Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Assalamo alaikum peace be with you. Can I begin by—without bringing you Mr Speaker into the debate I want to genuinely commend our presiding officers for instigating the prayer session that opened our Parliament yesterday. It was so powerful so moving so thoughtful and such a message from the whole of our Parliament to the world and I want to acknowledge all the presiding officers for their role in that.To all of those who were at our two mosques last Friday to the injured and to the families and friends of those who died the love and support of New Zealand is here for you. There has been such a spontaneous and huge outpouring of grief from people who just want to stand beside those who are hurting so much. As you grieve so do we all. To the first responders—and I know my colleague the Hon Amy Adams has already acknowledged her constituents from the Lincoln police—I want to join in her commendation of them. They literally risked their own lives to save others. I can just imagine two young men being praised in this Parliament and they'd shrug their shoulders and they would say Well we were just doing our job" because that's what New Zealanders say when they're praised. They were just doing their job. They saved lives and from all of this Parliament I want to thank them.To the ambulance teams: no matter how highly trained they are—and they are highly trained—no one should have to go through what they went through on Friday afternoon. They have our admiration and our love and our support and they will need it for a long time. To David Meates the hospital staff and all those who work in our health system: they are still working under extraordinary pressure with extraordinary care and passion and professionalism. We are very fortunate to have them.To John Price our district commander and our police: they make us feel safe. They've done a huge amount of work—so not just the two Lincoln police but our entire police force joined by many police from throughout the country. I was at a community meeting on Monday and one of the people in the room said that they felt uncomfortable with armed police and said to the young Muslim representatives "How do you feel about armed police guarding the mosques and being around where you are?" and they just went "Makes us safe." So thank you to the police for that. We all feel unusual uncomfortable about armed police but there are times when it's needed to make us safe. To the defence personnel who have joined them thank you.To our principals and teachers and school staff who on Friday afternoon did as they always do and put their school students first and kept them in lockdown till after six: they looked after our children and their families. The Ministry of Education looked after our schools and I want to thank them as well.To ACC Work and Income the Ministry of Health Immigration New Zealand and our community organisations who are on the ground now providing support for our families to help them navigate the systems—they're hard but that support will be there and we've got agencies on the ground making sure that we can do it.To the thousands and thousands of New Zealanders who have cooked who have donated who have left messages and as Matt Doocey said who have left flowers and tributes—extraordinary. I felt as sad as Matt did but I felt uplifted because people care in our country. Only light can conquer darkness; only love can conquer hate. These are hard times for us all. So I say to people around the country who are feeling the pain and the grief: look after yourself because your well-being is important to so many and look after each other. Parliament's not regarded as a caring place but I'm going to hug Matt Doocey because he deserves to be cared for. He might be a bit scared of that. We have to look after each other. Thank you Mr Speaker."