Dean Jacqui: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12666. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 I will start with a question: who did Ron Mark mean when he referred in question time to the “loony tunes” of the left? He should not be referring to the Labour-led Government like that. It is in enough trouble without that kind of help from its minor coalition partners. 
You know the Prime Minister has a big problem because between her overseas trips she has to sit over there in the House look over at us and feel the chill—the chill of inevitable defeat. Those members opposite know it and they are panicking. The Prime Minister looks over at our side of the House and who does she see? She sees John Key the future Prime Minister. She sees National’s front-bench members our future Ministers and rows and rows of enthusiastic talented able and hungry members of Parliament from the National Party. She must look at our MPs who day after day get big hits on the Government in this Chamber. She must cast her eye over the National Party caucus and see those members who have removed and replaced her own Labour MPs from their constituent seats with young hungry capable hard-working and good-looking National MPs. 
So who have we got? We will start with young Craig Foss. Who did Craig take the seat from? He took it from Rick Barker. And what about Jo Goodhew? She had a famous famous victory over Jim Sutton. Anne Tolley took the East Coast seat from Moana Mackey. Then we have Chester Borrows who took the seat of Whanganui from Russell Fairbrother. It is a shame he could not do the same thing with the heartland rugby competition but I suppose there is always next year. David Parker was defeated in Otago by yours truly Jacqui Dean. What about David Bennett? What happened to Dianne Yates? David Bennett took the Hamilton East seat from her. Jonathan Coleman took the Northcote seat from Ann Hartley and Eric Roy took the deep-south seat of Invercargill. 
Why did we beat them? Why did we take all those provincial seats back and why will we go on winning more electorate seats at the next election? I will tell members why. The reason is that we are good. We are effective electorate MPs. We are the ones who live in the towns and villages of New Zealand and we understand the problems of provincial and rural New Zealand. We understand issues such as the compliance costs that have been heaped on small business and the utter frustrations of builders facing an onerous licensing regime. Of course this issue is not just confined to towns and villages; it is also happening in the cities. My colleague David Bennett in Hamilton East faces exactly these issues as well. 
What else do we good electorate MPs do? We fight and we try to help local authorities struggling with registration under the new Building Act. In the Waitaki District they reckon it is going to cost them the wages of another two building inspectors—this is in a small local authority—just to comply with the Building Act requirements. I ask the Labour-led Government whether that is helpful. We fight on a daily basis for schools that are being chronically underfunded and where principals feel more like building inspectors than educators. It is no wonder they are leaving the country at the rate of 700 people a week. We good National electorate MPs are fighting to find hospital-level care beds for elderly people who have lived in their towns all their lives and now because there is not the level of care for them there get shipped out of town into hospital-level care. The level of underfunding in elderly care services under this Labour-led Government is absolutely shameful. 
We are the constituency MPs who are fighting for the rights of high-country farmers under tenure review against a Minister who just does not care for the farming sector. Never mind productivity never mind the fact that these farming families have been good stewards of the land for over 100 years—the Minister for Land Information cares nothing for that. He will return it to the Department of Conservation’s control where it will be left to grow weeds and become a fire hazard which leads me on to the Rural Fire Authority. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.