Reti Shane: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeReti Shane: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei):Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koe. Ka tangi te tītī ka tangi te kākā ka tangi hoki ahau tihei mauri ora! Te Whare e tū nei te marae e takoto nei tēnā kōrua. Tō tātou mate haere e ngā mate. Haere ki te kāinga tūturu o tō tātou Matua i Te Rangi haere haere haere. Ko te kaupapa mō tēnei rā tēnā koe. Ko te wairua o tēnei Whare tēnā koe. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa.[Greetings. The sooty shearwater cry the parrot cry and I lament as well. Behold the breath of life! To the House that stands before me and the courtyard that lies there acknowledgments to you two. To our death depart the deaths. Go to the eternal home of our Father in Heaven depart go forth farewell. Greetings to you the matter for today and to the spirituality of the House greetings. Therefore acknowledgments accolades greetings to you collectively and to us all.]Mr Deputy Speaker may I first acknowledge you with greetings from the north and from my electorate team led by Murray Broadbelt and mentors Shirley Faber Stephanie MacMillan and my campaign and executive teams. We congratulate you on your role as Deputy Speaker. To my esteemed colleagues I greet you with the proverb: he waka eke noa. [A canoe that simply achieves.]Together we are in this one canoe without exception. To gathered guests and family I acknowledge and thank you. Thank you for the service you do me today that I may make you proud that we may make you proud—ngā mihi ki a koutou.I stand today as a humble servant from humble beginnings. The Whangarei electorate has never had a Māori MP. From Murray Smith to John Elliott to John Banks to Phil Heatley the baton has been passed and now rests in my care and protection. To this end and on behalf of the electorate I would like to thank the Hon Phil Heatley for many years of dedication not just to this electorate but to other ministerial portfolios also. It has been commented to me that from the north to this House one Shane leaves and another Shane arrives. This is of course a reference to Shane Jones my whanaunga and fine member of New Zealand First—ah Labour. We do have some similarities. It is true that Shane was a New Zealand Harkness Fellow to Harvard just as I was several years later. I believe his academic appointment was to the John F. Kennedy School of Government and mine was to Harvard Medical School. I will talk more on this later.I speak today as the last of the newbies in this National Government—the beginner the learner the minnow. And here in this moment right now I claim no honorifics no title just Shane a Māori boy from Northland. When my time and season concludes from the dust I come and to the dust I will return.My background is simple. I was born into a State house the eldest of five children in a working-class Māori family. My parents believed that further education and hard work were the way to success and yet what further education meant was not exactly clear to them because they had never experienced it themselves. Mum left in the fifth form and went to work as a clerk at State Advances. Her people landed in Hōreke in the Hokianga in the early 1800s and are now resting in the cemetery opposite Rāwene hospital. Dad left in the fourth form to return to the family farm in Kāwhia. Dad is from a family of 14 brothers and sisters to the same mother and the same father: Grandma Irina Whawhakia Paki descendant of Puoaka Paki Tainui Ngāti Maniapoto and grandad Tom Reti son of Hemi and Tete Paoro from Waikare in the Bay of Islands Ngāti Wai.Times were tough for my grandparents. Every time grandma was in labour she would hop on the horse no saddle bareback ride down the hill across the beach and up the valley to the other side to Auntie Polly who was the midwife. It was a journey of significant time and distance with all 14 children. But if the tide was in it was down the hill swim the horse and up the valley to the other side. As soon as he got in from the farm grandad Tom would follow on the horse down the hill across the beach up the valley. When he got close to Auntie Polly’s house Auntie Polly would come out and say: “Tom this is women’s work. Go home.”Like many in this House today my grandparents created endeavour through endurance and success through sacrifice. This also is the story that I will tell. It is actually not so much about me. I am but the instrument in this mortal existence. But it is a story that at its conclusion talks to hard work education and the unbridled privilege of serving your fellow man. This also is my purpose.It is my belief that there are several sentinel events in a lifetime—some have a few; some have many. Sentinel events are events that shape our lives and but for a different path a different outcome ensues. Two diametric sentinel events happened in my teenage years and shaped my life. The first was institutional racism. In my student years I would usually study during the day and at night commercial clean with dad vacuuming floors cleaning toilets and dusting blinds. One year I asked the administrator whether I could sit not five subjects but six subjects like all my friends were. I remember the reply: “No Shane. You’re a Māori boy. You’ll do five.” My internal response was a call to arms: “Right. I will show you.” My external response was to win the English prize that year. No not for me six subjects. I was still allowed to sit only five. But many years later when I was promoted to assistant professor at Harvard I think I made my point.I won but many Māori do not. The educational aspirations of Māori must never ever be bound by the preconceptions of others. Their dreams too must be allowed to soar to the heavens on shards of resolve to the heights resounding e tangi e e tangi e e tangi e. [Lament wail mourn.]This also is my purpose.I was blessed with a second sentinel event in my teens. In my sixth form year the Rotary Club of Hamilton district 993 broadcast across the Hamilton high schools that it would support one student to America the following year. Many applied and yet for some reason they chose me. You have to imagine that in those times working-class Māori were not the normal Rotary mix and yet they chose me. No one in my family had ever had a passport few had been on a plane and none had been overseas and yet they chose me.I went to Idaho in the Intermountain West of America. My five host families were a retail manager two multimillionaires and two bankers. Can you imagine the contrast? From working-class Māori to a host father who flew me in his private plane on the weekends to his condo in Sun Valley. These people were well educated they worked hard and success had come their way. There it was right there—education and hard work. My parents had already planted the seed of belief and now I saw it in action. I was living it. I got it and I went on to apply it.This is a story of opportunities—windows of opportunities that in a lifetime may open for just the briefest of moments and then close again sometimes for ever. Our task is to create opportunities for those who follow that as we pass the baton to them we have created a world better than how we found it—a footprint that the next tide will gently wash over and shape to its new resolve. This also is my purpose.I have had three careers. My first career is as a doctor serving the people of Whangarei for 20 years. During this time in my clinical hands I was truly privileged to care for many good people and I thank them for enriching my life. At the same time I was appointed to the Northland District Health Board for three consecutive terms and I would like to acknowledge district health board chair Lynette Stewart who is here today and whose wisdom and counsel has always been sound.National literary awards also followed for research published in the national and international scientific community. I guess somewhere in there I also found time to qualify with the Institute of Chartered Accountants receive the Queen’s Service Medal and have three children under three. To our grown-up children Justin Melissa and Angela thank you for permitting me to undertake this body of work and to Christine whose warm embracing support of family also brings me to this point.But what I learnt most from this my first career was to be a good listener. When you partner with people and guide them through the peaks and troughs of their life you get to be a good listener. You know there is a parallel with serving constituents and it is this: what people want is to hear and be heard to see and be seen—to hear and be heard to see and be seen. This also is my purpose.My second career was in America where I worked for 7 years until recently. I was selected as New Zealand Harkness Fellow to Harvard. My academic appointment was to Harvard Medical School. My operational appointment was to Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston. It was in the Harvard environment that I cut my international credentials and developed foreign affairs and trade expertise. In the scientific space of Harvard I found a fertile environment where any innovation any new thinking that I wanted to dream I could actually bring to life.As an informatician I worked with data ciphers and encryption and became a Beachheads Middle East adviser out of the Dubai consulate. For sharing their knowledge so generously I wish to give particular thanks to my operational team at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston. You took up the “Kiwiness” took up the Māori and in return opened up new personal experiences to me such as the Jewish Seder. I carry the best of you all with me and with deep gratitude I acknowledge Harvard professors Professor Tom Delbanco Professor Warner Slack Associate Professor Charles Safran Associate Professor Tony Kaldany and Assistant Professor Henry Feldman.It was always my intention to bring the best of the Harvard environment home to New Zealand. I was always on loan from my people I was always coming home and I bring these learnings with me into the science technology and research and development space and I proudly attest it is cool to be a geek. This also is my purpose.My third career is here and now. As the MP for Whangarei I will advocate strongly for the needs of the electorate and I thank and honour the mandate it has given me and a National Government. Our needs are best met by economic development which includes attention to transport local government reform and Treaty settlements. Economic development that creates sustainable disposable income also creates options and these options I believe will improve the metrics by which we define a good life. This also is my purpose.I feel responsibilities to my electorate of Whangarei to my regional neighbours in Northland and to every single citizen of this nation. At a national level then I embrace working with my colleagues here in the House as we advance a New Zealand in prosperity equity and freedom. I would like to extend one dimension of freedom to a discussion on data ownership a conversation that is heard in the international community and one that we may have here also. In the complex balance between freedom of expression and privacy who owns the data? What data? Well as we seek to share medical records online through electronic tools such as personal health records who owns the data? The doctor the patient the funder? When a loved one—say a child—chronicles their life story on Facebook and that child unexpectedly and tragically passes away who owns that precious story? Without passwords the parents will struggle to reclaim the digital expression of that child. Who owns the data?This discussion may be better framed not around ownership but around stewardship and New Zealand is already strong in this domain. We are already stewards of the land through the Department of Conservation stewards of our coastal treasures through kaitiaki stewardship and stewards of the next generations through love. It is but a small step to be stewards of our data also. This also is my purpose.Ka mutu I have been blessed to be mentored and guided by many strong people in my life. To those at governance tables trade delegations embassies and consulates I watched I learnt and I am an amalgam of the best of what you all brought to the table and shared and for these gifts I thank you. To Yvonne who guides and lights the way forward I thank you.In conclusion I would like to acknowledge my parents Ray and Robyn who are here today and thank them. My parents who when faced with a child with endless energy still decided to keep me alive! And so Mr Deputy Speaker may your tenure be blessed. May this House be great. And may we be one people. Thank you.Waiata