Wagner Nicky: Address in Reply 
Wagner Nicky: Address in Reply 
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NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 As a slight variation to convention I would like to congratulate almost everyone who is part of this New Zealand Parliament: the elected members those who work to support this institution and especially the visitors and those listening to the radio tonight. I say to them that it is their attention and interest that keeps politicians honest. 
This is a House of Representatives so by definition no one becomes a member of Parliament without the support of a cast of thousands. So thanks to my whole family particularly to my husband Billy and my boys Jamie and Tia and thanks also to my friends and neighbours and everyone in Christchurch Central who helped and supported me. What a team! But it is the National Party—70 years young—party president Judy Kirk leader Don Brash and regional chair Roger Bridge who made it happen for me and for so many others. Thank you very much. It is powerful stuff being part of this party. I would also like to pay tribute to all my campaign colleagues who did not make it at this election. Keep in fighting trim people; we will be needing you soon. Most importantly thank you to everyone who gave National their party vote in 2005. It took a cast of thousands to get me here and every one of them is a star. 
Today I want to speak in support of a minority group that is almost invisible to this Government: a group of 300000 New Zealanders who feel alienated and misunderstood who are often overworked and underpaid and who are always unappreciated. But I also want to talk about how we New Zealanders hit the jackpot the day we were born into this country. Without even buying a raffle ticket we inherited a unique and rich natural environment all the opportunity energy and hopes of a country of immigrants and the personal freedom and responsibilities of living in a democracy. It is an elegant and potent cocktail. 
I was born into a special family. Have you noticed that like every mother who miraculously produces the most beautiful baby on earth everyone’s family is special? It is a simple point but it is a key indicator to a successful society. My special family were mum and dad and three kids who knew they were loved. 
My mum was a teacher my dad was an engineer. Both my granddads were businessmen and my grandmas read us stories and cooked us food. They came to our house on Sundays for a roast. They all had an opinion about our manners about our school work and how we should treat our mother. They are all dead right now but their spirits are still strong in my life and their voices clear in my head: “You only get out of life what you put in.”; “Pull your weight Nicky.”; “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.”; “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.”—God knows how that works in a place like this! “Work hard.”; “Make the most of everything.”; and the most powerful: “You can do it!”. That was from my mum and it could have been a subversive feminist message except it was coupled with a wail: “Why do you always have to beat all the boys at tennis?”. And always although we read English literature at school studied the history of Europe and knew that “A Fin—To the End” was the motto of our Scottish clan we were always New Zealanders. 
My parents took me a babe in arms on their OE. My dad worked for a construction company and my mum was eternally grateful to Mr Zelinski who never heard a sound through the thin boarding-house walls even though I screamed all night. But they were not “brain drainers”. They had a look at the world and came home with the conviction that our family were New Zealanders by birth but also by choice. They loved the history and culture of the UK and Europe but felt compromised by the engrained class system and the cost of participation. They returned to New Zealand to continue their family and for the opportunities that abounded in this young country. They came back for economic security and quality of life. In those days we were rated No. 3 in the OECD for economics and also No. 3 for health outcomes for infants. Would my mum and dad have made the same decision today looking at our low-wage economy and our present infant mortality rate? 
I have two brothers. They are both living and raising their families in Australia. I have two sons. They are both in the process of doing their OE. I hate the fact that over the last 40 years or so our standard of living and the opportunities for our young people have steadily eroded. Nowadays a skilled worker is instantly and substantially better off financially simply by moving to Australia. And the weather is better! I hate the thought that New Zealand is the birthplace the nurturer and the educator of a whole generation who may return that investment to another country. Do members remember the anguish of the people of Hamelin after the Pied Piper had lured all their children away? We must not let that happen in New Zealand. I swell with pride when frequently overseas people tell me: “I have always wanted to go to New Zealand. It’s so beautiful so clean and so green.” I swell with pride but it is nothing to do with me. Yes New Zealand is beautiful and mostly clean and green but that is mainly because we have had so few people here in our country that we have not messed it up yet. 
My own city of Christchurch has the best and purest water in the world—this stuff here is yuck in comparison—but do not think for one minute it is because Christchurch people have carefully protected and conserved their water. We got a lucky geographical break—a layer of silt that has kept the aquifers clean. I know that all Kiwis care about their environment. I know that Christchurch people love their clean water and now that we can all plainly see that our environment is in real danger all of us have to play a part in doing something about it. 
I admire courage; all types of courage. Sometimes it takes real courage just to get up in the morning and get our kids off to school. But I particularly admire the courage of those who have a vision for the future and are prepared to go out and get it. I think of all the seafarers who set sail for this island Aotearoa New Zealand in search of a better future. How many canoes and how many ships were lost at sea? How many people perished on the way? I think of those who pioneered settlements here and who died from starvation or exposure before they could create their homes or villages. Our ancestors made the country we have today. They built it with hard work—and I hope a bit of play—with blood and sweat but also with love often in loneliness and misery but always with the belief that they were voyaging adventuring striving and fighting for a better future for themselves and for their families so we can sit comfortably in this House tonight. 
And these are not lost values of the past. Just last week I was talking to an immigrant taxi-driver who had been a teacher in his home country. He drove a taxi because his family’s first financial duty was to the next generation so that they would have more choices and they would not have to drive his taxi. And he has been successful. He proudly told me that his son had just graduated as a lawyer and his daughter had nearly finished a double degree in computer science. He hoped that they would remember him in his old age. 
Everyone can and should take part in building a better New Zealand for themselves and for future generations. It is the very best kind of team sport because every Kiwi has something valuable to offer and we need every one of them to join the game. And as my grandmother said: “You only get out of life what you put in.” There might be times when we find ourselves on the benches but it is our job to get focused and fit and on to “Team New Zealand” again. None of us is off the hook. Well perhaps some of us are. Some have already done their bit—people like my pop. My father-in-law 88 years of age and frail is the heart of our family and he is up in the balcony right there. Pop at 20 went off to World War II with the 36th Battalion and he ended up at Guadalcanal. Many of his mates were killed there and he was wounded twice. But like many of his generation he talks only of the lighter side of his experience like the time he hitched a ride with a US soldier back to the Kiwi camp and was asked: “Is that anywhere near the K-one-W-one sign with the picture of the fat-arsed duck?”. There are lots of Kiwis like my pop. They went out and battled for New Zealand when times were tough but now they are old and a bit tired. And we who have never had to face a world war we who have got soft living beyond our means need to remember them. I am ashamed when I see the chronic underfunding of elderly care by this Government. 
But now back to that minority group—those 300000 people who work enormously long hours often in substandard conditions and cannot claim overtime redundancy or maternity leave. Their jobs and their incomes are totally exposed to local and global economic shifts and their risks and responsibilities continue regardless of ill health or misfortune. This group includes men and women of all ages and all races. Many of these people are new immigrants women with children and people who have been made redundant. Many have low levels of education and all worry from day to day about their future and the future of those who depend on them. These people are the self-employed and owner-operators of small businesses employing fewer than 20 workers. They make up 97 percent of all New Zealand businesses and they want to send a message to this Government: “Leave us alone. Pick on someone your own size. The smaller we are the tougher you are on us. It might cost the big boys $500 a year in compliance costs but we little fellows are paying over $2800 a year. It’s too much. Give us a break. Many of us are earning only wages and the only time we hear from you is when you make more rules want an Accident Compensation Corporation payment or slap on another tax. And what’s this about letting the big companies off paying carbon tax but nailing us? We’re the ones who have created most of the productive jobs in the last few years not the Government. We’re the ones who will pay the price as the economy contracts. In fact many of us who export are already losing money but hoping that the dollar will drop so that our businesses will survive. There is no incentive. It’s getting too hard and this Government understands us so little that it has made a trade unionist our Minister. There seems to be only one good thing about being self-employed and that is when times are tough you can’t be fired. You just keep on going to work to earn less and less.” 
So to conclude New Zealand according to Nicky Wagner is a wonderfully endowed beautiful country but we need to look after it much better. Strong families built this country but we the present generation are free-riding on the efforts of those who have gone before. We are not looking after our elderly properly and we run the risk of losing the next generation to the more productive faster-growing economies overseas. We are too tough on those who are working hard to get ahead especially the self-employed and the small-business owner-operators and there is no incentive for New Zealanders to invest in a smarter future as long as we are overtaxed and under-appreciated. I believe that every New Zealander needs to take personal responsibility for his or her own future and the future of this country because no organisation and certainly no Government can be flexible enough to manage a world where change is the only constant and the unexpected is the norm. But all is not lost. Just as our ancestors each and every one of them took up the challenge of building a better country for future generations so can we. I am keen so let us get cracking.