Valedictory Statements — Maureen Pugh

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is a profound privilege to stand in this House—oh, God! Harden up. It is a profound privilege to stand in this House today to deliver my final address. In fact, it has been a privilege every time I have walked into this place. No matter how often I’ve crossed its threshold, I’ve never lost sight of what an extraordinary honour it is to represent New Zealanders in our Parliament.

Twenty-eight years ago, I was first elected to the Westland District Council, where I worked for 15 years—nine years as mayor. Local government gets a bad rap sometimes, Mr Watts, but I always found that being on the coal face of community was a great place to work. My thanks to Diane Maitland for being the greatest executive assistant and for your 43 years of service so far. Eleven years ago, I stood here as a brand new list MP to give my maiden speech, arriving 14 months after my classmates of 2014. I joked back then about starting off the bench. I promised my team I wouldn’t drop the ball, score an own goal, or give away a penalty. Looking back over the last four terms, from the 51st to the 54th Parliaments, I almost always kept that promise, though there were definitely a few times the referee’s whistle blew.

Thinking back to that day when I looked up into the gallery and saw all those wonderful people who had supported me, I think today of those who are not here to be with me as I retire—my beautiful daughter Haley, my amazing husband John, and my dear old dad Trev. I’ll start my valedictory with acknowledgement of those who have supported me to get here and to stay here, and who did the best to make me look good along the way.

My family, of course, have been incredible. You’re likely to wish I was back at work when I start to annoy you all once I’m fully retired!

I’ve been blessed with great staff over the years, and the current ones I say goodbye to now. Tracy, Rob, Emma, Charlie, Cheryl, John, and Carolyn, I hope you know how much I appreciated everything you have done for me. We’ve helped a lot of people over the years, and we’ve had a great deal of fun along the way.

My classmates of 2014, thank you for being my confidants, my friends, through good times and bad. Having our regular debriefs has kept us connected and sane.

A huge thankyou to the staff in Parliament, from everyone from Bryce, who keeps us fed; the security team that keep us safe; and the travel team who got me everywhere I needed to be. I have a particularly soft spot for our House team. Our select committee clerks, they’ve been extraordinary, making sense of the diverse and sometimes rambling conversations we have about the business in front of us and turning it into professional reports. A massive acknowledgment to our Speakers’ team, especially Suze, Pav, Kellie, and, of course, recently retired Roland, who makes sure the people in the Chair are always well prepared as much as that’s possible.

Representing the West Coast - Tasman electorate as their MP has been the absolute honour of my career. People often ask me how I manage to keep smiling after long and sometimes emotional days of select committee hearings or a two-day commute back to the electorate. I tell them it’s simple: when you represent the most beautiful part of New Zealand, you have a lot to smile about, especially because it’s filled with some of the best miners, farmers, and growers New Zealand has to offer.

No one gets to this place alone. To the National Party leadership, Sylvia; my regional chair, Dean; and my tireless electorate teams over the years, especially my current chair, Jo, thank you for the part you and our supporters have played.

No MP is an island, and I’ve had the unique privilege of serving under seven very different National Party leaders. I entered this place inspired by Sir John Key and his infectious high energy belief in New Zealand’s prosperity. When the baton passed to Sir Bill English, we traded that corporate optimism for deep public policy and serious social investment, a legacy that is thriving.

Then came seasons of change. I served alongside Todd Muller, a man with a wonderful, authentic heart. There was a short period of a few days where the Hon Dr Shane Reti was in charge. Then I navigated the Opposition trenches beside my very good friend Judith Collins. Judith’s wisdom and political nous was incredible. However, being forgotten and left on a deserted island in the scorching sun with no hat and no water tested our friendship—a story for another day, Mr Speaker!

I am wrapping up my career in Government under a current Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon. His relentless focus on efficiency, delivery, productivity, and outcomes means New Zealand will be in good hands for many years as he “Fixes the basics and builds the future of New Zealand.”

There is one leader I haven’t mentioned, and this leads me to my reflections on the media. My relationship with the media has been quite ordinary, my local paper being the notable exception—thanks, Paul. Here’s a great example: even when I put out a short media release at the beginning of this year to announce my retirement, some lazy journo must have done a google search and picked up that the biggest story I was involved in was about a not very nice comment made about me. So next time you want to reference that incident, how about telling the whole story? That comment was made by a man who had never even had one conversation with me, had never been in my office, nor me in his. And here’s how it ended: he lost his job and I got promoted.

My work in this House has always been about taking the fight from the regions straight to Wellington. When Cyclone Ita hit us in 2014, along with my very good friend the Hon Dr Nick Smith, we championed the recovery of fallen trees on conservation land, a temporary piece of legislation. Years later, I turned that into the Adverse Weather-affected Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands Bill 2020—still in the biscuit tin. And I followed that up with the freedom camping amendment bill 2021. Now, as we know, members’ bills are incredibly tough to pass from Opposition, and neither made it past the first reading, but they did what I hoped they would do. They got this Parliament to listen to the West Coast and Tasman and have helped to put us on the political radar, where we have stayed.

I’ve spent a decade in the engine room of select committees, covering everything from commerce and education to law and order, but most of my years focused on social services. It is here that I got to witness the difference in approaches to how we support our most vulnerable Kiwis. I don’t consider myself a victim of anything, so it goes against who I am to make victims of our most vulnerable people. When people are taught to rely on the State, they become victims of the State. To me, it’s like the story of throwing a man a fish and you feed him for a day but teach him to fish and he feeds himself for life. The more we teach our young people, the more they learn, and the more independence and empowerment they build for themselves. If we just hand someone a solution, we are keeping them dependent, but when we teach them how to solve it themselves, we set them up for life. That’s what we owe our youth. Every time we teach them a new skill, we aren’t just giving them knowledge; we are handing them the keys to their own freedom. Education is that key. So when an emergency safety net becomes a lifelong ceiling, we have failed the very people we promised to protect.

Freedom is one of those words we use often, but freedom isn’t simply the absence of barriers. Freedom comes from being capable. A person who can read, write, work, solve problems, and contribute is truly free. That is why education matters. That is why skills matter. That is why personal responsibility matters. The greatest thing we can do for someone is not make them dependent on us but help them become independent of us.

It would be remiss of me not to mention mining. My great-grandfather came to this country to work in a West Coast coalmine, my grandfather was a coalminer, and my dad worked on the steam trains shifting coal east. It’s in my DNA. So it makes my blood boil, as quickly as the kettle boils on my coal range, when people want to shut our communities and industries down without understanding the consequences for those families, businesses, and communities who rely on them. As hard as it may be, we will look past the disruption of protests and stay focused on getting the job done.

So here’s my message to protestors: targeting the supply chain is a completely broken strategy. It’s lazy, and it’s easy to fire at an immobile bull’s eye like a worksite and its community. Shutting down local production does not eliminate the world’s need for these materials. Until idealistic activists shift their focus from trying to choke supply to reducing actual consumer demand, their efforts are only tokenism. Maybe they could lead a reduction in demand themselves by giving up the very devices and modern products they use—all those things that are made from mined materials. But I’m quite sure they will never do that. And therein lies the hypocrisy. But perhaps their ultimate mission is to do their own mining, by mining and storing the email addresses from all the petitions they use to build their database.

As part of my role here, I got to go overseas a few times for various reasons—to Australia, Britain, South Africa, and Japan. More recently, I was part of a cross-party delegation to Taiwan, an incredibly positive experience. Thank you, Jo-Anne.

In this my final Parliament, my circle closes as an Assistant Speaker. Sitting in that big chair gives you a completely different view of this room. Trying to maintain my neutral poker face while keeping order during a rowdy committee of the whole House is one of the hardest tasks in here. Sitting in that chair also teaches you a great deal about human nature. In fact, it’s even taught me a bit about physics. You see, light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear incredibly bright until you hear them speak.

I’ve been taught many lessons, mainly about people, especially those we are here to serve. I’ve learnt that the moment public service becomes self-service we lose our way. The best people I’ve met in politics are those who never forgot that they were here to serve others not themselves. Politics can be a brutal business. Elections are won and lost. Opportunities appear and disappear. Critics appear from everywhere. And occasionally you become tomorrow’s headline for all the wrong reasons. But resilience is a choice. Every set back, whether it is here or in our personal lives, gives us two options: become bitter or become better. I’ve certainly strived to get better.

When I gave my maiden speech, I wore this piece of jewellery that was inspired by the incredible honeybee. For me, that represented showing up every single day as a positive, loyal, hard-working representative for the people in West Coast-Tasman and my National Party team. I’m pretty sure I achieved that. As I prepare to step out of Parliament as member No. 1,422 and woman member No. 131, I leave with a very full heart, knowing that if I’m facing another midnight sitting, it’s because I’m surrounded by friends and family, and likely with a beer in hand.

To West Coast-Tasman, thank you for placing your trust in me. To my colleagues and friends, thank you for the journey, and, to my family, thank you for sharing me with this place for longer than any of us ever expected. My time as a member of Parliament may be ending, but my love for the West Coast of New Zealand never will. Go well all you wonderful people.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

[Applause]

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.