Luxon ChristopherCHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition): Mr Speaker I have to say that actually Christmas for the National Party came early for us this year and that was your appointment to the speakership being that very reason. It's not because you're partisan; it's because you're not partisan that we like you so much. I want to say thank you to you for the way that you've presided over this House and thank you for your belief that grown-up MPs can actually have a little bit more robustness in this House. You have certainly brought back a lot of mana and a lot of life to this great House that is so important to New Zealand. So thank you.On behalf of National MPs I also want to join with the Prime Minister to thank your presiding officers and all the messengers. I want to thank the Clerk of the House and his team and all the select committee staff all of the Parliamentary Service including IT payroll and the travel office the great folk at Copperfields—here's hoping that the new catering arrangements continue with cheese scones because this place frankly runs on them. I do want to thank all of our cleaners I want to thank all of our VIP drivers who do an incredible job. A big thankyou to the press gallery as well. It's not every day that I get to express my gratitude to you but can I say thank you for your efforts in doing an important job which is explaining what happens in this place to the good people of New Zealand. Thank you to the Parliamentary Library staff who are so diligent and so helpful. Thank you to the security teams that are here and also a very special thank you to the security police and other personnel that kept us safe and managed the unprecedented protest outside this place earlier in the year.To my incredibly hard-working deputy Nicola Willis can I just say thank you very much for everything that you do for me and for our party. To all of the National Party caucus to all of our amazing staff in this building and across our electorate offices thank you for your commitment and all of your hard work. It has certainly been a great year for the National Party. And to all the partners and to all the families of all the MPs here in Parliament merry Christmas because you alone understand the sacrifices that your role involves and that allows each and every one of us actually to be here in this place. So finally let me say to all National Labour ACT Green and Te Paati Māori MPs I wish you all a very merry Christmas. Now I can't promise on this side of the House that as we think about New Year's resolutions we will be quieter in this House—especially when I think about Simeon Brown. But I have a few New Year's resolutions that I thought some other MPs might consider for 2023. And I wanted to start with the Prime Minister because I wondered what Jacinda Ardern would make as her New Year's resolution. And I think yesterday she showed us the way. She showed us that she rightfully gets a bit of a bad rap for being all spin no delivery. But yesterday she showed us she can be refreshingly to the point and we want to encourage her to keep that up in 2023 because this year we truly would have loved to have heard what she really thought about Gaurav Sharma what she really thought about Nanaia Mahuta's entrenchment provisions and what she really thought about Grant Robertson's cost of living payment going to dead people. The next resolution is really to the leader of my fan club Grant Robertson. I just want to say I am so flattered and it is so thoughtful that you care so much about me. And I do want to say please do keep up the name checking of me in 2023 because the more you've done it the better we've done in the polls. Just keep it going please. That would be fantastic. And of course everyone makes a New Year's resolution about sticking to their budget and I just would encourage Grant to try that again. He hasn't done it for the first six years but hopefully this is his last and first time to be able to do it. Of course Chris Hipkins will be resolving to become the Labour Party's next leader Kiri Allan will be resolving to become Labour's next leader and Michael Wood will be resolving to become Labour's next leader too and I think Michael has the jump on everyone because he started his campaign by pork-barrelling his Labour MPs with transport funding. The question is: have I missed anyone? And of course I've missed Kelvin Davis the deputy leader of the Labour Party. He'll be resolving to get noticed in 2023. I'd say to you that Nanaia Mahuta doesn't need to resolve to be Labour's next leader because she's already running the caucus—at least until the next reshuffle. And to Ingrid Leary and to Glen Bennett and to Shanan Halbert and to Anna Lorck and to Helen White they'll be resolving to be on select committees that don't involve any legislation from Nanaia Mahuta. Andrew Little will be resolving to get a new phone because every overworked emergency department nurse has been giving out the number for the old one and Jan Tinetti is resolving to make every school day a big day. Of course the biggest day would be if we could actually get our kids to school so keep working on that. Willie Jackson I have to say thank you so much for the entertainment this year. We have absolutely loved it on this side of the House. And we know on your side your colleagues have privately loved it too. And I thought that in 2023 you should resolve to come up with just one good reason why the Government should merge RNZ and TVNZ. But I think we've got to be honest; Jacinda Ardern's going to shoot it before you even attempt to try and sell it again. To Damien O'Connor in 2023 how about resolving to stand up for the farming sector instead of destroying it? Just a thought. To Stuart Nash I hope that in 2023 you find a political party where you can finally truly feel at home. Now David Seymour—I was thinking about a New Year's resolution for David but I have to say after the savagery from the Prime Minister yesterday I think all you need mate is a big hug and some kindness. And I guess over at the Green Party James Shaw's going to be resolving to change the Greens' rules for 2023 so that next year even though he supports reusing and recycling he doesn't have to be thrown out before he's reappointed as the co-leader again.And to Rawiri and Debbie can we just say that you may have seen that National's now on TikTok. We're much nicer than you on social media but you still beat us in the dancing stakes so keep it up for 2023.So our own resolution of course in the National Party for 2023 is pretty simple. It's about keeping talking about our plans to help New Zealanders and their families be able to get ahead. What I can tell you is that it doesn't include supporting Labour's pet ideological projects whether it's the merger of TVNZ and RNZ whether it's building light rail in Auckland or whether it's about building mega-bureaucracies for three waters—sorry five waters as it currently is.Simeon Brown: Six if you count they've been drinking.CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yeah. It will be about talking about the things that frankly matter most to Kiwis and there are five things. The first is we've got an economy going backwards. It is alarming to think that inflation is going to get higher interest rates are going to continue to go through the roof we're facing a recession and ultimately we've got rising unemployment. But don't worry; apparently it's going to get sorted next year because the Prime Minister now is going to focus exclusively on the economy and that will be just great. We've got a health system literally falling apart before our eyes. Every single health metric in this country has gone backwards over the last five years and we've had a Government that's frankly too stubborn and too arrogant to admit that it got it wrong on migrant nurses. The questions you've got to ask are: how many nurses went to other countries? How many nurses left our healthcare sector because they were overstretched and overworked? And how many Kiwis had to wait longer to get on an emergency department wait-list a surgery wait-list or to see a first specialist?We've got record-low education attendance and academic achievement. How do we call this a developed country with only 40 percent of our kids going to school regularly and 100000 chronically absent from school? And we know the difference being at school makes in terms of academic achievement and that's been woeful this year as well.We have a housing crisis that frankly is much much worse under this Government lower homeownership weekly rents up $150 a fourfold increase in people on the State house wait-list 4000 kids waking up in motels today and a fourfold increase in people living in cars. We have rapidly rising levels of crime where people are feeling unsafe in their own homes and their own businesses and their own communities. And we've got a soft-on-crime Government whose only justice metric is to reduce the prison population by 30 percent and that would be fine if crime was going down but it's not. Violent crime is up 20 percent we've got gang membership up 50 percent and we have a ram raid happening in this country every 15 hours.So Mr Speaker what I say to you is these are the things that matter most to New Zealanders; these are the things that they care about—not Wellington beltway ideological things that the Labour Party spends too much time talking about and debating and infighting about inside their party. But New Zealanders see through it. They know the country is totally utterly completely going in the wrong direction they know they need a National–led Government to turn New Zealand around and they know they need to get things done.But first of all we have a holiday in front of us and I want to say to all of us may the sun shine on you wherever you are. Enjoy your break. Merry Christmas. We look forward to seeing you back here in 2023.