SpeechJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thanks Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on this bill a final call for the night on this bill here. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the previous member Andrew Bayly for his speech and the fact that he talked about having All Blacks and mayors—because his lineage is only getting better as the member serves in this House and maybe there's still hope for the member to become an All Black one day. You never know—you never know what may—I see maybe not as much optimism as I maybe have. I'd like to also acknowledge Glen Bennett the MP for New Plymouth for bringing this bill to the House. And I'd like to acknowledge the work that he does for the people of New Plymouth and hopefully the residents also acknowledge his work.So basically as we've heard the bill this relates to the Perpetual Investment Fund—or the PIF as has been used in this House tonight. If we just go back to maybe—oh I don't know basically a few months ago when the council were looking at this bill. From how I understand it some councillors were concerned about the potential of amalgamations of councils. And so therefore they basically put up a motion to say We want this bill. Well basically we need to pass a bill to ensure that this money is protected for the specific region around New Plymouth." because they were worried about the amalgamations. Other councillors said "Well there's no rush. We don't have to do this because there's no amalgamations on the horizon." So the council had that internal debate and the councillors voted eight to five to continue progressing this bill; that was on 22 August 2022. So the bill then came to the House through the mechanism of Glen Bennett because those changes that the councillors wanted to make needed to go through legislation. Now I mean I personally don't see any sort of future work in the near future around amalgamations but people will always argue the benefits of amalgamation in terms of shared services and then people will also argue the benefits of having that local voice. And it was a similar argument around the affordable water reforms that we had as a Government—the benefits of the economies of scale in terms of water and then others arguing the importance of the local voice. Generally as a society we sort of meet somewhere where most of the people you know sort of accept it and it seems like a similar sort of process happened here. So we have heard tonight about the benefits of these sorts of funds in terms of social cultural environmental and economic. Most of us who are MPs here would have these sorts of funds in our region. I think of the Waikato region the likes of Trust Waikato WellTrust and D. V. Bryant Trust who invest across a range of areas in society and they genuinely do benefit society. I would like to touch as well—because I've heard a lot about the cultural environmental and social—on the importance of the economic aspect of that. The Taranaki region is a strong economic region of New Zealand. I have never lived there myself. I've never even had family there. In fact my family basically came to New Zealand 1840 set up in Nelson—actually set up in Collingwood and—Angie Warren-Clark: We're probably related.JAMIE STRANGE: There we go; we probably are.Hon Member: All Blacks.JAMIE STRANGE: That's why we're so intelligent. We almost had an All Black. One of my cousins was recently selected to the All Blacks but rolled his ankle. He's only 28 so he's probably got a better chance than the honourable—than Andrew Bayly. I called him "the honourable" there; I gave him an upgrade. So look—where was I? I was talking about the economic benefits of the Taranaki region. Now I would encourage the Taranaki region to continue looking for partnerships across particularly the North Island and to grow their economic areas. We heard from the ACT member earlier tonight in terms of some of the strong aspects of the Taranaki economy. And I would like to encourage leaders in the Taranaki region and those who are administering this fund for economic benefits to look outside their region. I know: imagine traditionally they tend to look south to Wellington or east to Palmerston North or you know they look at their port in terms of coastal shipping. But I would also encourage the Taranaki region to also look north as well for various opportunities—Ian McKelvie: We could run a port in Palmerston North.JAMIE STRANGE: An inland port in Palmerston North? Provincial Growth Fund—excellent fund. We've heard about the "Golden Triangle" the Auckland Hamilton Tauranga triangle as it's affectionately known which is 50 percent of New Zealand's population 52 percent of the GDP and 57 percent of all building consents. But I've started talking about and I'll mention it in this House tonight about the golden diamond—so the golden diamond from that triangle—the Auckland Hamilton Tauranga triangle and heading down through the middle of the island. I recently had a meeting at the Hamilton City Council with the economic development unit and encouraged them to continue fostering a relationship with the Taranaki region. I think there's some excellent benefits in that region for economic development in terms of that golden diamond sort of heading down through the island there. And I think that Taranaki are probably already sort of seeing that. I think in 2013 they sided with The Chiefs which I think based on this year's performance was a good move in hindsight for them. So look I'd just like to sort of I guess sow that seed and espouse the benefits there of the Taranaki region continuing to look north in terms of connection for business in terms of connection for tourism and the movement of people the movement of products. I understand that there's work being done around coastal shipping too and in terms of that relating to this bill the PIF one of the pillars is economic. So you know it's important that they continue to take an economic lens in the decisions that are made in terms of the investment. I'd also like to touch on broadly as the previous speaker did in terms of the investment of funds. Now a lot of the funds in New Zealand have a portion of their fund—often a large portion—invested overseas. I understand the reasons why. It diversifies the funds. In effect you could argue that it de-risks the fund to a point. But I do believe there's an opportunity for some of these social funds here in New Zealand—and as I said most regions have them—while they will always have a portion overseas to consider bringing a little bit more onshore. Now I'm talking about for example funds having a relationship with the likes of Kāinga Ora and investing and building houses with the Government. So you know they could negotiate probably something like a 5 percent return on that investment. It's a safe investment because it's investment with the Government. So pulling some of that money offshore and bringing it into investments with the Government then that money gets used twice. So in the example of Kāinga Ora the money gets used once to build housing and then secondly with that 5 percent return or whatever it might be that the Government gives the investment fund they can also release that as a dividend. I'd also encourage some funds to look at what they can do together as well. Now I'm not sure how many other funds there are in the Taranaki region but there are often benefits in terms of scale. Now funds can do their own thing as well but then a portion of their fund could also be connected to other funds. There's a small example of this up in Hamilton recently where we're building a regional theatre up there an $80 million regional theatre. I'm told it will be the best theatre in Australasia actually with 1300 seats so you'll all have to come up next year when it opens. But this was funded through a number of funds coming together as well as Government as well as council coming together. And as we know—what's the phrase?—items can be bigger than the sum of their parts; that as we look to come together then we can achieve quite significant things. I see my time is running out. I certainly commend this bill to the House. I believe it will pass and if it passes the third reading the council will then get their wish to move on with this. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Motion agreed to.Bill read a second time."