Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Both with gratitude for the past and confidence in the future we range ourselves without fear beside Britain. Where she goes we go. Where she stands we stand." So said Prime Minister Savage on 5 September 1939 in the hours after the outbreak of World War II. An awful lot has changed in the 83 years since he uttered those words particularly here in New Zealand. We're a very different country. We look differently. We think differently. We are more modern. And thankfully most tangata whenua do not think the way Mr Waititi has just expressed and I say to him there is a time and now is not that time. A few short days since he last spoke in this House is not sufficient time to start that kind of vitriol on the passing of Her Majesty.Hon Judith Collins: Lack of respect.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It's very disrespectful Mrs Collins; you're quite right. Now like most members of the House I did not meet Her Majesty but like most of us have a strong early memory as a four-year-old standing on the Kensington Oval in South Dunedin awaiting Her Majesty Prince Philip and I think Prince Charles and Princess Anne as younger members of the royal family were also there. Perhaps a 10-year-old Mr Parker had travelled in from Roxburgh to join the thousands of people that were there but it certainly was a magnificent occasion and one which was repeated several times in Dunedin over the ensuing years—one particular event not quite so seemly and that was breathlessly reported by British tabloid media as an assassination attempt by a 17-year-old Bayfield High School student who had a bit of form. He robbed the Andersons Bay post office in his lunch hour and then escaped on his bicycle. I think the better description of what happened that day was a very clumsy and flawed attempt and not the near death of the Queen that particular day. But it certainly put Dunedin on the map.In 1990 it was my great privilege to be—I was lucky enough to be in the House of Lords for the State opening of Parliament. If any colleagues have the opportunity I really suggest they take it because the sort of pomp and colour and ceremony and the music that we saw last night and the trumpets were very much evident in things like the trooping of the colour and the State opening of Parliament. Her Majesty was there wearing the crown that sat atop her casket on the gun—what's it called? The gun thing that took the casket around. That was followed actually by the debate on the Queen's Speech between the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the UK and the Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock and it was an absolute doozy. Of course no one was to know that just three short weeks after that debate Prime Minister Thatcher was to resign as Prime Minister of the UK. But of course the scenes that we saw last night—and actually the reason I'm feeling a bit fuzzy today is because I stayed up and watched just about all of it—some of those things and those traditions are so familiar to every single New Zealander who made the pilgrimage to London as part of their OE and felt a kinship with I guess that sort of ceremony. And boy the British do it better than anyone in the world and we saw that on great display last night.It was my real privilege to be the Minister of Veterans' Affairs as I know the Hon Judith Collins was also in the previous Government. I led a delegation of 84 World War II veterans to New Caledonia in 2014 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of war in the Pacific—84 very elderly servicemen most of whom were Kiwis serving in New Zealand armed forces. Some were British serving in New Zealand armed forces and some were Kiwis who served in the British armed forces. All shared a tremendous affection for Her Majesty and for the freedoms that they fought and so many of their colleagues died for. Actually on that trip John Jones was a member of that delegation. Now he was the last surviving coast watcher from the Gilbert Islands. Most of his colleagues were massacred by the Japanese beheaded on the island that forms now what is Kiribati. It was a tremendous privilege to hear his story of sacrifice. Of course Her Majesty—at that time Princess Elizabeth—served as well and they told me how much that meant to them that the royal family was not prepared to leave the United Kingdom and go to Canada as was recommended by the Government. They stayed in Windsor and Buckingham Palace and Her Majesty as a princess as a young woman became a part of the war effort. I think that speaks volumes to her commitment to her country.I want to address some of the things that David Seymour mentioned. Yes I agree it is possible that we honour the Queen and not support a public holiday and that's entirely their prerogative but to suggest that this amounts to a political stunt is I think most unfair. He goes on to say "Well the only time we've had public holidays has been at the end of World War I and World War II." and that's true. Well I'll make a deal with him that I'll only ever support a one-off public holiday every time a monarch reigns for 70 years and then passes away. That's my commitment to him. Because it's not likely—in fact it's almost certain never to happen again. Our opportunity however we express that on Monday to pause and reflect on a life of service of service to country to her maker and to the Commonwealth of nations that I'm proud we are still part of is an entirely appropriate thing to do. Now if he has a problem with the cost on small business then the problem is not with this public holiday; the problem is with all the other costs that have been imposed on small business with leave and other public holidays and bureaucratic red tape. The problem is not with the cancelled surgeries on Monday but with the thousands of surgeries that have already been cancelled due to the mismanagement of our health system. The problem is not in our education system that our children are going to enjoy a day off on Monday; it's that the chronic absenteeism from their schools has been endemic for years and this Government hasn't done anything about it. So those are chronic problems that this Government needs to address but unlike Mr Seymour I don't believe that the solution is to prevent our country from pausing and reflecting on the legacy of Her Majesty. I will be at St Paul's Cathedral on Monday and it will be I'm sure a memory that I will take to my grave because it is important to me that we in whatever way we do it with prayer or reflection or recollection stop as a country and say thank you: thank you for a life of service and a life well lived."