Williams Andrew: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 08 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 Mr Speaker honourable members fellow New Zealanders: kia ora. It is a great honour to be here in the New Zealand Parliament our nation’s House of Representatives as a New Zealand First member of Parliament. It is no wonder that the Beatles song “The Long and Winding Road” is one of my favourite tunes.  
As a fifth-generation proud New Zealander the journey however spans more than just my lifetime going back to the pioneering days of the 1830s and 1840s when the likes of the Welsh Captain John Williams skippered an early vessel to this country when Robert Williams arrived and was the first doctor and coroner in Otago and when the Forbes the Stewarts and the Fairbairns journeyed from Scotland to a new land of opportunity. Those family names live on with my third name Forbes and my children’s third names all still honour the Forbes and Fairbairn names. I also honour family members who fell in both World War I and World War II to uphold New Zealand’s democratic principles and those of the Commonwealth. 
 Growing up in a family of five in the country town of Waipukurau in Central Hawke’s Bay I have very fond memories of endless hot summers—oh we all have endless memories of hot summers; I wish we had them again—riding on our bikes everywhere along those hot tar roads swimming in the holes in the river or at the baths and having competitions to see how many times we could peel over the summer and listening late at night on a walkie-talkie to Radio Hauraki out there on pirate ship  
Tiri 
 on the late-night airwaves.  
Our family had a strong community focus with my father Bruce a stock and station agent in Waipukurau alongside my mother June; they both worked at Wrightson’s. Both followed the footsteps of our forebears with Dad serving on the  
Achilles 
 in the Pacific during the war and Mum a wartime farm girl—she and her sister taking care of their parents’ farm at Wyndham.  
Those were the days when the New Zealand economy was in boom times. Dad would be down at the saleyards as an auctioneer and they would put through 60000 ewes at the Waipukurau ewe fair. Stock trucks lined up for miles coming into town. Our parents organised the local A and P show the largest 1-day show in New Zealand while Dad was a trustee of the Pukeora home for the disabled and served for many years as a borough councillor. He very proudly used to tell me how Waipukurau was the first town in New Zealand to have a concrete footpath on every street.  
In those days New Zealand was No. 2 in the OECD surpassed only by the United States of America. The New Zealand dollar was worth more than the US dollar. Everything we could produce was shipped over to mother England. Full employment and job security was expected by all as was a good free education free health care and social security.  
But the New Zealand bubble was about to burst. New Zealand became embroiled in the Viet Nam War and with the introduction of television we had war in our living rooms for the first time. Very sadly in 1969 my brother Jack was killed in action in Viet Nam fighting with the New Zealand Army on those shores. He was one of the 37 young soldiers who gave their lives for this country. I am very proud to be in this corner of the House where the Viet Nam crest is on the wall; I was here in Parliament in 2008 when Prime Minister Helen Clark delivered the formal apology from the New Zealand Government to the Viet Nam vets for the terrible way they were treated.  
We as a family never got over that tragic loss. In 1971 we visited Terendak Camp in Malaysia where Jack is buried and we were very proud to be there to see his grave. Flying back on the Air New Zealand DC8 from Singapore I can recall as a teenager the pride I also had in our national airline Air New Zealand. Our airline—part of my heritage. At the time New Zealand had an army battalion based in Singapore and we gave support in many ways to Singapore. Who would think that now 40 years on when we see where Singapore has gone compared with this country?  
Having been in debating clubs at my prep school St Peter’s in Cambridge and then at Central Hawke’s Bay College my journey was to have been in the field of law; I always wanted to be a lawyer. I recall visiting the Auckland District Court and seeing a lawyer in full flight—his booming voice totally dominating the courtroom his huge physical presence. Even the judge was mesmerised. That of course was David Lange before he entered politics. “Oh to be a lawyer like him” I thought.  
But as fate would have it a six-pack of Hutton’s sausages was to change all that while I was attending a barbecue on the North Shore with the uncle of two Hawke’s Bay friends. That was the late Ross Finlayson a pioneer in the meat industry with sales to Russia and the Middle East. He wanted a young export trainee and offered me the job because I brought along the Hutton’s sausages to a big meat exporters’ barbecue. What a choice: be a poor law student at university or travel the world with a credit card and have an exciting life seeing exotic places. So by the age of 20 I was going to amazing places like Saudi Arabia Kuwait and Oman and travelling throughout Asia.  
However New Zealand’s bubble was about to burst with Britain joining the EEC. No longer could we rely on the huge UK market so exporters pounded the pavements in exotic new markets trying to diversify hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sheep meats. My journey on the long and winding road moved into farmed venison for Wrightson’s taking this wonderful low-fat meat to Japan Asia the United States Canada and Europe and then managing its perishable airfreight and shipping side for Challenge Freight Services part of Fletcher Challenge.  
In those days The Terrace as we all know—The Terrace in Wellington—was the commercial hub of corporate New Zealand with head offices for Fletcher Challenge Crown Corporation Dalgety’s Brierley’s and many other famous New Zealand company names. The Think Big projects saw the likes of the Clyde Dam being built the methanol plant being built in New Plymouth and our container ports being developed. New Zealand was really going places.  
However in less than a decade or so much of corporate New Zealand was totally transformed and carved up. Head offices moved from Wellington to Auckland or offshore. Corporates downsized or disappeared. The New Zealand Railways Corporation BNZ and Air New Zealand were sold out. What a mistake we would all come to regret!  
I then joined the Belgian trade service as trade commissioner here in New Zealand and I was also appointed honorary vice-consul. What an interesting 10 years involved with a dynamic European economy that was in the centre of the heart of Europe. It was historically important of course to New Zealand when you see the names of Passchendaele up on the wall here and when you see Messines on the wall over there. It was also economically important for the distribution of so many New Zealand products such as kiwifruit apples and meat—all entering the EU via Belgium.  
But somehow those 10 years were also disappointing to witness the comparison between the results of Belgium with its 11 million people and New Zealand with our 4 million people—its huge investment in education research and development technology science and innovation public transport city infrastructure and the list goes on. The gap widened between Belgium and New Zealand in the last decade and it was very very sad to see.  
This was one of the factors that inspired me to get more involved in local government—becoming a councillor a community board member and then the mayor of North Shore City—to try to bring some of that European flair and innovation to the Shore and to the Auckland region. My sincere thanks go to the council and staff of North Shore City during my 9 years of involvement with them. We achieved so much as New Zealand’s fourth largest city with cutting edge technology and innovative thinking leading the way in New Zealand. Our council was recognised both here and internationally.  
We put in place the first 15-year long-term council plan of any council in the country. We sorted out the 18-year-old Pak ’N Save supermarket wrangle on Wairau Road the Birkenhead library fiasco and the ever-looming risk of the commercial airport at Whenuapai Air Base. My thanks go to the Whenuapai Airbase Action Group which saved the North Shore from the environmental effects and safety risks of the commercial airport in its urban region. My thanks also go to the Long Bay - Okura Great Park Society and the Chelsea Estate Heritage Park society. In both cases we secured hundreds and hundreds of acres of land—pristine land and native bush—taken into public ownership for all time and for this and future generations to enjoy.  
So much was achieved in a short space of time only to have the rug pulled out from under us with the Auckland super-city. The 800-page royal commission report was tossed in the bin and replaced with a 34-page handout within 10 days of the commission reporting. The Shore is not the same today and is a shadow of its former self. It is a tragedy really that 230000 people have effectively been disenfranchised with corporate Auckland in the form of the council-controlled organisations now in control of the city. The North Shore sewage treatment plant worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars developed by the ratepayers over decades was given away for a peppercorn dollar or so—handed over to a board of directors. Gone are the annual arts competition the Wag ‘n Walk dog fundraiser and the Body Art Awards. The weeds are growing taller in our city as the honourable member Jonathan Coleman from Northcote will attest to as he was in the paper talking about it just a week or so ago. Services are declining and the rates and costs are going up. That was not the way we expected the North Shore to become; that was certainly not why I moved to the North Shore.  
But a mayor’s role is very much a 24/7 position—always on call and in demand. It must encompass the needs of all sections of the community. I would like to pay tribute to all mayors regional chairs councillors and community board members throughout the country. They do a fantastic job and deserve far more recognition for the important framework they provide throughout New Zealand. I look forward to working to assist local government through my appointment to the Local Government and Environment Committee.  
The principles of New Zealand First align with the social environmental and economic actions of a mayor—in line with the principles that the Rt Hon Winston Peters and the New Zealand First members have had all these years. I am very proud to be able to apply what I have learnt in local government to my role as a New Zealand First member of Parliament—factors such as the seniors who have greatly benefited from the SuperGold card with free off-peak travel; support for the Returned and Services’ Association with $1 million of funding going to it; introducing child visits for under-6s. My wife Jane a former Plunket nurse and now child health manager will attest to the importance of that. The disability support; the owning building and maintaining of community assets; and economic policies focused on export-led recoveries are all New Zealand First principles that we should all aspire to.  
My thanks in closing go to my wife Jane—we have been married now for 31 years—who stood by me through this lengthy journey. She was a great mayoress and will be by my side as a member of Parliament. Thanks too to my children—Sam Nicky and Bryony—who no doubt have had a very colourful father but one with the family and New Zealand’s interests always at heart. Thanks go to the New Zealand First supporters and all other supporters too who have supported me over the years. It has been wonderful to know that you are behind me.  
It has been a long and winding road but at the end of the day like the Williamses the Forbes the Fairbairns and the Stewarts who came to this land of opportunity our aim in this House must be to strive to make this a better place for us all. New Zealand must lift its act we must improve on the economic ladder and we must do the very best for our country and its people. The last six or seven generations deserve more from this current generation to ensure that we do not sell ourselves down the river and become tenants in our own land. There needs to be a fair go for all.