Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you Mr Speaker—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! Order! It's a general debate.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As the National Party stand on their feet I just want to say farewell to a few of you. I don't think some of you will be back next term and it's a real shame. I apologise. Goodbye. Bye. Goodbye. Farewell.We've come through a difficult period. You know the word COVID" has come to mean lots of things to lots of people. I'm actually going to be positive. I'm going to make a positive contribution today. How unusual for the National Party to actually listen to something positive. So during COVID we came up with a couple of new terms. Some of you may know "COVID kilos"—COVID kilos.Chris Bishop: Ayesha might take your job.SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. Mr Bishop I resisted the first time. I'm not going to be in the Cabinet and I think the member should stop making those suggestions.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you Mr Speaker. Now let's get back to COVID kilos. Do we know what they are? I mean many of us tried out some recipes during the COVID period. One of my favourite try-out recipes was the pretend KFC recipe. My family really like that. The other term we got used to was the term "lockdown". I always like to mention my lockdown baby little baby Fletcher that was born in our family I think just as we were going into level 2—one of many babies that were born during lockdown. Actually for some of us it was a difficult time and for others of us it was actually a really enjoyable time to be with family.But one of the most positive things one of the most positive aspects of COVID was the fact that we were part of the team of 5 million. I felt amazingly positive about that. I actually felt like I was contributing to our elimination of COVID. I felt like the people next door to me were doing that the people down the road and the people in other neighbourhoods were contributing to this. You know when we were out doing our afternoon walks there would be people who had their phones with them who were listening to the Prime Minister and Ashley Bloomfield doing their 1 o'clock updates. We were engaged in the process of elimination of COVID and it was powerful because by and large we were all doing this together and we were getting the reassurance from our Government and our local leaders. They were staying in touch—constant consistent messaging that was powerful; a Government that was nimble responsive and comforting. What was the result of that? We had—how many days was it that we had—24 days of no new cases but 48 days since community transmission. So we had done a fantastic job as the team of 5 million and all of us need to be proud of that.There is a crucial part of this that hasn't been celebrated and acknowledged enough in my view. That is the volunteers who stepped up from day one actually saw the gaps that were occurring and filled them and responded in an amazing way. They delivered food. They delivered medications. They supported they looked after the kids of essential workers so that they could go to work. They also looked after the children of single parents so they could go and get their shopping done. Simple things that volunteers did up and down this country. I would like to celebrate volunteers because next week is National Volunteer Week and I'd encourage each and every one of us to thank the volunteer groups in our communities for what they've done. You know they supported the older people from being isolated in their homes. They made sure that we were fed. They made sure that we were looked after. They made sure that supplies got to us.There's one woman in particular I want to mention: Vicki-Anne Parker from Christchurch. We had one chap who messaged me and said he was living in a caravan and he needed gas canisters for his burner. Of course during level 4 you couldn't transport those dangerous goods. She actually did a bit of a rally around. Some people looked in their garages and got some gas canisters together and they were able to deliver sufficient to him so that he was able to cook his food during level 4 until he was able to get out to the shops himself and purchase that. That's the kind of stuff that volunteers do. So I encourage each and every one of us next week to thank a volunteer. Go to your volunteer organisations tell them what a marvellous job they're doing and thank them heartily for helping the team of 5 million to get through this."