Dean Jacqui: Address in Reply 
Dean Jacqui: Address in Reply 
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JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 I am encouraged that the last speaker will not prove to be a hard act to follow. Bring on the new I say! I want to thank Dr Cullen for giving New Zealand a very good reason to vote National next time. 
Around 18 months ago I was offered a challenge by the National Party: win Otago back for National—and I did. It was not easy. I acknowledge list MP David Parker for a tough but good-natured contest. Actually as I think about it the challenge to me was more like “win Otago or else” and I would like to thank the former whip Simon Power for that. It was very motivating. 
Madam Assistant Speaker I offer my congratulations to you on your appointment and also to Margaret Wilson on her re-election to the role of Speaker and I also offer my warm congratulations to the Deputy Speaker Clem Simich who has been a friend and who brings dignity to his role. I look forward to working with you all. 
Greetings to my many friends in Otago who are listening to this speech on the radio. I am sorry that they cannot be here but I know that they are tuned in. My thanks go to the wonderful National Party volunteers in our campaign team who have become my friends especially Derek Austin. Thanks also go to my family—to Bill to Mick to Steffy and to Aiden and to Ra and Jude. Thanks also go to Big Ted Little Ted Manu Jemima and Humpty. Like my opponent Mr Parker who brought in veteran movie star Sam Neill to help with his campaign I too had my celebrity mates. But there was one big difference: my mates know when to keep their mouths shut. 
Let me tell members a little about where I come from and what makes me the very proud National Party member that I am. I am the eldest of five girls with only one older brother who tried to push me around. We six kids are very close together in age with my next sister being 10½ months younger than me—go figure!—which has always led me to believe that mum and dad kind of liked each other. We grew up in a three-bedroomed bungalow with three kids bunking together in each of the two kids’ bedrooms. Mum who had been a nurse seemed to be endlessly pegging nappies on the line and I always had a small sister on one hip. Our brother would chase us around the fruit trees on the back lawn with a dead pukeko head on a stick or we would make the most wonderful stink bombs out in the chook shed. I tell members it was a great childhood. 
We did not see much of our dad though because he spent many hours working. Dad was a general practitioner. When he was not in his surgery he was visiting his patients in hospital delivering babies doing house calls being on call and being called out every day including the weekends. I did not find out until much later but what I thought were fun family outings in the car were actually dad visiting patients in hospital or in their homes. We would play in the car while mum had a rest at home. 
Dad was a doctor but he was certainly no businessman. His heart was much too soft. He carried a huge debtor’s ledger and would continue treating whole families long after expecting any payment from them. That was the way it was in those days. He did not clock on he did not clock off and he had a real calling to help others. My dad worked very hard all his life. I tell members this because I have heard the term “worker” bandied about in this House as if it were the province of a particular political party. Well I can tell members that I too come from a family of workers. 
I had already decided at about the age of 3 that I would be an actor. So when I left school I embarked on a brilliant career on the stage. It was so brilliant that my acting work alternated with stints of waitressing motel cleaning bar work and even a brief stint at the Inland Revenue Department. That was fun. I met my husband Bill when working in a bar. He was the barman in the bikie bar at the Commercial Hotel and I was the barmaid in the lounge bar. When the odd foolish lounge bar patron got a little too fresh with me members of the Mongrel Mob would spill forth from the public bar and sort him out. It worked a treat. How could one not love a guy with mates like that? 
So armed with a variety of work experiences and an impressive skills set I auditioned for and landed a role on television’s  
Play School 
. It was a great job. It had regular pay and—even better—regular work. Around that time I also began a long association as an actor with Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre with amongst other roles major roles in four of Roger Hall’s New Zealand premieres. 
I retired after starring in Roger Hall’s solo show  
The Book Club 
 
because 2 hours alone on stage nearly killed me and I also figured that it was not going to get much better than that. It was while working at the Fortune Theatre that I joined the actors union New Zealand Actors Equity. Twenty-five years later I still carry my rather tatty Equity card around in my wallet because I am incredibly proud of having been a professional in a difficult career that I absolutely loved. I will never forget rehearsing in an old hall day after day as a professional where it was so cold that we had to wear hats and gloves all day long. Management would not heat the hall because of the cost the water out of the tap was absolutely undrinkable and although we were professionals we often had to provide our own costumes. Twenty-five years ago actors’ pay and conditions were pitiful and we worked hard to change working conditions and rates of pay. 
To fast forward a bit when my son was 6 weeks old I went back to full-time work from maternity leave and went on to part-time work only a couple of years later when my daughter was born. I have worked part-time and full-time ever since—some of it paid much of it voluntary. 
Around 7 years ago I was at a function in Oamaru. Watching the mayor in action I thought: “I could do that.” Well I never made it to mayor but I served as Deputy Mayor for the Waitaki District. I have a very high regard for the functions of local government. Any decisions we made had a direct and tangible effect on people’s pockets and we were very accountable to them. I can tell members that fronting up to a country hall full of angry ratepayers and explaining one’s actions is character building. I remember once during the Project Aqua debate leaving an “energetic” meeting in Kurow after having got an absolute filleting at the hands of the locals. The mayor and I went out and got in his car. We looked at each other and said: “Oh well we’re still in one piece.” and members can believe we meant it. 
Local government in New Zealand however is burdened with excessive requirements to consult and to write reports for reports’ sake. Local government is now in the farcical position of having its 10-year plans audited. It is being audited for things that it may want to do in the future and at huge expense. To me that is carrying Government control way too far. Then one day the local MP strayed into my sights and I thought: “I could do that.” 
Otago—Otago is Queenstown lakes North Otago and Central Otago—is without doubt the most beautiful part of New Zealand. A number of my new colleagues have already outlined the concerns and the vision that we all share for rural and provincial New Zealand and like them I too will be a warrior for my electorate. 
The most concerning thing I heard in my campaign to win Otago was from the young guy who rang me to talk about his business. He and his wife run a rural agricultural contracting business based around Wanaka. The demand from farmers is there to expand the operation but because of the Employment Relations Act the Holidays Act OSH regulations accident compensation levies the price of diesel and I do not know what else I have missed out they have decided that it is just too hard to take on any more workers so it would remain operated just by him and his wife and he regretted that. Imagine the benefits to a small community from every extra person or two people should they be taken on by this small business. With each person might come a wife a partner a kid two kids three kids—so the school has more pupils the supermarket has more customers and the garage sells more petrol. This seems like such a small thing but it matters so much in rural Otago. For me it sums up why I will work for the people of Otago. We must provide the framework for ordinary New Zealanders to take a punt on hiring an extra person giving the owner the confidence to grow the business. 
But in my view water—how we look after it how we use it and how we manage its use—is the single most important issue facing Otago and indeed New Zealand. We are only now beginning to realise that water is such a precious resource and we in Otago need it to drink to water our stock and to irrigate our crops. We need it to play in and we need it for hydro generation. 
Recently Bill and I went to Palmerston North to visit our son. We then drove through the Hawke’s Bay to see a game of rugby. It seemed like a good idea at the time—until we lost! On the way to Napier we drove through the Te Apiti wind farm. Frankly I would rather look at a lake. I would rather look at a hydro lake than the hills in the Manawatu which now look like a scene from  
War of the Worlds 
 with these great white sails rotating through the sky and completely dominating the landscape. 
New hydroelectricity initiatives on the Waitaki are without doubt necessary to provide for the present and future demands on electricity supply in New Zealand. We must supply industry with electricity and we must support productivity. Or is the current Government content as it appears to see our country continue to fall evermore behind the living standards of those enjoyed by our neighbours? 
I am concerned that the previous member for Otago now Minister of Energy appears opposed to further hydroelectricity generation on the Waitaki. New hydro development on the Waitaki has the potential carried out in a measured and sensible way not only to make a major contribution to future energy needs but also by negotiation and agreement with Meridian Energy to provide ongoing benefit to the local community and most important to enhance and improve the riverbed which is currently populated by gorse broom and vermin. I would like to know I believe that the country needs to know where the Minister of Energy stands on this. 
And to Pita Sharples greetings. I thank him for his passionate challenge to Parliament to work with his party in an open and constructive way. I accept that challenge. I offer him a challenge. I invite him to look at a part of New Zealand that is very different from his own. I invite him and his party to see what life is like for us in the deep south where our population is mostly Pakeha and where our Chinese goldmining pioneers are also a significant part of our southern heritage. I look forward to working with Pita Sharples and to looking at issues that affect all New Zealand not just some. I am here for Otago and all New Zealand. Can they meet that challenge? 
Madam Speaker throughout this Address in Reply debate I have sat here and heard members of the Government crowing over their success at the polls. As one Labour MP commented: “You lost and we won.” Well fair enough but I have a message for that MP and for the Government: “My heartfelt congratulations on winning Winston and look out we’re coming.”