Coddington Deborah: Valedictory Statements 
Coddington Deborah: Valedictory Statements 
[Volume:627;Page:22200] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 It feels somewhat presumptuous to be making a valedictory speech when just 3 years ago I stood here and gave my maiden speech. Just last week a press gallery journalist in the context of my not seeking re-election asked me whether I felt I was a failure as a politician. I certainly do not. I do not believe that the success or failure of any job should be measured by the length of time spent in it. I doubt whether that journalist would consider herself a failure if she had spent 3 years working for say radio and then moved on to another position in television. I prefer to measure my achievements against my own standards. The past 3 years have certainly been pretty action-packed and I can honestly say “never a dull moment”. So I am happy to leave here with a feeling that it has indeed been worth it; that I have actually managed to make a little bit of difference for the better albeit in a small facet of a few people’s lives. 
I came into the House under the leadership of Richard Prebble and with his support and encouragement I threw myself into the job. I only lately found out that when Mr Prebble was told in 2002 that I would be standing for ACT he mused: “She’ll be trouble but she’ll be good.” Well I have been both. I was trouble but I was good too. 
I put my career in journalism on hold to come here so analogies are inevitable. One catches a whiff of the smell in the back of the cave and instinctively just as others want to run away form it the journalists want to go in to find out what is causing the smell. As an Opposition MP too this applies. One does the research asks the questions and checks out the problem. But an MP lets the journalists do the writing and it is the writing that I have missed so much and that I cannot wait to get back to. Just as good editors have encouraged pushed bullied and cajoled me into writing award-winning stories Richard Prebble made me want to work hard to be an effective MP. His experience and knowledge were invaluable and I am grateful to him for his generosity in giving advice to a novice. 
The first advice was that I should not to be scared to make mistakes; an MP who does not make mistakes is not doing his or her job. I remember that not long after the election the Hon Steve Maharey wrote to the Speaker raising a possible abuse of the privilege of free speech by me in a general debate. I had proof that despite statements to the contrary Child Youth and Family Services were still placing vulnerable children in the care of convicted sex offenders; in this case a paedophile I had named in my 1996 book. It was late at night. I nervously showed a copy of this letter to Mr Prebble thinking that I had really done it now. I was expecting a bollocking. He took the letter and read it and we got the usual scratching of the back of the head and hitching up of pants. “Hmm. This is very serious” he said as he read through the letter and he kept saying: “This is serious.” Then he said: “Well Mr Maharey has suggested to the Speaker that he ‘have a discussion with Ms Coddington’ about raising such concerns in the future. This letter itself could be a breach of privilege.” said Mr Prebble. “Go down to the House and read  
Erskine May 
 and see what you think.” 
It ended up that I happily wrote to the Speaker with a counter-charge that Mr Maharey could be just as much in breach of privilege as I was because he was trying to frustrate and impair my freedom of speech and impair the proper carrying out of my duties and performance as a member of Parliament. The complaints of course never amounted to anything but I wonder how many second or third-term MPs have sat up late at night studying  
Erskine May 
—let alone an MP in his or her first few months. Richard Prebble’s guidance helped to make this place feel slightly less alien despite the fact the former Speaker kept muddling me with Heather Roy for months. Serving with a parliamentarian of Richard Prebble’s calibre has been a rare honour and privilege. 
One of the main reasons I leapt the divide from the fourth estate was that I am driven by a desire to do more to help and protect children—not just protect them from sexual abuse but help them in terms of improving their chances for a good education. There is no doubt that most of our children do extremely well at school but not long before I left  
North and South  
magazine I wrote a feature on the appalling situation in this country whereby around 18 percent of school leavers are unable to read write or add up to a sufficient ability that they can cope with everyday life. I call this child abuse of the mind. If the same portion of students left school physically crippled there would be an outcry. 
When Qantas sponsored me as a press fellow to Wolfson College Cambridge in 2003 I studied the effect of parental choice on literacy standards in the Netherlands and Sweden. When I got back here I published my research in a little book called  
Let Parents Choose 
 and campaigned hard on the merits of a voucher system which would allow all parents not just the affluent to take children to the school they choose—an ACT policy since 1996. That policy is now being adopted—albeit incrementally—by other parties in this house. The voucher system is no longer a dirty word. “Let parents choose” became the catchcry from Russell to Blackball during our crusade against the massive school closures. Then just last week at a political meeting in Auckland a candidate for the Maori Party agreed that ACT’s education policy is the best for Maori—30 percent of whom leave school with no qualifications. 
My stance on sexual abuse has been unflinching since 1996 when I compiled my first  
Paedophile and Sex Offender Index 
. One of my express aims upon entering Parliament was to follow the lead of the United Kingdom and Canada and introduce my Sex Offenders Registry Bill. I am grateful to Allan Bracegirdle for drafting my bill so quickly and concisely and I was very lucky to have it drawn from the ballot so early in my term. It unanimously passed its first reading and is ticking its way smoothly through the select committee process. I have spoken to several MPs in other parties who firmly support the bill and I am confident that under Stephen Franks’ care this will become law in the next Parliament. That would see New Zealand stand alongside other First World nations with similar legislation. 
It is with huge satisfaction that I now see widespread recognition of the faults of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). I started campaigning against this also in the pages of  
North and South 
 magazine. Before I was made education spokesperson for ACT the Education and Science Committee refused leave sought by ACT for an inquiry into the NCEA. Undaunted Richard Prebble Donna Awatere Huata and I held our own inquiry travelling around the country hearing submissions both for and—especially from parents—against the NCEA. Now as I leave the Labour Government has agreed to not one but three inquiries with the results that we all predicted when this dreadful experiment was first foisted on our school children back when National was in Government. 
Of course I do not take sole credit for these changes in attitude. The ACT party has been hugely influential on other political parties whether they care to recognise it or not. Key ACT policies are now accepted at least nominally by most parties. Issues that once made ACT a radical party—welfare abuse low taxes zero tolerance for crime ending the treaty grievance industry opening up the Family Court and honouring the right to self-defence—are now widely accepted by the New Zealand public as essential for this country’s development peace and progress. I consider myself very very fortunate to have been an MP in a party that not just tolerated my obsessions but gave me the utmost freedom to pursue my objectives. 
I have absolutely no doubt that my colleagues will be back in the next Parliament because their work in terms of being the party of influence fresh ideas and new policies is certainly very successful. They have made enormous achievements but their work is far from finished. So I do leave with a sense of achievement and accomplishment and I believe  
Hansard  
will reflect that. In select committees I have cooperated where appropriate with opposing politicians for good outcomes. For example on transport legislation Lianne Dalziel and I worked hard together to clean serious sex offenders out of the taxi industry. 
I have hugely enjoyed my time here. I have made friends across both parties from pale Katherine Rich here to brown John Tamihere over there. It is certainly a brutalising place—that is for sure. But I do not blame anyone for the battles I had to face and the demons I stared down. Even the bad times were good. I am sorry for my children; they did not like reading some things about their mother and they were hurt by it. But nobody ever said that life would be easy and when the tears were dried we always managed to sit down together bring things into perspective and have a good laugh. 
I believe members of the press gallery owe me in terms of some of the copy I inadvertently provided for them. For those who hyperventilated and billed me as a star and future leader I hope your excuse for the non-appearance of your “we got it wrong stories” is that they were spiked. There are no stars in politics just 120 MPs doing the best they can in an environment that—unjustifiably in my opinion—ranks their profession as the lowest in society. My advice to journalists is: do not knock it until you have tried it. 
 I do hope that what I went through does not deter people from standing for Parliament. I also hope that my controversial publicity does not cause the ruling hierarchy of political parties to over-sanitise those whom they decide to promote as high-ranking MPs just to save their parties from embarrassing publicity. This is the House of Representatives. People who have made mistakes who have fallen over and skinned their knees who have picked themselves up and fought another day and who have lived life to the full will have made embarrassing decisions in their past. But I doubt that New Zealand wants to be represented by 120 individuals who have never made a single mistake in their lives. That really would be a Parliament of freaks. 
So I am moving on to another pasture now which includes a happy marriage and a chance to make some fine Pinot Noir. To those who suspect I am going soft be warned: I have not finished with politics and I will not rule out a come-back. I shall be up there with the fourth estate—the nit-pickers—watching you and remembering exactly what you have promised in this election campaign. 
Thank you to my staff especially Janice Lopez Scott Dennison David Young and my electorate chair Lyn Fitness. Thank you to my colleagues who have supported and tolerated me. Kia kaha and remember: it is better to fall on principle than to stand on lies. I wish all of you the very best and I leave you with the words of Viktor Frankl a neurologist who survived 3 years in Dachau and Auschwitz: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one’s own way.” Thank you.