Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Building and Construction): Tēnā koe e te Mana o te Whare and can I add my congratulations to those already expressed to you on your elevation to Deputy Speaker. I am enormously proud of having been part of the presiding officers' team and working alongside you and now I see that you are going to conduct your role with great mana and integrity. I look forward to being in this House when you are presiding. I had the privilege and honour this morning of spending some time with the family of Constable Matthew Hunt and today I want to spend part of my time just acknowledging those who have passed—particularly those who have passed in the line of duty—and Matthew Hunt was one of those. His mother and sister came today to present a petition to ask Parliament to examine our laws and our penalties when someone loses their life in the line of service. That's appropriate and I know that the select committee process will be robust around that. So I want to acknowledge that and him and his service—a fine man who served the New Zealand Police service and our country really well. But I also at the same time want to acknowledge that there is another group of people who are feeling some mamae at the time and that is those people who were impacted by the effects of the impacts of March 15 and the fact that the royal commission of inquiry into the mosque attacks is due out shortly. I send my aroha to the Muslim community and also to the people of Christchurch and to the people of Aotearoa who were impacted on March 15 and what may be re-triggered with them when the commission of inquiry comes out. So I send my love and say that we know that there will be some questions to be answered in that document and that I for one am putting my support to ensuring that we address the concerns that those families and those people have. I want to couch that too in a bit of a story. I remember March 15 very clearly because Speaker Mallard came to Christchurch and we happened to be in Linwood at Linwood school on the morning of the attacks of March 15 about 150 metres away from the Linwood Islamic Centre. We finished at about 12.30 and Jan Logie and I actually went to the Square in Christchurch to attend the School Strike 4 Climate—thousands of children marching through Christchurch singing protesting shouting their commitment to a better world for themselves. It's very strange to me in my mind that the two events conflate but I think there is something in that: that the huge tragedy that we experienced on March 15 also signalled the huge tragedy that could occur later if we don't do something about stopping the warming of our planet. I tell this story as a person from the Pacific who has a heritage homeland under threat and our young people will not sit by and allow us not to do something about it. Now this is one of the key planks of the work that this Government wants to do because we know that this stuff takes time and that if we don't start now by making bold commitments we will not live up to the expectations of our young people. I look across the House at our fabulous class of 2020—both sides of the House. I want to congratulate you all on a fine campaign and passage into this place because you will carry the work of some of us who will move on from this place at some time in the future—you will carry that forward. So remember: this stuff takes a little bit of time you know but unless you keep your foot on the pedal and unless you keep going with this momentum stops. To my colleagues from the class of 2020 don't worry about them OK? [Gestures across Chamber] Our mahi is to keep positive to live the values of our work and our party and to keep moving forward OK? Ka pai. We can do that right? Right. Hon Member: We're always here for you though. Hon POTO WILLIAMS: And if there are other friends who want to join that journey that's really cool too. There's so much work to do. The Speech from the Throne gave us a couple of really clear steers. COVID-19 response—and I have to congratulate what our Prime Minister and our Government did. I am so proud to be a New Zealander. I am so happy to live here. I'm a little bit sad for my Australian kin who can't come home easily but I am so happy at our response. We have pursued elimination and so far we've been pretty darned successful. I think about the Saturday afternoons that I enjoy going down to the local parks and watching the kids play sport—you know where else are they doing that around the world? I think about the international sport that we're going to be hosting over the summer. Where else can that happen? Now our COVID response has been great but we have an opportunity now in our recovery plans to build back better and we are going to do that because we've got a massive programme of infrastructure that is going to fix the hospitals build classrooms in schools it's going to support infrastructure for transport and it's going to create jobs. It's going to create so many jobs we actually have to plan for training people to take up those opportunities. Now I think that's fantastic. I think it's fantastic that we're looking at training people in trades. We have doubled the numbers of people in apprenticeships and 16 percent I think the number was that was quoted—16 percent of those are women. So that for me signals our thinking has changed. We are planning for the future. We are planning to ensure that we've got great facilities. We've got jobs and jobs for those people who could be the most impacted by all of this—Māori Pacific and women—and I'm enormously proud of that. I just want to mention one particular project because all politics is local. One particular project got off the ground because of our support for local infrastructure and shovel-ready projects and that is the money that went into support the nine projects in New Brighton a little corridor of community projects that run down the New Brighton beach. Two surf clubs a bridge club a community centre a tennis club a multipurpose sports arena a butterfly garden—all part of the shovel-ready projects. They came together as a collective of people they created local jobs they created interest and vibrancy and they built our community there in Christchurch and I'm really proud to have been a little little small part of that. You know I want to come back to where I started this speech on that support for those who have lost their lives. I just want to say that what I'm enormously proud of is the fact that this Government has decided to make a ministry for those who are impacted by family and sexual violence and I'm so proud that the Hon Marama Davidson has been the first Minister of that ministry. We are now taking the issue of family harm so seriously we are committing to it by putting the resources of the joint venture—all of the justice sector Ministers—and heading that with an enormously capable woman who will lead a great ministry and hopefully will really come to address the issue that impacts our community most which is family harm. So I'm enormously proud and I will be wholeheartedly supporting that work. I am so proud to be part of this Government. I'm so proud to support our new members and our class of '17. We've still got some stellar stars in that class of '17 coming through too. But thank you very much Mr Speaker. I look forward to the maiden addresses coming later in this debate. Thank you.