Collins Judith: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2150. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): That is so appropriate because according to Mrs Annette King Mr Seymour and I are in discussions to do some sort of ACT Party thing but it is not true. Anyway keep it going Mrs King. Mr Seymour is I think an outstanding member of Parliament and Epsom is very lucky to have him. As I have said to many people in the Epsom electorate many of whom I know very well they are so lucky to have such an outstanding member.Look it is such a privilege to be here in paradise is it not? Just another day in paradise in the best little country in the world. I wish everyone was as happy as me about it all. Obviously Mrs Fox who has just resumed her seat is happy about what she has been able to achieve so far and she has not even been here that long so I think that she is going to be achieving a lot over the years. What a difference from the Green member. Oh misery—for goodness’ sake! Be grateful. This is New Zealand one of the most wonderful countries the country where—by the way you know talking about women’s rights in New Zealand you were absolutely dead right except tell me of one country in the world where women are better off. Go on tell me. Go on tell me of one. Australia? Yes that is great—fantastic. All is going well.But what I would say is that one of the best things for anybody in New Zealand is for people to be working—lots of people working. People with choices in their jobs people getting educated people who can look at their work with the joy that I look at my work every day and say: “Another day to have so much fun.” Is that not wonderful? That is what they need to do.So we have got 80000 more people employed in New Zealand—in paid work in other words—than we had 1 year ago. How good is that? And it is not all down to the excellent work of ACC although I have to say that that has got a lot to do with a lot of things. It has a lot to do with the fact that this Government is focused on what actually matters—what matters for Kiwis. Then when we look at the growth in New Zealand we have had 3.2 percent economic growth over the year to September which puts us our little country right at the top of the world. That is fantastic.Remember when we came into Government in 2008 and we had all those New Zealanders leaving for Australia? All those New Zealanders left and now guess what? They are all coming back and some of the Aussies are coming back too. And guess what? There is growth here; it is not so good there. Well we love the Australians. It is really important to us for them to do well because they are either our first or our second-biggest trading partner depending on which month of the year it is. Having said that we do not want to lose all our talent there and thankfully some of us stayed behind. But I would say that New Zealand is a country that is blessed. We are blessed with an excellent education system that works for most Kiwi kids—not all Kiwi kids but most Kiwi kids. I do not think we do enough for kids with disabilities but you know I think that many people have heard me speak on that before.I also think that we have a great health system where if you need help you can get help and are we not grateful for that? What a fantastic system. We have also got a system of law and order where I think we are so much further ahead than many other countries. New Zealand is the first country—and we are probably the only country in the world actually—to have community policing to the extent that we have it. Nowhere else in the world do we have the sorts of levels of trust and confidence in the police that we have in New Zealand. We have a judiciary that is not corrupt and that is a fantastic thing.We have a Government that cares about the people that actually looks to help even the people who do not vote for it actually and that does things that we should be doing for the betterment of New Zealand. We have an Opposition that holds us to account and that is a good thing although occasionally it would be nice if it were not holding us quite so closely to account but it is a good thing. We have so much to be grateful for and we have got a lot more to do. We have got new bridges that are going to be built in Northland and I think that that is a good thing. If you go up to Northland what do you do? There are one-lane bridges everywhere. It is a good thing that we are taking it seriously. And actually crime is down in Northland. I mean these are good things for people but we also need to look at resources and at what we are using them for. We have got gold in Northland we have got oil in Northland and we have got all sorts of minerals and we could be doing more there too. We have got to do it in a sustainable way that does not hurt the environment but we do need to do it for the people of Northland. We need to get the jobs like we have in Taranaki. We need to get those sorts of attributes into Northland. We need to get people working. That is what we need to do. We are doing well but we can do even better over this next year and I believe we will. So I am very happy to be able to take this call to celebrate what we have in New Zealand and also to look forward to how we could do even better.