Finlayson ChristopherHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): Madam Deputy Speaker may I congratulate you on your appointment to high office. You were an outstanding Minister of the Crown and you've had a wonderful career in this place including as junior and senior whip. I'm sure you're going to do a very fine job as Deputy Speaker. I also congratulate the Assistant Speakers on their appointments and wish them all the very best. I have praised the Speaker enough and I've used my three-year quota of praise on him so I'm not going to say anything further about him. I congratulate my successor as Attorney-General on his reassumption of that office. I wish him all the very best. I think he should take silk notwithstanding what would probably be Charles Chauvel's sniping about it. It's entirely appropriate for an Attorney-General to take silk. You're not appointing yourself but it can be done under the royal prerogative and I think it's probably overdue in relation to him.I do want to comment a little bit on the campaign. I normally stand up and say here that it's great to be back but it's kind of good to be back. I would much rather be on the other side than where I am here but I have to say I'm in that category in the National Party that said we dodged a bullet because while I have some regard for some of my New Zealand First parliamentary colleagues I have absolutely no regard for the Rt Hon Winston Peters and I have had no regard for him from the time I acted for the National Party caucus in the early 1990s when he was removed from the caucus for disloyalty. Old habits don't change very quickly. He has made absolutely no contribution to New Zealand in my view and it is becoming abundantly clear as Judith Collins said recently that the negotiations after the general election were essentially a fraud. So I believe we've dodged a bullet and I'm very happy that the National Party conducted itself with propriety and dignity.I want to say something about the Leader of the Opposition who fought the campaign of his life. He is a friend of mine and I know what it was like to be there in 2002. He copped the backlash of some years of taking things for granted in the National Party and did not have a good campaign there but in 2017 he fought the campaign of his life and can be incredibly proud of what he did for the National Party and the country. I tend to take the view that he should treat it as a three-year sabbatical something like Keith Holyoake did between 1957 and 1960. Mr English is a man of great integrity and ability easily the best Minister of Finance this country's ever seen. He ran an excellent campaign and the results are here for all to see.Never has there been a stronger Opposition never has there been a more united Opposition and the commitment of the National Party to being unified and working together to deal with the many issues that this Government is going to leave us is something quite frankly I am deeply deeply proud of. So I say to Mr English and to Ms Bennett—and to Mr Joyce who was such an excellent campaign chair—that they can be really proud of their efforts and I for one am very proud of them.The campaign in Rongotai was an interesting campaign. I always say that it's a marginal seat and I'm always having to recalibrate when exactly there will be a triumphal win for the National Party in Rongotai; I think on current figures it's probably now 2060. But I have to say Mr Eagle was an excellent competitor a fine man and I wish him all the very best during his term as the MP for Rongotai. In fact I think it's fair to say the campaign in Rongotai was quite a good advertisement for democracy. I say to the Green Party that their candidate Teall Crossen was an excellent candidate who stayed totally on message and I think we'll see more of her in the future. She was—myself excluded—the star of the show.But there were two things that came out of the campaign that I want to share with members this afternoon. The first is that at every meeting we candidates attended there wasn't one question about income production; it was all about income redistribution and nowhere was that more apparent than in the most inappropriately named area of New Zealand Happy Valley. We had an interesting campaign meeting there and everyone wanted to know what could be done for them and clearly never would have understood JFK's great statement: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." I say to members of the Government and their support party that this country will never progress if there is that kind of attitude—the attitude of redistribution—and there is no focus on wealth production.The second thing I want to talk about is a very interesting meeting I had with Weta Digital. Weta Digital is a very important company in both Wellington and New Zealand—one of the largest non-governmental employers in Wellington. It has five employees and 1800 contractors and they are very worried about possible changes to what has become known as the "Hobbit law". I was there in 2010 when I received a phone call from Richard Taylor saying how worried he was that The Hobbit would be going overseas and that Peter Jackson was very worried. The former Prime Minister John Key met with Peter Jackson immediately and the law was changed to reflect what was an understanding of existing industry practice. Then he was masterly in his dealings with Warner Bros and The Hobbit was saved for Wellington. Then as the result of further changes that were made the Avatar films and other films have come to Wellington and Wellington is indeed the centre in New Zealand of major film productions.I say this to the Government: if the motivation in changing that law is utu to get back at Peter Jackson and the National Party after the events of 2010 think again. They will destroy the film industry in Wellington and I'll be very interested to see what Greg O'Connor from Ōhāriu and Paul Eagle from Rongotai are going to be able to say about that because their constituents will be affected. Utu and nastiness is not a proper basis for lawmaking. The "Hobbit law" in 2010 was necessary to protect the film industry in New Zealand and it would be a very sad day if that legislation was passed. It would cause immeasurable harm to the film industry in Wellington.So these are the sorts of issues that we're going to be debating over the next period. I don't intend to talk about my own ministerial record; I see no need to defend it because most people say it was outstanding. But I will say how much I am looking forward—and I say this to Mr Henare—to seeing how the Government deals with Ngāpuhi because every aspect of Ngāpuhi every corner of Ngāpuhi is represented in the House today. We have Kotahitanga represented by Willow-Jean Prime I think Shane Jones would be the resident Tūhoronuku person and then we've got some of the sensible middle-roaders represented by Mr Henare. But I do say this—I do say this: until Sonny Tau learns to stand by what he says—he promised me there'd be no politburo and bullying—until he learns that that is absolutely necessary if we are going to achieve an agreement nothing will happen in Ngāpuhi. Unless Mr Tau—I've said this to Willow-Jean Prime; I am in the Kotahitanga camp basically on this—changes his ways unless he adopts a generosity of spirit in his negotiations nothing will happen up there. We are all agreed that if ever there is a settlement that is required in this country it is the Ngāpuhi settlement. I hope that everyone will be able to work together to achieve that end and I'll do whatever I can to assist.I've run out of time so I won't be able to talk about Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill but please don't throw it out. It's a brilliant piece of work undertaken by me over the last six years."