Simpson Scott: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: General Debate[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17333. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): What we have just seen is classic Winston Peters at his almost old best. He had his birthday last week. Many happy belated returns for your 69th birthday the honourable member Winston Peters. You are looking nearly as good as you did when you first came into this House back in Muldoon’s time.Ladies and gentlemen of the House we have seen a very sorry state from the Opposition this afternoon. That was a once-proud principled party that Labour Party over there but now it is bereft of policy it is bereft of principle and it is bereft of leadership. Indeed this afternoon in the general debate their sometime lost leader actually just about lost his voice. I am not sure how he is going to make it through the election campaign. Certainly a 20-minute speech will seem to be an absolute mountain of a challenge for him. He has not actually got long to show a glimmer of leadership and he is yet to try to shine not only in this House but for his party and for the peoplewho do support him not that they are many because at the conclusion of today’s sitting of the House there will be but 28 sitting days left in this 50th Parliament.So that does not give the Opposition members very much time to get their act together from the woeful position that they find themselves in. But it is a very good time to reflect on the wonderful and very good achievements of this John Key - led National Government in its 5½ years. It is a good opportunity not only to reflect on the achievements of the Government but also to concentrate a little on what work has yet to be done because there is still a lot we have to do. We have come an awful long way since inheriting the economic mess of the Labour Party and the Labour-Green Government that preceded us. It has been very difficult but we have managed the economy with prudence and with care so that all New Zealanders have benefited during what has been the worst economic situation in living memory.This weekend is Easter weekend and tens of thousands of New Zealanders will arrive on the Coromandel peninsula. They will be very fortunate to travel across the wonderful newKōpū Bridge a bridge that was delayed and stymied and stifled by the Labour-Green Government for 9 long years but was fast tracked by John Key and this National Government. So on the 6 o’clock news on Thursday evening instead of the lead story being about how traffic is building up on theKōpū Bridge with delays of hours and hours taking place for thousands of tourists and spenders and people who are coming to invest a bit of money in the local Coromandel economy they will make a seamless approach across that bridge and they will do so without having to combat both the physical and psychological barrier that the old bridge put in place. That is very good for the business people and for all the people of the Coromandel electorate.So we have had not only a very good new bridge this summer but a very good summer in every other respect as well. Yes it is true that our hard-working farmers on the Hauraki Plains and in other parts of the Coromandel could well do with a few days’ rain because they have had a very long dry hot summer. But they are in good heart and they are doing very well under a Government that understands fully and completely that the rural economy is and always has been the backbone of our economy. It is the hard work of our rural brothers and sisters the hard-working farmers on the Coromandel and across the Hauraki Plains that we acknowledge and their contribution to the total success of our economy now.Commentators around the world are praising and giving credit to this John Key Government and our coalition partners for the good work and the prudence that they have shown over these 5½ years. They are saying that our economy is growing almost faster than any other developed economy in the world and that can be attributed to the very good work of Bill English and his finance team.So the good people of the Coromandel are in good heart. They are looking forward to a prosperous Easter weekend and they are looking forward to using the newKōpū Bridge giving them access to the peninsula in a way they were never able to use under the Labour-Green Government. They will also be out in numbers. They will be using the Hauraki Rail Trail cycleway in ever-increasing numbers. In January of this year we had 14500 people use the cycleway in just one month. To put that into a context on the Otago Central Rail Trail cycleway—