Coleman Jonathan: Address in Reply 
Coleman Jonathan: Address in Reply 
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Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 Mr Speaker as my new parliamentary colleagues have done before me through you I wish to congratulate the new Speaker on her reappointment and I look forward to serving under her direction in this House for the duration of the forty-eighth Parliament. 
It is an honour indeed to be addressing this House as the new member of Parliament for Northcote. I thank the people of Northcote for the faith they have expressed in me and I will do my utmost to serve them faithfully in return. Now as people look north from the Auckland Harbour Bridge over the beautiful Waitemata Harbour they can be confident in the knowledge that the next Labour electorate is on the south coast of England. That is due in no small part to the magnificent team who supported me through a tough campaign which saw us hurdle Labour in Northcote. Northcote is the only seat that we took off the Government in any of the four main centres and that is an achievement that National Party people in Northcote can take great pride in. 
I am thrilled that some of that team have made the trip down here from Northcote today. I tell Gavin Cook that he is definitely the National Party kaumatua of Birkenhead. This is the third time he has been involved in winning this seat off Labour in 30 years and I am certainly hoping that we do not have to call on his services to do that again. To Mike Elliott to Jamie Turner to Stephen Elliot and to Margaret I say that their input was mighty and I am thrilled that they have made the trip here today. To the others listening back up north—Callum Dixon Colin Hartwell Jason Shoebridge Scott Martins Martin Gummer Jeremy Sole Aaron Bethune Alan Croot and the helpers who gave me countless hours of support—I say that I owe them all a debt of gratitude as well. I also acknowledge the president Judy Kirk our leader Don Brash Peter Kiely and Wayne Mapp who have all helped me to get here today. It is great to see John Banks the champion of “truth radio” here in the gallery today. John’s door-knocking feats in his early Birkenhead days really set the benchmark for my own campaign and I thank him for his support. 
I am especially proud that my fiancée Sandra Keaney is in the gallery here today. She certainly lived every part of the road to Parliament and I am very much looking forward to our wedding on 6 January. I acknowledge my mother Patricia who brought up three rowdy teenage boys pretty much on her own—I thank you Mum for all you have done for me over the years; it is great to have you and Jack Rom and John and Kaye here today. I also thank those two other rowdy teenage boys who flew 12000 miles to stand with me on Onewa Road in the last week of the election campaign. 
I pay tribute to my predecessors who have represented the area with distinction: Norman King the Hon Jim McLay who is still a household name in Northcote and Ian Revell. Jim and Ian were both generous in their support and their counsel was much appreciated. More recently Ann Hartley the Assistant Speaker has represented the people of Northcote. Though Ann and I can be relied upon to disagree on just about everything politically there is no doubt that she has the interests of the area at heart. It is certainly one of the ironies of MMP that I now find myself serving with her on the Health Committee. It would have been too much of an irony had she been in the Chair today. 
My own family’s history is deeply entwined with that of the Northcote electorate. My great-great-great-grandfather came to Northcote in 1845 and he started a farm behind what is now the Poenamo Hotel. That farm continued to provide the Northcote town milk supply for over a century. Five generations straight lived in the area and I am proud now to have come back to Northcote to represent the electorate in which so much of my family history took place. There is a street in the electorate named after my grandmother Jessmae. My late father Ron born and raised in Northcote would have taken great pride in this day. I believe it to be a rare occurrence for a member to represent an urban seat where his or her forebears lived for so long and I am privileged. 
But just as the farm paddocks and the strawberry fields along Northcote Road have given way over time to suburban housing so too the demographic make-up of the Northcote electorate has evolved to reflect the changing face of urban New Zealand. The electorate is as diverse in its settings as it is in its peoples. From the beautiful native bush reserves of the Waitemata coastline to the urban heart of the Northcote town centre from the Victorian villas of Northcote Point to State housing further inland from Koreans and Chinese-speaking peoples to Pacific Islanders Maori and Pakeha the Northcote electorate is truly a microcosm of modern urban New Zealand. 
But to build successful communities there has to be something that binds the diverse peoples of our fortunate land other than lines on a map. There is. On the doorsteps of Beachhaven in Glenfield Mall and in the streets of Birkenhead if we stop just long enough to listen to people they will tell us what they have in common with people of every colour of every race and of every history who now claim New Zealand as their turangawaewae. To put it simply like all New Zealanders the people of Northcote aspire. Although each person will express it in a different way they aspire to an education that gives them and their children the best possible chance to compete in the world. They aspire to the outstanding health of body and mind that is the prerequisite for maximising all that life has to offer. They aspire to a level of prosperity that guarantees the enjoyment of the present and the safeguarding of the future. And to deliver on those aspirations our people demand the best schools health systems that are the envy of other nations and an economy that provides the opportunity to build businesses and futures right here in New Zealand. 
I suggest to the House that that ambition is the common thread that has linked all the peoples of New Zealand who have come to Aotearoa over the course of a millennium. From the first waka that landed on these shores to the new immigrants of the 21st century people have come to New Zealand from places as far afield as Hawaiki Europe Asia and Africa because we have all sought a better life than the one we have left behind. If there is a theme that I believe runs through the stories of all the peoples of Aotearoa it is that aspirational inquisitive entrepreneurial competitive instinct that brings every new arrival here. 
In the Speech from the Throne reference was made to a distinctive New Zealand way of responding to the challenges of the 21st century that the Government has developed over the past few years. I suggest that the real New Zealand way is defined by its people not by its Government. I further suggest that the real New Zealand way the mark that is stamped on our history and the New Zealand way that will define our future is a willingness to compete to seek excellence and to demand that potential does not remain unfulfilled. It was the way of Kupe it was the way of Rutherford and it is embodied in the All Black ethos. That New Zealand way that is so easily illustrated in outstanding deeds of exploration academic excellence and sporting prowess translates to the aspiration that I believe all New Zealanders hold for their family their community and their country. 
I have been impressed throughout the course of this series of maiden speeches with the diversity of experience and life-knowledge to be found across this House. But the one thing that is apparent is that what binds National members of Parliament together is the belief that the culture at the very heart of National Party values is the key to New Zealand’s success in the 21st century. It is the National Party way; it is the true New Zealand way. The reason for the long-term success of the National Party is that those very values that our party is founded on are the values that resonate down the generations with every New Zealander as a guide for progress in life both for the individual and the community. National is the party whose every policy can be explained in terms of an underlying philosophy and it is that strength and integrity of values that makes me proud to be a member of the National Party. 
Results must prevail over dogma if New Zealand is to be worthy of a place as a leading Pacific Rim nation. We must analyse what is not currently working then set about finding the most practical and realistic solutions to serve our people’s needs. The Government should serve the people not be their master. 
Whatever one’s claims to the title of “Dr” one wants to be one of those docs who make people well in whatever sense. Universal access to health care is now a fundamental tenet of New Zealand life. Yet as advances in medicine mean there are evermore treatment options available the ability of the State to meet the reasonable expectations of its citizens is lagging further and further behind. We have to avoid ideological blind spots that refuse to contemplate alternative ways of delivering on New Zealanders’ basic right to health care. We have to use all the intelligence innovative capacity and resources at our disposal to deliver on those aspirations for modern New Zealand. We have to be open to the opportunity to deploy alternative funding models in State-provided health-care where we need to. We have to keep the focus on preventing illness and providing service and we will have to summon all the capacity in the public and private systems in order to meet the aspirations of our peoples. 
The country I want to live in is a nation where the peoples of this land lay down the divisions of race of geography of tribe of urban and rural and focus on moving ahead with a broad set of common values that emphasise choice excellence and compassion. We are too small a nation and our interests are too insignificant on the international stage not to seek the things that bring our peoples together. 
I have long believed that economic vision is the key to progress. It is futile to debate the future of health care education policing and social services without a sustainable economic plan that will provide the income to pay for them. We cannot help the most needy in our society without the economic strength to do so. It is aspiration that binds the strands of our history and it is aspiration that melds our futures as New Zealanders together. If we are to allow 21st century New Zealand to deliver on its dreams. We must allow people to strive unhindered. We must reward endeavour. We must give free expression to the New Zealand way. 
Thirteen medical doctors have taken seats in this House over the course of the history of the New Zealand Parliament and I am proud to be one of three in the National Party caucus. I put myself forward because I have always been committed to public service and I believe that this is the best place in which to help see one’s aspirations for one’s country realised. Although as a doctor there is no question that one can do many fine deeds to help individuals and communities equally I have no doubt that it is through the political process that greater good for one’s country might be achieved. 
I come here with no illusions about the realities of political life but equally I remain confident that this is an arena in which humanity—if not always humility—might be expressed. For that is ultimately the purpose for which every member must surely enter this House: the betterment of one’s fellow New Zealander. The philosophies may be different but the purpose must surely be the same.