Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to take a call in the Address in Reply debate. We've heard from two O'Connors this afternoon and I sort of call it the Tale of Two O'Connors". Unfortunately I can't complete the trifecta as I am a Strange as we know. However we heard from one O'Connor who gave a fairly positive optimistic view of the next three years acknowledging the challenges we are facing but acknowledging that we have a Government with a clear plan to continue working through some of those challenges. And then we heard from the second O'Connor who gave a fairly pessimistic view. I am going to take the optimistic view because at the election last year New Zealanders right across the country voted for a strong Labour Party and they voted for a strong Labour leader in our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.One of the key reasons why I believe a number of New Zealanders did do that is because they have seen the leadership that our Prime Minister has provided during COVID-19. We only have to look overseas to see how bad COVID-19 can get. Our Prime Minister started by going hard and early and she had clear communication. I spoke to someone recently from a large city over in Europe. Within that city which is a city of around a million people they had around half a dozen different zones for COVID over there. So you'd move from one part of the city and you would have different COVID rules; you'd move to another part of the city and have different COVID rules again. Without that clear communication people struggled to come together to unite in the way that New Zealanders did. So in this speech I'll briefly touch on keeping New Zealanders safe and then I'll talk about the economic recovery. Our border plays a key role in keeping New Zealanders safe and I'd like to acknowledge all of those workers who work at the border. I'd like to acknowledge all of those workers who work in managed isolation and quarantine facilities and I have spoken via Zoom to some of them in the Waikato region. The work that they are doing to keep us safe will be remembered for a long time.We have a strong resilient economy here in New Zealand. We have an economy that has diversified in recent years and I think the diversity that we have in our economy has held us in good stead to navigate these challenges that we have in terms of COVID. And if I just look in terms of a Waikato lens as a member of Parliament from Hamilton East the Waikato economy used to be predominantly a dairy-based economy and we still have that as a strong aspect of our economy but we have diversified in recent years to have the fastest-growing tech sector in New Zealand over the past three years a strong manufacturing sector and a strong service sector as well. I think that's something during these COVID challenges that I haven't heard spoken about quite a lot: the fact that the diversification within our economy over the previous years has held us in good stead. For example the tech sector continues to go strong. It continues to go from strength to strength.The Government has invested in a number of shovel-ready projects to support economic development in the regions and one of those is in the Waikato region and that's helped us to get through these COVID challenges and it will provide a pipeline of work moving forward. One of the key ones there is the Ruakura Superhub which the Government has invested $56 million into. That's creating 6000 to 12000 jobs. Basically what it is is a fully operational inland port on the eastern side of Hamilton which is the size of Auckland CBD. What we will see is containers come into Auckland port they will be shipped south to the Ruakura development and those containers will be opened there and then they will be distributed right around the golden triangle—that Hamilton Auckland Tauranga area. This sort of economic development in the regions of New Zealand is exactly what we need to see and as a Government we will continue to invest in the regions. And as we go through these COVID challenges the job creation for projects such as the Ruakura port and other shovel-ready projects will certainly play a key role in helping us to navigate through that.So we have a Government that is keeping New Zealanders safe and is focusing on a strong economic recovery for our country. Thank you."