Mallard TrevorSPEAKER: Members I would like to make a few concluding comments. This is the fifth occasion that I've done it and I'll note that in all the time I've been in Parliament there's only been one Speaker who's actually done more than that.I want to thank members for their contributions to Parliament this year and to give a few facts which might surprise some people as being important at this stage of the discussions. The Parliament sat for 85 sitting days on 83 calendar days. We had 404-and-a-bit hours of normal sittings 26 hours of extended sittings 66 hours of urgency for a total of 487 hours. Sixty-one bills passed 186 petitions presented 985 oral questions asked of which 972 went to Ministers and there have been a grand total of 58068 written questions. I'm not going to vouch for the answers for all of those.I do want to acknowledge the hard work of the staff of the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk during especially challenging times. The pandemic has had an impact on the whole country and very much so on the Parliament. We have survived both last year and this year without becoming a vector for the disease and that is something that I'm particularly proud of and I'm proud of all of the people in this House and who work for the place because we must be one of the highest risk areas for spreading it around the place. I do want to note that I don't quite have the same optimism for next year but given the very high level of vaccination within the buildings I think that some of the effects will be much less than they might have been.I want to pay a special thanks to the cleaning staff. Both during the times we don't see them and the times that we do they have been people who have been working extra hard to keep us safe.I want to acknowledge my fellow presiding officers Adrian Rurawhe who's not with us again today because he is getting his eyesight lined up again. Adrian both right at the beginning of the time he was a presiding officer when he was dealing with Jami-Lee Ross and very recently when he was dealing with Willie Jackson has shown an ability and a strength and an authority and an understanding of the rules which I think is superb. I think I've missed three days this year and I do watch the videos of the question times and I might say that I think Adrian probably does a better job than I do. [Applause] Yeah thank you.I want to say that we hope to see more of the Hon Jenny Salesa next year than we did this year. We missed her a lot. I tell you it makes a big difference to a rotation if you have four people rather than three actually involved in your roster for chairing the House. We missed Jenny. And as far as Jacqui is concerned I want to thank her for all her work and say that some people get stuff that they don't deserve and recently Jacqui has certainly been in that category. I want to say it's been a hard year. People know that there was some stuff earlier in the year which was uncomfortable and I'm not going to make any more comments about that. I do want to say that for me losing my closest colleague and a very good friend—Michael Cullen—and watching him die was not easy but also what his death emphasised to me is how hard it has been for New Zealanders' to handle the pandemic. It is only today when he died in August that his children can meet up with his wife. I saw the video of his hearse going past the end of the street when they could not have a ceremony. That's been tough for New Zealanders and the separations have occurred in New Zealand at really important times and I think that's something some of us lose sight of. I just want to say thank you to Anne for her strength in that and her determination to work hard in her area to keep it COVID-free.I want to acknowledge the comment about the media. I think they act with incredible integrity—probably with a couple of exceptions. I do want to acknowledge Tova O'Brien leaving. Tova's first big hit as a television journalist was set in Naenae and it involved some tickets to Homegrown being resold.Simon O'Connor: What happened to that guy?SPEAKER: She got a very good hit and I got pretty embarrassed. But the thing that I really want to acknowledge is that in her time here Tova had the choice of probably the biggest parliamentary story possible or a member's mental health and she chose not to go for the hits and the soundbites. She decided to do the right thing and I want to thank her for doing that. It's not easy and it's not the way the media works and I just want to acknowledge a truly professional and compassionate journalist even if I disagree with her on quite a few issues.I want to acknowledge the Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Service Rafael Gonzalez-Montero and I just want to say that I stand beside him in recent matters. There are often things that people do not understand. There is quite often one side of things played out in the media rather than all the facts being available and I want to say that we as members must finish the implementation of our code of conduct very early next year because we have failed to make the progress that we should have on that and I think all of us have to take some responsibility for that. If we want this place to be a place where we can be proud of having people work then we've got some work to do ourselves.I want to thank David Wilson and his team for their thoroughly professional work. Andie Lindsay who people know that I think actually runs the place because if there is ever a question to do with something important here if Andie doesn't know the answer she'll find out in about two minutes and she is a very special woman.I want to thank the office staff in my office who've been there through the year. Roland who I think found it quite hard to do his job from in his office and Jessie Manning who has been superb in leading that area.I want to thank the security team. They have a much harder job than they used to have. We have had a churn. I think we've got a very professionally led team with quite a lot of renewal and people who are doing a very good job. I also want to thank the team that work in cybersecurity and there's stuff that we can't talk about but they have been working exceptionally hard this year on our behalf.I want to thank the Chamber staff the education team the guides who haven't had quite as much to do and the select committee staff. I want to thank the Copperfield's staff and just indicate that for some reason I appear to be the only person in the buildings who can't get my order in on time for Doughnut Day". And looking down it's probably good for me that that is the case.I want to thank the Business Committee which I think has worked well through the year. It's a model committee that I talk about and when I talk to colleagues internationally we do run our Parliament in a much more multi-partisan way as a result of having those discussions and most of the time reach an agreement. So I want to thank Chris Hipkins for his work as Leader of the House. He does have a big workload but the House does work very smoothly. I do want to say a special thanks to the whips and the musterer led by Kieran McAnulty on the Labour team. Jan Logie does superb work from the Greens and is for me very much a sounding board on occasions in matters of how this place works. Brooke van Velden who sort of reminds me a little bit—she's the whip. She's almost like the deputy principal of a secondary school—you know you have the person who's the front-person and the person who does the work. I want to thank you Brooke for being the person who does the work. I want to thank Matt Doocey and I know I'm going to work well with Chris Penk. They are both people of tremendous integrity and for me that is something which is very very important. For a whip when you say you're going to do something you've got to do it and all of the whips I have been able to rely on for that. That has not always been the case during my career. I want to thank members' staff both here and in electorate offices especially those up in Auckland. I know that it's been really hard there. We're always trying to get some support in to them and do the checking in but they have been doing a very hard set of work. Finally members I want to thank you all. I wish you a happy festive season. I recommend that you get really good sleep with a warning that if you don't you'll end up looking like me. Thank you very much. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Motion agreed to.SPEAKER: The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 8 February. The House adjourned at 4.51 p.m."