O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to talk about the local issues in the great and proud seat of Tāmaki. It's an amazing community wonderful suburbs incredibly vibrant—it doesn't matter if it's Glenn Innes to Ōrākei Glendowie to Mission Bay and everything in between—a wonderful community. One of the things I find most striking about the good people of Tāmaki is that I never go to sleep wondering what they think! They are always very clear and explicit. So I just want to take the short time I have here today to raise what are several of the local issues if you will and then a few of the wider community issues if I might. First and foremost on people's minds of late is unfortunately crime but there's a negative and a positive story to this. The negative is the likes of our shops on Melanesia Road. Three of them were hit recently—a bakery a cafe and a fish and chip shop; the owners have been there 37 years—and this is absolutely terrible. A jewellers store has been hit recently as well and those are only four examples of over 45—45—that I know of that I proudly—not proudly; sadly—have to go and visit.Why I wanted to share this is not simply because crime is a prevalent and major issue to the people of Tāmaki but because the local community is stepping up. Now we'd much prefer that the Government did but the local community is stepping up with the formation of our Eastern Bays community patrol which I had the pleasure of being part of—I want to stress that—and helping to set up. I want to just acknowledge the likes of Bayleys La Vista Siri Thai Kawa Dojo and most recently the Pigeon—locals will know what I'm referring to; the famous Pigeon Racing Club there in St Heliers—who all have been donating money to assist the community patrol to operate. That's been really really important.Around crime has also been the issue of all these dirt bikes. I actually want to say thank you to the police who did the operation over the weekend. Granted it was out Ōtara way but those who live in and enjoy the likes of Tamaki Drive know the scourge that these motorcycles are. I'd just like to say in this local issues debate that I'd like to see further and more police operations including in my electorate.Locals too are very pleased with National's recent changes around housing intensification. It's been one of those pieces of policy which I obviously as a party member have mentioned in the community. The community in turn has been very clear to me that having three-storey houses right up to the boundary was not something that they wanted. We in Tāmaki already see a lot of intensification which is under the Unitary Plan and that's having an impact itself without going further. So locals are very pleased with that change and I'm pleased to have played my part there. The other aspects are around roading. If you're a local and you're like me going down Elstree Avenue or Apirana Avenue or God forbid you're trying to go through the new roading change in Mission Bay it's a nightmare. So this is a plea to Auckland Transport and others to get their act in order. We as locals are tired of the endless cones the endless disruptions that just go and on and on. We want to see that change.In my last minute I just want to turn to a couple of our local communities just to acknowledge them. I'll have to move quickly because we only have a minute and a half left. I was very pleased to work with our local New Zealand Chinese community. I joined them on Sunday night to acknowledge the massacre in Tiananmen Square. These are very strong proud people who came out to speak for freedom and democracy and I just want to thank them. Our local Iranian community in Tāmaki held some of their biggest protests in Mission Bay to continue the solidarity—I know that goes across the House; many MPs are involved—and to continue to call out what is happening there. I want to also acknowledge our Afghan community. I've had a lot to do with them particularly during the evacuation out of Kabul for various reasons. There are quite a number of them all through the electorate but quite a wonderful grouping in Glen Innes and I just want to acknowledge them and say they are not forgotten particularly around their need for visas. That segues me on to both the Ukrainian and Uyghur communities. I had the pleasure actually over the weekend to meet Abduweli. He is one of the foremost linguists in the Uyghur language and a great activist who is here in New Zealand. It was a real pleasure to meet him. For both our Ukrainian and Uyghur communities for me opening up the visa categories to allow those groups and families in is a no-brainer in the same way it should be actually for Hong Kong people many of whom continue to reach out to me with my work with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. These are no-brainers to me and something that New Zealand should do and I can certainly say as the MP for Tāmaki we would welcome more people. But I say to those communities that not only do I represent the people of Tāmaki but I'm pleased to represent as best I can their voices as well.