Williamson MauriceHon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): This is the hardest speech that I am ever going to make in this place because I have been given a very stern warning from foreign affairs that I am now a diplomat and that I have got to not do any of the things that can cause trouble. When I told that to Sir John Key a few hours ago he said: Well given you never listened to my advice like that for 10 years why the bloody hell would you listen to them?". But I am going to try to be diplomatic. I am going to try to make sure that instead of calling somebody a wanker I will call them an owner-operator because that is the diplomatic way to go these days. I do know that what I am about to say is irrelevant to most of you because I was told by my dad once that no matter how great your greatest high or how deep your deepest low there are over 1.6 billion Chinese people who could not give a toss. I think that puts everything into a true prospective.In the next 20 minutes or so I am going to wax lyrical about my 30 years in this place and how things have changed so dramatically cover a few achievements—but not too many to bore you—canvass a couple of the highs and sort of steer clear of a couple of the really deep lows that got really quite bad make an apology or two and finally pose that real question that I think we should all pose: did I make a difference?So first of all a few tributes—and these are really important. I want to pay a tribute to my mum Noreen who is 95 years old lives in her own house in Matamata and will be watching this. She is a lady who just goes about her daily life will not go into an institution and is as sharp as a brain and she calls me up and tells me that I am a completely useless sod when I do not agree with things she said. Mum you have been amazing. I will be very careful to not to use something that my nephew used at his mother's funeral—my sister's funeral. He said: "Mum you're the greatest mum I've ever had." I think I have got to be very very careful not to fall into that trap.My late father Rex served in the Battle of the River Plate which is mentioned up on the wall over there on the Achilles along with his brother. We grew up in Matamata on a farm and they were great parents and instilled they what I still think are completely really top-notch values. That is all you can expect as to where you go from there.To my wife Raewyn—Raewyn up the back there—of 41 long-suffering years: I think the reason we have lasted 41 years is that I leave for Wellington every Tuesday and come back every Friday. She is really pleased to see me when I come home on Friday and she is even more pleased to see me leaving on the Tuesday. So I think that is what has worked.I have got three kids. They are all adopted so they are lucky not to get the genes. They are really going to have a chance in life of being somebody. My son Simon right up in the front there is an amazing guy. He is a wordsmith—I think he came second in the world in the Cambridge English exams—and he is absolutely worthwhile employing if you are looking for someone to be a wordsmith. He actually knows where a few dead bodies are buried as well.Now there are a couple of family members who are not here so I am going to try to do something. You will know that I have always been famous for doing PowerPoints. They tell me that the parliamentary cameras can do this—the twins. I have twins a boy and a girl. This picture is of Connor my twin son. He is currently on a tennis scholarship to the University of South Carolina. He is simply as you will hopefully see by this one if we can flick it in just an amazing tennis player. So Connor I am really proud of you as well.My daughter Brittany is a make-up artist and thinks she is pretty cool and she is—just amazing. There is one more photo clip and then I will do my dogs. If I thought my kids were fantastic have a look at these two dogs. They are Waffles and Pebbles. If I am ever grumpy or hungover in the morning when I wake up that is what I wake up to look at.OK a couple of secretaries—I have been here for 30 years and I think I have got the record for this. I have had the same electorate secretary for the entire 30 years Carla. Carla is up the back of the gallery—Carla Mikkelson; just amazing. I tell you what—30 years. I mean you get less for murder Carla. There have been times when I have arrived at the office and she has just stared at me and gone: "Oh my God! What have you done now?". Another amazing secretary here in Parliament is Bridie Cooper up there in the gallery. She was Bridie Wilkinson for most of her life and got married a couple of years ago. Bridie has just been the—I have worked for her for 30 years. To have one secretary in Wellington and one secretary in Auckland for 30 years means I cannot be as big a bastard as I have been accused of being in the media from time to time.There are a couple of friends here whom I want to pay tribute to. John Slater—where are you hiding? I saw you over there—no John Slater is up in the gallery. John Slater is the past-president of the National Party. We used to go out canvassing together many many years ago. One day we decided: "Let's have a crack at taking over this party." He got to be the president of the party and I got to be a front-bench Minister so that was not too bad. Peter Martin just up there behind the pole is the electorate chairman in Pakuranga and what an absolute stalwart he has been in the electorate for very many many years.I am reminded of how important it is to get name recognition in the electorate. Before I got elected the first time I was working hard because Labour was hellishly popular in 1987 and I was not sure I could win the seat. I did everything I could. A guy came to see me and said: "I need your help." I put hours and hours of work into it and I thought "I've got him. He's going to be a voter for me." And then he dropped a big envelope around at my house that night and it was addressed to Mr William Morrison. If you know Morrison was the actual member of Parliament at the time and William Morrison was not going to cut it when he went to vote. To a couple of other close friends from Air New Zealand days—Ian Hambly Alan Gaskin: you guys we have had an amazing ride through life and it has been fun. There is a couple up here I want to point out—Ron and Jane Woodrow. These people are Wellingtonians who have provided a refuge that I could run to and hide when anything went wrong and I think that was just about every week at one point. Jane would always cook the most amazing meals and Ron would always have the ideas about how to solve the world. Ron shares with me this amazing love of technology. When I used to come back from the States and tell Bill Birch about Bluetooth and Java and so on I could just see it in his face: "I haven't got a bloody clue what you're talking about and so what." I was an advocate of the internet long before it even came here. I argued about how it would change our lives. We would live on it. We would shop on it. We would transact. And I am quite pleased about it.We had Bill Gates out here and I did a few presentations while he was here. He was good enough to give me a copy of his book at the end and written in the front of it he has got "To Maurice. You are my favourite power user. I hope the whole world learns from what you have done in New Zealand."—signed "Bill." So that is not too bad—to have Bill Gates' signature on a book.I had the first iPhone ever in New Zealand and I had the first iPad. I remember bringing it into the House one day and I think Tariana Turia was more excited about it than anybody else. Others just dismissed it as another one of Williamson's little fads. Well you are all going to live on them now and I tell you what—with 3-D printing and driverless cars and so on you have no idea how your world is going to change.What a difference that was from when we came. There was no internet. There were no computers. I went to Hong Kong and bought myself a PC. I brought it down set it up in my office up on the 3rd floor and Sir Robert Muldoon walked past my office stopped backed back and looked in at me working. All I was doing was word processing writing a letter. He goes: "Ah how's the mad scientist tonight then eh? Ah ha ha!".Now I will say a few things about achievements because I think you should say them. I do not want to go on too much because—this is boring. Who cares? I was the longest-serving Minister for a whole range of portfolios. I think 15 years for the statistics portfolio longest-serving communications Minister certainly the longest-serving building and construction Minister and a number of others. But that really does not matter if you did not do anything.Well right from the moment I got here I put a member's bill in and drove it hard about increasing the penalties for cruelty to animals. I have always believed in what Mahatma Gandhi said that the degree to which a nation can be judged as having developed is the way it treats its animals. I think anybody anyone who can be cruel to animals really has something seriously seriously wrong with them.After that I did a few things. I became a Minister and I have got some things that I am pretty proud of. I set up Pharmac in 1993 trying to implement a really good way of buying drugs without the drug companies being able to game us. I think Pharmac is one of our greatest inventions. I hope it never ever gets taken away. But I had a couple of failures along the way. We tried—really. Simon Upton's view and I went with it was that we could charge people for the hotel part of their hospital stay. When they go to hospital they are not at home so they are not eating meals and they are not in their bed and they are not using electricity. So we could at least bill them for that bit of it. I tell you that was about as successful as Lord Mountbatten's Irish holiday.OK—moving right along. One of the things I am really proud of is I set up the Māori broadcasting funding agency. You will know it as Te Māngai Pāho but I called it Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi. OK; cool. We set up 23 Māori radio stations. This is something no one knows and my colleagues are going to hate me when I tell you this. I actually put on the board of that two people: I am going to tell you. One was Hone Harawira because at that time he was a radio broadcaster and I thought he brought some value to it. The other was somebody for whom you will not forgive me and that was Annette Sykes. I had to take her off the board only a couple of years later when she advocated blowing up dams and burning down forests. But that is just a little bit along the way. I did things like deregulating the postal service and stopped New Zealand Post having a monopoly on carrying bloody letters. How stupid was that! But there are a few things I am really proud of. In this House in 1999 I got up and I actually tabled the Mahon report about the Erebus crash. I was at Air New Zealand. I was deeply involved in what went on. Justice Mahon got it right. It was so wrong to blame just the pilot. All of the systems failed that pilot and to blame him alone was wrong. I was so proud to table that report because it had never been tabled. Sir Robert had refused to have it tabled. It was tabled in this House and it is a formal view of what happened at Erebus. It was a systemic failure not one error. And to go to lunch with Marguerite Mahon the wife of Justice Mahon and with Maria Collins and to get photos out the front—just the most moving stunning time of my life and I will never forget it.I have had to make some pretty tough decisions. You know I got attacked over the Crafar farms sale to Shanghai Pengxin. But the law was quite clear that if they met the criteria they met the criteria. Prime Minister John Key came to me one day and said: "We've got to do something about fixing the weathertight homes." I said: "Well it's not our problem." He said: "I know." I said: "If I go and see Bill English he will say there's no money." He said: "I know but we've got to do it." And we did and we put a package together and thousands of people have been able to get their house fixed from that package.Then there was SmartGate and Customs. I know there are some Customs people—the previous comptroller the current comptroller and others—in the audience today. Martyn Dunne was a stunning Comptroller of Customs and Carolyn Tremain as his replacement is also. You are not allowed to have favourites but Customs was by far my favourite. We have implemented technology which means we process people in about 18 seconds flat through the border and it was what I think was really worthwhile.I will talk now about the Maritime Transport Bill. Trevor Mallard would probably be one of the few—no sorry Ruth will remember it. We went night after night for week after week under urgency until 3 in the morning voting on Plimsoll lines on toy ships and so on. But it was such a touchstone bill. Helen Clark said it was the most pernicious evil disgraceful legislation this House had ever seen and if Labour ever got elected it would be the first to go. I am proud to say that after 9 years not one clause of that bill got changed—not one clause of it. It allowed our ships to ply the coast and do well. I remember bringing things like geospatial into the whole Public Service to make sure the Public Service did not think that data should just be in tabular form any more and that actually having maps of where this occurred and how it occurred was better.Probably my greatest success I think in getting something done—but it was hated beyond your wildest belief—was bringing in the photo driver's licence. I thank very much Harry Duynhoven who I think was here earlier—he might have gone off for drinks now. He and about eight other Labour members crossed the floor to give me the numbers on it because we had some of ours who were not prepared to vote.I tell you Leighton Smith waged war against me daily—this was evil this was Big Brother this was the start of the identity card. My wife Raewyn used to say to me: "Why don't you just give it up? I can't get in the car without hearing them tearing you to shreds." Well we did it. It had the biggest drop in our road toll ever and I have never heard it raised again. That is what you have to do around this place. If it is right you do it you stand your ground and at the end of it if it was right it will be proved to be right and I am really pleased.Finally just quickly one thing that I did not expect to be of any great moment was the gay marriage speech. It went to 59 countries was translated into 19 languages—and a quick update; I got the Parliamentary Library to tell me. Since it was passed we have had 1500 same-sex couple marriages out of 100000 marriages during that time—so about 1.5 percent. So the world has not come to an end and we have not had the gay onslaught wipe the rest of us heterosexuals out as was claimed. To those people who sent me some of the nasty—some of the emails were great: "I hope you die of AIDS you bastard." That was one of the nicer ones. Well I have had a check-up before I head to the States and there is still no sign of HIV/AIDS at this point so I am all right. I also checked my birth certificate and my parents were actually married on the day I was born—so not so much of a bastard.OK a few regrets—yes there are a few regrets and I am going to do only one or two or five or whatever. The one I think is the biggest regret ever is I never ever was able to persuade my ministerial colleagues that we really should get rid of commercial television. I seriously seriously do not know why the Government owns a commercial television station. Oh I know—it is so it can promote New Zealand culture and identity. So I had a look at the programme schedule: Masterchef Australia followed by Mrs Brown's Boys Emmerdale this afternoon Coronation Street tonight Instant Gardener which I do not know but it is a British programme of some sort followed by Four in a Bed—you will be able to tell me more about that Murray. You can tell me about it later. And there is The Chase and Tipping Point—both British. How the hell is that promoting New Zealand culture for goodness' sake! And its value when I tried—I pleaded with Jim Bolger about it. Its value back then was about four times what it is now and it is now four times what it will be because nobody nobody is going to watch free-to-air ordinary TV in the future. They are going to watch it via what I think is my greatest little backroom success—and I am pleased that Sir John Key is here. I went to John Key in 2006 after having worked very very closely with Ron Woodrow. I mentioned Ron before—he was a bastion; I could go and hide—but the guy was so forward-thinking in technology. He rolled out CityLink which was the big fibre-optic loop in the CBD here in Wellington. He did it himself with his own money and then sold it. He was always on about how fibre was the future. I remember talking to John and he said: "Oh you know the budgets are tight and I don't think you'd get it through." So I went to some of the policy meetings and I do not think Bill was pretty keen on it either. Every time I went it was just struggle struggle trying to take fibre to the premises. It was unheard of; even the Australians were only going to go for fibre to the Cabinet. It was just the old Russian water drip—Chinese torture. I tried to get some people from the private sector involved. One who I thought would be involved just said it was a nonsense that it would not happen and "You're dreaming."—and now he actually is a board member of Crown Fibre Holdings so that is quite interesting. But in the end I think John Key—and I think he might admit it—and Bill English finally just gave in to get me to shut up. We finally put together the ultra-fast broadband package to roll out fibre and I think it is the greatest enabler the greatest economic enabler that this country will have. On to elements of pride—there was one thing I was really proud of; I thought this was amazing. When Helen Clark was inducted into the Order of New Zealand I was the Minister she requested attend in Auckland and I did—at Government House—and I was really proud to be there. But I had to sort of offer up an apology at the time and I will make sure I get it on record now because we had sparred a lot before. Once in the House many years ago when I was transport Minister we were proposing building State Highway 20—not a tunnel but State Highway 20; a road—through Waterview. Helen got up in the House and said that that would happen over her dead body and my retort was "That would be a small price to pay for a good road." I also tried to get some really smart-alec little cuts against the other side and Trevor Mallard I am sure will remember this day. Labour was really polling very poorly—I think it was about mid-1994 1993. I think the poll came up with Labour on 16 percent. We sat at our what used to be procedures and thought "How do we get a question to a Minister to actually get that 16?" because as Mr Peters will know you cannot ask questions unless they are actually of a ministerial responsibility. Hon Members: Ha ha!Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I know he does but you cannot. OK I thought: "I know what to do." So I said it to the team and we put it up to procedures. So the question was to me as Minister of Broadcasting: "Has he had any complaints recently about the screening on Television One last week of The Sound of Music?". I could see that Labour and the Opposition were going: "What the hell is this one?" as they worked through the question. "What are they getting at here?" and they were stumped absolutely stumped. So when we got to the House—I have got it all on video if you want to see it; it is cool. So I got the question: "Has he had any complaints about it?" and I said: "Mr Speaker I actually have. I had a phone call from an irate Labour Party supporter who complained about the movie The Sound of Music in particular the song 'I am Sixteen Going On Seventeen' ". The supplementary was even better: "Did the irate phone caller have any other songs they were upset about?". I said: "Indeed Mr Speaker there were two more songs: 'High on the Hill I'm a Lonely Goatherd' and 'Farewell Adieu to You and You and You' ".So I just want to finish up by saying it is time to move. In fact I should have gone a while ago; I can see that. I am a dinosaur and I accept it. In fact there was a really good little story Bridie sent to me out of the funny file. She said I attended a primary school in my electorate many years ago and the kids all wrote a lovely letter as they do—you know: "It was great for you to come and I really enjoyed your speech." One of the boys wrote—a little kid only 5 or 6: "You reminded me of my favourite subject dinosaurs." I thought "Wow!". Why I think I am now a dinosaur is I am completely out of tune with where I think modern thinking is—on both sides on all sides; I am out of it.I grew up in a farmhouse in Matamata that had scrim that moved on the walls and a potbelly stove and in winter it was bloody freezing. I am not trying to make out we were poorly off; everyone whom I lived around had it—that was what we lived in. Yet I hear today: "It is my right to a warm dry insulated home." No it is not. Actually every right you have you have got to earn and this idea that "I should have it no matter what." in my view is wrong. We did not even have single glazing. Some of the windows did not close properly so we just had nice draughts of air coming through.Similarly with regards to—and I know this will get Sue Moroney really upset but it is the same thing to do with family and child support stuff for the babies when they are being born. Raewyn and I spent quite some time working out before we started a family how we would financially do it before she gave up working at Air New Zealand. The idea that someone would ever pay for us to do that just does not swing for me. I am not trying to upset you; because it is upsetting them as well. It is just that—I am from the past I should be back in the primeval swamp and that is where I am going.I do really lament—and I was so hoping I would have at least one target but they are not there the journalist fraternity. When I came here journalists were on about substance they were on about why the Government had done something they would hold you to account for spending etc. Now it is just unbelievable. Twenty-one years ago almost to the day in this House David Lange gave a great speech as he was leaving—his valedictory. He said: "I can't stand it anymore. I'm getting out before where the journalist fraternity is going in this world gets to me." He said this: "I picked up a magazine at Auckland Airport yesterday and it said 'Candidate fights life-threatening addiction'." You can check this in Hansard if you do not believe it. " 'Candidate fights life-threatening addiction' " said David. He said: "I was very intrigued with that and when I opened it up it said that Pam Corkery was quitting smoking." I will try to do the voice: "Good heavens!" said David. "What next? Next week we'll be seeing 'How I licked athlete's foot' by Pam Corkery". I simply agree with him. When TV3 drops Campbell Live but brings on some Scout programme about Rachel Glucina and the gossip columnist I feel I lost the plot here. Something has gone wrong. Vaughan Jones the top New Zealand mathematician who has got a Fields Medal gets no mention even though he is the top man in the world but we now know about Kim Kardashian almost nightly and her $50 million arse—I think his name is Kanye.So the test I have always applied is: "Will New Zealanders be better off?". I will not go through a couple of the little stories here but I have to say some of them were amazing. I had a guy in St Heliers who had an alien spaceship crash through his roof. He wanted me to come and help but he had donned a helmet and had slippers on. He had put a trampoline over the house so that the neighbours would not know it and the alien was locked in the bathroom but was eating the cellulose from the wallpaper—"Please help if you can Mr Williamson." and as you will be aware I probably did not do much about that.So that is it for me. I want to finish with a lovely quote from Edmund Burke the British politician who said: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion." So I have always held a North Star. I have always held the North Star which is something to guide you by—for navigation: what is right what is wrong what matters what does not and putting that test on things. For me it is about freedom of the individual it is about rewarding individual effort it is about that libertarian view: "As long as you are at the age of consent and you are not causing damage to any other person then I believe you've got a right to do it." So I voted on the liberal side of everything. God knows back in the 1980s the attacks we came under for allowing the shops to open on a weekend. Jim Knox said: "It's the most evil thing and it'll be the end of families and if you open the shops on a Saturday you know it won't be long before they're open on a Sunday as well." And he was dead right. He was a visionary that Jim Knox.But I am very strongly free market I am a very strongly right-wing and when it comes to the welfare State I am a fan of it being a hand up but not a handout. I am a fan of it being a safety net and not a trampoline. So my North Star is probably the exact 180-degree reverse of what Metiria Turei believes in terms of what is right and wrong with the welfare State. But it is time to go. I am off to sunny California. I have got songs in my head; I have got the chord patterning to the Eagles' "Hotel California": "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave". Well I am leaving. I tell you I am leaving and I am looking so forward to it. It has been a great ride there have been a lot of ups and downs we have had a wonderful time and I have had some wonderful people to share the journey. Thank you so much.[Applause]Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7.30 p.m."