholarship to study beyond her teaching letters at Trinity College in London due to her family’s financial circumstances. They couldn’t afford it and her mother was in a wheelchair with polio, so her duty was to help the household. She did continue to use her skills as a music teacher and in local choirs, and both she and my father, who also played several instruments, instilled in us a love of music.

The one element that stood us apart from most of the community was our oldest sibling being intellectually handicapped as a result of decisions made during a difficult birth. This extended our world into the families, institutions, and bureaucracy of dealing with disabilities. This has continued for our family with the birth of our youngest daughter, Briony, who is Down syndrome.

Apart from that, my upbringing was pretty standard fare in a Southland rural community. We were neither wealthy nor poor. We understood the need to work hard but also to support those who needed it. We immersed ourselves in the community through school, sport, music, church and social activities. We learnt the value of family and community engagement and support.

It was that understanding of the value of interconnectivity with community that drove me in my 30-year career at the Southern Institute of Technology. I started as chief executive when the then Southland Polytechnic, although financially stable, had experienced two consecutive years of declining student numbers. With only 1,400 equivalent full-time students, it didn’t have far to fall to reach an unsustainable level and risk closure. Our SIT team over the 23 years I was chief executive secured the support of our local community to implement a number of innovative schemes and initiatives which impacted positively on individuals, their families, local industries, and organisations, as well as the community itself.

Our zero-fees scheme, supported by community funders, local authorities, and many individual businesses, and championed by my good friend and mentor, His Worship Sir Tim, was a pivotal community initiative. Mayor Tim’s account of my devising the scheme in the shower has an element of truth to it. I did, after all, at that time have a very young family of three daughters, and uninterrupted time to think and plan was a rarity, although I can assure you Mayor Tim was not privy to my daily ablutions.

Our zero-fees scheme was not a lone initiative. It was part of an overall strategy to rejuvenate the economic, social, and cultural elements of our community after the devastation of the 1980s, which we were still suffering the effects of. The establishment of a strategic partnership with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in 2001 through the assistance of two other people pivotal in my career, the late Koro Riki Cherrington and Ngāi Tahu kaumātua Michael Skerrett, enabled a raising of awareness, knowledge, and capability in tikanga and te reo Māori in our communities. The wānanga gained many friends when they were large, wealthy, and influential. However, the founding members Rongo Wētere and his family and other early managers of the wānanga never forgot that we worked with and supported the wānanga when they were small and struggling.

A Woolf Fisher Fellowship enabled me to visit a number of innovative educational institutions in various parts of the world, including the Canadian distance tertiary education delivery in Nova Scotia, using technology to overcome the tyranny of geographic isolation. Modelling this led to SIT developing its own distance learning faculty, SIT2LRN, which has proven to be invaluable, enabling SIT to deliver cost-effective, quality education and training throughout New Zealand and across the world, as well as blended on-site delivery and seamless delivery for SIT students during the 2020 COVID lockdown.

SIT’s international strategy brought to our local communities international graduates with diversity, vibrancy, and skills to address industry skills shortages. Again, working with the community, SIT brought the international students into Invercargill to study; not Auckland, as many other institutions did, simply clipping the financial ticket. The need to work for and integrate with the local community was always top of mind.

I am extremely proud of what SIT has been able to achieve for Invercargill and Southland over the two decades and more that I was chief executive. My reason for recalling these achievements today is to underpin why I made a decision to stand for the Invercargill member of Parliament role.

I believe in the value and importance of our communities in the South, and I have unashamedly fought to strengthen and support our people, industries, organisations, and communities in my various positions at SIT, and in other community leadership roles I have held. At times, my parochialism and intransient attitude to changes imposed from Wellington may have been interpreted as disruptive or even cantankerous, but I learnt many years ago how important it is to push back against “Wellington knows best”.

I looked back to the development of the Tīwai Point Aluminium Smelter in 1971, the economic development brainchild of long-serving Invercargill Mayor Neil Watson and then MP Ralph Hanan, set up in conjunction with the Manapōuri power station, and currently under threat, and with it the jobs and livelihoods of several thousand Southlanders and their families.

I also looked to our Southland rural sector. The economic bedrock of Invercargill and Southland’s wealth and prosperity, which survived the reforms of the 1980s and pulled itself back to a powerhouse, once more ensuring that Southland punches well above its weight, consistently contributing around 15 percent to New Zealand’s GDP, with less than 1.2 percent of New Zealand’s population. The South’s rural sector is justifiably proud of its long history of economic success. But our rural sector is facing significant threats that seem to ignore or not understand the unique climatic and geographic challenges to the southern farmer and that give no credit to the incredible progress already being made by farmers working together with scientists to improve environmental outcomes.

And I look to the threat of SIT—the organisation I had the privilege to lead—losing its autonomy and innovation, being swallowed up in the ideological mega-merger of institutes of technology and polytechnics.

While there may be better alternatives to the status quo in each of these industries, I know that the decisions must be driven by Southlanders to ensure the benefits stay in the South. The decisions must also be pragmatic and science, technology, and engineering – based; not reacting to emotive sound bites from people who don’t understand either economics or science.

Ngāi Tahu’s Murihiku regenerative project provides the opportunity for a partnership to drive our future from the South. As Tā Tipene O’Regan said recently, “we are facing a once-in-many-generations opportunity to reset the way we manage energy”. We need to ensure that the clean energy from Manapouri and the abundance of fresh water in the South is harnessed to provide jobs and prosperity for the South. However, the Crown’s plans to spend over half a billion dollars on upgrading transmission lines to take power north does not fill me with confidence.

It is these important local issues and pending decisions which led me to stand for the Invercargill electorate, at a time when my role at SIT could no longer achieve the things that I considered important for Invercargill. I saw an opportunity to further our community’s needs and to support our farmers and industries as the local MP.

In securing the role of MP for Invercargill, I extend my thanks and gratitude to the Invercargill National Party executive, my campaign team, the regional chair, and the hundreds of members and volunteers whose hard work made this transition possible for me, and I thank my caucus colleagues and, in particular, our leader, the Hon Judith Collins, who have helped ease my way into the intriguing world of politics.

I also acknowledge my long-suffering family, who for years have put up with me being away on business for significant family events like birthdays and anniversaries, and, despite this, have encouraged me in my new endeavour. My thanks to my husband Marty; twin daughters, Alex and Whitney; their spouses, Kurt and Rowan; our little mokopuna, Flynn, Lily, and Harrison; and, of course, our very special youngest daughter, Briony. Briony’s support person, Jicinta Veale, must also be acknowledged as playing a large part in enabling me to do what I do.

A career politician has never been my aim, but then a career chief executive wasn’t either, and I lasted 23 years there. The position of chief executive enabled me to do what I loved. It was an honour and a privilege to work in tandem with the community to implement many community initiatives, and I acknowledge all my SIT senior management colleagues. I thank, in particular, those in the gallery here today, Bharat Guha and Teri McClelland, as well as my good friend and colleague Patsy Eade and the many supportive SIT council members I have had over the years.

I will always be indebted to our famous Mayor, Sir Tim Shadbolt, who was with me through these golden years at SIT, as well as the very influential Ngāi Tahu and SIT kaumātua Michael Skerrett.

I will be driven in this new role as the member of Parliament for Invercargill to continue my advocacy for the people, industries, and organisations of the Invercargill electorate. I come to the role with the experience of a farmer’s daughter and a farmer’s wife, a mother and a grandmother, an educationalist and a soldier for several years in the Territorials, a businesswoman, a community leader, and a sportsperson. But most of all, I come as a passionate Southlander who will not stand by and allow the place that I proudly call my home to be adversely impacted upon by poor political decisions. Our rural communities, farmers, SIT, our productive land, fresh water, and clean energy are worth standing up for.

In concluding, I will chant a waiata written for me by the late Koro Riki Cherrington. It refers to the people and rivers of the South and the pathway of the whales. Murihiku, the southern region is, of course, the important and powerful tail of the whale of Aotearoa, something best not to get in the way of. Kia ora. Thank you.

E rere Ōtepuni

Pākaha a Pakiaka e

Ki te Ōtarewa Ngāi Tahu

Ngāti Mamoe Waitaha e

E rere puta Waihōpai

Ki te Ara a Kewa

Ka whakamaua kia tina, tina

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

[Flow on Ōtepuni stream

Stronghold of Pakiaka

Flow to Ōtarewa where Ngāi Tahu

Ngāti Mamoe and Waitaha reside.

Flow on until you reach Waihōpai river

And then out to Foveaux Strait

Let it be firmly fastened

Join it, bind it, it is done.]

[Applause]

I call on Joseph Mooney to make his maiden statement.

It is with a sense of both pride and humility that I look forward to my first term in the 53rd Parliament as the member of Parliament for Southland. The electorate of Southland is both a regional economic powerhouse in farming, tourism, horticulture, construction, and an increasing presence in information technology.

My 11-year-old daughter said to me yesterday, as we walked around Parliament, that she wouldn’t have believed she’d be doing that a year ago, and I replied that I wouldn’t have either. It’s been a tumultuous period in our country’s history that has brought me to this House to serve the people of my electorate and this nation.

It was a challenging campaign for the Southland electorate, but they handled it with aplomb, and I particularly want to thank my campaign chair, Jeff Grant, who stepped up to lead the campaign when I was selected. I also want to thank each and every member of the campaign team, and all the hard-working volunteers who gave of their time freely because they believe the National Party will deliver the best for the people of my region and of this country. I want to acknowledge the Young Nats, who I know are watching tonight—their help was invaluable—and also acknowledge the president and the board members who are here this evening. I also want to acknowledge and thank the Hon Judith Collins, who stepped up to lead our party and our campaign at short notice, and did a sterling job of doing so.

I’d like to acknowledge my wife, Silvia, who is the bedrock of our family. She saw something in me 20-odd years ago, when I had nothing to my name, and she has stuck by me through thick and thin since. She’s an incredible woman and I’m very lucky to have her by my side. Her parents will be watching this speech on the internet from Germany, and I want to say thank you to them as well for all their support over the years.

I also want to thank my children, Estrella, Moritz, and Soleil, for all of your support, putting up with me when I’m away a lot of the time and for being great human beings. I also wish to acknowledge my mother, Bronwen, who sits in the gallery tonight, and to acknowledge her long, varied, and often very challenging journey, which has led to her tonight seeing one of her eight children making a maiden speech in Parliament—who would have thought?

I was motivated to offer to serve because as a child, I vividly experienced the impact of decisions made in this House, and, given the challenges facing our country, I’ll be a voice for pragmatism and of ambition for our nation, but also of caution. I was a child in the 1980s, when the Labour Government embarked on a radical programme of restructuring the economy. Change was needed, but I can tell this House that change needs to be managed carefully.

Those changes in the 1980s had a huge impact on many lives of people in the rural sector, with many farmers losing their farms or experiencing significant hardship. My stepfather worked on farms, but lost his job during that period and struggled to find more work. I recall my family going hungry during those times, and I remember days on end when we had no food to eat and going to the river to look for blackberries for food.

For a variety of reasons, my younger brother and I chose to leave home when I was 11 and he was nine. We’d planned to travel from Hawke’s Bay to the goldfields in Central Otago, live in old mining huts, and make a living panning for gold. We managed to get to Wellington, but we were stymied by Cook Strait, and ended up living for a bit over a week on the streets of Wellington, huddling together for warmth on cold, rainy nights in flax bushes, trying to figure out a way to get across that Cook Strait. Let me tell you that Wellington is a cold, hard place when you’re a child living on its streets. I remember this every day when I come to this House, and it serves to remind me that while I’m here, I need to do my best to ensure the policies that go through this House do not have unintended consequences that hurt our country’s children.

I’m a Kiwi through and through, and I’m very proud of my country. One of my ancestors was a goldminer in Central Otago. My paternal grandfather played cricket for New Zealand and was a successful Wellington businessman. My maternal grandfather was a captain in the New Zealand Army, fighting in North Africa and Greece during the Second World War, who suffered severe war injuries, but went on to found a successful business in Auckland on his return.

As I look around the walls of this House, I see the names of theatres of war where New Zealanders have served and supported our democracy, including Egypt and North Africa, where my grandfather served. Walking in the corridors of this House, I’ve also come across a photograph of another ancestor I recently learnt about, a great-great-uncle by the name of the Hon Bill Fox, who served in the Cabinet of Walter Nash’s Government.

A number of my forebears were successful in their lives, but this did not carry through to my generation. I say this as a salutary lesson that the success of each generation is the challenge and the responsibility of that generation. The same is true for our country. Our success in the past is not a guarantee of success tomorrow, and we must all work both carefully and ambitiously to continue and grow our country’s success.

I have both a practical and a professional background, and a background in both rural and urban New Zealand. In my younger days in the Hawke’s Bay, where I was born, I’ve cleaned water troughs, drenched sheep, driven tractors, picked apples, pruned pine trees, and picked up thousands of hay-bales and transported them around the countryside, stacking them into haysheds. As a teenager, I went to high school in Auckland. I should say that it was with mixed success, as my high school career was ultimately unsuccessful and I left without University Entrance, and then went on to spend a number of years in the school of hard knocks.

I was fortunate to have a lot to do with the Māori community growing up, and it fostered a deep interest in our country’s history and the Treaty of Waitangi, to the extent that I first came to Parliament as a teenager to interview an MP about its place in New Zealand. I also helped build small companies both in New Zealand and overseas, and experienced the challenges of building and managing teams, making sure that both staff and the bills got paid, all the while dealing with seemingly endless regulations while trying to make sure the job got done. That ultimately prompted me to study law, as I realised that law was, in effect, the DNA of our society.

I went to university as an adult student with small children and managed to get an honours degree in law with children climbing my shoulders while I studied, maybe proving that failure at school doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of academic ability. While at university and afterwards, I also volunteered as a firefighter—a rewarding and sometimes challenging role, being part of a close-knit team being of service to the community—and I’ve also spent time in the army reserves. It has emphasised to me the value of volunteers in our communities, who do so much to weave the fabric that binds our communities together and makes them work. I went on after graduation to eventually build my own law practice from scratch in Otago and Southland, and made it a success.

We are seeing a contest of ideas and ideals both globally and nationally. I strongly believe that the narrative of hard work and self-responsibility being the surest path to success is vital for the future of our country. We all need to do our bit to grow the pie, rather than trying to divide it into ever-smaller pieces. I know from my life experience that if parents don’t have jobs, kids go hungry. So it is one of the key responsibilities of Government to create a policy framework that empowers businesses, that empowers employers, and that empowers employees.

I strongly believe in the success of our primary sectors to ensure domestic food security, employment, and export earnings. Tourism is also a hugely important part of our economy and of my region. We need to do all we can to support the industry and its people until the borders can open, and I will just take this opportunity to strongly encourage this Government to urgently work on opening the trans-Tasman bubble with Australia, which the scientific experts are telling us can be done safely.

Broader afield, we’re also witnessing conflicts brewing between big powers that haven’t been seen in a very long time, and they are right on our back doorstep in the Asia-Pacific. I believe we will need to carefully manage our economic and security interests in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment, where nationalism and protectionism seem to be growing apace. In particular, we will need to proactively advocate for the continuation of a rules-based, multilateral trading framework. It is crucial to our economic survival as a small trading nation at the bottom of the Pacific.

The Southland electorate is an incredible place. I think it may well be the most incredible electorate in the world, but, of course, I’m biased. It has the snowy peaks and deep, glacial-carved lakes region of Glenorchy and Queenstown, and the historic old goldmining regions of Clyde, Alexandra, and Roxburgh that now produce fruit and wine and electricity. There’s some of the Catlins, the southernmost part of the Mainland with some of the best big-wave surfing in the country at Papatowai, and a great community heart in Ōwaka.

Then there’s the heartland of the South: the land of milk and honey that is West Otago, from the likes of Clinton, Tapanui, and Moa Flat through the central heartland Southland towns of Gore, Mataura, and Winton. This is the productive machine of the South, with hard-working, pragmatic folks who get on with things and do an amazing job of both looking after the land and producing products for our country to sell on the world stage.

Out towards western Southland is the land of big country, big skies, big mountains, and big fiords. I’m of course talking about Te Ānau, Manapōuri, most of Fiordland, including Milford Sound. It’s a breathtaking and incredibly diverse region. But the greatest treasure are the people, who are folk with big hearts, who are hard-working and are very sharp but don’t tend to boast about it to the rest of the world. That reminds me of the Māori whakataukī or proverb “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata”—what is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people.

I’m proud to be a representative of the National Party. The National Party has a philosophy based on true concern for the needs and aspirations of each individual and is the party best suited to meet future challenges, because its roots and philosophy is visionary, reformist, purposeful, and based on an understanding of human qualities and aspirations.

A strong and successful country depends on strong and successful communities, and those strong and successful communities in turn depend on strong and successful families, however those are constituted, which in turn depend on strong and successful individuals. The State is not an end in itself, but is a means of helping people achieve their own goals.

If there’s one thing we can be sure of it is that the future will be unpredictable. We need to provide the systems of Government that enable our individuals, our families, our communities, and ultimately our nation to be successful. All citizens are equal before the law and, therefore, all citizens have an equal opportunity to develop their inherent talents and pursue their aspirations.

The National Party also has deep roots in the New Zealand Liberal Party, which was the first organised political party in the country. I raise this because the National Party has a very long history of taking care of the vulnerable while also building the framework for every New Zealander to realise their own aspirations.

The Liberal Government established the basis of the later welfare State, with old-age pensions. In 1893, the Liberal Government extended voting rights to women, making New Zealand the first country in the world to enact universal female suffrage.

The Liberal Party was also the party of Sir Apirana Ngata, who served as the MP for Eastern Māori for nearly 40 years and made a vital contribution to the revival of Māori in the early 20th century. He used his knowledge of the Pākehā world and his professional skills to assist his people to develop and farm their land, while also encouraging Māori to preserve their culture and to maintain their own identity.

We are a nation of adventurers, of risk takers, of nation builders, of dreamers and doers—people who have collectively chosen to make their home under the roof of the southern skies and its constellation of stars. All of us come here with an adventurous DNA, whether it traces back hundreds of years or whether we personally made that journey to travel to these islands ourselves. Many of our ancestors navigated their way to these islands looking towards and guided by those stars, and now some of our countrymen and women launch fiery rockets into the starry skies from Māhia Peninsula in the Hawke’s Bay. They embody the sense of vision and ambition that we need to foster and celebrate in this country.

I know Māhia well from surfing the kinetic energy of its ocean swells as a youngster. It was a remote place then which was about as far removed from space-going rockets as you could get. Now, that is where rockets launch satellites regularly into the stars, and is a perfect reflection of how the future can quickly become our reality with the right people, ambitious dreams, resources, hard work, and the right policy frameworks.

We are a nation that came together and agreed on making sacrifices to eliminate COVID-19 from these shores to the best of our ability. Let us also be a nation that comes together and says we are a place where our children feel valued and welcome and can realise incredible opportunities that harness their talents, their hopes, and their dreams. Let us be a nation where our children get the best start in life by receiving the best education, facilitated with the help of cutting-edge technology.

Let us be a nation that comes together and says we can have the best and most effective healthcare services in the world, because a healthy population means a successful population. Let us be a nation where the best and the brightest in the world dare to live, dare to dream, dare to aspire, dare to action those dreams, and dare to be and do their best.

Let us be a nation that encourages the growth of technology, leading the world into the stars, the oceans, the land, biotech, nanotechnology, fintech, and others. Technology is how our species has lifted itself up and achieved its best, and we have the tools and the space in this remote yet hyper-connected nation to be at the forefront of some of the best technology, which can solve our biggest issues, from health, to education, to housing, to climate resilience.

Let us be a nation that is ambitious in its infrastructure development and has a time horizon looking ahead 20 to 30 years so that the next generation has the tools it needs to be world leaders. Let us be a nation that comes together and looks to its abundance of land and resources and enables our people to solve their own housing needs by building many more warm and healthy homes. Let us be one of the most productive and effective nations, and encourage and celebrate the people, the businesses, and the policies that can make that a reality. Let us be a people who rejoice in our great fortune to be fellow travellers under these southern skies, to celebrate our great collective heart and our practical, pragmatic minds, to treasure and celebrate the achievements of our people. For there’s more that binds us together than divides us in this land.

It is with a great deal of optimism and hope that I look towards the future of this great country and the great region that I am so fortunate to represent in this Parliament. I look forward to making my contribution in this House by helping bend the arc of history towards the realisation of the vision and ambition that will ensure our people can make the most of their gifts and their talents and are motivated to give their very best for themselves, their families, their communities, and our country. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Applause]

Waiata

Can I now ask the supporters of the last two speakers to move out as quickly as they can in order to allow the next group to come in. Thank you. It’s very unusual for me to say “Open the doors.”, but open the doors.

Can I just ask any security staff who can hear me to open the two doors to the Speaker’s gallery as well, so that we can have people coming in through three doors instead of one. Thank you.

I call Christopher Luxon to make his maiden statement.

E ngā Mana Whakawā, e ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā mātāwaka. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa e tau nei.

[To the adjudicators, the authorities, the voices, and the various tribes. I acknowledge you once, twice, I acknowledge us all gathered here.]

I rise today mindful of the privilege and responsibility it is to serve in this House of Representatives, and also being the last of the new intake of MPs in the 53rd Parliament to give their maiden speech. While some time has passed, I want to congratulate all my parliamentary colleagues on their election success, and I also want to acknowledge the work that all the parliamentary staff do to ensure that this House and our democracy functions well for New Zealanders.

I am honoured to be the member for Botany because it is one of the most diverse communities in the country, and it’s full of hard-working, determined, and aspirational people. I want to thank the people of Botany for their trust. I will work hard for you.

Politics, contrary to what people say, is actually the ultimate team sport, so I want to thank my tremendous team of local volunteers and supporters, many of whom are here today, for all of their help—in particular, the incredible Katja Kershaw, Lisa Ambridge, Jake O’Flaherty, Graeme Rayner, our incredible executive committee, and our outstanding campaign team.

To my children, William and Olivia, thank you for being so supportive, encouraging, and understanding. Our future is in great hands with your generation coming through. And, most of all—most of all—I want to say thank you to my wife, Amanda. She is my best friend. We met when we were 15, and she is, quite simply, the most extraordinary person I know: strong, wise, smart, and funny.

MPs in this House represent different communities, and all of them together make up Aotearoa New Zealand. Botany makes a special contribution to the Kiwi mosaic, from our mana whenua with their long connections to our land and sea, to the northern suburbs of coastal Cockle Bay, Shelley Park, and Botany Downs, to the converted farmland and home to new New Zealanders in Dannemora, Somerville, Shamrock Park, and East Tamaki Heights, to Flat Bush and Chapel Downs—some of the fastest-growing residential areas in the country—and to our proud Pasifika community in the south-west, in Rongomai and Clover Park.

Botany’s diversity makes it special. Over half of its population was born overseas, and New Zealand is a much richer and better place economically, socially, and culturally because of these communities. But whether you have lived for 40 years in Cockle Bay or whether it’s been four years in Flat Bush, Botany people have all worked incredibly hard to get to where they are. It is that desire to get ahead for ourselves, our families, our community, and our country that unites us, regardless of our age, ethnicity, language, or faith. But, like most districts, Botany has its challenges. East Auckland is already bigger than Dunedin and Tauranga, and yet it is chronically underserved by public services. So, on behalf of those who voted for me and those who didn’t, I am committed to solving these problems.

Let me share a little of where I come from. My ancestors came to New Zealand as Irish miners and hotel-keepers, they came as Scottish stonemasons and bakers, and they came as English farmers, labourers, and fishermen. They were new New Zealanders too. I remember and honour in this special place my late grandparents: Bert and Clare Turnbull, and Fred and Joan Luxon. I thank my brothers and all my family members for their love and support. Nothing is more precious than family.

From my father, Graham Luxon—who’s up here in the gallery—I learnt to set big goals and to work hard and to achieve them, to have a positive attitude, and to never let your circumstances define you. He left school and worked his way up from sales rep to general manager. He’s a real-life MacGyver, a very present father, and his enthusiasm and positivity are truly infectious.

From my mother, Kathleen, I learnt about people, perspectives, relationships, and I inherited my sense of humour. Mum came to university the same year as I did, to do a diploma in social work, and she has become a really respected psychotherapist and counsellor. She taught me to walk across the room, to engage with people different from me, to see both sides of an issue, and, in doing so, to broaden my horizons.

It seems it has become acceptable to stereotype those who have a Christian faith in public life as being extreme, so I will say a little about my Christian faith. It has anchored me, given my life purpose, and shaped my values, and it puts me in the context of something bigger than myself. My faith has a strong influence on who I am and how I relate to people. I see Jesus showing compassion, tolerance, and care for others. He doesn’t judge, discriminate, or reject people. He loves unconditionally.

Through history, we have seen Christians making a huge difference by entering public life. Christian abolitionists fought against slavery. Others educated the poor and challenged the rich to share their wealth and help others less fortunate. The world is a better place for Christians like William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King, and Kate Sheppard contributing to public life.

My faith is personal to me. It is not in itself a political agenda. I believe no religion should dictate to the State, and no politician should use the political platform they have to force their beliefs on others. As MPs, we serve the common cause of all New Zealanders—not one religion, not one group, not one interest. A person should not be elected because of their faith, nor should they be rejected because of it. Democracy thrives on diverse thinking and different world views.

Until now, my career has been in business. My first job after leaving university was at the global multinational Unilever, a company bigger than many countries. I had amazing opportunities and a truly global business education. I spent 16 years overseas working in developed and developing countries, turning businesses around and working alongside some very smart people. I realised that down-to-earth Kiwis could be as good as the Oxbridge set from England, Ivy League - educated Americans, and born-confident Australians. I came home to New Zealand and had the privilege of leading our most iconic company, Air New Zealand, for seven years. My team, many of whom are here today, turned a good New Zealand company into one that was truly world class and globally acclaimed.

Over my career, I’ve come to believe more and more strongly that successful businesses have a critical responsibility to engage on the economic, the social, and the environmental issues a country faces. Making a difference to people’s daily lives is a shared responsibility between Government, community, and also business.

In my time, Air New Zealand employed 12,500 people, and it represented a cross-section of New Zealand life. As CEO, I had the opportunity to get things done and demonstrate that a business could do well by doing good.

For example, we decided that New Zealand’s shameful record on family violence was a workplace issue, not just a social issue, and so we introduced a three-week, paid family violence leave policy for victims. The pay equity gap at Air New Zealand was reduced to zero, and we introduced a 26-week paid parental leave policy. Senior leadership team positions held by women went from 16 percent to 44 percent. We worked hard to grow career pathways and internships for young Māori and Pasifika. We worked hard to champion and mainstream te reo and tā moko. We earned Gender and Rainbow Tick certifications. Air New Zealand was also a foundation member of the Climate Leaders Coalition, and 100 percent of our company car fleet became fully electric—and that was over five years ago. When the business delivered superior commercial returns, we shared those profits with our employees through a company performance bonus. The principle was simple: when Air New Zealand did well, all our staff should do well too.

Now I understand, of course, that a country is not a company. However, New Zealanders look to the Government to get things done. It’s not good enough saying you’re going to lower greenhouse gas emissions but not doing it. It’s not good enough saying you’re going to reduce child poverty but not actually doing it. Talking about it gets you a headline, but doing it makes a difference. I’ve entered politics because I want to make a difference, I want to solve problems, and I want to get things done.

New Zealand’s ability to become more prosperous and to enjoy a higher quality of life as a nation depends on the size and output of our economic engine. Just as growing Air New Zealand provided the opportunity for all staff to benefit, I believe that it’s growing New Zealand’s economy that will provide the opportunity for all New Zealanders to benefit. However, I believe that right now, New Zealand’s economic engine needs major modifications and serious upgrading.

We are underpowered because our economy for the last 30 years has been suffering a productivity disease. Economic growth has largely been driven by having more people in the country and more people working harder. We need to work smarter, not harder. We can do this, and we can do it by building and unleashing genuinely world-class export businesses, step-changing education and labour skills, and delivering infrastructure better. Improving productivity is the single biggest thing that we can do to raise our collective standard of living.

Now some Kiwi firms are succeeding internationally, but, frankly, New Zealand needs many, many more of them. Only two of our top 10 firms listed on the NZX compete in global markets at scale, yet New Zealand has many opportunities on which we can build our future. We’re well located to the rapidly urbanising and growing middle-class populations in America, Asia, and Australasia. The question is: will we take advantage of and fully exploit these opportunities, or will they just pass us by?

New Zealand has not invested in R & D and skills and innovation to nearly the same extent as the great small advanced economies of the world. New Zealand’s rapidly falling international performance in maths and science and reading is extremely concerning, and I worry, not because of a graph on a league table, but because of the strong link between educational attainment and higher wages. Higher wages and greater job opportunities underpin the choices that New Zealand families have in how they get to live their lives. Automation technologies, which span advanced robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, will unleash unimaginable change in our society and our working lives.

When I chaired the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, we looked very closely at both the opportunities and the challenges greater automation presents New Zealand. It has the potential to help us work smarter and seriously improve our competitiveness and productivity. However, we’re not currently geared up for it. We need to build a bold plan with real actions to harness the opportunities and to ensure that large parts of our society are not left behind. The urgency can’t be understated.

Let me also talk briefly about infrastructure, which is at a crisis point. The issues are multigenerational and systemic. We need to reset and develop a new model to power the country into the 2040s, rather than continuing to “band-aid and number eight wire” our current system. Infrastructure is not just about dams and transmission lines and highways; it’s about nation-building. It’s about how we see our future, and we need an overarching vision. We need new funding and financing mechanisms, upgraded legislation, and better project management and execution. Investing in world-class infrastructure that effectively connects, transports, and develops information and ideas, people, and products is critical to New Zealand’s creation of wealth and the distribution of poverty.

I am a proud member of the National Party, and I believe that positive, practical, centre-right principles and policies are best to navigate the challenges and opportunities that New Zealand faces. I’m proud to be here under the leadership of Judith Collins, and, like my colleagues, have built my personal and professional life on National Party values of freedom and choice, rights and responsibilities, limited yet better government, competitive enterprise, and equal opportunity in citizenship.

I believe in tackling inequality and working hard to find that balance between encouraging hard work and innovation while always ensuring there is social mobility and a safety net. Every New Zealander who cares about other New Zealanders knows what that means. No matter your situation, I believe in a New Zealand that backs Kiwis to work hard, to convert opportunities, and to create prosperity for themselves, their families, their communities, and our country, because that is how we will make our country stronger. But I also believe that Governments must make powerful and targeted interventions on behalf of those with the most complex and challenged lives. With the right resources at the right time in the right place, the State can help people make positive and sustained changes that enable them to rise up and to realise their own potential.

Regardless of the different political that views we hold in this House, New Zealanders can all agree that we are incredibly fortunate to live in this place, and I believe, more than ever, if we make the right decisions, New Zealand has a great future ahead of us. We can do better and we can be more prosperous and more ambitious if we think strategically, solve problems, deliver results, and get things done. I don’t want to settle for mediocrity, and I don’t believe other New Zealanders want it either.

Like most New Zealanders, I’ve sat round the kitchen table talking to my kids about the subjects they’re studying, or talking to Amanda about the care of elderly friends and family members. I understand that the choices that every New Zealand family has at such times are constrained by their circumstances. I’ve come to politics because I want those choices to be better for New Zealand families. It’s by being more successful as a country that we can ensure that those kitchen table decisions include wider choices and better options for all New Zealanders.

The choices we all have are never made in isolation. The resilience and wealth of a student flat, a family home, a small business, a large corporate are all affected by how New Zealand is doing as a country. It’s my absolute belief that New Zealand can do better, and when it does, New Zealanders will do better, too.

We will all ultimately get the country—the economy, society, the environment—that we deserve, and I think we deserve the very, very best. That’s the work that I’m committing myself to today, and for as long as I’m in the House, I intend to represent the people of Botany and to serve New Zealand to the very best of my ability. Thank you.

[Applause]

The House stands suspended until 7 o’clock tonight. I will resume the Chair then.

Sitting suspended from 6.07 p.m. to 7 p.m.