King Annette: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 28 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:283. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]I congratulate my distant cousin the Hon Chester Borrows on his appointment—Hon Annette King: What about your other cousin?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —I will come to you shortly—as the Deputy Speaker and of course I congratulate the Assistant Speakers. It is the first time I have seen you Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard in the Chair and I think that you are going to be a wonderful Chair. You very much look the part and I think you are going to require the highest standards from all members of Parliament at all times. For example I cannot imagine for one moment that you would tolerate members of Parliament hurling homophobic slurs across the Chamber at other members of Parliament. So I very much look forward to your time as Assistant Speaker.I also congratulate the Prime Minister who moves into that category of Prime Minister like Dick Seddon and Peter Fraser both of whom would be members of the National Party today. I particularly want to pay tribute to that great Prime Minister Peter Fraser because at the weekend we are all going to be celebrating—Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your advice and I am sure you will correct me if this point is not within the Standing Orders but I wonder whether it is possible for a member to take exception on the part of a former member because in the case of—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will be seated.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Quite apart from losing an election he has lost his sense of humour. But—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Trevor Mallard): Order!Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Not you Mr Assistant Speaker but—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): And referring to a point of order that has been dealt with—the member will get on with it.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Oh mea culpa and thank you for your guidance. I do appreciate it. Let us come to Peter Fraser and the Polish refugees because that was a real act of statesmanship by that great Prime Minister as a consequence of which we have a wonderful vibrant Polish community in New Zealand. I am sure Mrs King is going to be with me on Sunday when we recognise that contribution in Wellington.Let us move to Mrs King because I want to congratulate her on her wonderful victory in Rongotai. Admittedly she lost the party vote for the first time since 1996 but her electorate vote margin was impressive and I want to congratulate her. Labour bombed in the party vote but she did well in the electorate vote. Mind you Labour bombed by 900 votes in the party vote. It was not as much as the margin by which Mr Robertson lost the party vote in Wellington Central. It was the second time that the Labour Party—Hon Annette King: You haven’t looked at your final vote.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Oh 894—do not quibble. It was the second time in a row that Labour has come third in the party vote in Wellington Central. Indeed comments are being made about his lamentable performance and I think it is going to reflect in the great Labour leadership campaign.As Mrs King will know the Chatham Islands are now bluer than ever. I think they may even possibly be bluer than Epsom and that is a testament to the work that the Government is putting in over there. It is not numbers; it is quality.I had a very good time on the campaign with Mrs King. She is an excellent campaigner. She is an impressive performer and I cannot understand why she is not seeking the leadership of the Labour Party because I do think that she would wipe the floor with the four current contenders. Indeed my favourite meeting—I do not know what Mrs King’s favourite meeting was—was in Island Bay—Kris Faafoi: One when you weren’t there.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —I was at all of them—when a man followed me down the street yelling that I was working for the CIA. Perhaps he had had a tip-off from his sources about my new portfolios; it was just that he got the wrong intelligence agency. It was all jolly good fun. No dirty politics in Rongotai—well apart from the people who defaced my billboards—but it was all good solid fun. Some of Mrs King’s billboards were defaced as well and I was really quite upset about that.I want to say something about the various portfolios for which I have responsibility. Of course my new portfolio responsibilities have necessitated my handing over the arts culture and heritage portfolio. It is a fantastic portfolio and as can be seen from Mrs Barry in the House today I think she is going to be a superb Minister for the arts. She could possibly be even better than Allan Highet who I think it is commonly accepted was our greatest Minister for the arts. She knows that there is more to arts than self-promotion unlike some other Ministers for the arts and I confidently predict that the golden age of the arts that I have spoken about so often is about to morph into the platinum age.I am pleased to be Associate Minister for Māori Development again and I very much look forward to working with that great Minister Te Ururoa Flavell on a number of important matters particularly reform of Te Ture Whenua Māori. I think this is one of the biggest pieces of economic reform for many many years and I would be delighted to meet with the new Labour MPs to talk to them about the potential that this has. The Ministry for Primary Industries report published a few years ago said: “Get this right and it is worth over $8 billion to the Māori economy over 10 years and could be worth 3600 jobs.” so it is worth putting in the effort. It is not about—as we heard during the campaign—doing something to destroy the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court but is about expanding the jurisdiction and making sure that we do the right thing there.I very much look forward as you can imagine to working on Treaty settlements. Ngāpuhi Hauraki Ngāti Tūwharetoa Taranaki iwi Wairoa Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa—these are all major settlements and I am very much looking forward to getting stuck in there.I particularly want to say how delighted I am that Ron Mark is back in the House. I have been very involved with Ron over a number of years working on the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa claim. I know that because he is back here he has had to hand it over but he did a great job. I confidently predict that he will soon be the leader of New Zealand First. I think we have seen a number of appalling contributions from Mr Peters since the House has been back. He has no interest in being here any longer and he is already counting down the days.On the subject of leaders in waiting I also want to welcome James Shaw to the House a person whom I have known for some years and a person of whom I have a very high opinion. I am delighted that he is going to be making his maiden speech immediately after me. One of the more pleasant aspects of standing in Rongotai quite apart from the fact that Mrs King is such a jolly good sport was when James Shaw turned up to debates instead of Russel Norman. There were two positives in that. Mr Shaw is not an ideologue. He is a practical and pleasant individual and more in line I think with the way the German Green Party has developed. The German Greens seem to me at least to be a principled environmental party not a dogmatic left-wing rabble that talks down to people. I have to say I have lost count of the number of times I have seen iwi representatives in the gallery visibly laughing at the contribution of Green Party members on Treaty bills.When the Greens move on from their present anti-establishment phase I know that Mr Shaw will be waiting in the wings to take them into Government and I wish him all the very best. Then all he is going to need to do is replace Catherine Delahunty Jan Logie Eugenie Sage and some of the other Green comedians in the Green caucus and I think it will be a real party.Finally I want to say something about the Government Communications Security Bureau and the SIS. I am very privileged to hold those portfolios. In the few weeks I have had responsibility for those jobs I have come to respect those people and the very important work they do. They are the unsung guardians of our liberty and we are going to have a debate on aspects of those organisations in the next few weeks but I want to acknowledge the very dedicated and capable people whom I have met and who I know are committed to securing the freedom of New Zealanders. Obviously they cannot talk very much about what they do but the work they do is very important and I acknowledge it.I certainly hope that in this Parliament at least the intelligence questions that we as members of Parliament are going to have to face will not be dealt with in a partisan way. Debate is good; debate is necessary but using the intelligence agencies to get at the Prime Minister for example is wholly unsatisfactory. I hope as it is very important for this country that the two big beasts of politics if you like—the National Party and the Labour Party—work together to create a consensus in this area. As Minister responsible for those agencies let me say to the Acting Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and to others on the Opposition benches that I will be seeking to work with them so that we can rebuild that bipartisan consensus.