Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. For 150 years Coasters have been working the land on the West Coast. They've been farming they've been mining and they've been involved in forestry and we've managed the land and we've protected 85 percent of it. But in 1987 that Government over there—that Labour Government—realised that there were more votes to be won in Auckland than there were on the West Coast. So they rode in on that white steed of theirs to save us Coasters from ourselves and in a stroke of a pen a significant and highly regarded sustainable native timber forestry industry was lost the livelihoods of many people were decimated and communities were gutted. The Coast feels like it's experiencing déjà vu at the moment because this new Labour-led Government has come back in to save us from ourselves again and wants to close down our mining industry. This is the birthplace of the Labour Party but what do they care? It's not their grassroots miners that they're representing now; it is their latte-drinking greenie friends in the cities and the person the electorate should be looking to for support who's occupied his role for 25 years and delivered absolutely nothing to the Coast—nothing to protect the existing industries or to diversify—has been completely absent and we feel extremely let down by him. Thank God for National. Now there's a popular misconception that Coasters rape and pillage the land and that misconception is fed by the garbage and fearmongering that we hear from the green spin doctors. I can tell you there is no greater conservationist than a person who lives on the land and who is surrounded by their native forest and their clean-running rivers. That's a West Coaster. So what to do? Well that was the question. So a celebration last weekend saw the official opening of the Taramakau Bridge to replace an old road-rail bridge. It was a grand achievement and one of many investments made on the Coast—Hon Member: By National.MAUREEN PUGH: —by the National Government and paid for by hard-working Kiwis—thank you. Now communities up and down the West Coast used the bridge opening to demonstrate to this Government and in a very dignified way that we will not give up another industry. So 5000 people—one-sixth of the population of the West Coast—turned out to the protest. And one of the most funny things I saw was this: a Labour Party electorate MP post on Facebook—Opening the Taramakau Bridge supported by thousands of Coasters." Well I can tell you Mr O'Connor: they were not there to support you. And then some of the feed on that Facebook post I can quote: "We were not there to support you. We were there to show our disgust towards you and your Government on proposed policies attempting to shut down the Coast." Or this one: "Someone has been at the pub one hour too many." Or how about: "The high-vis jackets are certainly not supporting you Damien O'Connor MP." So we'll do our best to educate this Government over here on how important it is to maintain the mining on the West Coast. But the minds have to be open to common sense and that's my challenge. So let's hope that we are not let down again by idealism.Now I just want the gallery and the Government here to think about a life where all you have available to you are grown products—so things like timber and plants and hand-spun products like flax and wool or edibles. Everything else in our modern lives is a product of mining is a product of the extractive industries—every single electrical device; every bit of plastic metal concrete tarseal fuel; everything we take for granted a life's essentials these days. These are components that we get from mining. Now the bridge that was opened on mining took 860 tonnes of coal to make the steel in that bridge and we are blessed with some of the highest-value coking coal in the world but we also have the strictest environmental controls. So a message very quickly to New Zealand First and their slush fund manager: we don't need more feasibility studies and we don't need you to tell us a couple of days out how sympathetic you are. Get you head out of the clouds and support what is already working."