Mallard TrevorSPEAKER: Thank you members. I'd like to make a few brief comments—some statistics interspersed with some other comments. The first is that we have sat on 90 sitting days this year. There's been very nearly 30 hours of urgency and I want to make the point that probably having 28 hours of urgency was unnecessary if proper organisation and planning had occurred. I want to say that there were only four hours of extended sittings which in my view is a wasted opportunity to give better consideration of bills.There were 1005 oral questions asked. They were all addressed and a proportion of them were answered. There were no questions to members. There were no urgent questions both of which are pretty unusual. There were however I understand 45653 written questions lodged. I will make the point that going forward as proactive release occurs it is my expectation that there will be fewer such questions asked because the material will be available not only to members of Parliament but to the public. I'm not going to go through the entire list of people but there are some people who I do want to thank: both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. They have extremely important and extremely difficult jobs and both give it their all. I want to acknowledge the catering staff and the cleaners and just underline the fact that we came in more than a year early within the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk to paying the living wage both for the employed staff and the contractors in this building. For the people who do some of the most socially undesirable hours and sometimes have to work with people who might be described as a bit grumpy I want to thank them very much. I want to thank members of the Business Committee: the Hon Gerry Brownlee who notwithstanding the attitude that he sometimes displays in the House is actually someone who I find very easy to work with; the Hon Chris Hipkins as the Leader of the House. I think now that he's got two children and a dog I can probably consider him—Hon Chris Hipkins: Two dogs.SPEAKER: Sorry?Hon Chris Hipkins: Two children two dogs.SPEAKER: Two children and two dogs—I can now consider him as a grown up and no longer the head prefect at Petone College. I want to give special thanks to the new whips and in particular the senior Opposition whip who I have found a pleasure to work with. Normally the things we work on—in fact everything that we work on together without other people—is something which is difficult. We don't bring to each other easy problems. And I just want to thank you for your integrity your compassion and your attempts to make the place a better place for people to work. I want to thank my fellow presiding officers. I will say a little bit more about the Hon Anne Tolley soon but also the Hon Ruth Dyson and Adrian Rurawhe. They do a hard job and frankly as a team assisting the Speaker I think that they have commanded more respect than any other group of people assisting a presiding officer than I have seen in my time at Parliament. And I want to thank them for that.I want to thank the small team in my office Jessie Manning and Roland Todd who continues with the challenges beside me. He sometimes has trouble working out whether I'm putting one finger up or two fingers up to the Opposition but he manages generally. He manages generally to get there. I also want to think Ainsley McGrath who has joined our team. She is one who has come across the Tasman voluntarily and she has in a relatively short time seen some of the best and some of the worst of the behaviour of members of Parliament. But I do want her to thank her for that and to tell her that our members of Parliament behave much better than hers do. I want to thank David Wilson and his team and also Raf Gonzalez-Montero for his team and to say that they are working together better than they have ever worked together before. There's some areas which I think used to be badly duplicated and I think we've made some progress in stopping that overlap. I want to thank members for passing the legislation necessary both to do that and to properly recognise I think in a constitutional sense the role of the former general manager and now the chief executive of the Parliamentary Service. I want to thank Andie Lindsay for being the glue that holds a lot of that together and who reminds the three of us of the things that we should be doing and that is very very important. I want to make special personal thanks to a couple of people who are part of the Labour team but are not here. They are Dr Megan Woods and Damien O'Connor who at caucus where I allegedly wore a bit of a loud shirt did a double-team on me in order to convince me to get some hearing aids. That was very important. And it's only through what they've done that I've been able to recognise regrettably inside the House but especially outside the House what I was missing previously. It mightn't be that good on occasions for members on my left but it has emphasised to me the importance of hearing for social inclusion and I do want to thank them both sincerely for that.Members in some ways it has been a hard year. Debbie Francis did a report which pulled a few punches but was still extremely hard-hitting and emphasised that we have a long way to go to develop a workplace that we can be proud of. I've had quite a discussion about it on a couple of occasions with Dame Margaret Bazley who is probably the expert in reform of this sort and what she has said to me is that about five years is how long it takes to do the sort of culture change that is required. We have made some progress. We will make a lot more progress next year.In that context I want to say thank you very much to the Hon Anne Tolley. Anne has had a year which personally and as far as her electorate is concerned has been just awful. Notwithstanding that she has put in tremendous work over and above the normal expectations of a Deputy Speaker in order to attempt to bring the Parliament together around a way of working which will make this place a better place. It's something that I think it was important that an Opposition MP lead and to have someone of the character of Anne leading that work is something which I very much value.Members I think—well I know—there's only the Rt Hon Winston Peters who has been through more election campaigns than me. He started in 1975 and I started in 1984. I've gone through them as a marginal seat backbencher as a safe seat member; I've gone through them as a Minister and once as a list candidate. I want to say to members that those years no matter what your role is are never easy and it is exceptionally important to all of us that we do get the rest that we get the recuperation and that we come back to Parliament in good form so that we can handle the pressure that will inevitably come on every one of us during that year.Members I want to wish everyone all the best for the festive season. Have a good time with the people who you are close to and be safe.Motion agreed to.The House adjourned at 6.23 p.m.