McKelvie Ian: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McKelvie Ian: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to take the opportunity to speak in the general debate today to comment on the fantastic progress this Government is making with things that really matter to New Zealand. It is making great progress with the building of an economic platform that will set this country on the way to a brighter future. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Has the member learnt how to do supplementary questions yet? 
IAN McKELVIE 
: I would remind the member that I am talking not him. 
I wanted to just comment on comments that we have heard this afternoon about education from the Labour Party which clearly has forgotten that it has been only 4 years since it had an opportunity to sort out our education policy. It did absolutely nothing about it and the reason we have had to increase the expenditure in education in the last 4 years is because of the neglect it suffered in the previous 9 years. 
I want to also while I am on the topic of education just make a couple of comments on some stuff that Mr Hipkins talked about in respect of education and wonder seriously whether he ever visits a school because frankly I do not think he does. In my electorate we also have interestingly decile 1 schools. We have all ranges of schools. In those communities they find ways of ensuring that children go to school with shoes on and they find ways of ensuring that children have uniforms on and that they are provided with food during school hours whether or not their parents can achieve that. I think that that is the great strength we see in our school system today. We have some amazing school teachers they provide a wonderful service for our community and I think that for the Labour Party members to be speaking in the way they have been about teachers and education in the last half an hour is extraordinarily stupid. 
In the 8 months I have been privileged to represent the Rangitikei electorate in this Parliament I have seen and heard many exciting and forward-thinking people who comment on the way the New Zealand economy is moving in what can only be seen as extremely difficult times. We have a Minister for Social Development who is driving and understands the need to reform our welfare environment to both encourage people into work and get an education that enables them to work productively for New Zealand and their own futures. 
We have a welfare system that cares for our elderly. In rural New Zealand that is pretty important because we have the privilege in New Zealand of being able to be born and die in our communities. I think it is most important that we can live our life in one community.  
Dr Megan Woods 
: Unless you’re forced to move to Australia by this Government. 
IAN McKELVIE 
: The other thing that happens in electorates like mine—which may well be foreign to Christchurch—is that because of the extraordinarily testing amount of manual work that people in the Rangitikei electorate do the retirement age suits those people and we need to protect their ability to retire and get some years of comfortable retirement as a result of our current retirement age. 
 We also have a Minister of Education fully occupied in increasing the skills knowledge and achievement of our school-leavers. As I have already commented I think our education system is on the right track and in my electorate the teachers are reasonably comfortable with the way we are moving forward. To complete the triangle we have the Minister of Health driving a very strong performance in our health business in New Zealand in very challenging times. Our expectations and survival rates are increasing dramatically and adding challenges to the health sector at an unprecedented rate. 
These three sectors are like a tripod. They keep our economy based and they give us a base from which to leverage from. Having set that platform I want to turn to the productive sector. This is of course what the Rangitikei does best. We grow trees we grow sheep we grow cattle we produce milk we grow root vegetables and we service agriculture the world over. We service agriculture not only through our science and development which take place at Massey University but also through some innovative businesses that are growing the New Zealand economy. 
I want to just talk very briefly about three issues that have an impact on New Zealand’s economy and particularly on the Rangitikei electorate which relies heavily on tourism and agriculture for its living. 
Chris Hipkins 
: No tourist wants to go to Palmerston North. 
IAN McKELVIE 
: I must remind you that the member of Parliament for Palmerston North sits on the other side of the House. I want to talk very briefly about the emissions trading scheme and capital gains tax and the effect they would have on an electorate like mine and its potential to produce jobs and to fix the environment in the current system we live in. Our environment is particularly precious to both tourism and agriculture and if we do not invest in the future and fix some of the challenges we have around our environment we are going to have serious problems in the future.