Macindoe Tim: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Macindoe Tim: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4403. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 What a wonderful time it is to be a citizen of the mighty Waikato. Last time I spoke in this House I celebrated the stunning “come from behind” win of the mighty Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic over the Melbourne Vixens in this year’s ANZ championships—the first New Zealand team to win that competition and they did it in style. Had I not been speaking in the context of the Joint Family Homes Repeal Bill that afternoon—some might say it was more the contortion than a context—I would have treated the House to a rendition of “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” because what a privilege it was to be at Waikato Stadium just about 10 days ago to watch the Chiefs thump the Sharks 37-6—37-6 it was—and I was there a week earlier for that heart-stopping semi-final against the Crusaders. In fact I have to say that that night I empathised with the bloke who wrote to the  
New Zealand Herald  
demanding after the Rugby World Cup final a refund of three-quarters of his ticket price on the grounds that he had been sitting on the edge of his seat for the whole night and had not used most of it. 
Well what a great battle that particular game was between the two best teams in New Zealand. I want to say congratulations to Craig Clarke Liam Messam Dave Rennie and all the players and the support crew of the mighty Chiefs franchise. I am very proud to be the “MP for Waikato Stadium” and in fact Minogue Park our netball centre in this House. We are all so proud of our Magic and our Chiefs players. 
But wait there is more. Our Olympic successes have been widely celebrated and nowhere more so than in the Waikato where our rowers train at that superb high-performance centre we now have at Lake Karapiro. We are so proud of MaheDrysdale Hamish Bond and Eric Murray Juliette Haigh Rebecca Scown—of all of them—and also in fact of Mark Todd. That maestro of an equestrian rider the remarkable Mark Todd is also a Cambridge boy. And so it goes on. Did they not all do so well and we in the Waikato are so proud of them. 
Well it is no coincidence that in such a successful region every electorate is held by the National Party. Ours is a region of doers and grafters and achievers and ours is a party and a Government that backs these people backs those who work hard and believes in them. Unlike the negative and divided bunch opposite we are focused on what needs to be done in very challenging times just as our Olympians and our top sportspeople dug deep through those very challenging times of their various seasons and showed what hard work can achieve. 
We see that spirit every day in Canterbury as those who have suffered so much roll up their sleeves cope with the cruel blows that they have suffered since September of 2010 and work towards rebuilding that beautiful city of Christchurch and their wider region. This Government stands shoulder to shoulder with those people of Canterbury. Our commitment to Canterbury’s recovery is unwavering notwithstanding the very challenging times in which we all live. We have committed to the most ambitious goals imaginable for delivering better public services for New Zealanders and already we are seeing some spectacular results particularly in the health sector where we are seeing shorter waiting lists and less time in the emergency rooms. We are getting people through and they are getting the operations. We are not having to send cancer patients over to Australia. There is so much more being delivered for the health dollar thanks to the impressive leadership the vision and the strategy and we are proud of it. 
But we can do even better because getting better public services is all about the prudent use of finite resources. It is not as the Opposition would tell us particularly those on “Planet Labour” that there is money aplenty and you just keep on finding it from somewhere but actually realising that we are in the real world and that we have finite resources and that it is clear vision and good leadership that are required. 
Well what do we have opposite? We have a leader—I think he is a leader—who has disappeared somewhere in the regions. Do you know the extraordinary thing about it is that his colleagues have not even noticed that he is missing so they have not yet sent out a search party for him. Ms Mackey just told us that we need stronger regional economies. Well absolutely! So we do. So why does she and every one of her colleagues over there oppose every measure that this Government has put forward in order to achieve that? Every one of them—