Sabin Mike: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:390. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I will join with the many others in acknowledging your new position Mr Deputy Speaker. I have to say that I will miss you as the Minister for Courts and as Associate Minister of Justice and Associate Minister for Social Development and the really good work that you have done there but no doubt you have a lot to offer in this position so I will be very pleased to see you grow and develop in this role.I acknowledge everyone who has made it back into Parliament—those who have come new to the place and those who have come back. I acknowledge my colleague Kelvin Davis who has worked very very hard previously as an MP but certainly between the time that he was voted out of here and in coming back. I acknowledge you Kelvin and the work that I know you will continue to do. I also join with Mark Mitchell in acknowledging those new National Party members and their maiden speeches and what have you. I also went to Harvard. I think there has been a bit of mention about Harvard. I went to Harvard; I was delivering newspapers. That is about as close as I got to a degree. I did get School Certificate and I got university entrance accredited so do not panic. That was a stretch.I came to this place from a relatively mixed and varied background but I guess everyone comes here wanting to make a difference. I guess the challenge is how you actually give effect to that. Saying it certainly does not do it. For me coming from the area of Northland—and I guess I think of it as a region even though it is two electorates—it is a place that is blessed with opportunity but has really been dogged by underperformance. I think there are a number of reasons for that. A lot of the problems that come as a result of that underperformance—the social dysfunction the crime the drug use and so forth—can be hinged back to the fact that when an economy is not performing then people occupy themselves in other ways and some of those are not particularly constructive.My goal was to set about trying to identify a whole-of-region economic business growth agenda if you like—identify what the enablers and constrainers were across that economy and articulate that as clearly as possible into this place so that the policy resource and infrastructure that I believe will help grow that economy in Northland is better understood and is better advocated for. So I see that as my role. It is not good enough to just occupy one of these green seats; you have actually got to bring a constructive business case I think to the table and demonstrate why it is that the investment in policy is going to return the results. It is fair to say there is a wee way to go there.I was very pleased during the campaign to have Steven Joyce the Prime Minister and Chris Finlayson in the Whangarei electorate in the Northland region to make an announcement about the Government’s commitment on some of the work that we have been doing over those first 3 years. I will just run through those very quickly. There are 10 Government priorities for Northland and the first of them is the Pūhoi to Wellsford road and getting that project under way as soon as possible. It is now construction-ready. It is a case of getting the people to do the job. That will kick off. That is a significant investment for all of Northland because it says that Northland is open for business. It is not just about the cars and the trucks that travel up and down the road; it actually sends a very strong economic signal to business opportunity.The further roll-out of the ultra-fast broadband Rural Broadband Initiative and fixing some of the cellphone blackspots in Northland—I know Kelvin will join with me in suggesting that there are more blackspots there than on the average leopard—will connect Northlanders to the rest of the world through the internet and obviously through cellphone devices which are so important in the modern world. There is more Māori and Pacific trade training and we are encouraging support for mineral gas and oil exploration.When you look at an economy like Northland’s you have got to ask yourself whether if you keep doing the same thing you are going to get a different result or do you have to create new opportunities to bring new people in and new jobs? Gas oil and minerals are one area that I believe offers that new opportunity.We are working with Ngāpuhi to negotiate that trade settlement and working with Minister Chris Finlayson who is doing an outstanding job. That is so important to Northland. Let us hope that that really progresses. We are lifting productivity in the primary sector through our primary industries initiative that we have got under way up there and the Māori agribusiness programme. We are working to get the Waipoua Forest listed as a national park. It should be. The kauri is an iconic tree globally and Northland deserves to have a national park. We are reforming Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. It is so important to get that productive land up and working because a lot of it is so unproductive. It is sold in multiple titles. Let us hope that Chris Finlayson can complete that work. There is certainly some good work going on.Our Primary Growth Partnership will quadruple avocados and we are also completing the regional growth study to identify business growth investment opportunities and trade opportunities. Northland is the fastest-growing region in the country. It is a good place to be and a good place to invest in.