Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. If there was ever an example of this new Government's lack of readiness and preparedness to be in Government it's that Minister who has just resumed his seat David Clark. About three months ago he had no expectation at all that he would be in the hot seat and his speech in contribution to this Address in Reply debate absolutely sealed the confirmation of that very firmly in the minds of everyone who would've been listening and everybody in the Chamber today. Madam Assistant Speaker it's a pleasure to be participating here in the Address in Reply debate and it is with pleasure that I congratulate you on your appointment as a presiding officer of this House and to your colleagues as other presiding officers I wish you collectively well in this 52nd Parliament.I have the great pleasure and very proudly the responsibility of returning to this House for a third term as the very proud and keenly championing MP for Coromandel. I'm pleased to report that the pohutukawa are in bloom along the Thames coast and around the peninsula and that summer is on its way. We are going to enjoy notwithstanding this new Government a very good summer in the Coromandel.The election result was interesting in Coromandel because we had some good candidates I have to say. I want to congratulate the other candidates who went through the campaign with me in Coromandel. We had a new Green candidate and he took over from the irrepressible Catherine Delahunty who's retired from this House. He did pretty well—in my view made something of a rookie's mistake and ran a candidate campaign rather than a party vote campaign which saw the Green Party vote diminish significantly in the Coromandel a seat once held by a Green MP. That was probably a surprise although part of it was probably in response to the situation that occurred during the election campaign where the former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei was forced to acknowledge that her electoral and benefit fraud meant that she needed to go from this place.What I'm sad about as a result of that is that two other I think good Green MPs are not sitting in this Chamber: Kennedy Graham and Dave Clendon. In what I think was probably one of the most principled acts that I'd seen in my years of watching politics in New Zealand Kennedy Graham and David Clendon chose to resign their places on the Green Party list as a matter of principle. This House is the poorer for not having those two Green members here. I worked with Kennedy Graham on the GLOBE-NZ project which led to the Vivid Economics report and I've got to say that I worked very closely and well with Kennedy Graham because that was truly a cross-party consensus document. I hope that when the climate change initiatives that this Government has heralded so loudly do come into effect they find a place for Kennedy Graham and Dave Clendon because they are two MPs who did make a good contribution to this House.I want to congratulate my colleagues in the National Party particularly our leader Bill English for what I thought was an excellent campaign. Bill English came to the Coromandel and campaigned through there with me. I have very fond memories of standing in front of the world-famous Lemon and Paeroa bottle in Paeroa and we had a very good period of time campaigning there. But what was immediately apparent when we had Bill English in the electorate was how he was speaking to middle New Zealand in a way that resonated that captured their imagination in a way that worked for them. It was aspirational it was standing on a very good record of the nine years that the National Party had had in Government and we've left this Government with a New Zealand that is in very good shape. No matter what they will try and do in terms of rewriting history and trying to change the facts and the numbers and statistics the simple reality is that New Zealand has done well and prospered under nine years of the stable calm rational leadership of John Key and Bill English.So where are we now? Well we find ourselves now with a new Government ill-prepared for Government ill-prepared for leadership and ill-prepared for the challenges and the opportunities that they confront and face on the Treasury benches. Funnily enough I was speaking to a New Zealand First candidate only last week who said I dodged a bullet." That's about himself—he said "I didn't get elected. I dodged a bullet because I would not have wanted to be there in hindsight because I didn't think for one moment" said this New Zealand First candidate "that the Rt Hon Winston Peters would do what he did." Now be that as it may I suspect it probably reflects what could easily be referred to as voters' remorse by a fair percentage of New Zealand First voters who actually didn't vote for this outcome weren't expecting it and weren't wanting it. In my electorate where there were some New Zealand First voters I'm pleased to say that my National Party membership numbers have increased a wee bit. There are a number of them that have come back to the mothership so to speak and they are in good heart and they're ready for the next election in 2020.Bill English has given me a great opportunity to take over the National Party's spokespersonship role on the environment. I'm delighted to have been given that opportunity because being from the Coromandel and representing the electorate of course our natural environment and our natural heritage and resources are incredibly important to me my constituents and the rest of the nation. In the National Party I think we've got a very good view about environmental care responsibility and management but we have never talked up our goals and aspirations and our good intent in the way that this Government did during the election campaign. They really did talk it up. Bill English in his Address in Reply speech when leading off this debate a week or two ago made the point that the Speech from the Throne was dripping with good intent and dripping with good intent it certainly was but good intent is not what gets things done. Actually what this Opposition will be doing is we'll be holding the Government to account not for their good intention—because heaven forbid we agree with most if not some of their good intention—but what we will be holding them to account for is the reality of their intention. It's a situation where now that they sit on the Treasury benches actually deeds and actions speak louder than words and mere good intentions.I want to just remind members opposite of the challenge that the Leader of the Opposition Bill English made in his speech. He said that we're going to measure two important environmental measurements for this Government. This time next year—next Christmas—we'll be looking to the Avon River in Christchurch to see what tangible improvements and water quality have occurred there. We'll be watching and we'll be wanting to report back.Similarly the second area that we are going to be looking at this time next year is in Auckland City where over the last 12 months or so on 160 days raw sewage has been pumped on to the beaches and into the harbour of Auckland in a way that if it was being done by farmers in our rural communities they would be prosecuted.So what we're going to do is ask this Government to come good on their good intentions—come good on their good intentions and prove that the road to purgatory is not paved with good intentions and it is something more than that.David Parker has a very big workload. He's been given the environment responsibility. He's a capable member. I've had dealings with him from my time when I was chairing the Local Government and Environment Committee. I don't for one minute question his ability. But boy he's got a very heavy workload. So we'll be watching that very closely over the next little period of time.The National Party is in incredibly good heart. We're united. We're strong. We're not at all diminished. We will continue to ask questions—written oral and policy questions—of this Government holding them to account holding the peat to their feet so that they actually have to turn good intentions into good deeds.Madam Assistant Speaker I wish you well in your role as a presiding officer."