Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I wish to join with other leaders in supporting this motion by our current Prime Minister to honour the passing of a past Prime Minister. Mike Moore's photo in the gallery outside your office is as large as the longest-serving Prime Ministers of this country and so it should be. It is fitting that this House pays tribute to a man who may have been short in stature but was a giant bestriding the world stage on behalf of our country. If you'll allow me a very small personal indulgence—I never met Mike Moore; I entered this Parliament 15 years after he left it. About two years ago a close friend of his Clayton Cosgrove—also known as mini-Mike"—gave me Mike Moore's phone number so that I could call him and meet him. In the rush of life I never did it and that's a bitter regret. I guess there's a lesson in that in life for everybody. But the reasons why I wanted to meet him were mainly two. First as I said he was a giant on the world stage who can be I think solely responsible as much as any one person can for the belief and the mantra that New Zealand is a trading nation. Some of his fellow travellers from his early career have also been fellow travellers of ACT and they tell me—as was acknowledged by Simon Bridges—that he was responsible for seeing that the Labour Party became supporters of Closer Economic Relations in 1983. Without that sort of consensus in this House we couldn't have made that relationship with our nearest neighbours a model for the world in trade relationships and this theme of cross-partisanship would actually come to punctuate his career. He was nominated by a National Government both to be the chair of the World Trade Organization—rising to a higher office than any other New Zealander had—and also to be the Ambassador to the United States and I like a lot of younger New Zealanders got to know Mike through his brilliant New Zealand Herald columns that he used to write before his ambassadorial post prevented him from having such a vocal megaphone in the nation's press. What I saw in those columns—and this is why I wanted to meet the guy—was that he had a certain amount of political pragmatism. It made him able to pierce the identity politics the categorisation and the boxes into which so many politicians are put or feel unable to escape and achieve the kinds of results that our Prime Minister mentioned for ordinary people across the world. That's why I'm sad not to have met him and why he is one of the very few politicians who can come through this place grow in the role and leave a mark that is indelible and that is defining of our nation and our identity—in particular as a trading nation—and a mark that is also positive. I also note that his first constituents were those from Mount Eden. So there will be people there with long memories who will remember his representation and the way that even while being swept to the side by the Muldoon landslide of 1975 he campaigned valiantly to be their representative. There will be many others from Dilworth School in the area I represent who can attest to the way that he was able to take at least some of the lessons that he got to from that school and the contribution that it made to his life. Finally for Yvonne and his relatives who survive him I wish to offer sincere condolences and to Mike Moore himself a tremendous tribute. We may not see his like again. Thank you Mr Speaker."