McKelvie Ian: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McKelvie Ian: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 30 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7667. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to stand up and speak in strong support of the Prime Minister’s motion and statement of yesterday. I wish you Mr Speaker and all members of this House a very happy and challenging New Year. 
I am very proud to be a member of a party that has the courage to do what is right for New Zealand. This week I have heard a number of speeches from across the House that clearly demonstrated a lack of vision of ideas and of even a skerrick of new policy. In fact most of these members spent their entire speeches talking about the Government’s policies which is a sure sign that the Government is on the right track. What an impetuosity to have to listen to Gareth Hughes talking about the National Government scaremongering. He clearly does not recognise the symptoms or he would not practise it so frequently himself. He talks of a smart Green economy. Well I can assure you he will create a small desert-like economy if he has his way. 
For me the first year here has been one of settling in and observing with interest how effective members of this House make a difference. There are some snippets one picks up in life in business and in relationships that set standards by which success is achieved—whatever success may be. The ability to observe others in action and learn from that observation is also important on the pathway to success. For some reason in this House success is making a noise—criticising for the sake of it in the hope it may grab a headline and it sometimes does. For others just talking for the sake of it seems to give them a buzz. I grew up in the days of party lines and not the party lines that are practised in this House. I can assure you that those people are nothing but a nuisance. They hinder progress inhibit growth and stop those wanting to do business from doing so. 
For those of us in the back row of the Government benches success is being part of a process of making good law; critiquing not criticising policy; and adding value to the aspirations of those who support the Government’s vision for New Zealand. We are not headline-grabbers. We do not seek attention. We merely play our part in the betterment of our electorates and their matters of concern. To borrow a phrase from the doyen of New Zealand retailing L V Martin: “It’s the putting right that counts.” and that is what we do over here. And have we not had to spend some time in the last 3 years putting it right! 
In education the Government has taken a lead and I think we are doing a great job. In my electorate I have some 80-odd schools most of which are performing extremely well. In health we have seen a great performance by the three health boards that service my electorate a significant increase in treatments and much better performance than we saw from the health industry some 3 or 4 years ago. In the law and order area which is an area of particular interest to me in that I am a member of the Law and Order Committee we have made significant progress in reducing crime and I think we have a police force that leads the world. 
Then we were greeted by an economy suffering from a world recession unheard of since the 1930s. This Government has managed its way through that and I think we are now in as good a position as any country in the Western World. Having just got through that we move on to Christchurch and the $30 billion cost to this country hits this Government just as it thinks it is getting things on their feet. 
Last week I went to Ratana which interestingly is about in the middle of the bottom of my electorate. While there we saw a new housing project that had been completed in partnership with the Maori Party and this Government. 
Dr David Clark 
: They’re hoping for a Labour-Green Government though. 
IAN McKELVIE 
: Yes all 150 of them. We also saw some great progress with Treaty settlements. Under this Government in excess of 30 Treaty settlements have been completed under Minister Finlayson and I think that is an amazingly good achievement. I for one am certainly looking forward to the continuation of this Treaty settlement process as I am sure it is going to strengthen rural New Zealand significantly. So it certainly has been a case of “It’s the putting right that counts.” 
The people of the Rangitikei electorate are looking forward to this year with optimism. There is a sense that the economy is on the move that the tourism and food production sectors will have a good year nature permitting—and it may not—and that this John Key - led Government will continue to give the people of the Rangitikei the best opportunity to prosper. Items that are of particular interest in my electorate are stimulated by the target set by the Business Growth Agenda to lift the value of our exports to the economy from 30 percent to 40 percent of GDP by 2024. Given that the primary production sector currently accounts for 72 percent of all merchandise exports this target is significant. 
We have seen ACC which I think is one of the gems of our New Zealand economy perform much better than it had done for some time. There has also been a dramatic improvement in its performance in the farming sector of course—one of the critical sectors that ACC is concerned with. There is a significant amount of cost to that sector as a result of the ACC levies. None the less ACC does a great job for our rural sector and I am looking forward to that continuing with strength. 
I want to move on now to the Primary Growth Partnerships. The Government has through the Ministry for Primary Industries invested in excess of $650 million in Primary Growth Partnerships to help boost the export sector. In the past 2 days there has been an exciting new initiative announced by Beef and Lamb New Zealand whereby the ministry will partner with that company to invest over $30 million over 7 years in partnership with the bulk of the major players in the red meat industry. This has great potential to refocus this industry’s attention on the future. I am confident that these Primary Growth Partnerships will boost productivity significantly as the results of this work impact on the productive sector. I guess you could use a Clare Curran quote and say that we may well end up at the end of this with digital sheep. 
 The irrigation fund will also make a huge contribution to our increased productivity. A potential $400 million investment here will be seeded by $80 million in this year’s Budget. Ask anyone in the Hawke’s Bay right now what they think of the irrigation fund and they will say they are extremely pleased with it. 
The Prime Minister has in the last few days re-emphasised the National Government’s determination to make haste with the reforms so badly needed to encourage the economic recovery we all want. He has confirmed our commitment to a better result for our education sector. He has made a very strong statement around our housing requirements and the need to continue to reform the Resource Management Act to enable developers and councils to provide the availability of land and indeed deal with section prices in a manner that can be afforded by this economy. 
Job creation and training for our young people are foremost amongst the Government’s priorities for the next year. The new incentives around apprenticeships will be welcomed by all. Much has been said on this topic by previous Government speakers and I can only offer my full support to this. Welcomed also will be the clear signal given by the launching of the five new vocational pathways in construction manufacturing the primary sector the service sector and social services. This is a groundbreaking and decisive move by this Government to give our young a clear pointer as to where the future is in this country. 
I want to spend a little time today speaking about the manufacturing sector a sector the Government has prioritised in its planning and training for the future. In the Rangitikei we have some outstanding performers in this sector a number of them in the agricultural space. They are doing well despite Winston Peters’ dollar because they embraced the new era of technology and skills cut their costs and upped their efficiency. A number of the companies in my electorate are involved in manufacturing and designing with the environment and sustainability very much to the fore. They are competing on the international market stage with great success. However that stage has changed for ever and manufacturing will never take place in this country again in the form we knew it historically. New methods will need to be employed. Technology will take over. I still believe firmly that the sector has great potential as an employer but I suspect it will be in a very different form from what we historically knew. That change is already happening in my electorate. 
That is why the Government has put an emphasis on a number of other sectors that will as the economy gets moving take up the employment slack. Roads of national significance are hugely important to my electorate. They get our product to the international market. We must remember of course that in the process of getting the roads of national significance done we have to get our product to the roads of national significance. That will continue to challenge us in rural New Zealand and will challenge the councils around us. 
This is an exciting and challenging time to be in Government and it is a privilege to be able to serve under this wonderful Prime Minister and his very talented Cabinet and in this united caucus. Thank you.