O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Kia ora Mr Speaker and look it's a great honour to say a few words to someone who I considered a friend and who I owe so much to. This won't be the last word on Mike Moore but he had a saying that it was always hard to be too right too early. Mike unfortunately you've run out of time to prove so many things to us but we now have the responsibility to prove that many of those things that Ron raised were indeed correct. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Yvonne Moore. It was always Mike and Yvonne Yvonne and Mike. For as long as I know she has been a long-serving supporter of everything that Mike did. She shared her husband with the Labour Party she shared her husband with New Zealand and she shared her husband with the world and so thank you for that. I first met Mike in 1990. It was Mike's I guess you might say manic tour. He was the Prime Minister trying to hold together a party that was blowing apart. He was running around the country as fast as he could literally at warp speed talking to people trying to keep our vote up. He was due to visit a little tourism business in the mouth of the Buller Gorge where I was located. I didn't find out until later on but indeed they came down out of the gorge at God knows what speed right into a mob of sheep that my father was driving on the road. There were no lamburgers created in that incident but he came into our business asked how things were in a genuine and engaging way spoke with all 10 of us at that place and then moved on in a shower of gravel and dust as he moved on. He held the Labour Party together at a really challenging time. He went through that election and ended up with 29 MPs that kept the National Government honest for three years. That was an incredible achievement and we have to thank him for that. In 1992 I was selected as a candidate—never been in a campaign before—and looking back now the organisation and the discipline and the focus of that campaign has probably not been matched. Remember that was at a time when cellphones were bricks—I'd like to thank Ron Mark for outlining some of the amazing organisational material that we had—and he oversaw I guess a discipline around that campaign that brought us to a point that almost saw the Labour Party win in 1993. It was an interesting campaign. Mike's mafia" the "Beagle Boys"—call them what you like they were a passionate loyal bunch of people that did things like rush into Hokitika a couple of hours before the plane would land and literally plaster the town with hoardings. These are people in pinstripe suits putting up hoardings all around Hokitika organising a crowd at the airport to meet Mike organising a crowd at the local tourism business and organising a crowd at the bar to which he went. There was an astute journalist that recognised that they were all the same crowd. But I can particularly remember Mike rushing out of a tourism business—you know he'd been in there talking genuinely with all the people and he rushed out on to the street saw the first person there and said "Right drive me to the next gallery." and I remember this West Coaster turned around and said "I'm not your bloody driver." But of course Mike didn't flinch; he just carried on. He treated everyone with dignity with respect and with kindness. In 1993 he almost brought the Labour Party from I guess the depths of despair in 1990 to 1993 when we almost won and I have to say that it was something that brought me into politics. For that I thank you Mike. He saw the West Coast seat as a taonga and he did so much to help me turn around what was a significant majority. Thank you Mike for that. He of course ended up losing the leadership and not long after that—or as he liked to say he mislaid it. It was pretty tough on him and a number of people and it was tough on the party. He did say of course that he did sleep like a baby after that—you know he dozed for a few hours then he'd wake up and cry and then he'd doze for a few more hours and he'd wake up and cry and on it went. He was distraught because it was the job that he'd always worked so hard for. But he wasn't one to sulk or to sit around and do nothing and then his focus on trade I have to say has helped us all as a country. There was some I guess cynicism about his approach because of maybe his position in a Labour Government. Some thought it should be fair trade and they didn't trust his free-trade agenda. But what he did see and what has been shown to be so true is that trade—trade of not just goods; trade of culture of ideas the movement of people—has been so beneficial to hundreds of millions of people around the world. His determination through the World Trade Organization and through his commitment to I guess a better planet that has indeed cost him his health over time is an enduring legacy to someone who is and always will be a great New Zealander. Thank you Yvonne. Thank you Mike for what you have done. I personally thank you and the Labour Party will always be grateful for a wonderful wonderful leader. Kia ora."