Foster-Bell PaulPAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Before engaging in the main part of my discussion today I would just like to put on record condolences to the family of Lieutenant General Don McIver who passed away 2 days ago. Don McIver was a very great servant of this country who not only had a distinguished and long military career he was a proud resident of Wellington and the Hutt. He also served as the Director of the Security Intelligence Service throughout the 1990s earning the honour of Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George for that service as well as serving as the president of the RSA. He gave huge service to that organisation and he will be sorely missed by all who knew him. This is a Government that is focused on delivering futureproofed Government for the 21st century. If you look at a range of portfolio areas from law and order—which my colleague the Hon Judith Collins was just discussing—through to economic development and from the provision of passports and the supporting of tourists coming into our country through to the education of children this is a Government focused on doing what is working and actually leading to positive results. We are not relying on outdated ideology from another century and another decade. To give you an example in the law and order area here in Wellington the police have established a Mobility Innovation Lab and Experience Centre in partnership with Vodafone New Zealand doing useful research into the use of mobile technology such as smartphones to prevent people from committing crime; to help solve crimes; to keep our streets safer; and to enable the police to get more out of the hours they spend out on the beat and to spend more hours out on the beat rather than sitting behind the desks and processing paperwork as they used to have to do under a previous administration. But if you turn to other areas where the Government is innovating I think the discussion engaged in by Eugenie Sage—the previous speaker who just resumed her seat—is an interesting one. With the council reforms that we are proposing under the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) where you will see a greater enabling of council-controlled organisations (CCOs) exactly the sorts of problems that we have seen in areas like the Hawke's Bay might actually be able to be avoided. So for instance we heard on the Local Government and Environment Committee last week that Watercare Services which is the CCO responsible for delivering water services throughout Greater Auckland—the new Auckland super-city—took on board assets that were previously not well managed by its predecessor councils. For instance in the Franklin Council you had bores of the sort that exist in the Hawke's Bay which were not treated. It has implemented a programme of upgrade and change across that region where all the water delivered throughout the Auckland region is now chlorinated or treated by UV treatment prohibiting the formation of campylobacter helicobacter E. coli—[Interruption]—those sorts of risks to human health that Mrs Martin seems to find so amusing but which this Government treats very very seriously. In other areas Wellington is the capital of innovation and I am very glad to work as the National list MP based here in Wellington Central. We have some of the great innovators of this country—for instance Xero a wonderful company set up by Rod Drury who is a serial innovator. This is not his first enterprise. Xero is delivering services to Government as well as to the private sector. So as well as being committed to the capital—they are building a new head office down on the corner of Cable Street and Taranaki; Street; they have 1400 staff and growing—they are delivering services at almost no cost.For instance their accounting software is available to schools many hundreds of which have taken up that opportunity. Not only does it allow a school to run its accounts much more simply more easily and less expensively than previously—they do not need the same number of administrators to run their accounts system—it can be done enabling them to add more teachers and more people delivering learning to students. But having that data available so we know the investment into a specific area—for instance the dollars being spent on library services in schools is actually delivering in terms of outcomes for those students—is useful for this Government because this is a data-driven Government. This is a Government that is concerned about what works rather than about ideology or theory Mrs Martin. This is an example of a very useful innovation that is being employed. I want to commend our excellent Minister of Education for her comments earlier in this debate. I had the pleasure of joining the Hon Hekia Parata on a visit to Xero and just seeing the capabilities of its software. There are many many other providers here in Wellington the innovation capital of New Zealand and I am very very proud to live in and to be working in that community. This is a future-focused Government. Thank you.