Sabin Mike: Address in Reply 
Sabin Mike: Address in Reply 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
MIKE SABIN (National) 
: 
 One of this nation’s finest leaders said of leadership that “Having a vision is not enough. Change comes through … turning [a vision] into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals values and polices; the hard part is implementation.” Tragically 10 years ago the architect of those words Sir Peter Blake lost his life in the pursuit of turning his vision into a reality. The essence of the Blake ethos centred around the notion that it is your actions that define you not your words—something that can be easily forgotten by those well intentioned in their pursuit of public service. I raise this because in 2008 as a recipient of a Sir Peter Blake leadership award I had cause to reflect on my journey the importance of leadership and the visions that I wanted to see become realities. That moment was a turning point and much of the reason I am here today something I will expand on shortly. 
But firstly Mr Speaker I acknowledge you for your re-nomination and for the dignity and decorum you bring to this role. Can I acknowledge the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Crown for the tremendous social and economic leadership that you have and will continue to show this nation and express how humble and privileged I feel to become part of this National caucus team working to serve the positive aspirations of all New Zealanders. Can I also acknowledge our party president Peter Goodfellow the National Party board he leads and the team from the service centre. I want to sincerely thank you all for the assistance you have provided me and acknowledge the outstanding leadership and support you provide our party. In particular can I thank Grant McCallum who is also my campaign chair. I also pay tribute to the electorate team in Northland. Our success in the election is just that—our success. Nothing could have been achieved without you and although I am the net result of those efforts in my election as MP I want you to know that this has and always will be a team effort. I want to especially make mention of Sally Macauley our electorate chair the longest serving in the party; Neil Clements my deputy chair a very wise political gentleman; Ross Miller a loyal and guiding hand; and a special thanks to the evergreen June Levet the “Mrs National Party” of the north. 
At this stage I would also like to pay tribute to my predecessor the Hon John Carter for the massive contribution he made to this party to Northland and to this nation. Of course “massive contribution” could also describe the tab he now has at Trader Jacks but I am sure the Cooks will be well served with him as their high commissioner not only for the passion he brings to make a difference but also for the range of new jokes he will be unleashing on an unsuspecting population. I want to offer my thanks to all Northlanders who supported me through the campaign and have trusted in me to be their representative. I owe you all a debt of gratitude and I hope to repay this in kind by being as effective as I can be as your MP in representing the hopes and positive aspirations of Northland and our region. 
Lastly I want to thank my family—my wonderful parents siblings and children. I am who I am because of you and I could not be more proud to be part of the family that we are. Also I make a special thanks to my partner Sandra. I have not always been lucky in love but my Powerball number certainly came up in that particular lottery when Sandra came into my life. Thank you very much Sandra for sharing my life with me in the way you do. 
I would now like to share with you three important themes: who I am what I believe in and why I am here. I am the eldest son of Lew and Merlene Sabin and I have one brother and sister. I am the proud father of three amazing children—as you can see these family things do get to me Mr Speaker—Brook Darryl and Brenna. I am of mixed genealogy like most and I am proudly of Tainui whakapapa on my mother’s side. It gives me a uniqueness in this world and I celebrate that. But I celebrate more that I am a New Zealander and I call this place my home. 
My early years were spent in Auckland before we as a family moved to Whangarei and I am a product of Whangarei Boys High School. I left school and followed my father’s footsteps into the navy as a seaman officer but before long I found myself back in Northland dairy farming. However as a young father I was keen to join the police essentially to contribute to making the community I was bringing my children up in a better place. With that in mind my policing career was soon focused in the area of drug enforcement primarily because I felt that the best way to make a difference was to get to the cause of the problem. One quickly comes to the conclusion in that particular vocation that alcohol and drug abuse is the cause more often than not. 
My career in the police shadowed the introduction of pure methamphetamine or P into New Zealand—an area I have developed an expertise in—but while working on squads running undercover on electronic surveillance operations I literally saw New Zealand explode from having no P problem to the worst in the world within 5 years. Our well-developed drug culture saw us primed for the only hard drug in the world that you can make on your kitchen bench from readily available retail chemicals. Those 5 years have changed New Zealand for ever and led me to the conclusion that the fight needed to go back to the top of the cliff. Quite simply I came to the conclusion that we would not win the war trying to heal the wounded. 
This desire to find a better way gave rise to Methcon Group a drug-education and policy company I founded in 2006 and operated from then. The mission was simple: empower employees students and the community with education while working to find policy solutions to help provide the Government with better tools. It was a long difficult and often lonely journey and one that many told me was futile and one that many told me was someone else’s problem to fix. Nevertheless I stuck to the task at hand the primary reason being that I just believed that someone needed to do something. Could I at this time pay tribute to the Prime Minister and acknowledge the outstanding leadership on this particular issue. It has indeed been a gamebreaker. 
That challenge was put into chilling context however when on Anzac Day 2009 my fight went from P to that of my son’s survival when he suffered a catastrophic bleed on the brain during a game of rugby. This could get tough Mr Speaker. Following his emergency surgery I was confronted with the news that his death was imminent something I refused to accept as well as the contention that if he did survive it would likely be in a vegetative state. Like his old man my boy is a fighter. I knew that even if they did not. I pledged to fight with him to help get his life back. It was a frightening journey full of heartache but one in which we never lost hope. Sometimes hope is the only thing you have to cling to. When that is the case you just have to develop an iron grip. Something I am very proud to say is that we have been rewarded today as my son sits in the gallery larger than life fit and healthy to watch proceedings. That taught me that it is not what happens in life that defines you it is what you do about it. It was a difficult couple of years but by now my goal was to enter politics and I sold my business to allow for a full-time campaign in an endeavour to try to win the selection and the election that followed. 
While there are some who would say that I am a one-trick pony here to further the anti-drug cause far from it: my journey into politics has come about as an evolution of many professional and life experiences leading me to the simple conclusion that if one wants to support their community in achieving its real potential there is a need for one to be around the table where the decisions that are most affecting your communities are being made. The reality is my efforts on the P issue demonstrate more my willingness to try to make a difference than my focus on that one issue alone. Much like my son I just wanted to try to find solutions while many others were finding ways to tolerate the symptoms. 
I would now like to share with you a little bit of what I believe in. I am a proud representative of the New Zealand National Party because its founding values resonate with who I am as an individual. Central to this is personal responsibility reward for hard work and enterprise limited government and equality of opportunity and citizenship. It is a fast-paced world we live in and much has changed even in my lifetime with regard to the fabric that binds the society together and the balance required to maintain a healthy socio-economic equilibrium. Too often in my view a sense of pride self-reliance and independence is usurped by cultural entitlement despite the implicit irony that so many who contribute nothing to society have developed an almost self-righteous belief that society owes them something. Striving to succeed and success itself are so often frowned upon as threatening and somehow discriminating against those who seek refuge behind the ever-growing veil of mediocrity. Participation it seems is now the goal and winning as an equal part unnecessary and intimidatory. Personal responsibility the very source from which self-respect itself springs is intrinsically related to the individual’s willingness to accept responsibility over one’s life. To do so is to give value purpose and freedom to the soul; to refuse it leaves a hole from which the spirit of the individual will slowly but surely drain. 
Yet years of socialist ideology welfarism which has evolved to provide perverse incentives to opt out and the insidious encroachment of Government into the minds and lives of citizens have seen the notion of personal responsibility pilloried like it was the ramblings of capitalist zealots. This country is God’s own yet we condemn many children to child abuse neglect and homicide. For a generation we have vainly sought solutions largely ignoring the fact that what we have created is a culture in which it is too easy for parents to become trapped in welfare often through no fault of their own who lack even the most basic of life skills and for whom personal responsibility is an unnecessary and irrelevant commodity surpassed by the sea of social agencies that will now seek to provide what they will never have to. Too often we have become consumed with addressing the symptoms of these very problems while failing to challenge the cause of them something that often requires courage and honesty in uncomfortable amounts but none the less something in my view that New Zealand expects of its leaders. To that end I would like to commend the work being done by the Minister for Social Development in this particular area. The long and short of it is a little bit of personal responsibility will go a long way but the lack thereof will go a lot further—just in the wrong direction. 
And why am I here? I am a great believer that a marriage of quality education and equality of opportunity are the essential building blocks of social well-being and prosperity. I am here because I want to do all I can to ensure that this environment exists to help Northland and New Zealand reach the obvious potential that we hold. I also come here with a focus to see Northland develop a whole-of-region economic plan that clearly outlines a path to reaching that potential the barriers that may stand in the way and the opportunities we have to make our boat go faster. And there are many. Too often Northland is singled out for all the wrong reasons but let me make it quite clear to you today these less-than-flattering statistics are not the failure; our failure is that Northland is blessed with economic potential but we have no plan to achieve it—not yet anyway. On that note can I suggest that if any members of the House are looking for some good beachside property in Northland then it may pay to get in quick! 
 The last point I want to make relates to judgment. As elected representatives one of our primary roles in my view is the exercise of judgment. Edmund Burke viewed by many as a philosophical founder of modern conservatism said of judgment: “Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” In a world that is over-managed and under-led leadership and judgment are what New Zealanders need and expect of us—something I will always keep top-of-mind. 
So in conclusion who am I? I am a proud father of a blended family of six richer in spirit for the good and bad experiences of my personal life poorer financially for the fact that I have managed to amass six children somehow in the process. I am a passionate Northlander. I am passionate about Northland and New Zealand and the pursuit of the potential therein. What do I believe in? That personal responsibility is just that: the responsibility of the person not the Government; that carrots work better than sticks but that both are necessary; that the first question we should be asking New Zealanders is “What is your dream?” and then set about creating a social and economic environment to help make those dreams possible. Why am I here? I am here for the implementation. Quite simply I want to help turn visions into realities. Thank you.