Macindoe TimTIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I love hearing the Labour Party members trying to cheer themselves up. They have had more leaders than we have had hot dinners and if they want to look at the local body elections over the last weekend the reality of the matter is that there has actually been very little change. More to the point let us look at Phil Goff. There he was out there campaigning with blue hoardings because he did not want to be associated with red ones and Lianne Dalziel—well Lianne is a lovely person and who was she up against but John Minto. Well she was probably perceived as being the right-wing candidate. I have to say there was not much about the local body elections that should cheer up the Labour members but I guess they can say that in most parts of the country they got a result. Back in Hamilton we do not even know who our mayor is and I do feel for Andrew King and Paula Southgate who are waiting on the knife-edge of a cliffhanger election and good luck to both of them. I thank them for standing—and everybody. I do want to acknowledge the Hon Phil Goff who is a respected parliamentarian and who has made a significant contribution. I think it is right that we should wish him well and I congratulate him on his election to the mayoralty. I wish him well because it is a vitally important job. And as has been acknowledged by others he is now very keen to be a good friend of National Cabinet Ministers. So he should be because the relationship between central government and local government is important and I do not think he expects to be spending quality time with any of his former colleagues any time soon. What we have seen in the last few years—and one of the reasons why I am so proud to be a member of the Government on this side of the House—is that it has been a Government that has governed through incredibly challenging times with the global financial crisis and the earthquakes being the two most obvious examples but other challenges have beset us as well. We have managed to get the fundamentals of the economy back on track. We are now held up as a model to be followed—one of the best in the OECD—and many countries look to our programmes that we are implementing across a range of different areas and say: New Zealand's on the right track. New Zealand's the country to follow." I am very proud of that. We have heard today from our Minister of Health who is doing a great job that no longer—as we did under the Labour Government—have we got people having to go over to Australia for cancer surgery people waiting in hospital corridors and that sort of thing. There will always be a bottomless pit—a huge demand for health services. There is no question of that but the good thing is that we have seen the provision of healthcare services going up and up and up over the years and we have some of the best services available that we have ever had and I am very proud of that. In education we have just heard from our outstanding Minister of Education the Hon Hekia Parata who is doing a superb job that one of the real focuses of all of the decisions that she has had to be making is: how do we lift that core of people at the bottom who are at the risk of falling through the cracks and not achieving in education? That is why our Government is targeting additional resources in this Government—$43 million worth—at those families who are most likely to miss out and I am very proud of that. That means that we are using the data which has told us what is necessary in an evidence-based way to get better outcomes. Another one that I want to focus on—and I am going to use a local example—is the whole issue of housing and homelessness because as Phil Goff said yesterday all MPs come here because we want to make New Zealand a better place. We may disagree on how we are going to do that but we are all here because we want to see our fellow New Zealanders better off—those who are most at risk of falling off the rails or into some form of deprivation or hardship are lifted up—and that is what we are doing. In Hamilton they have embraced the project that is firmly at the heart of the way the Government is tackling the issue of homelessness and the provision of social housing. Rather than having this sort of ideologically blinkered approach which some of our opponents have that only the Government through Housing New Zealand can provide and that the way that things have always been done is the way they have always got to be done because you could not possibly look at alternatives we are saying: "No let us make sure that we grow the stock of social housing." It is not so important who owns it as the fact that it is there. That is one of the reasons why I am such a strong supporter of Whānau Ora because it is part of the policy of ensuring that we meet local needs with local solutions. I want to acknowledge the People's Project in Hamilton based in Garden Place in the CBD in my electorate which is working incredibly well. In the last couple of years since it got started—I think it was back in July 2014—it has housed quite a large number of homeless people. Nobody wants to see people sleeping rough—we will still see the odd person sleeping rough but far fewer in Hamilton—and the really important thing is not only are they getting it; they are getting wraparound services that ensure that their overall needs are met."