Lee Melissa: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 17 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1616. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the Prime Minister’s statement in the second half of this 10-minute call and I would like to commend the member who just sat down Scott Simpson—what a fantastic champion he is for Coromandel is he not? I am indeed very jealous that I have not yet been elected as the member for Mt Albert but I am actually getting there. In the tiger country of Mt Albert which is the stronghold of the Labour Party the National Party did win the party vote and I think we actually did very well in the last election.I just want to talk a little bit about the wonderful progress that we have actually made in this country. What a fantastic Minister we have in Tim Groser—in the activities that he actually engages in on behalf of New Zealand by negotiating free-trade agreements up and down and all around the world. The one that I am particularly interested in which I think a member actually spoke about earlier is the free-trade agreement with South Korea. Mr McClay mentioned that every kiwifruit farmer in his electorate is getting $8500 as a result of that free-trade agreement because the tariff that was sitting at 45 percent is now no longer there. It is actually going to be reduced and go to zero. We are able to compete with other countries—for example Latin American countries like Chile that actually export kiwifruit from Chile to Korea. We are going to be on a par with them on an equal footing when it comes to competition. No doubt our kiwifruit is going to be definitely better than the ones from Chile.I also want to make a comment about a comment that I think Julie Anne Genter made about roads not being important—that it was not productive spending from this Government. I would like to urge that member to perhaps talk to the manufacturers and talk to exporters who use our roads with trucks and who put their products on to trucks to the ports to be exported to gain money for the New Zealand economy. I would just like to mention that to that member because it is in fact important.I just want to reflect on the time when Helen Clark used to be the member for Mt Albert back in 2008. Mortgage rates in New Zealand were around 11 percent. Have we not come a long way? Has the National Government not done very well? At the moment I think the mortgage rate is sitting somewhere around 5 percent—somewhere just around there. I am so very pleased that New Zealanders are in fact returning to our country. We do not have the 30000 to 40000 New Zealanders leaving our shores because they could not stand the policies of the Labour Government. We have a National Government and people are returning. We have numbers returning to this country and our unemployment rate is sitting somewhere around 5.7 percent. Compared with Australia which was the country that New Zealanders were going to for the better opportunities and better work opportunities—its unemployment rate is much higher than New Zealand’s. It is sitting at somewhere above 6 percent.Our businesses are doing so well. When we became the Government back in 2008 I actually happened to visit some of the small businesses that were operating in the Mt Albert electorate and when we cut the business tax that 3 percent that they were benefiting from was actually going to research funding that they could not afford as a small business. What a fantastic opportunity that was for small business. New Zealand is in good heart. New Zealand is led by a fantastic Prime Minister and I am so very proud to be part of this John Key - led Government and the National Party.I know that I have actually mentioned this previously but it is always a fantastic thing when we actually look at the performance of our Kiwis overseas like Lydia Ko who is the world’s No. 1 golfer—and what a fantastic result that was—at age 17 years 9 months and 7 days. What a fantastic thing. I know that John Key is a great supporter of Lydia Ko and Lydia Ko is a fantastic supporter of our Prime Minister John Key as well. It was a fantastic speech that the Prime Minister made and I stand to support him in his Prime Minister’s statement. Thank you.