O'Connor Simon: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 28 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:280. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):Mr Assistant Speaker this is a split call.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): This is a split call—5 minutes.SIMON O’CONNOR: I want to take umbrage with the previous speaker Ruth Dyson and Scott Simpson: Tāmaki is the best electorate in the country and I invite all MPs to come and visit. I want to start with some thanks. There are some illustrious figures in the gallery. I want to acknowledge the regional team of the National Party who are here today. It is good to have you guys here. I also want to thank the headquarters team from the National Party too who helped us to such a fine performance in the election. They were the architects of that. But most of all I want to start by thanking my Tāmaki campaign team: Cyrus Andrew Richard Eric Graham Ben Christine and Hari. Thank you too to the hundreds of volunteers in Tāmaki who got out and about and helped us out with everything from phone-calling to doorknocking from flyers to letters.Tim Macindoe: And the elderly supporters.SIMON O’CONNOR: Elderly supporters? Are you thinking of one in particular Tim Macindoe?Tim Macindoe: Yes.SIMON O’CONNOR: Do you want to make a shout-out to your mother here? Very good.Tim Macindoe: She’ll be pleased to hear from you.SIMON O’CONNOR: Mrs Macindoe your son says hello. All those volunteers from flyers and letters to hoardings catering scrutineering and special voting—it was an incredible effort which paid off. What a result in Tāmaki—the most votes and the highest percentages in the country. In fact it was a great result all round although I do have to acknowledge my colleague Amy Adams who got 140 more votes in her majority than I did. Next time Amy we will see how things go.Really it is thanks to the people of Tāmaki for their great support of both me and the National Party. I have enjoyed the first 3 years here in Parliament and I am looking forward to the next three. I want to acknowledge all of our new MPs particularly our 14 new National MPs. One in particular Todd Muller who is giving his maiden speech today comes from St Heliers. I am always sorry to lose a vote—I am hoping he was a voter of mine—but you know I do not want to think of this so much as my losing a vote as gaining an MP. Speaking of MPs I want to acknowledge Peeni Henare. Peeni and I worked together in the Ministry of Social Development many years ago and I am looking forward to working with him here in the House. His electorate Tāmaki Makaurau takes in mine or perhaps my electorate takes in part of his.Thinking of Tāmaki I want to acknowledge the outage that we locals experienced recently. I want to acknowledge the work that Vector and others did in keeping me in the loop which in turn enabled me to engage with my constituents throughout the power outage. I am very grateful that the Minister of Energy and Resources and this Government are looking to undertake an inquiry there through the independent Electricity Authority. That is quite important.In the days after the outage I took the opportunity to go around the electorate to meet as many of the business owners as I could not only to have a discussion on their experiences around the outage but to get their sense of what was going on in general. What was very clear to me was that the businesses and the business owners of Tāmaki are very pleased with where this Government has gone in 6 years and where it is going. They are in good heart. They are very positive about the economy. They know that ultimately National is on the right track and that unlike the other side it is not a three-ring—sorry hold on a four-ring—circus. They are very positive about where the National Government is going.There are lots of positives there not only from the result within the Tāmaki electorate—and that really comes down to some amazing work by hundreds of volunteers some of whom may or may not be here today—but because we are on the right track. Even when we had that adversity of a few weeks ago through the outage people were still very positive about the choices that this Government was making. As the final bell rings in this speech in reply I just want to say—Tim Macindoe: There are plenty to come.SIMON O’CONNOR: Yes it was just for myself—that was incredibly selfish and self-oriented.Tim Macindoe: You can’t shut down the debate that early.SIMON O’CONNOR: That is right. Is this not the adjournment? Oh well.I just want to acknowledge the opportunity to become chair of the Health Committee. I spent many years in the past with Southern Cross the health insurer. I thoroughly enjoyed that and I am very much looking forward to engaging with an impressive team from across the House actually in an area of interest to me.It is great to have this call albeit a short one in the Address in Reply debate. It was a good Speech from the Throne. In fact the whole ceremony of the State Opening was incredibly important for us as New Zealanders to understand our democratic process. In fact I was saying to some friends recently that the fact that you can have politicians the judiciary and the heads of the military all together as one in a peaceful democratic system says much about this country. Thank you very much.