Omer Ibrahim; Dean JacquiIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. Today or tomorrow marks the end of Ramadan which is a fasting month for the whole Muslim community all over the world including the 50000 Muslims who live in New Zealand and can I just say congratulations for surviving the whole month without food and drinks from sunrise to sunset. While New Zealand has taken a collaborative approach in fighting COVID-19 and eradicating the virus from the country I'd also like to give you an insight into my culture about working together. I come from a community-oriented mind-set which is deeply rooted in my culture as an Eritrean. It is simply the foundation and driving framework we use to achieve collective goals. We have heard a lot about this Government this Government this Government" bashing the Government. But this Government is proudly focused on taking a collaborative approach in everything it does—literally everything it does with no exception. This was particularly underlined through the announcement of the series of hui following the Government's announcement to implement all the 44 recommendations from the Christchurch terrorist attacks. After the announcement the Government has set out a series of hui from all over the country—about I think 34 hui. A lot of members from the other side of the House actually attended the hui and one of them was Mr David Bennett who was just there and who attended every session in his home town of Hamilton and I really want to thank him for that.There was no way the Government would have achieved what they've achieved in the last few months without working with the community without collaborating with the ethnic communities. The Minister responsible had set out his plan and ambition and things that he wanted to achieve in the next few months—about three months—and it was achieved in three months because of the approach that's been taken to get it done. The hui and the sessions were around helping the community to understand the key concerns and the priorities relevant to the community and answering questions about the implementation of the report's recommendations. They also provided information and initiatives already under way and outlined how to communicate and to contribute to the broader work programme that's under way. The size and the scale and transparency of the hui is something that I've never seen and I'm really really proud of that achievement. Not only was the responsible Minister there Government officials from each Government department were there to help with that. But the thing that I am the most proud about is the approach the Muslim community took. In December we sat down with the Muslim community in Christchurch and the Ministers asked to discuss the plans that were ahead of us for the three months to follow and one of the leaders stood up and said "We don't want to do this ourselves. We don't want to do this alone. We want the other ethnic communities multi-faith and multi-ethnic communities to be involved with and be part of it." To me that encompassed the partnership and working together. Through the hui we had the opportunity to hear suggestions that were big concerns to the community obviously that otherwise wouldn't have been brought up to the attention of the Government. This was also highlighted by the common calls we heard for (1) more cultural awareness in the education system; (2) looking into the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the media. Had we not embarked on this consultation and worked in partnership with the Muslim pan-ethnic and pan-faith communities we wouldn't have known this. The other thing is one of the speakers from the other side of the House mentioned the issue of threats on cyber-security and rightly—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."