Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Mr Speaker. I would totally endorse the comments of the last speaker around families and I'll come to that later in my speech but earlier in Minister Hipkins' speech he said that our leader didn't refer to any policy. She certainly referred to the Resource Management Act. She referred to the fact that infrastructure was going to start again—the stuff that had actually stopped under Labour—and I'm hoping that this list will be released soon so that we can get on with it and employ some of these women who have recently lost their jobs due to COVID-19. It's the last day of the 52nd Parliament and it's been quite a year. 2020 has been a really big year and I think having been in this place that if anyone was to look back in 20 years and write a book the chapter would be about 2020. I want to thank my caucus for their faith in me as the senior whip. I want to acknowledge Judith Collins Simon Bridges and Todd Muller for having been senior whip for all of them. To my caucus team you know we've come through COVID we've come through lockdown and I've got two fantastic junior whips in Matt Doocey and Tim van de Molen. Look we came out of lockdown and we could only have 15 people in this House then we could only have 28 people in this House and finally it's only in the last two sitting blocks that we were able to have the whole team in the House and it's quite interesting as a whip. I know it's often the front bench generally that comes first but it's trying to work out who needs to be in Wellington and who doesn't and I know it was quite a time for all whips. It's nearly six years ago since I came in here and the learning curve has been really huge and I think about the induction programme that I helped with in 2017. I thought about how much I have learnt from the time I came in in 2014 to 2017. There's so much about this place that I don't think MPs realise until they come in and I'm totally looking forward to the 2020 intake so that we can start that process again but I really don't think that you learn as much about this place as you do as a senior whip. Firstly my thanks to the Speaker. I would like to thank both Ruth Dyson and Michael Wood as the two senior whips that I have worked with on the other side of the House along with Kiri Allan and Kieran McAnulty. Some people don't quite understand. They watch the House on TV and they see us all fighting and arguing at times over policy and I think that's absolutely appropriate. But one of the things that we do as a whip and also as the Business Committee and House teams—we don't always agree on what we're going to do but when we agree we do keep our word and we do stick to it. So during the course of this time I've been privileged to be on the Business Committee the Parliamentary Service Commission the Privileges Committee the Officers of Parliament Committee and the Standing Orders Committee and it was great to be in the House last night albeit in urgency yet again—we seem to have been in urgency a lot lately—when we passed the new Standing Orders for the 53rd Parliament. With all of these committees you know there's a huge amount of work that gets done in the background and I just really commend that process that we've had around the Standing Orders because we've had quite a few meetings now but they've all been really open meetings. People have been open to new ideas. I think the thing that will strike us about the 52nd Parliament is that if we went back a year ago and people had suggested some of the things that we are looking to change to now a lot of people would have stood back and said Oh we can't do that. It won't work." But when we went out of here into COVID lockdown we made things work and the virtual select committees are a big part of that. So there are things that can work and we've made them work and I want to thank David Wilson Raf Gonzalez-Montero the people from security the library the catering the cleaning—I don't want to miss anybody but there's a great group of people around here. Now probably in this 52nd Parliament something that I've often said as a whip to people—if they ask what a whip does I say "Politicians are people too." Pastoral care is a part of it. You know we do have people who have families who have illnesses they have deaths they have births and they have all sorts of things going on in their family. But also politicians are not infallible and we've seen in this Parliament that that has been the case. That brought on the code of conduct discussion and we had the Debbie Francis review. We spend a lot of time in this Parliament thinking about how we can all put up the principles and we can all act towards those principles every day but we spend a lot of time in struggling to get to where the consequences might be. To be honest the consequence as we've seen them lately is that some people aren't with us now and aren't going to be with us in the 53rd Parliament. So we live in a fishbowl and we're under a lot of scrutiny. But one thing I would endorse is—and it has been asked today—that media would respect the families. I would also say that the media were part of our code of conduct review and we had some really good discussions. I think we can all be held accountable for the things we do in policy for the debates we have and for what we do in our electorates but I again endorse the calls of other people to respect the families of MPs because—as Minister Hipkins said before—it's not them that sign up for this job. It's us that sign up for the job and family is really important. I think we've noticed over the last sitting block that we've had quite a few valedictories. Some of it's been quite emotional and people say a lot of stuff in this House that they wouldn't say until they leave. But there's one thing I would like to say today just on a personal note. From my aspect I'd actually like to thank the media for not bearing down on my son Tony. He's been through a lot in the last three years and in his case a code of conduct wasn't followed in another organisation Fonterra and that person is no longer in Fonterra. But he was at the end of his tether with severe anxiety with a problem that he couldn't fix. He put his hand up and asked for help and that help was not forthcoming. Suffice it to say Fonterra's now going to review its early response service to see why that failed. They're also going to look at how they treat sharemilkers in future when you get a succession of incidents over successive sharemilkers. So that's great and I trust they'll make good with Tony and put an end to the problem that he's been experiencing. I know that when we did the amendments to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) in the House a couple of weeks ago—again under urgency—we made a pact across all of the parties that actually we would hold Fonterra to account for looking after sharemilkers. That's really important and the current chair John Monaghan shook Tony's hand and congratulated him for standing up being the whistleblower and taking a stand. So there's just a bit of truth that needed to come out of me today. We need the higher standards in our industry. Agriculture is an industry that I absolutely love and it was a privilege to stand in the House—again with DIRA—when we had parties in this House talking about going out into the election campaign. I remember the 2017 election campaign really well—really really well. It was pouring down with rain. I remember that in Piopio and Āria you could have floated a boat in some farmers' paddocks and it was just awful. They just felt like the scapegoats. At the hardest time of the year when their cows are calving it's springtime and they're trying to avoid mud and trying to avoid all sorts of things to protect their animals' health and politicians come out and start throwing things at them. We made a pact through most of our Primary Production Committee people—and I really loved chairing that committee; it's the best committee in Parliament—that actually we want to uphold the standards in this election and we do not want to make our farmers targets. After all in the last two years we've actually learnt that water storage is not just about farmers. It's not just about farmers; it's about Auckland now because we've had a massive drought and so we can actually see this. Where's the rural/urban divide? Actually there is no rural/urban divide. We all need water. It's been a very awakening exercise and the fact is that the beaches in Auckland need some attention. It's not just the farmers. So let's make a pact as a Parliament to act as a whole as New Zealand. Let's make a pact to work these problems out together. I want to wish all the MPs in this House a successful six weeks. I know it's a nervous time for many people but all the best with the election campaign and we'll see whoever we see on the other side. Thank you."