Goodhew JoHon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): As we are here in the debating chamber this afternoon there are unlikely to be a lot of New Zealanders watching us but for those who are they might be—[Interruption] An extra 250000 New Zealanders are not watching us because they are in work now. But let us think about the demeanour of the parties in the Parliament at the moment. On this side of the House we could throw a party—and I will talk a little bit more about why soon. But in the meantime let us just examine what is happening on the other side of the House. Disappointment reigns in Labour—disappointment because the money it expended or rather the taxpayers of New Zealand expended sending its leader off to Canada so that he could transform from Angry Andy" to "Sunshine Sandy" did not work. No it did not work. Then I have to say that the Green Party must be feeling disappointed on two counts. I first want to acknowledge Kevin Hague and his work while he has been in this House. There must be disappointment to lose talent like this because Kevin has worked creatively and positively with many other members of this House. That has been acknowledged here this week and I too want to acknowledge him—you will be missed. But there is also disappointment that the Greens' potential partners—if and when the people of New Zealand ever think they are worthy of the Government's Treasury benches—are unbelievably disorganised so much so that any possibility that New Zealand First members might appeal to Māoridom to vote for them for whatever reason is out the window down the drain. How horribly embarrassing for the position that New Zealand First now finds itself in. Think about how much it cost those 400 people to book their flights to book their accommodation—but no New Zealand First does not care. The outrage from the Māori Party is absolutely as it should be on behalf of the people who will be missing out. [Interruption] Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are now getting to the stage where I cannot hear the speaker. The main interjector is Darroch Ball. If he continues to interject through the general debate I will be asking him to leave.Hon JO GOODHEW: Thank you for the opportunity to continue because it is time to talk about why we might party. There are lots of reasons why we might party but we are not going to because there is still a hang of a lot of work to do. The reason we might party is that New Zealand is growing the third-fastest in the OECD—3.6 percent for the last year. It is the envy of so many other nations but there is a lot more to be done. We are getting on with the work. I want to talk about the unemployment rate in Canterbury. Actually it is a little worrying because it is now down from 4 percent 2 years ago to 3.2 percent and we are crying out for people to fill the jobs. On a recent visit to my electorate of Rangitata Steven Joyce discovered that Industrial Controls a tech company is going gangbusters and could easily take on 20 more people in the next 2 years but those people are quite hard to find. We have got good accommodation for them—affordable accommodation for them—great schools and a fabulous community to live in but unemployment is quite low. We would love the people from the rest of New Zealand who need those jobs to come and live in the Rangitata electorate. So that is good news. We have got real wages—that is wages adjusted for inflation; not pretend wages—growing at 1.4 percent per annum. That is 50 percent faster than it was under Labour—a fact it is not particularly interested in. The real families of the Rangitata electorate want to know they have got a job they want to know that their wages are growing and they want to know that their mortgages are going to stay hopefully really really low in the way they have been. That has been such a bonus for them making ends meet. The people of New Zealand are out there saying: "Government you've still got some work to do." We know that. We understand that and we have plans for many many more initiatives that will tackle some of the really hard stuff that the Opposition would rather talk about than come up with plans about. So it is all talk no plans terribly negative—embarrassed over there and ashamed over there. It is positive over here but no time to party just yet."