Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's indeed a privilege to be in this House and after one year reflecting on what we do and how we operate. I do want to thank you sir and what you do as the Speaker to impartially handle question time particularly. I've only had to withdraw and apologise once and actually I'd done nothing wrong for that particular thing but I thought it shut things down quite quickly.SPEAKER: Order! Does the member want to continue?LAWRENCE YULE: Secondly I wish to acknowledge the Prime Minister and the role she plays in leading our country and other leaders and I wish to acknowledge Ministers in this Parliament for the workload you have. We don't always agree and we question it but I do acknowledge the tremendous hard work that goes into being a Minister.I acknowledge the Hon Simon Bridges and the Hon Paula Bennett as leader and deputy leader of our party. While the last member Ruth Dyson may have criticised and said that the National Party's going down the tubes nothing could be further from the truth. We leave this year and this House at 46 percent in the polls and I defy any other political party to have been through what we've been through and come out the other end with the leadership intact and at 46 percent in the polls.I wish to thank all of our families and across the Parliament all the people that support us in this place. It is a unique role. It is very hard on families and we owe a great deal to those who support us. To the staff in this place: one year in I have found the people in this place to be amazingly good helpful and nice people and they do everything they can to make this place function to make our offices function whether they're here or in our electorates despite our own quirks.I do wish to say something about my own electorate. And I wish to say this in all sincerity to Government members who want to listen. When this Government came into power there was a shortage of 70 State houses in Tukituki; as of today you have built seven. When this Government came into power one of the biggest things you said was We're going to help rental accommodation." As of today the rents in my district and my electorate have gone up by $48 a week largely because of compliance costs a whole lot of ideologically driven things but actually it's impacting their cost of living.There has also been a massive loss in my electorate in transport. The four-laning of the expressway is canned. We now find we're going to build a three-lane sort of something with a wire rope down the middle and two part-roads on the side. To Government members: if you're going to do that why don't you do the job properly and four-lane it at the same stage?I come back—particularly for Minister Iain Lees-Galloway—to labour issues. Mike Chapman who's the CEO of Horticulture New Zealand wrote an article recently which said not to exaggerate things that we are facing a labour crisis of economically crippling proportions. Now while I acknowledge 1750 extra Recognised Seasonal Employer workers let's be very clear: in my province and my region and in addition to the Bay of Plenty if we don't get the labour supply right there will be a major fundamental impact on our economy.The last thing I wish to say is that the most disappointing thing for me this whole year has been the decision to ban oil and gas. I say that because we as parties have agreed on two important things: child poverty reduction and the climate change commission. If this House wants to make fundamental changes on key difficult policy areas like this we need to adopt best practice. Best practice would have been to put the oil and gas decision through the independent climate change commission and work out the rationale with all the experts. So I leave at the end of day thinking that was a major missed opportunity.In closing I wish everybody a merry Christmas. Members across this House thank you for your collegiality humour warmth debate criticism: it's all part of this place. And let's remember what Christmas is about. It's about our families and it's about being kind to each other as we were taught by the Christmas parable that we all base this time on. Enjoy your summer break everybody. Thank you."