Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Youth): Firstly can I just say thank you to the many members of this House who have been in touch with me over the last 4 months since I have been sick. It has been really beautiful actually to receive those messages. For all of those people watching who might have a negative view of politics I can tell you that my view of many of the people in this House right across the spectrum is incredibly positive. I just want to acknowledge all of those people who have been in touch. Can I also acknowledge members of the public as well. There were so many beautiful messages and my heart goes out to all those people who are going through or have been through what I have been through.What a difference 4 months can make in terms of politics. We have a new Prime Minister—and I do just want to take the opportunity to acknowledge John Key. I have not had the opportunity to do that. I know a lot of people in this House want to rewrite history but he is an incredible man and he has dedicated I think 10 years of his life to be the leader of the National Party and then 8 years as Prime Minister. I think history will show the incredible job he has done—whether it is through the global financial crisis or whether it is through the Canterbury earthquakes—and I just want to acknowledge you John.I also just want to talk a bit about the leadership. We have heard a lot from Opposition members over the last couple of hours about Prime Minister Bill English. I just want to tell a little bit of a story as to why I actually got involved in politics and it involves our current Prime Minister. I will never forget watching him leave the building after we went through the worst election result ever. One of the things that I really admired about him was the way that he got back up. He has always said that the reason he did that was his children and the example for his children.So I guess my first message to members of the Opposition is that I know how this works. You guys have a script that currently says: we need to say he is not a leader; we need to say bad things about Bill because then people are going to vote for us and they are going to prefer Andrew. Well actually that is not going to work because this guy is the real deal. He is one of the greatest finance Ministers that we have ever had and he is the architect of a lot of our social policy. Bill English is a great leader and New Zealanders are seeing that. I have no doubt that the polls will reflect that. Can I also acknowledge Paula Bennett our new Deputy Prime Minister.In terms of the state of the nation speech I want to make a few comments about that. Prior to this Prime Minister's statement I do not think we could have seen a better contrast from the Opposition versus the Government. Ultimately you know everything that I have learnt about politics is about whether you are doing the things that matter to people: are you ensuring that you do everything you can to make people safer; are you doing everything you can to ensure that young people get the best opportunities at school; are you doing everything you can to ensure that we raise wages so that people have the best amount of disposable income possible? Our Prime Minister's state of the nation speech was about how we make New Zealanders safer—$500 million worth of expenditure to ensure that we have more police on the beat to ensure that we have home burglaries responded to quicker to ensure that we have a new emergency number. It is a tangible package for New Zealanders.The Opposition turned up to the state of the nation speech with no policy whatsoever. It is not good enough to have a state of the nation speech whereby you do not actually deliver anything for New Zealand. I think that part of what we are seeing this year is a Government—and it is absolutely outlined in the Prime Minister's statement—that has a huge amount of policy under way. There is an aggressive agenda in the area of law and order—$500 million—a very detailed policy that is not just about more money is not just about more police on the beat; it is actually about much better deliverables for New Zealanders. Ninety-five percent of New Zealanders will be within 25 kilometres of a 24/7 police presence. I know as the member for Auckland Central what it means to have police on the beat in terms of prevention of crime. That is a very tangible package and I can say that through my electorate office I have had amazing feedback. People know that we are in this position only because we have had a very strong set of economic policies.That leads me to the next area where I think New Zealanders are going to have very clear choices this year. You have a party that is pro-trade that believes in an open nation and that has a good record in terms of our trade agreements versus an Opposition where nobody is really clear what its position is at the moment. In terms of Labour that is because it has been all over the place in terms of trade. The reality is that when we open our borders and ensure that we have trade that leads to exporters being able to sell more products. Basically we increase the pie for New Zealanders. That is a very good thing and that is where we have a very clear differentiation between this Government and the Opposition.In terms of educational achievement again we can see what the script is that Labour has written. Labour has written a script that says—in fact I could not believe it; I sat here and listened to the Leader of the Opposition say that education funding has been frozen. Someone out there one journalist—please one journalist—just fact-check that. We had $11 billion in expenditure. As Associate Minister of Education we have so many building openings that it is difficult to get Ministers to them. This is because we have invested hundreds of millions—actually billions—of dollars in upgrading the terrible mess that we were left with by the last Labour Government. It is not true that education funding has been frozen and it is not just about more money. The reality is that Hekia Parata has done a stunning job of overseeing significant reform that has seen educational achievement rising and it is not just rising for those Pākehā kids; it is actually for Māori and Pacific students for whom she announced the other day that the results are climbing. That is incredibly important for the future of New Zealand.So again you can see a Government that is focused on significant policy from raising educational achievement to communities of learning and to investing more in infrastructure and those are the facts. Education funding has not been frozen but again we know what the script is from Labour. Those members will say whatever they want this year even if it is not true.In terms of other areas where we have got huge amounts of investment under way if you look at the transport area alone—when I first became an MP people had talked about the Victoria Park Tunnel for decades. In fact people had talked about the City Rail Link (CRL) for I think a hundred years. What we have seen in my electorate alone is massive projects either delivered or signed off. The Victoria Park Tunnel was delivered under budget and in quicker time. The Waterview Connection is another massive infrastructure project that this Government has invested in. The CRL is now under way. These are huge infrastructure projects that have been talked about for generations and that are being delivered by this National Government.We have a lot more to do. If you look at the area of health in the last Budget we announced significant amounts of money in terms of Pharmac. That is very important in terms of access to medicines but it is another example of where we are very focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders—and that ultimately is about leadership.Leadership is not changing your suit and maybe getting rid of the glasses and turning up and having a great photo op at the state of the nation speech but not delivering any policy. Leadership is about turning up and saying: We are actually going to deliver $500 million 1100 police officers and 24/7 police stations for 95 percent of New Zealanders." That is leadership.Bill English is a great Prime Minister and he is going to continue to demonstrate that leadership and deliver on real policies and that is what our Government's record is. We have a significant record in terms of our economic management. In fact if you look at our economic management the economy grew by 3.5 percent in the year to September. If you look at annual wages when we came into office—$12000 more to $59000 which is on track to be $66000 in 2021. If you look at jobs 130000 have been created in the past year. These are real achievements and real deliverables. That is what leadership is about. If the Opposition's strategy is to run Bill English down that will fail because ultimately people out there know what we have delivered and they are listening to the actual tangible policy announcements that we make like we made at the state of the nation speech.In conclusion it is great to be back and I just want to acknowledge again all of the members of the House. But ultimately this election will be fought on real policies real deliverables and real leadership—that is the Prime Minister Bill English - led Government."