Foss Craig: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoss Craig: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:77. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business):The previous speaker Iain Lees-Galloway obviously has a prophecy. He is concerned about Manawatū being left behind. The mighty Hawke’s Bay Magpies may well leave Manawatū very very far behind in the game that they are going to play. It is actually the Ranfurly Shield - winning Hawke’s Bay Magpies team ladies and gentlemen and you will notice the badge that I wear with honour of the Ranfurly Shield.Congratulations to returning members and welcome to new members of course across the House. Some returning members might have been away for a wee while. It is good to see you back and we will have some battles across the House as we always do but those members and colleagues whom I value the most are those whom I can go and have a beer with afterwards and talk tactics and talk rugby and things like that and get on with the real job of governing the country. I do enjoy that kind of company.I do note though particularly that there is a message for some of our new MPs here. It will probably happen only once but I noticed that they were listening quite intently to Mr Peters earlier when he was giving his dissertation. Well I can tell them that it is the only time that they need to listen to that because it is the same speech he will give time and time and time again. I have heard that speech many many times. It is quite interesting to watch but I see Mr Mark over there. I know what you are thinking Mr Mark. I know that you are thinking a year or two out. I know what you are doing and it will be interesting to watch from this side of the House. I wish you well in your ambitions be it for whip for leadership or for whatever. Let us just see what happens there. That will be interesting.Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch I also acknowledge your appointment as I do the election of Mr Speaker and of course the appointment as Deputy Speaker of the Hon Chester Borrows the first from our glorious National Party class of 2005 to sit in the Speaker’s Chair. I am sure that the Hon Chester Borrows will always be well prepared for any emergencies as they may arise.Can I also acknowledge particularly a very good and moving speech from Mr Kelvin Davis earlier which spoke to the heart I think of why many of us are here and what drives us. There is a lot more beyond that than law legislation and regulation. There is love there is passion there is concern and there is an outright focus on a better New Zealand for some of those who have no idea how good things could be and who are stuck in very unfortunate circumstances. So I salute you actually for what you were saying earlier.Can I also thank my Tukituki team. This is the first opportunity that I have had to speak in the House of course since the election. We did very very well in Tukituki Hawke’s Bay—home of the Ranfurly Shield. My National Party campaign team did very very well there. In fact in Tukituki we achieved the highest National Party vote ever and in fact across Hawke’s Bay we achieved the highest National Party vote ever. In Tukituki and Napier over 36000 voters voted for the policies of the National Party and now the policies of the National Government. In fact we increased the Tukituki party vote by about 1000 this election but I make the point that those policies that were laid out before Hawke’s Bay included water storage irrigation Ruataniwha oil and gas exploration the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and exploring some of the wonderful opportunities and potential we do have in Hawke’s Bay. I did note an earlier speech from one of the returning members which I will come back to later on.How did we increase that majority? We stayed relentlessly positive absolutely positive for the ambitions and potential for Hawke’s Bay and for New Zealand. We had a faith—an ongoing faith—in the positive nature of the silent majority of Hawke’s Bay and New Zealand and they came out and voted for us in spades. We earned that. I am very very humbled and proud of what we managed to achieve there because there are plenty of people out there trying to distract us with the negative with attacks with dirty politics or whatever you might call it.In fact we had a very very motivated team. One thing that motivated our team more than any other incident in the election—and in fact I would allege that it motivated many many voters to actually make sure that they voted and that their vote counted—was in fact one night when we had a huge number of our billboards smashed hammered away at graffitied and destroyed. There was no pattern to it. It was everywhere—absolutely everywhere. At the time it knocked our team around a fair bit because we raised a fair bit of money to put them up but not only did that motivate our team to do more and to absolutely win and win well across Hawke’s Bay but also it motivated voters who saw the danger of the anti-democratic disgusting disgraceful tactics that were brought into and arrived in Hawke’s Bay.Carmel Sepuloni: Anti-democratic? That party knows all about anti-democratic.Hon CRAIG FOSS: So the member over there may be interested in the purely coincidental nature I think of the fact that that was the night that the Internet Mana Party had a meeting in Hastings which was an interesting coincidence I am sure.I acknowledge and congratulate Mr Nash on his win in Napier. He is back now. I did note his speech earlier so well done him and I wish him well in his tenure as an MP. Of course I will be doing my thing on my side of the national political fence but I am sure we will have some common ground in some things.But I do note one thing with Mr Nash. He did run a very good local campaign—a very good localised campaign for as he said a couple of years or so and that is probably about right; a couple of years of a very local campaign. But I was quite interested that 5 minutes after he won the seat he was talking about being leader and then not too long after that he was talking about not being leader. Then he was going on all the chat shows and the talk shows and then he was going to be in the mix again for being leader and then he was not going to be in the mix again for being leader while at the same time being the local guy 10 minutes or so after winning Napier. So that was an interesting observation I would humbly say. But I do wish him well and we do seem to share many acquaintances or people I know in fact people from my electorate. People such as Mr Simon Lusk lives in the Tukituki electorate as does Jordan Williams who comes from Hastings and I am quite interested that we seem to know certain people. I was quite interested.Kris Faafoi: Did you get that from the book?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Well I do not know. I have not looked up my own name in it but I might look up his. But anyway I do find that interesting.But we saw tonight or earlier on an interesting Labour speech the speech from Annette King. Actually I think that Annette King and Kelvin Davis should run as a team because that was one of the better Labour speeches from the Acting Acting Deputy Deputy Leader or whatever she is at the moment. But the way that was delivered and the support from her colleagues—I have not seen that in a long long time. So quite why she is not in that mix I do not know but that was a very very good speech.I do note and to be fair again I would just like to acknowledge—and it might be surprising to some of my colleagues—David Cunliffe. Not many people regardless of your politics get to lead a political party and have a go to be Prime Minister. So regardless of the result I acknowledge anybody and I acknowledge him for what he went through to try to become the Prime Minister of the country. I think that is the right thing to do and I wish him well with whatever he chooses to do after this.But we do have an interesting contest over there. We have Mr Parker Mr Robertson Mr Little and Nanaia Mahuta. It is very interesting and we will watch with interest as we pull the popcorn out of the pot. We saw this when the Labour Party changed its voting procedure a year ago. I watched Mr Hipkins and I watched Mr Mallard Assistant Speaker now actually at the time on the TV running around their conference trying to stop this new process because they could see how it was going to play out and it is playing out right now. It is quite interesting and we are quite happy over on the National side to watch that play out in public—the contest between the contest; the contest of these four people who all choose to be or think they could be the leader and the Prime Minister of the country one day. We will watch with interest. I am sure it will be very very interesting.One thing again about the speech from the previous member—I have heard that speech before. It was the Labour Party’s campaign speech around the hustings. I have heard that one in Hawke’s Bay. Well a couple of points on Hawke’s Bay. There are opportunities—200 new jobs with Kiwibank in Hastings; 200 new jobs. Ultra-fast broadband across the country enables those jobs.In our policy manifesto in our profile we talked about encouraging oil and gas exploration and hopefully a commercial find across Hawke’s Bay endorsed by the people of Hawke’s Bay. It was refuted voted down by the Labour Party which used to be in favour of jobs and now its members are against oil and gas. I do not think they will be saying the same thing over in Taranaki funnily enough though. But it will be interesting to see what Andrew Little says about some of the earlier speeches actually.Hon Simon Bridges: One thing here; another thing elsewhere.Hon CRAIG FOSS: Another thing elsewhere—that is right. So it depends what audience it is.Also there is the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme. I was very interested to hear the Napier MP thank some of his team which was fair enough but actually some of his team are quite strong advocates against the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme and the incredible job opportunities that can create for the bay. Watch this space. There are many other opportunities quite soon perhaps for the Hawke’s Bay. Thank you.