Hipkins Chris: Adjournment — Sittings of the HouseText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Adjournment — Sittings of the House[Sitting date: 09 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8728. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Can I begin my contribution by wishing the previous speaker Paula Bennett a very merry Christmas. When she rose to speak I was not expecting a heart-warming Christmas fable; I was not quite expecting the innkeeper routine either that we just got from the Minister but let us move on from that.Of course 2015 has been the year of Star Wars. The building is leaking and I have received a leaked memo from the National Party that it has in fact offered its services for the next Star Wars movie.But of course there has been a lot of fighting on the National Party benches about who is going to be taking which particular starring role.Of course Judith Collins fancies herself as a bit of a Princess Leia but we know that in fact the producers are more likely to offer her the role of Darth Vader. We have Peter Dunne and David Seymour there over on the cross benches—the R2-D2 and C-3PO of the Government. They are the little robots running around always messing up and never quite sure where they are. That definitely describes Peter Dunne and David Seymour. It is difficult when you look over there to the backbenches and you see Maurice Williamson not to think of Chewbacca sitting over there on the National Party backbenches.Then of course we come to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi—that of course has to be Tim Groser. That role has to go to Tim Groser. I have to say how disappointed we should be here on this side of the House and in fact around the House that the National Government is going to rob of us of his wisdom his intellect his insight and his experience and so soon after we lost John Hayes from the House. How on earth are we going to cope with that? I look over at my good friend Lindsay Tisch there. I could not quite work out whether he would be auditioning for Yoda or an Ewok but I am sure that he will be in the mix there as well.Of course the National Party members think that 2016 is going to be the year that “the empire strikes back”. In fact I can tell them that that is not going to be the case because there is a new Jedi in town and his name is Andrew Little. So next year 2016 it is more going to be a mix of the Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That is what 2016 is going to be characterised by if we continue in the Star Wars vein.But in the spirit of Christmas and borrowing a few lines from my colleague Grant Robertson I do want to hand out a few Christmas awards of my own. The “Santa Claus Award for the Most Frequent References to Christmas Outside of December” surely has to go to Kelvin Davis for the tireless work that he has been doing regarding Christmas Island. The “Sarah Dowie Award for the Loss of Perspective” surely has to go to Sarah Dowie herself who while choking back the tears told the House that the worst day of her life was when she applied for her passport. I think that that definitely deserves a notable mention. I can assure her that there are worse days coming. Election day 2017 will certainly be one of them for her.Then of course we come to the “Christian Bale Batman Award for Tireless Work to Protect the Town’s Water Supply” and that of course has to go to Jacqui Dean that National Party backbencher who has tirelessly campaigned to save the water supply from that deadly chemical dihydrogen monoxide. She will never ever live that one down and she definitely deserves that award.The “Wile E Coyote Award for Persistence in the Face of Repeated Failure” surely must go to Judith Collins who has now been given the task of cleaning up her own mess. Then of course I come to the “Little Miss Sunshine Award for Constant Cheerfulness and Positive Attitude in the House”. Chester Borrows the Deputy Speaker absolutely takes out the “Little Miss Sunshine Award” for 2015.To conclude can I end by thanking all of the staff who everybody else has mentioned so I will not run through them again. But I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a group who never really get thanked in this House and they are the families of all of the members of Parliament. Across the House the families of MPs really do carry an enormous load. They never really get thanked for it. They generally tend to get abused for it by the public.So I want on behalf of the entire House to say thank you to all of the families—the children the partners—for the enormous amount of support they provide to us as MPs and simply wish them a very very merry Christmas and then to extend that of course to all members of the House and to the country. A very merry Christmas to everybody.