Whaitiri Meka: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:399. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Kia ora Mr Speaker. E Te Kaiwhakahaere o Te Whare nei tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare ā tēnā koutou ā tēnā koutou ā tēnā tātou katoa.[Thank you Mr Speaker. Greetings to you Mr Speaker of this House. To the members of the House acknowledgments accolades and salutations to you collectively and to us all.]Mr Deputy Speaker I rise firstly to congratulate and acknowledge you as our Deputy Speaker of the House. I also want to acknowledge the return of our Speaker the Rt Hon David Carter and of course the appointment of one of our colleagues the Hon Trevor Mallard along with the member Lindsay Tisch who has retained his position as Assistant Speaker. Let us hope that what I have seen in terms of your chairmanship and the chairmanship of the other Speakers in terms of impartiality remains for this term. I look forward to working with all four of you gentlemen.I wish to congratulate the National Party on receiving from the people of Aotearoa New Zealand the mandate to govern. I respect that you have a job and you have set a pathway forward for these next 3 years. There will be times when I will disagree with you no doubt but as members of the Opposition it is our role to hold you accountable for the decisions that you make in the interests of the people of New Zealand. I intend to do that to my utmost in my time in this House. I would like to also acknowledge all returning members to the House. I congratulate you all on coming back to represent your constituents and to be the advocate that they have entrusted you to be. I also want to welcome all the new members. Can I say that the quality of the maiden speeches given not only by my colleagues on this side of the House but from across the House was most impressive. If we can maintain the commitment and put politics aside then I believe competency and common sense will prevail in this 51st Parliament.I am honoured to be returned to the New Zealand House of Representatives as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti with an almost threefold increased margin but I am also honoured particularly by the 9 percent increase in voter turnout that we achieved since the 2011 election. It was not an easy feat given that it was my very first general election. I also acknowledge the former member a mentor and a friend of this House the Hon Parekura Horomia. I think it was a great achievement. But my return was possible only through the commitment and dedicated efforts of not one campaign team not two campaign teams but three campaign teams—Tai Rāwhiti Gisborne; Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay; and Te Awakairangi the Hutt Valley.I want to especially acknowledge and thank Lorraine Joanne Robyn Nevada Danielle and Naomi. I especially want to thank and acknowledge all our supporters and the many many volunteers who doorknocked telephone-canvassed delivered pamphlets and attended the many candidate debates we held throughout the electorate. Why am I making a big deal about this? Because like my colleagues who hold Māori seats my electorate is one of the largest covering 657 kilometres in distance and it is about a 9-hour drive from top to bottom. It is hopefully understood by members of this House that it was no mean feat to bring home that victory.I guess I am standing here as a bit of two cities—how successful our campaign was but also how disappointing the party effort was. But you know we are approaching that and we are dealing with that through our own review. With the exception of Waiariki Māori voters have put their faith back in Labour. I am pleased to join Kelvin Davis member for Te Tai Tokerau; Peeni Henare member for Tāmaki Makaurau; the Hon Nanaia Mahuta member for Hauraki-Waikato; Adrian Rurawhe member for Te Tai Hauāuru; Rino Tirikatene member for Te Tai Tonga; and of course our colleague Louisa Wall member for Manurewa.Whakapapa genealogy is an important principle in Te Ao Māori. Often your destiny is preordained by one’s whakapapa. Hēnare Mahuta Rātana and Tirikatene are legacy names throughout Te Ao Māori particularly in recognition of the unrelenting sacrifice and service of the rangatira to advance our Māori people. But I have no doubt that all Māori members across this House will set their own pathway just as their tīpuna did. I wish them all the very best in those endeavours. We are accountable to our electorates. We are accountable to our whakapapa. Let us not forget that.In the time remaining I do want to talk about the issues throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti that I confronted during the campaign. Clearly the smallest word in the English language is the biggest issue facing the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and that is jobs—jobs on the East Coast jobs in Gisborne jobs in Wairoa jobs in Hastings jobs in the Wairarapa and jobs in the Hutt Valley. I heard the Speech from the Throne and I heard the delivery of an economic contribution under this National Government but can I go on record as saying that there are no jobs throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. These are the concerns that our people are sharing with me as I travel throughout the electorate—no jobs poor housing. As we all know one of the biggest drivers for poverty in the home is the lack of suitable and sustainable jobs.I am not only going to hold the Government to account but as you can see I have no sleeves because I am a person who rolls up my sleeves and I muck in. I am coming to this House to share a plan of how we can grow jobs throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. I applaud the plan that is laid out but I think the National Government needs to think a bit more innovatively around how we can grow jobs on the East Coast. I have a plan and I am happy to share it with the Government.There was a situation in Hastings recently around housing. I want to go on record to acknowledge some people who are fighting for our homeless people in the Hawke’s Bay. I want to mention Kerry Swindell who has a soup kitchen every Friday at 6 p.m. in Clive Square in Napier. She has on average 15 to 20 homeless gentlemen whom she feeds every Friday night. This has been going on for years. There is not only a shortage of homes throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti but we have a shortage of emergency homes. People like Kerry and her family off their own bat are helping people in the Napier area. I want to also acknowledge Lou Hutchinson. I want to go on record and acknowledge Florence Karaitiana. These are people in Hawke’s Bay who are protesting and raising the issue of the lack of housing in the Hawke’s Bay area. As my colleagues on this side have shared despite there being many boarded-up State homes people are struggling to get decent homes in the Hawke’s Bay area. So again I want to add my weight to the call that there is a housing issue in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and we need to hold this Government to account to make sure that it is addressing it.There are two policy issues that I want to finish off on that were raised in the Speech from the Throne. One is the continued investment in Whānau Ora. I understand that until December 2013 over $113 million had been spent on Whānau Ora initiatives. The Hon Maurice Williamson talked about outcomes. He said that we should focus on outcomes. So I look forward to seeing what has been achieved through such a large investment in Whānau Ora particularly when we get a poverty report out today that says that nothing has changed in 6 years.Finally I want to touch on He Kai Kei Aku Ringa which is the Government’s economic plan strategy for Māori investment. Can I say that what I have seen to date in my short time in this House is that apart from six trips to China last year this Government announced a $2 million innovation fund to grow Māori exports which I think is woefully undercooked. But interestingly enough we have got a $1 million cultural stage show being invested in and I just hope that this is not politically tinged with who is going to provide that cultural show and how cultural shows are going to grow economic opportunities for Māori exporters. Again I say it is a privilege to be in the House and I look forward to the next 3 years. Kia ora tātou.