Sharma Gaurav; Mallard TrevorDr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Mr Speaker. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people it is people it is people. Today I stand in the House of People as a representative of Hamilton which has been recently named as the most beautiful large city in Aotearoa New Zealand. While I only form one-third of Labour's team from Hamilton with the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Jamie Strange being the other two I strongly believe that when it comes to Hamilton West is the best. But don't just take my word for it.Many years ago another handsome man from Hamilton West stood right here in this House to give his maiden speech. In fact he didn't look much different from you maybe a tad bit younger and with a bit more hair on his head. His name too was Trevor—Trevor Mallard in fact. I follow today in the footsteps of young Trevor Mallard and eight other members who have had the honour of representing the great people of Hamilton West. Only three out of the previous eight MPs in Hamilton West have been from the Labour Party and I want to acknowledge today in the House former Labour MP Martin Gallagher who along with you Mr Speaker and one Dorothy Jelicich round up a strong history in the electorate. As you know Hamilton is a very special seat. As the bell-wether seat of the country. Hamilton West is a diverse electorate with a very heterogeneous mix. While on one hand we have the CBD million-dollar houses around Lake Rotorua and are the economic hub of the Waikato on the other hand we have some of the most economically deprived areas where families are struggling to make ends meet. While on one hand we have one of the largest hospitals in the name of Waikato DHB and a fine polytech like the Waikato Institute of Technology on the other hand we have people struggling to get access to doctors and some of the lowest decile schools in the country. On one hand we have international rugby and cricket stadiums while on the other we have people working three jobs who have neither the luxury nor the time to afford to watch a game on TV. The stark contrasts of Hamilton West make it an electorate with a lot of challenges challenges that I've seen not only after becoming an MP or as a candidate in the last two elections but also as a local doctor in the community.Until October last year I worked in a large medical practice with 12000 patients many of them with high needs. I saw firsthand in my community the effects of domestic violence and abuse where a young woman was raped and beaten by her partner for many days before she could escape to seek help. I saw our rangatahi stuck in vicious cycles of methamphetamine addiction. I saw parents who lost their kids to Oranga Tamariki. In more than one way my personal experiences from the past have helped me to relate to my patients and will continue to do so with my constituents.I was born in the Himalayas in India and first came to New Zealand when I was 12 years old. My father migrated to New Zealand a few years before me and my mother with $250 in his pocket and a dream for a better life. It took him over six years to find a job in his field of work in engineering. But he did not give up. He slept at night on benches in Auckland Domain eating meals at Hare Krishna and Auckland City Mission working as a labourer putting tarmac on the road and packing food in cold storage units selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door and driving a taxi so that I could have access to the best education in the world. My mother worked as a caregiver in a retirement home. Both my parents have been heavily involved in volunteer work in local communities in New Zealand. My dad volunteered for the St John Ambulance in Kaikohe and my mother volunteered in an NGO for many years. I started my schooling in New Zealand in form 5M at Auckland Grammar under the stewardship of former headmaster John Morris who is present in the gallery here today. Grammar gave me a good education and inspired me to learn more dream more do more and become more. It also taught me resilience. I was bullied at school but Mr Hawkes and Mr Schmidt taught me to stand up against bullies.In my three years at Grammar I went from 5M to form 7N graduating as the proxime accessit. While at Grammar we were encouraged to take up extracurricular activities and I decided to volunteer in a retirement home. This chance decision changed the course of my life for ever and led me to working as a caregiver in rest homes for a further four years on a part-time basis.As I was finishing my last year at school my father was diagnosed with a bile duct tumour. At this point I met Professor John Windsor a world-renowned hepato-biliary surgeon who performed an 11-hour surgery on my father. Not only did he save my dad Professor Windsor was also the first person to hand me a stethoscope at the tender age of 17. Inspired by my mother's and my own experience of working in a retirement home and looking up to Prof Windsor I went on to study medicine at the University of Auckland. At university aside from surgery I developed an interest in public health issues and policy making and was the elected representative for over 3000 medical students. This is where I got the first taste of broader issues that affect our healthcare delivery. In my fifth year of medical school I was involved in presenting a paper that examined climate change as a population health issue the global impact on threatened food supplies re-emerging infectious diseases poor water quality extreme weather events loss of livelihoods and forced climate-related migration within the Pacific. My group won a public health prize at the University of Auckland for this presentation and based on this I was encouraged to apply for and accepted for an internship at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. At WHO I was able to broaden my public health experience by working with the non-communicable disease cluster on research findings in developing countries many of which suffer from extreme poverty and poor health outcomes. The coffee table discussions at WHO with my peers on how to question the current status on public health led by Antonio and I to launch a public health festival in Spain. Following my European adventures I returned home and joined the board of the Auckland Refugee Council to fight for the doubling of our refugee quota. Simultaneously I worked at hospitals around the country wanting to follow in the footsteps of my mentor John Windsor. Somewhere along the way I also had the pleasure of working in Mongolian hospitals travelling over 2500 kilometres in the Gobi Desert from one clinic to another. The great bond that I established with the people of Mongolia led me to seek ways to help increase access to medicine and surgery for the locals but this was easier said than done. I realised that as a doctor I did not possess enough technical skills to launch fund and run a large-scale organisation. I was only able to care for my patients one-to-one but in order to make a system-wide change I had gaps in my knowledge that I needed to bridge. This is what led me to take a break from medicine and go to business school at the George Washington University. I was lucky to receive a Fulbright scholarship for my MBA and even luckier to spend two years in Washington DC.The MBA helped fill a lot of gaps in my knowledge about finance human resources business strategy and planning. It also opened me to study mergers and acquisitions in France to learn about emerging markets in Mexico City and to work on a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement on agriculture products in Vietnam. But living in DC also made me realise the difference that good and bad politicians can make. Not long after I arrived in Washington for my MBA the first of the TV debates on politics started. What seemed like a big joke then has turned out to be a bitter reality for America and the rest of the world. A lot has changed in world politics since and most of it has been for the worse. The constant attack on media the populist and nationalist rhetoric the fake attack ads on openness the utter disregard for facts and science: a post-truth world that in hindsight had all the hallmarks of its making but at that time still could not be imagined in our worst nightmare. This is why a collective global effort is required to get rid of fake news and misinformation created in this new world order and our politicians need to step up engagement with our grassroots citizens.Four years ago while living in DC concerned about climate change environments healthcare and women's rights I marched on Washington with men and women young and old theist and atheist straight and queer of all colours against erosion of society's moral fabric and the rhetoric of device and unscientific conspiracy theories that are at the cusp of being normalised in this post-truth world. This is what made me run for Parliament in 2017 in my last semester of my MBA as I shuttled every few weeks between Washington and New Zealand doing my assignments at the San Francisco airport in transit. The question that everyone asked me though is why the Labour Party? Well my family's journey in New Zealand starting from my father's homelessness to receiving my Fulbright scholarship has been full of perseverance and is a true example of Labour's motto of providing opportunity to all Kiwis.My whānau and I have always been thankful to the Labour Party's policies and social security measures as well as education and health reforms and this is what inspired me to join Labour firstly as a party member secondly as a grassroots volunteer for Phil Goff in 2014 and subsequently as a candidate in 2017. But being a candidate is never a smooth journey. In 2017 I found some people who refused to shake my hand not because they did not believe in my political ideology or that of my party's policies but because my skin tone did not match that of theirs.As people in the streets of Hamilton said to my good Pākehā friend and campaign volunteer Could you not find a candidate who looks like a New Zealander?" It shocked me. In the most recent election I woke up one morning to find one lovely Hamiltonian was harassed and verbally abused by two sets of people for having signs supporting "a curry candidate". Racial discrimination is not new to me neither in politics nor in other spheres of life. When I was at the university a prominent paediatric surgeon bullied me for months and said "You people come to our country I will kill you and ruin your career."While these incidents do not represent the majority of people in Aotearoa who have embraced me with open arms and whom I now represent it is important that we acknowledge racism is still alive in Hamilton and in Aotearoa. As I said in 2019 after the Christchurch mosque attacks how we deal with racism as a community and as a country will not be decided by how many bouquets of flowers or cards we leave at the mosques and how many social media messages we write but by how we stand up for others when next time another adopted Kiwi is being racially targeted. Speak up not for one religion or one community but for our collective identity as a peaceful and diverse country a country that may not be perfect but is definitely our home my home.We are lucky still to be in a country where we have the right to take part in choosing our elected representatives. We are lucky that despite a global pandemic we were able to go into polling stations without wearing masks. While in many countries politics and campaigning has become more formalised with paid roles we are lucky that most of our campaigning is done by passionate grassroots volunteers who put the time and effort behind a cause not for personal gains or money but for something they truly believe in.It was humbling for me to find out that I was the first ever MP of Indian origin to win an electorate seat until I was joined by my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan after the special votes were counted in. But this has been a long journey and today I stand on the shoulders of many giants who have gone before me giants like former Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand and the first person of South Asian descent to be a list MP Dr Ashraf Choudhary both of whom are present in the Chamber today. I also want to acknowledge former Labour list MP Dr Rajen Prasad as well as Mr Kanwaljit Bakshi and Dr Parmjeet Parmar from the other side of the aisle along with Mahesh Bindra whose side of the aisle depended much on what Mr Winston Peters decided on the day. To the voters of Hamilton West thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so humbled that you have chosen me to represent our community. I have big boots to fill following Tim Macindoe's footsteps but I'm going to put my all into it and rise up to the challenge. To Tim Macindoe I have thoroughly enjoyed our debates and conversations over the last three years thank you for always being kind and gracious. We have often not agreed on policy but our mutual respect for each other will for ever continue.To my colleagues in this House as I said in my first caucus introduction I couldn't help but feel in awe of people in the room who I had grown up with as my heroes. From the amazing Nanaia Mahuta who I first heard speak at the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Auckland many years ago at a husting and Grant Robertson who kindly took me out for a coffee in Ponsonby when as a twentysomething-year-old I had an idea I wanted to share with him. To stalwarts like David Parker Andrew Little and Phil Twyford and of course Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who I voted for on more than one occasion as a medical student living in the Auckland Central electorate. To be sitting in the same room as all of you incredible Kiwis who have given years of your life to public service was and is very humbling. While the feeling hasn't sunk in yet I know that I'm surrounded by people with a lot of mana in their communities and mahi behind them. To my patients I would like to express my sincerest gratitude for everything you've taught me about medicine and life. I am here today for you because of you. To the 150 or so people in the gallery today and many who are watching from home thank you for being part of my journey. The gallery today includes people I went to high school and medical school with my high school professors and medical school professors my nursing and GP colleagues as well as many Labour supporters candidates volunteers and New Zealand council members. There is my 89-year-old grandpa my mother who has been my biggest strength and supporter as well as our campaign manager Emma Pike who despite having two jobs led an exceptional team. There is Max Kristofferson who despite a shoulder injury put up 200 hoardings. There is Simon Jenkins who helped us doorknock thousands of houses while wearing a moon boot on his fractured foot. There is Mike Tribe our Labour Electorate Committee chair and Jaspreet Saluja our phone coordinator. There is Bill Barwood and Sandy Kristofferson who coordinated the delivery of 56000 pamphlets. There are so many of you. All of you form a part of me and without each of your parts I would never be whole. We went from losing by 7731 votes in the 2017 election to winning by 6267 votes a change of 13999 votes and the first time a candidate has ever received 20000-plus votes in Hamilton. To my entire volunteer team sitting in the public gallery thank you once again for putting your faith in me. It's been a long road and there have been many challenges. The 2017 election the revival and rejuvenation of local Labour branches the candidate selection for 2020 and the general election. You have walked with me every step of the way and I am for ever grateful. But our work has only just started. The challenge now is to make sure we prove to the people of Hamilton that we are worthy of the opportunity that has been given to us to make a change. And once again I look to you my volunteers supporters friends and mentors as we work together across party lines to make our beautiful city one of the most livable in the world. We must not stop until every New Zealander can afford a roof over their head food on the table free education access to timely primary hospital and dental healthcare as well as the guarantee that our mokopuna will have a clean green planet. I asked at the start of my speech what is the most important thing in the world? Yes it is people it is people it is people and the true measure of our society is how we treat our most vulnerable people. The path ahead is still challenging but I know that under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern and the watchful eyes of many New Zealanders who have put their hopes and faith in us we will be able to stand up to our next set of challenges with the same determination focus and empathy that we did through this global pandemic. Hoake tonu tātou let's keep moving. [Applause]SPEAKER: Can I now ask those people in the gallery who have been here to support that speech to make room for the people who are here to support the next. Thank you.Waiata"