Dowie Sarah: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: General Debate[Sitting date: 09 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6437. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): It is a pleasure to round off this debate for a couple of reasons. The first is that I congratulate the Queen on being the longest-reigning monarch over New Zealand which is exciting. The second reason is that the 1-year anniversary is soon coming up for the class of 2014 and my own 1-year anniversary of being elected to the position of MP. This is very exciting. I think that has given us enough leverage to at least assess how the House behaves and perhaps assess the performance of the various teams that make up the benches in this House.What do we have directly opposite? Well we have a writhing cesspit of negativity clinging to the hope that one day people will agree with their warped sense of world view. You know sometimes we will introduce bills into this House that members opposite may agree with in part but they still cannot bring themselves to be gracious when this is a moderate Government that is appealing to New Zealanders who have issues and are looking to solve them with pragmatic solutions.I want to address the member opposite who said that Labour is the party for workers. Well I would dispute that. I want to celebrate the announcement last month that New Zealand Aluminium Smelters got a deal across the line with Meridian Energy for the supply of power. If it were up to the members opposite they would have left New Zealand Aluminium Smelters to rot. That is 800 direct jobs at the smelter and 3000 indirect jobs. They would have left it to rot. Instead what did this Government do? We supported our people we believed in them and we believed that their jobs were worth it and the economy was worth it. We supported the regions.The Invercargill electorate is an export-driven economy and how we are supporting that is through the Business Growth Agenda. Without us selling our primary goods and services to the rest of the world there would be no jobs there would be no incomes for our people and we certainly would not have a labour participation rate of 74.3 percent compared with the rest of New Zealand at 69.3 percent.We need more people to help our production. One of the other initiatives that we have is that we have changed our immigration rules. Immigration initiatives are so vital for the provinces despite members opposite always rounding up on foreigners and people who want to come to New Zealand to make a better life for themselves and contribute positively to our economy. So changing the points system so that skilled migrants can come to the regions making it easier for them to come to the regions and commit for 12 months which is a long time frame means they can come and be integrated into our society and produce and contribute. They can not only help to produce our 14 percent of total export receipts but also contribute to our society in an intangible way by having their children in our schools thereby adding to the diversity and tolerance in our area. It is absolutely wonderful.There are jobs for the vulnerable too. We are supporting the vulnerable. Obviously we have made increases to benefits—a net $25 for our most vulnerable people. But also there are jobs in Invercargill for our beneficiaries. We have had a decrease in beneficiary numbers by 4 percent which means nearly 200 people are going back into the workforce in Invercargill.So again through our Business Growth Agenda we want to see more connectivity. We want to connect even our southernmost businesses with the rest of the world. I note that that was something New Zealand First did not support yet they have the audacity to ask the Minister about connectivity. Connectivity is so important to our regions especially when you are in remote areas. We are continuing to move that initiative forward so that our businesses can export.I just want to say that we are not one-trick ponies down in Southland. It is not just all about agriculture which often resonates from the other side of this House. We have other opportunities too. We have tourism—fledgling tourism sites that are growing at an exponential rate because of the magical scenery that is down south. We are attracting both domestic and international visitors to the Catlins.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.