Banks John: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Sitting date: 12 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7482. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who tune in to their crystal sets every afternoon at 2 o’clock and the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who watch Parliament on the telly every afternoon and are riveted will be saying to themselves today thank God that John Key the ACT Party and the coalition are on this side of the House and the coalition of losers is on that side of the House. 
I want to thank David Cunliffe. I want to thank the Opposition leader David Cunliffe—or is it David Shearer? On behalf of David Shearer I thank David Cunliffe for all of the publicity that he has had in the last 3 months because it is more than he has had in his total time as leader of the hapless Opposition. 
Also this afternoon we heard from the party that used to be known as “Winston First” now known as “TAB First”. I want to say thank you to the ageing leader of that party for making me feel so good every day. When I look at him I understand how important it is to look after yourself for 65 years. 
To the Green Party the party that wants to print money to the old dudes and young fogies of the Green Party all I can say when I look at the leader of the Green Party every day is that I simply cannot understand why Australia is richer than New Zealand. When you look at the leader of the Green Party you say “How can it be that Australia great Australia is wealthier than New Zealand?”. 
The ACT Party has had a great year in Parliament. No leadership spills no dissension no waka jumping and a united caucus—no waka jumping no leadership spills and a united caucus. It is called stability for a John Key - led Government. 
I want to say thank you very much to all of those people who make this place tick. I want to thank the Speaker for his great role-model leadership. I want to thank you my old friend for your role as Deputy Speaker of this Parliament. None of us can do our jobs without the officials around here and we thank them for the smooth running of Parliament. 
The member for Epsom works hard for Epsom every day. On behalf of the people of Epsom can I thank my Epsom staff—Priscilla Brian and Styan—for the great work that they do. In the last 12 or 15 years 20000 constituent inquiries have been dealt with by that team over the MMP period. To my Wellington team of Chris Trish Shelley David Clodagh Mark Ella and Louise thank you very much to them. I was just reflecting the other day how old I must be getting. I was in the 1990 Jim Bolger Government and now Jim Bolger’s granddaughter works in my parliamentary office here in Wellington. So it is a land of opportunity and there is a place as the leader of “TAB First” will attest for ageing politicians to make a difference in this Parliament. 
Finally I would like to say thank you to the ACT Party President Chris Simmons my deputy leader John Boscawen and the thousands of ACT Party members up and down this country. 
I would also like to thank the Prime Minister for his generous consideration this year. I have enjoyed working with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet team on those significant Cabinet committees. I have very much enjoyed coming back and working with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff my long-time friend Wayne Eagleson and I thank all of the Cabinet team for their support. 
Thanks to the people of Epsom and thanks to the ACT Party we have no capital gains tax no printing money no Soviet-style housing projects no Russel Norman as Minister of Finance no 1970s national award - style labour laws and we no longer have the world’s most expensive emissions trading scheme. That is what we do not have. This is a great achievement. But that is not just what we are about; we have achieved much more than that. The ACT Party has introduced legislation for partnership schools which will give those kids at the bottom 20 percent a chance to have the dignity of work. We are pushing hard on the Resource Management Act the job killing machine that is stopping development and creating a tenant generation of young people. We will have a much better Resource Management Act reform thanks to the ACT Party and thanks to the leadership of Amy Adams and her team. 
Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch I look forward to 2013 as we have much more to do. I wish you and everyone in Parliament their friends their family and the wider community—particularly the Epsom voters—of electors a very happy Christmas.