O'Connor Greg; Rurawhe AdrianGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It's a terrible thing when you wake in the morning and hope that everything's gone wrong because it's the only hope you have in your life. I heard a commentator and I understood how close he is—I'm talking about Mr Michael Hosking—to the National Party because the Hon Mark Mitchell in the previous debate talked about speaking with him on air. He told him to do something and he said in this House that he went and did it. That's how close he is. Actually Mr Hosking was speaking to a commentator and he said that the headline had been Stocks are down" and there was some quite bad economic news and the glee in his voice was—"The rubber's hitting the road" was the expression he used. This was good because it was bad news but unfortunately the correspondent he had on said "Actually no. That's overseas news. The New Zealand news is good." and he went through the corresponding bond prices the stock prices etc. for New Zealand. The gloom that entered Mr Hosking's voice by the end of the interview—he'd moved on. I had a conversation with a very rabid National Party supporter later that day who actually said the same thing: "I'm waiting for everything to go bad just so I can prove how bad you are." This is what permeates so it's a terrible thing. So those opposite—there are some good people over there intelligent people but it's a terrible place to be where you're hoping and you're looking and you say "Ah! Petrol prices—ha ha! We've got you there—whoops! I think I paid $2.02 for a litre of petrol last week." because what we do in New Zealand that's nothing to do with it. Petrol prices are coming down and that's taken away a lot of their debate. Oh that's stymied. "Oh hold on we'll move on to crime figures. They'll get—oh no! Victimisation figures are down. We'll move on. There'll be something—there'll be something we can find." and then it goes through the doom and the gloom. The news just gets worse over there because economic growth—"Oh we'll get them on that. Oh no economic growth figures are good: 3 percent 3.5 percent. They're coming through. Interest rates stable." That's the Hon Amy Adams over there every day. But she's got one—she's got one. Every day it's "Business confidence—we'll get 'em on this." and I see it over there. I'm sitting quite high up the back and I can look down on them. They say "Business confidence" because there's nothing else. There used to be other things written on the bit of paper but all she's got "Business confidence"—that's the only thing they've got. Sad news—sad news—because the businessmen I know now are getting it. They're starting to understand that we're in good and so even that one—the last hope that they had over there—is actually being taken away from them. But then there are always farmers. The old farmers—farmers. They'll be gloomy. They hate Labour. They hate anything—well in most of those rural electorates you could put an old goat up with a blue ribbon around it and they'd vote for it. They'll be right. Bad news—bad news for the Opposition sorry. Business confidence: 68 percent of sheep and beef farmers said that they were confident about business in the future—sorry. So that light at the end of the tunnel—they thought the light at the end of the tunnel was going to be farmers and the rural sector who were going to be on their side. No the light at the end of the tunnel—Matt King: Stuart Nash put us out of our misery please! GREG O'CONNOR: —sorry Mr Matt King—it's the train coming the other way. You haven't even got that one. But all levity aside can I just start to have a look at—when you just remember many of the other side do represent electorates. But all this hope you have all this dream you have all this negativity going around meetings saying how bad and how terrible things are—actually you're talking about real people in your own electorates. They should get just a little more positive because the things that we are doing—KiwiBuild and all those things—are going to be things that are going to be good for those in your electorates. So don't just listen to those few those ones who pay for your elections the ones who put in $14999 and you get it back—don't listen to them. Listen to the people actually out there who are benefiting from this and the people that are benefiting from this are going to be in your electorate as well. So don't wake up tomorrow morning gleefully hoping there's some bad news that we can throw here. Actually think about your own people. Think about the people you actually represent out there the vast majority of whom are actually doing very well under this coalition Government like it or not. So just get on with it. I mean I know that it's lovely to wake up and think that everything's crashed but it isn't going to happen because what you've got on this side of the House are people who are determined firstly to make sure we have a good economy. We understand that you need a good economy and we understand you need business on board but we understand too that there is no such thing as trickle-down. Trickle-down is simply—as I think someone a lot smarter than me said—those with money urinating on those without money and so we can't actually have it that way. It's only good Government policy that will allow many of yours and ours in our electorates to actually—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."