Macindoe Tim: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMacindoe Tim: General Debate[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10988. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): On behalf of the current and all former New Zealand Governments I sincerely apologise to all Babylonians who may have been affected at some stage in a way that they find detrimental to their own well-being by those Governments of the day.On a more serious level the previous member Rino Tirikatene made the comment that the National Party should apologise to Māori. Well I want to say particularly while both members of the Māori Party are in this House that I am incredibly proud of the fact that this Government is unparalleled in its record of being not only apologetic but also committed to righting wrongs that have been done to Māori in generations gone past. And with the Treaty settlements process now well advanced because of the energy of the Hon Christopher Finlayson supported by the Māori Party and our entire caucus I say that our apology is absolutely sincere because we have shown it through our actions.As other members have noted this is New Zealand Sign Language Week. Unfortunately I do not—I do not know whether “fluent” is the right term—have the ability to communicate in sign language. But I do acknowledge all the hearing-impaired members of our community including in my own constituency of Hamilton West. I also thank all those wonderful people who work with them to help them to lead full and fulfilling lives because those of us who are not hearing impaired can only imagine just how alienating that experience must be. Although having said that when you are a member in this Chamber you can quite often feel utterly deafened by the babble that is going on around us. I just have to hope that none of us suffers long-term impairment with our hearing although I am sure that it cannot be good for our mental health to be here for ever and a day.Can I also note that last week two very exciting things happened on my home patch in Hamilton. The first was the opening of Rototuna Junior High School the first new high school for all—other than a kura kaupapa—to be opened in our city for more than a generation. I think the last one was Hillcrest High School back in the 1970s. It is a wonderful achievement. I pay tribute to the hard work of the North-East Schools Action Group and my colleague David Bennett who has lobbied on this issue for many many years and I celebrate with that school community this wonderful wonderful thing that has happened which was funded by the National Government.I also want to acknowledge an outstanding festival that was held at our magnificent Claudelands—the venue for the Waikato and Bay of Plenty secondary schools Pasifika by Nature festival. A number of people probably do not think of going to events of that sort. I simply want to say that if you have an opportunity—you Mr Speaker personally and all who are listening—go to Pasifika by Nature next year because it was one of the most outstanding pieces of entertainment I have seen in a long time.To all of the secondary schools that took part I want to say a very big well done because they worked hard; they entertained us brilliantly. I was able to stay for four schools three of which were from within Hamilton and I was particularly proud of their efforts. But I want to single out Hamilton Girls’ High School which won three of the six special awards and was judged the winner overall. What a fantastic effort that was—and also honourable mentions to Fraser High School Melville High School Hamilton Boy’s High School and Hillcrest High School. Boy they were good.The great problem for the Labour Party members—and they are demonstrating it again right now—is that they are obsessed in this House with beltway issues. We have been focusing today on a really important issue. We are still waiting for the apology that the Minister for Building and Housing invited them at the start of this debate to deliver because—and I say this with my good friend and colleague Dr Yang right beside me—they owe an apology and they should be delivering it to the Chinese communities the citizens and constituents whom we are all proud to represent in this country. That is because this is a party this once proud Labour Party that argued last year that people with Chinese-sounding names were responsible for 40 percent of Auckland property purchases and that has been shown in the last couple of days with some data that has been collected to be utter bunkum.There was no evidence for that outrageous suggestion; it was just a bigoted hunch on the part of Labour members for short-term populist political advantage. And boy did it rebound on them and I am so glad that it did because now that the data has been produced debunking that absolutely ludicrous assertion what do we have? We have got Mr Twyford and his colleagues attacking the data. Well how ridiculous is that.On this side of the House we are focused on the things that matter. In our recent pre-Budget announcements there is the extra funding for Pharmac—really important really welcome. There is support for teacher-aides which has been given today and a whole lot of other things: the Battle for our Birds from Maggie Barry. We are getting on with the things that matter and I am very proud to support those efforts. Those things matter to New Zealanders.