Motions — New Zealand Commonwealth Games Team—Congratulations

I seek leave to move a motion without notice to congratulate the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I move, That this House congratulate the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team of 114 athletes on their success in Glasgow where they won 10 gold, 14 silver, and 12 bronze medals—a total of 36 medals.

On behalf of the Government, I congratulate the whole team on its incredible performances and achievements. Of course, there were many standout performances by our athletes, and I do want to acknowledge a few. Lewis Clareburt got our campaign off to a flying start with two gold medals in the pool; Emma Foy and Jessie Hodges won two golds and showed incredible resilience, getting back on the bike and standing on top of the podium just 30 minutes after a crash; not to be outdone on the velodrome, Devon Briggs also struck gold with a games record performance; David Liti lifted an astounding 389 kilograms to claim gold, while Zoe Hobbs made history, becoming the first New Zealander to win the Commonwealth Games 100 metres title; pole-vaulter Eliza McCartney again showed the world that Kiwis can fly; and Sydnee Andrews became the first New Zealand woman to win Commonwealth Games gold in judo. Of course, our Silver Ferns went undefeated, beating Jamaica in the final to bring home a brilliant gold medal, for the first time in 16 years.

I’d also like to congratulate all our athletes who won silver and bronze medals. Your achievements are significant, and you are all to be incredibly congratulated. There are many other athletes who participated and just missed winning a medal, and we should also be acknowledging all of them as well. Our athletes, without exception, performed with skill, determination, and integrity, and you have all done New Zealand proud.

Success like this doesn’t happen on its own, and I also want to acknowledge the support teams behind our athletes: the families, the partners, and the friends whose support, guidance, and love all help our athletes make the sacrifices to allow them to perform at their very best. The coaches, the physios, nutritionists, the sports performance, the health psychology, and other professionals who all play a part in the success of our athletes also deserve recognition. Thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you also to our chef de mission, Nigel Avery, and his team and volunteers who worked so tirelessly to ensure that New Zealand not only had a successful campaign but also a memorable presence in Glasgow. I want to especially mention Liane Smithies, the team’s seamstress, an unsung hero, who worked around the clock to make sure that the uniforms were fitted and tailored to keep our team looking their best on the world stage. Thank you to Liz Dawson and Nicki Nicol and their teams on the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games committees. Thank you to High Performance Sport and Sport New Zealand. You all worked incredibly hard to get our team to Glasgow.

Our athletes’ performances have been magnificent, and they all carried themselves superbly. They competed hard, they showed humility in victory and grace in defeat, and they represented the very best of our country. New Zealanders watching from home saw courage, resilience, sportsmanship, and ambition, and those qualities are recognised around the world as hallmarks of our country.

To every member of the team, thank you. Thank you for inspiring us, for representing New Zealand with such distinction, and for showing what is possible when people back themselves and give everything they’ve got. You’ve made our country incredibly proud. Thank you.

SPEAKER: The question is at the motion to be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the Labour Opposition, can I wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by the Prime Minister and extend our congratulations to New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games team, as well. For those 114 inspiring athletes and para-athletes to come home with 36 medals, as they have, is a testament not only to their talent and to their skills but also to the incredibly hard work that they have put into competing. Congratulations also go to their friends, their families, and all of those who have been supporting them every step of the way.

With a Commonwealth Games team that is so successful, it makes it very hard to choose which highlights and achievements to focus on—from Erika Fairweather and Lewis Clareburt, both claiming multiple medals in swimming; to Devon Briggs, Emma Foy, Jessie Hodges, and Nicole Murray, all raking in golds and bronzes in para-cycling; the Silver Ferns reclaiming Commonwealth gold in netball for the first time in 16 years; or even Sydnee Andrews, for becoming the first New Zealand woman ever to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in judo. The list of successes and achievements is considerable, not forgetting, of course, David Liti in weightlifting; Kurt Smith, Mark Noble in the para-lawn bowls; Lauren Bruce in the hammer throw; Anna Grimaldi in the para-sport 100 metres—the list continues to go on.

It would be remiss not to give a special shout-out to Zoe Hobbs. Scotland’s weather isn’t famous for its tropical conditions, so it was a truly special effort in wet and rainy conditions, not only to win gold in the 100 metres, the first time a New Zealander has done that at a Commonwealth Games, but to break the Oceania record at the same time. It was New Zealand’s first sprint medal in over 50 years, in what has already become a remarkable career, and I’m sure there is plenty more still to come.

Of course, we celebrate the achievements of Eliza McCartney, who now has a gold to add to her medal collection. She didn’t just win gold, though; she beat the current Olympic champion and rose back to the peak of her sport, after a journey that included recovering from an Achilles tendon injury. In fact, I think Eliza McCartney summed up the Kiwi attitude, when it comes to competing in these sorts of events, when she said, “I don’t think any country does it quite like us.” That is absolutely true of every one of the athletes and competitors representing New Zealand in Glasgow in 2026.

As their achievements enter the record books, as we look back on their successes, we extend our warmest congratulations to them and to all those who have been supporting them.

Tēnā koe; tēnā tātou, Mr Speaker. As I was able to catch some of our incredible performances, what struck me is the absolute heart that is Aotearoa and that all of our athletes put into their performances, no matter the medal, no matter the placing. I know that behind every single athlete is an entire community of support, of sacrifice, of training, the likes of which I cannot even imagine.

I wanted to make sure we remembered the collective work that supports these incredible, superhuman athletes, in fact. They are absolutely superhuman. One of the TV performances that I was privileged to catch was David Andrew Liti’s lift—his incredible lift. I just studied his face for the determination on it, to lift a weight that I can’t even comprehend. The determination and the focus was what struck out at me as I was watching.

We all saw Zoe Hobbs and her incredible 100 metres final win and gold, and so many of us also were a part of the ongoing promotional videos and training that we were also privileged to see.

Dame Noels hasn’t had an easy path to the Commonwealth Games, and it has to be acknowledged that through all of that adversity, she took an incredible team of superb athletes to that court, not just the players on it but the players on the bench—every single one of them were incredible, superb athletes. It gives me great pleasure to be able to add my contribution to the floor.

I wanted to also pick up that this incredible athleticism that unites us also took with it, as a team, across on a world stage, their pride in tikanga and reo Māori. They put that on the world stage as something that is unique to who we are, and only us. They put it on there with pride and unity, and they were so proud to represent who we are and the uniqueness of te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, and the indigenous people of this land—and so I thank the Commonwealth Games team for that.

Lastly, I wish every single child—every single budding athlete—had the opportunities to reach the goals of Commonwealth, of Olympic, and of world-stage performance. That is where our roles as politicians come in, to make sure that we have equity across our communities—equity of opportunities—because there are so many more of us who are worthy and deserving of reaching those world performances, like the athletes that we are celebrating today. Thank you very much to our incredible team for showing us proud on the world stage. Thank you for representing all of who we are, including te ao Māori. Thank you for being inspiring so that our responsibility is to ensure that we offer those equitable opportunities to all our community athletes. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, this Parliament acknowledges and rightfully celebrates the outstanding achievement of New Zealand’s athletes at the Commonwealth Games. While many of us had hoped that the games would be held closer to home—perhaps in Australia—we should congratulate Scotland and the Glaswegian people for stepping up and hosting this great event. Once again, our athletes have represented New Zealand with pride and distinction. The games remind us that the Commonwealth is not merely a legacy of the past; it is a living partnership of proud and independent nations united by history, friendship, and shared traditions. For nearly a century, the Commonwealth Games have celebrated excellence and friendly rivalry. They honour the ties that bind our nations together and strengthen them for future generations.

Special congratulations must go to our gold medallists: Lewis Clareburt, Eliza McCartney, Zoe Hobbs, David Liti, Devon Briggs, Emma Foy with her pilot Jessie Hodges, and—who can forget—the Silver Ferns. I also want to recognise Mark Noble, Kurt Smith, Teri Blackbourn, and Julie O’Connell for bringing home silver medals in the bowls, because netball and bowls are two sports that are particularly well-represented at the Commonwealth Games.

To every member of the New Zealand team: thank you for your dedication and your determination. You have made this country proud. You’ve inspired New Zealanders and reminded us what can be achieved with hard work and perseverance, and what can happen when Kiwis have their potential unlocked. On behalf of the ACT Party, I congratulate everyone involved, from chef de mission Nigel Avery to the supporters who contributed to New Zealand’s success at these games. You’ve worn the silver fern with pride, and you’ve represented our country with distinction. God save the King, and God defend New Zealand.

We endorse, in their entirety, the Prime Minister’s comments on behalf of our nation—not wishing to try and gain some ill-entitled, vicarious, collateral, political advantage.

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the New Zealand team, representing Aotearoa at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. I especially want to chime in on the chorus of celebrations and, also, acknowledgements to all the athletes—absolutely.

It goes without saying—it’s not a secret—that, technically, I should be in Scotland right now. My last job was actually with the Olympics as pouwhiringa. However, I drew the short straw and came in here, and now I’m speaking to this House. So, it is through this House that I wish to congratulate my former colleagues of the New Zealand Olympic Committee - Te Whare o Pou Tangata, who, as we know, hold very firmly their values of respect, integrity, excellence, leadership, and pride—those are the founding values of Te Whare o Pou Tangata. Our New Zealand team actually take that very seriously. It’s not just about the action and the results that you see at the end of every finish line or at the start of every flagbearer ceremony, which we saw on 24 July; right through to the end, to the closing, it’s actually the values that hold our kapa so firm. What they gave rise to this year in Glasgow they gave rise to in Paris last year: an epic, historic feat for Aotearoa New Zealand, propped up, may I say, by the mana and the pride of our culture that we celebrate also here in Aotearoa, and that is te ao Māori.

Te Whare o Pou Tangata has been gradually built over many decades. In fact, from the very outset, the start of the Olympic Committee in Aotearoa, they have been toiling day in, day out to give effect to Te Tiriti through the mahi that they do on and off the field. It is to the performance support teams that I send my acknowledgements and my absolute gratitude to you for standing by our athletes in their times of victory, but especially in their times of failure; the likes of Eliza McCartney and Zoe Hobbs who have had to fight tooth and nail to reach gold standards. It’s not just the gold medallists that we should be acknowledging and celebrating today, it’s also the 12 bronze medallists, it’s also the 14 silver medallists, and it’s also those who broke their own personal records. It’s also those who gave it a go, who actually said, “Yes, I will take on the responsibility, or just the duty of trying.”

To all of those from Ngāti Porou, the Toko lot, fighting with the ones from Tikitiki who has represented us in judo, and also on the netball courts,

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but also to all our representatives, whether you’re Māori or not. You put that fern on, I know exactly what that feels like; to wear the fern firmly on your chest, to go all the way onto the other side of the world to represent us speaks so many volumes, and I only wish that the members of this House today could acknowledge that in its sincerity but also stand with us in pride. Be proud of Aotearoa New Zealand everybody in this House, because they’ve done us all a great service. They’ve put us back on the map, and it is fair that we remain proud and firm as Aotearoa. Tēnā tātou.

Motion agreed to.