Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you very much Mr Speaker. I will briefly reply to the member Kelvin Davis who has just returned to his seat. There's much I could dispute in what he said but at the core of it that member believes that there is a correct Māori way to think and that he speaks for that correct way. I'm here along with other ACT members members whom he disgracefully said look at the world through a vanilla lens—which he had to apologise for—to say that he does not speak for all Māori. Māori have a wide range of views and many of us disagree with Kelvin Davis.But it's been a long three years in this Chamber and it has been characterised by one fact that lays bare what has happened and that is the fact that the Labour Party in Roy Morgan polled 26 percent. That means that half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is. Well they may not ask but I'm always a helpful fellow and I'm going to answer it for them anyway. Before I do that I just want to thank the many people who have served in this Parliament with good will to make it the place that it is. We should be proud of our democratic institutions with one person one vote and free speech to represent those people behind us. Mr Speaker I want to thank you. I don't think that it was a particularly high bar but you have more than excelled and your style has been a welcome change and I've been grateful for our interactions and the good will that you've brought to the role of upholding this House. I'd like to thank the Clerk and the parliamentary staff right across the precinct from security guards to caterers to cleaners who are often forgotten. There's a lot of people—around 700 people—that work on this precinct to make a difference.I want to thank also those people outside of Parliament who participate in politics: the tens of thousands of people who have come to ACT's public meetings; the thousands of people at least who have come to ACT's street corner meetings; those volunteers who have put up so many magenta hoardings up and down New Zealand—they have literally painted the country pink. I want to thank those people who serve on the boards of political parties who donate to political parties and who volunteer to deliver leaflets because they believe in our democracy. Those people deserve our thanks because they make it all possible.I also should acknowledge the parliamentary press gallery—most of them—who I think do a tremendous job in trying to bring information to light often under trying circumstances with shrinking budgets and in an increasingly conflict-ridden and complex world. I thank them for their collegiality.But I also want to point to ACT's team of staff members and MPs. I think the people that have worked in ACT's office have been part not just of a very successful three years of Parliament where—in stark contrast to Labour—our support has increased by about 60 percent. We've been part of an organisation which has been absolutely extraordinary by the standards of any group of people in any field—and that includes our MPs.There were so many naysayers; so many people who thought it couldn't work and yet this extraordinary group of New Zealanders from outside Parliament from all walks of life have come together and given a tremendous acquittal of themselves in all aspects of being a member of Parliament. I'm so proud of ACT's team and I look forward to what they can deliver for New Zealand over the next six weeks and again in this Parliament in an expanded format. To our two retiring MPs James McDowall and Damien Smith thank you for your service. The fact that on current polls 80 percent of ACT's MPs will be back is a tremendous tribute to the team we've grown along with the talented newcomers that join ACT's team.I think the reason that we have so much change and support—Labour have lost half of their supporters in the last three years because frankly never has so much been promised to so many and yet so little actually delivered. You only have to look at housing. The average house price is up 33 percent rents up 44 percent inflation's been 22 percent wages 28 percent—people are going backwards their wage growth is less than 1 percent a year above inflation and the cost of their housing and their rent has gone up faster.That's why New Zealanders overwhelmingly say this country is going in the wrong direction and they also will tell you that their number one concern is the cost of living. That is Grant Robertson's epitaph. We saw his usual smart-arse routine at question time today. That is his epitaph—holding up cartoons—and yet he's the guy who spent all the money. He has left New Zealand with inflation $121 billion of debt and a 29 percent increase in spending per person after the high inflation we've had and yet the people have nothing to show for it.We don't see more kids going to school we don't see the streets being safer. In fact we have had a 29—30 in fact—percent increase in offences against people per adult in this country in the last five years. We are objectively less safe. We have more victimisation than ever before. They've increased welfare spending by $8.2 billion and yet there are 120000 kids still in poverty by the measure of material hardship—the only measure that really matters. All they've discovered by spending more money on welfare is there are now more kids in a benefit-dependent household. These are the problems which the Labour Government has left with us and why they've been abandoned in droves. Life is too expensive the streets are too unsafe they don't get results or deliver when they promise and spend our money and people have had enough.But it's worse than that. They've also fostered a level of division in New Zealand that is unprecedented. This is a Government who has taken a divisive approach to almost every single issue. Take the issue of landlords and tenants. Anyone else can see that they have a relationship where they rely on each other. But taxing landlords putting more rules and regulations making it harder to be a landlord has actually disadvantaged tenants. This is what happens when the Labour Party comes to help you: they actually hurt you.If you take the example of vaccination. Now I'm a person who says that vaccination was safe and effective yet by using ostracism as a tool to try and increase vaccination levels this Government has eroded social cohesion and divided New Zealanders when they didn't need to. There were better options like vax or test. Then there's employers then there's workers—they have constantly introduced new rules and regulations that make it harder to get by and employ people.This is a Government that to paraphrase their former leader has no gas left in the tank. They came in and they promised kindness. They promised a nuclear-free moment on climate change but emissions went up. They promised we'd be safer but we're not. They promised more houses would be built but the prices went through the roof. They made all of these promises and $121 billion of debt later they have nothing left to offer but massive debt and an erosion of the social capital and—dare I say it—the kindness that this country is built upon.What do we see when they are in that kind of a hole? Well what we see is a Labour Party that can't run on its record. You've seen it in question time if you've been watching over the last few weeks. Chris Hipkins never says We've done a good job" in response to questions. He always attacks attacks attacks the Opposition.Well in actual fact the people of New Zealand have had enough of that style of politics. They've had enough of Chris Hipkins going negative. They've had enough of the misinformation such as their totally incorrect statements about ACT's firearm policy which would actually introduce better and more stringent checks on the people that can have firearms; when in reality people already have them and especially those tens of thousands that are held illegally.So what is the choice and the chance for New Zealand at this point? It is real change. It is not just a change of Government where we swap Chris for Chris and red for blue because much as I love my colleagues on the National Party they have never demonstrated an ability to change Labour's policies—in fact this election they can't even change the name of the Prime Minister. That's why you need the ACT Party to put up real ideas to cut Government waste to make sure that the balance between rights for victims and consequences for criminals is restored and to make sure that we are reunited in a modern multi-ethnic liberal democratic State. That is what real change really means. It means that we all share the same Kiwi values. We've got to bring those back.I'll tell you the truth though: you won't always agree with ACT on everything but if you give us your votes then we will work hard for you. We'll actually deliver what we promise. We'll cut waste we'll end racial division and we'll get the politics out of the classroom. Those aren't just policies; those are values that we all share. So this October party vote ACT to start putting those values at the heart of everything we do. Thank you Mr Speaker."