Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take this call. I am actually very excited for New Zealand. Despite what the last speaker Richard Prosser said there is one really good leader in this House by the name of Prime Minister Rt Hon Bill English—ambitious for New Zealand ambitious with his new deputy leader the Hon Paula Bennett. The year has got off to an extremely good start. These two have gelled the team making sure we are all working forward in a new way after a leadership change. It has just been amazing the way the team has come together. We have always been a tight team but to regroup and re-gel—we are all really excited about going forward. I think it is really great that we are ambitious not only for New Zealand but for my part of the world a place like Taranaki - King Country; there is a whole lot of stuff going on for my electorate and others like mine for provincial rural New Zealand.So we get off at the start of the year and the first big announcement is around ultra-fast broadband. I know what ultra-fast broadband can actually do for towns in rural provincial New Zealand. First of all young people who cannot pull their phones out of their pockets will not come and live in rural provincial New Zealand if their mobile phones do not work.Clare Curran: Six or 7 years isn't going to cut it.BARBARA KURIGER: We are looking to attract young people—the 6 or 7 years that you are talking about Ms Curran is actually well facilitated. All of these councils have put their bids in; they are extremely well organised. So I am excited. I am talking with my councils and they are looking forward to getting ultra-fast broadband in as soon as they practically can in terms of getting the detail done. So the funding is there and we are all ready to get started. So ultra-fast broadband is the first thing that is going to bring productivity to rural New Zealand; it is going to bring people it is going to give business—I tell you what I see a lot of people coming to live out in those areas now who can conduct their business and once they are hooked up to ultra-fast broadband they can trade with the world from anywhere.The second big announcement that came out in the new year just last week was around police. I have been really pleased because a lot of the work—I would like to make mention and acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins. The announcement has been made by the Prime Minister and Minister Bennett but Minister Judith Collins did a lot of the groundwork when she was the Minister of Police. She was out in my electorate late last year speaking to police from Te Awamutu Ōtorohanga Te Kūiti and Piopio and talking a lot about rural resourcing and policing. So I am really excited and they are really excited that as soon as we can get those new recruits trained up to 95 percent of all New Zealanders will be within 25 kilometres of a police presence. To clarify that does not mean a station; that means a police presence. I am pretty excited about that because rural security and safety are really important to our people.I have to mention roading because we have had some fantastic roading announcements over recent years. I cannot let it go by without making mention of the Mount Messenger and Awakino realignment. We have recently had a consultation around that. We have asked the public—the New Zealand Transport Agency has been out asking people to have their input into that and I think that is going extremely well. But on top of that there is the commitment of money that is going into rural roads—and I think about things like the roundabout at Hangatiki where people turn into Waitomo. You have got tourists who have traditionally struggled with roundabouts and intersections in our country and just putting those roundabouts in will make those roads safe leading down to great tourist attractions like the Waitomo caves. I was with Minister Bridges when he did the first road safety opening at Waitomo and it was a real pleasure to be there. There are six more of those rural road activities going to be happening in my electorate: roads out to Raglan roads to Whatawhata and some more State Highway 3 announcements.But what I am really also excited about—and I think it is something that our team understands very well but we are still working on getting the other parties and New Zealand into the fold—is in the realm of social investment. We are now in a space where we can integrate the data and we can identify those people who are the most vulnerable and who are at risk. We can put those people first and we can wrap around the services for them. If you can imagine putting the thousand most vulnerable 5- to 7-year-olds—and we hear a lot about vulnerable people in this House. We can actually wrap the services around those people.Previously they did not know whether they were perhaps working with the health or education department whether it is family violence or whether it is something to do with social housing; now we can actually talk to each other. We can get everyone wrapped around those young people. It is going to save a huge amount of effort with those people later on in life when it comes to corrections policing and prison. But more importantly than that it is going to give those young people great self-esteem more confidence more learning ability. And we all know what happens to children at school when they are more confident. They actually stand up and they actually show that they can do things because when the expectations of those children lift the ability of those children happens to lift with them.On top of that we are putting extra funding into schools for teachers to be able to give more resource to those children from vulnerable families and those children who have special needs. I talk to a lot of people in my electorate who have grown up perhaps not with the learning resources for those with dyslexia and special learning needs. I have got 85 primary schools in my electorate and I go in them now and I am starting to see children who are learning in so many different ways. Some people learn better by writing some people learn better with technology. I went into a school one day where they were doing maths and they were measuring and they were creating a golf course out of recycled grass matting. It was about measuring and figuring out where the holes are. All children learn differently and I think that extra special recognition that those children in those schools need special attention is going to make a big difference.Then we move on to health and some of the legislation we are doing. I am really pleased to be part of the Health Committee because we work very well together. Some of the legislation that has been passed is recognising the work that nurse practitioners and other medical professionals do. Up until now it has been the realm of the doctors to do a whole range of things. We do know that there is a shortage of doctors particularly in rural provincial New Zealand but there are a whole lot of nurses out there who have been trained and with a little bit of extra training can become nurse practitioners and fill the needs of some of our rural provincial communities. When it comes to health those people who visit the doctors particularly the elderly like to know that there is actually a team around that medical centre—a great support team people they know people they trust when they walk in to a medical practice. So these nurses have been more than capable of doing that and now legally they are able to do that.The other thing is tourism. We have had an investment of 80 beds going into Piropiro. That is in the middle of a place called the Timber Trail. It is 84 kilometres. You get on a mountain bike. I have done it over a 2-day period. Some people who are much fitter than I am do it over a 1-day period. There are 80 beds going in the middle of there so we can encourage more people. A lot of visitors come out of the cities and they are going into our rural cycle trails; they are going into the Forgotten World railways and highways in places like Whangamomona. You know when Minister Adams was the Minister for Communications—the tenders for places like Whangamomona to be able to get that next phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative cellphone coverage more tourists.I am really looking forward to 2017. My electorate is excited about the initiatives that have come their way. We have had good tourism and we have had good beef prices over the last few years. That has kept things afloat a wee bit but the dairy is looking much more promising than it has been. There are lots of exciting opportunities coming on board. There are things like mānuka honey and there are just more people recognising that provincial New Zealand is alive. It is a great place to live.And while we are talking about provincial New Zealand I would like to make a special mention before I close of our Te Kūiti legend—one of them—one Sir Colin Meads and the other one is Sir David Fagan. Sir David Fagan has this week with his team brought 32 countries to the New Zealand world shearing championship in Invercargill showcasing our agriculture to the world. Thank you.