Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): One sleep to go and I've got some advice for the members of the Opposition. One sleep to go and to my colleagues across the House tonight I'm going to invite you to head home and to sit down. Perhaps you might have a nightcap—you know you might ask the Speaker for a whisky perhaps a cup of tea; Mr Brown might like to have a nice warm milk—and sit there and reflect a little just think a little about what has gone wrong over the last nine years.You see I don't think that my colleagues on the opposite side of the House are bad people. I think they came into the House for a reason and the reason—like all of us—is to try to make New Zealand a better place to make this country better. But they've made a mistake. They're just mistaken and it's a bit of a sad mistake. They thought that holding back on health funding would make the health sector more efficient but sooner or later you cut and cut and cut and there's no fat left to cut and you're cutting into the bone and things have gone wrong. We all know that.You know they thought that introducing national standards in schools would somehow magically improve education but in terms of the fact of the matter the standing of our children in international tests has gone down. It didn't improve it at all.They thought that the market might perhaps provide sufficient housing—the market the saviour of all would have the right solution. Well I tell you we've had an excellent market solution in housing; it's just not the solution we want as New Zealanders. We could not solve that problem through the market and that is the mistake that our colleagues on the other side of the House have made—a simple mistake.So I'm urging the members of the Opposition to take heart to be courageous to sit down and think about what has actually happened over the last few years to acknowledge that they've made a mistake and to think about what could be done better. We all know the difficulties in health in education in housing and in welfare. This is common knowledge in our country now and on this side of the House we have a plan to fix it. We have strategies we have time lines and we have work under way to fix up the mistakes of the last nine years.You know we've started with our Families Package—384000 families who will be about $75 a week better off. That's a great start. We've continued with $21 million going into early childhood education specifically to help children with learning needs. We've carried on with our KiwiBuild. Within just months of the election those first houses are under way and being built as we speak. This is a Government that is taking action. This is a Government that is not afraid of the tough decisions. We could see the writing on the wall for the oil and gas industry when Shell pulled out of Taranaki. Courageous leadership from the other side of the House would have worked with people in Taranaki to let them know that they needed to change. We took the courageous and tough decision to stop oil and gas exploration. We are looking after the regions. We've got a billion dollars in our Provincial Growth Fund. We are working with our biggest city to deliver a fully funded transport plan not a plan with a $4 billion funding gap but a real plan that will work. This side of the House is taking action.I'm just going to say that this is what we are doing. We know that sadly New Zealand is one of the worst in the world for domestic violence and what have we done on this side of the House? We have come up with $76 million to fund providers of family violence services. This side of the House has a plan and it is taking action. That's why I invite the members of the Opposition to go home tonight to sip their whisky their tea their milk and to reflect and then to sleep well. And remember my colleagues on the other side of the House it's the putting right that counts.