Nash Stuart: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:51. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):I do not know what happened. I was rudely interrupted about 3 years ago and I come back and there is a little bit of dust on the paper. I look across the other side of the House and the same faces are looking out 5 years older but not much has changed.First and foremost I must congratulate you Mr Deputy Speaker. This is the first time that you are in the Chair? Congratulations. Wonderful. Well done.I congratulate all the new members and the returning members. It is great to be sitting beside Carmel Sepuloni and it is fantastic to have Kelvin Davis here as well. We know what it is like. We know what it like to lose—well not lose your seat but to miss out in 2011 and then work incredibly hard to get back here. The reason we worked so hard is that we know there is work to be done. We know that the Labour Party is the only party that can drive the sort of change that New Zealand needs.It is good to be back—there is no doubt about that—and I must admit I am very very proud to stand here as the elected representative for the wonderful electorate of Napier. My promise to the people of Napier is that I will work incredibly hard to repay the faith of those who voted for me and I will work even harder to earn the respect of those who did not. But if you will just allow me 2 seconds what I must do is just thank a team that really went hard for 2½ years: Rob Johnson my campaign manager Pete Findlay Sue Simone Pauline Elliott Keith Raewyn Mike and many many others who worked incredibly hard because they believed that change was necessary and we did it.I must also thank Paula Bennett as well. You may ask why I would thank Paula Bennett. I will tell you what Paula Bennett did. She came down to Napier and she called the deputy mayor naive she called her petty and she called her immature and I reckon that was worth about 1000 votes. I remember seeing Mr Tremain and Wayne Walford in the meeting and they heard Paula Bennett call the deputy mayor that. The deputy mayor stood up and said: “I am actually a National voter.” Paula Bennett said: “You’re immature you’re naive. The people of Napier don’t know what they’re talking about.”—fantastic. We want Paula Bennett back more in the Napier electorate.As mentioned we ran a 2½ year campaign with 125 street-corner meetings over 10000 telephone calls hundreds of doors and one red fire engine which was everywhere. But I will tell you what else we did. More important we came up with a plan for a strategy to win back the provinces. So what I would like to do is put every National Party MP who holds a provincial seat on notice. There are going to be a whole lot of very very hungry—very hungry—Labour Party candidates who are going to be running the same sort of campaign that I ran. They are going to be raising the money they are going to be out there for 2½ years and they are going to be concentrating on the issues that are important to their electorates and the people who determine elections.One thing that really really shone through for me was that at all the street-corner meetings what the thousands of Napier people I met were really concerned about was the lack of opportunity and the lack of jobs. They wanted to know where the strategy was for the regions. In fact Lawrence Yule the Mayor of Hastings who is also chair of Local Government New Zealand is actually on record saying that this Government has no plan for the regions. You have left us behind. You cannot have an economy that is based on Auckland house prices and a Christchurch rebuild because that does not take New Zealanders along with it.Mr Deputy Speaker you know how hard the Labour candidate worked in Whanganui. I expect the deputy mayor Hamish McDouall to be in this House in 2017. He is an incredibly good man.Another thing that this Government did is it stripped away local democracy and that was an absolute disgrace. It took away the ability for communities to determine their own future when it changed the Local Government Act 2002. I am going to put a member’s bill into the ballot and I challenge any one of those provincial MPs to vote against it if it is drawn out. They know that in fact if amalgamation proposals were put to their regions then their constituents would want a say in the future of their local communities. So we need to take that back. We need to take it back—of that there is no doubt.But the most important thing we need to do is we need to change the nature of this economy. We need to move away from a commodity economy where all we do is send products offshore without a cent of value being added. Let me give you just one example and that is the forestry industry. Last year there were 28 million tonnes of logs harvested and 16 million tonnes of those logs were sent offshore without 1 cent of value being added. Of those 70 percent went to China. That is an absolute disgrace—not 1 cent of value being added. In fact I will tell you what has happened in the local industry—David Bennett: Outrageous!STUART NASH: If that member spoke to his sister he would know what is going on in the regions. Over 40 sawmills have closed—40 sawmills have closed. Over 4000 men and women have lost their jobs in the regions because that Government has no strategy. In fact this is an industry that is worth $5 billion and the New Zealand Forest Owners Association actually came out and said in the media about a week ago: “What is wrong with the Government? It has no strategy for the forest industry.” It said how disappointed it was that this industry has the third-largest export earnings and the Government did not even give it to a Minister inside Cabinet. It gave it to a Minister who does not know even how to spell “strategy” let alone how to write one. That is how the Government is treating the regions. That is how the Government is treating good hard-working Kiwis in the provinces when all they want to do is work hard go back to their families and live a life.The Prime Minister said that crime had fallen. In Hawke’s Bay crime has risen. In the provinces it is a different story from the speech the Prime Minister gave. The provinces are being hollowed out. There are jobs going. People are leaving. This is not a rock star economy. Real change needs to happen and this Government is not doing it.There are massive issues. More voters are becoming disillusioned with the whole parliamentary system and they are not voting. Twenty percent of Kiwis could not even be bothered voting this time because they did not see a future and they did not feel engaged.The other thing I would like to make a comment on is that Amy Adams stood up and made all these random statements about the Labour Party. I will tell you what I see in our caucus. I see a whole lot of really good MPs who are now very very hungry and who want to go out there and win. I see opportunities. I see one new guy here Peeni Henare who is going to make a real difference. We now hold six of the seven Māori seats and I tell you what in 3 years’ time these guys are going to be sitting on that side of the House because we have the caucus that is going to make a difference. We have the caucus that is going to go out there and create a real mood for change. Do you know what we are going to do? We are going to go out there and we are going to engage with the people of New Zealand like we know how to and like that Government has forgotten how to do—like that Government has forgotten how to do.I see only opportunities—I really do. I see only opportunities in the Labour caucus at the moment. I see a lazy arrogant Government on that side. You know exactly what I am talking about Mr Deputy Speaker. You are from a provincial electorate. The people of Whanganui are really worried about the opportunities for their children.Well Labour has solutions. Labour will have the policies and Labour will create that mood for change where in 3 years’ time they will determine who and how our Government will drive the future of this country. There will be a vision for this country—Hon Simon Bridges: That’s right—when you’re leader.STUART NASH: —and I know that we are going to get out there and we are going show Kiwis that we have the policies to take us there. We have the people to lead New Zealand.I tell you what the future is not fracking—the future is not fracking. Imagine an industry that destroys the global competitive advantage that New Zealand has the clean green image that we have. The irony we have is that the Minister of Tourism is the Prime Minister and his new Minister is the “Minister of Fracking”. I would love to see some of the arguments that are going to go on in the Prime Minister’s office when Minister Simon Bridges comes along and says: “Fracking is the way forward.” It is not—it is not. It is not the way forward.The Government says this in Hawke’s Bay: “Fracking oil and gas is the future.” Well that is a future that I can tell you the vast majority of Kiwis are going to reject. Like Icarus who flew too close to the sun I suspect Mr Bridges is in for a big fall.But I must say that it is good to be back. I cannot wait to get my teeth stuck into it and I cannot wait to really get working hard and show the people of New Zealand that Labour is back Stuart Nash is back Carmel Sepuloni is back Kelvin Davis is back and we are here to take it to the National Government and present an alternative vision. Thank you very much.