Why the fuss over charter schools? Given the hysterical ranting from teacher unions, you’d think we were returning to caning on the backside.

It won’t be compulsory for students to attend what are, essentially, alternative choices for parents to state or private schools. A bit like kura kaupapa.

But unions don’t like parental choice. They like telling parents what to do. Robin Duff, head of the PPTA, published an opinion piece comparing these evil charter schools with epic failures such as the Pike River mining disaster, the Global Financial Crisis and the grounding of the container ship Rena.

Charter schools also cause famine in Africa I understand.

The commonality is that none are accountable. But charter schools are accountable to parents, something that many state schools are not.

If parents can choose to stay or leave a school, that is the best form of accountability.

While the PPTA and NZEI remain firmly wedded to collective agreements, it will be difficult to introduce incentives to keep brilliant teachers in the classrooms when they must move into management for higher salaries. In union land, excellent teachers shouldn’t get more pay than incompetent colleagues on the same level because that’s not fair.

I say let each principal decide for themselves how much to pay the teachers at their school, within a total budget.

A Mana Party worker is in hospital with brain damage after an accident which ocurred less than a kilometre from leader Hone Harawira’s home.

Joseph “Reti” Nathan, 35, of Kaitaia, was driving a Nissan Maxima the wrong way down State Highway 1 near Awanui in Northland when he struck a car coming the other way.

Even though it appears Mr Nathan was at fault, he is also the one most seriously affected, so sympathies go out to his whanau and friends. Serious head injuries can be an awful thing.

Firefighters who freed Nathan had to work around beer bottles scattered through the car. But a blood test taken hours later at hospital returned a negative result.

Empty beer bottles in a car is never a good sign, but it does not mean they were drinking at that particular time.

Members of the Harawira family, who were partying at home ahead of a family wedding, ran to help in the aftermath of the accident.

Harawira said last night that Nathan had not been at his family’s party. “The guy wasn’t at my house,” Harawira said.

I do wonder where he was, in that remote area. Hopefully he will recover, so he can tell the Police.

Members of a family of five in the other car, a Ford Territory, received moderate injuries.

The mother declined to be named but described the moments leading up to the crash on January 19. …

“We were driving home and he was on the wrong side of the road and hit us head on. I got taken by helicopter to Whangarei Hospital. I have broken ribs.”

The children are aged 3, 8 and 13.

“All my children have scrapes and scratches and my son has a broken collar bone. They are traumatised over the incident. It was horrific and horrible.”

That is a horrific incident, and they are innocent victims in this. Thanks goodness, the injuries were not worse.

Barbara Hall, who lives near the crash scene, said she had learned later rescue workers had not breath-tested Nathan at the scene. Instead, she said efforts were focused on getting life-saving saline drips to the injured man.

As is appropriate.

Hall said Mana Party members were waiting at the cordon wanting to retrieve a flag in the back of Nathan’s car but were restrained by police.

Good to see the Mana Party members being focused on what is really important, and not diverting police from their job.

Yes, that is sarcasm.

Station officer Grant Baker said Nathan was not wearing a seat belt.

“There were paua shells scattered all over the road, a box of shells in the car and there were bottles of beer on the passenger seat and in the boot.”

Witness Margo Wright, 17, who is a Students Against Drink Driving leader at Whangarei High, said she called the ambulance and, despite being in shock, took towels and water to the family.

She said the mother was clearly in pain. “They still had the [birthday] cake in the back seat. The 3-year-old boy was screaming.”

Again, thank goodness no one was killed.

The South Island is doing well, with the ODt up 8% and the Press 2%.

The Dom Post is constant, the Waikato Times down 2% and the NZ Herald down 5%.

Both the SST and HoS have small increases, while Sunday News down 8%.

The huge drop is the National Business Review, whose readership dropped 16%.

Labour’s deputy leader Grant Robertson said Parliament should consider changing the process of dealing with electoral law breaches to speed it up – including giving the Electoral Commission powers to fine or penalise for some breaches.

Mr Robertson said the Electoral Commission was the expert body on electoral law, yet it had to send any breaches to Police to decide whether to act on them.

I’ve been advocating this for years, including in submission to select committees. Sadly, Labour never voted in favour of changing the law.

While their sudden enthusiasm to do so, seems rather opportunistic, it is the right thing to do.

“The bigger issue is the number of complaints they’ve sent to the Police that nothing has happened with. So maybe there is another way. For instance, could you set a threshold under which the Electoral Commission was able to impose some sort of penalty rather than have to have Police prosecute it.”

Time and time again the Police have shown, with all due respect, a total disinterest in enforcing electoral law (the most notorious case being the non charging of Labour over their $400,000 deliberate over-spend in 2005). They would obviously rather be catching muggers  etc.

Even worse, the Police seem to have a deliberate policy to not decide on any complaints until after the election. They see this as not interfering with the election, but it is in fact a worse form of interference. It means parties and candidates and others can breach electoral laws, and not have to worry about the stigma of being charged prior to the election. This encourages rule breaking.

I will once again be submitting to change the law to the 2011 election review later this year. I look forward to Labour voting for removing the Police from any role in electoral law enforcement, and other parties doing the same.

What should happen is that the Electoral Commission itself can levy small fines for relatively minor issues such as late returns and the like, or missing promoter statements on ads that still have a clear author. For more major issues they should be able to lay charges directly with the courts.

Waitangi Day produced its usual hatred, rudeness, and violence against a clearly elected Prime Minister from a group of hateful, hate-fuelled weirdos who seem to exist in a perfect world of benefit provision. This enables them to blissfully continue to believe that New Zealand is the centre of the world, no one has to have a job and the Treaty is all that matters.

I’m over Waitangi Day. It is repugnant. It’s a ghastly affair. As I lie in bed on Waitangi morning, I know that later that evening, the news will show us irrational Maori ghastliness with spitting, smugness, self-righteousness and the usual neurotic Maori politics, in which some bizarre new wrong we’ve never thought about will be lying on the table. …

Well, it’s a bullshit day, Waitangi. It’s a day of lies. It is loony Maori fringe self-denial day. It’s a day when everything is addressed, except the real stuff.

Never mind the child stats, never mind the national truancy stats, never mind the hopeless failure of Maori to educate their children and stop them bashing their babies. No, it’s all the Pakeha’s fault. It’s all about hating whitey. Believe me, that’s what it looked like the other day.

John Key speaks bravely about going there again. He should not go there again. It’s over. Forget it. It is too awful and nasty and common. It is no more New Zealand day than Halloween.

Our national day is now Anzac Day. Anzac Day is a day of honour, and struggle, bravery and sacrifice. A day on which we celebrate the periods when our country embraced great efforts for international freedom and on which we weep for those who served and for those who died.

Waitangi Day is an important day in terms of the treaty between the Crown (Government) and Maori. But it is not, and should not be, our national day.

John Roughan also writes on Waitangi Day. I’ve observed that Roughan tends to be fairly liberal on Maori and treaty issues generally, so that makes his column quite significant:

Protesters forget that Maori have to act in good faith too.

If you or I imagined we were plugged into the deepest yearnings of the people, raised our flag, stood for election and collected a miserable few votes, we’d probably fold our tent, slip away and revise our view of the world.

But we’re not that special breed of human life known as the protester. Votes don’t count for much in the protesters’ idea of democracy. The Mana Party came to Waitangi last weekend as though the election had never happened, or perhaps to say it didn’t matter.

Good faith is indeed required both ways.

Then Hone Harawira and Greens co-leader Metiria Turei were called to the platform. Turei, declaring her background to be anarchism, said her concept of life was that we all lived in a cage with wild monsters trying to tear down the walls that protected us.

These monsters were corporate capitalism, she said, and she saw her job as trying to push out the walls of the cage and increase our living space. Weird.

Yes wild monsters are trying to eat our young and destroy us. They’re called businesses and are evil.

Technology allowing police and other authorities to identify the location of callers may become mandatory for all cellphones in New Zealand in a move to improve the 111 emergency calling system.

But although the proposal could save lives, Telecom and the Privacy Commissioner have rung alarm bells.

The mandatory global positioning system (GPS) idea was raised in a discussion paper reviewing the 111 system issued yesterday by Communications Minister Amy Adams.

Umm, no.

I’ve chosen to have GPS on my cellphone. Personally I like the idea of the authorities being able to trace me in case of emergency. Hell, I’m even on Foursquare, so I boroadcast my location to several hundred people.

But that is my choice. Equally I should have the choice of being able to use a cellphone that does not indicate my location.

Once the Government has the ability to detect your location via your cellphone for one purpose (a noble one), there is a slippery slope that they will want to use it for other purposes.

Winston is back in Parliament, and had a good first week in the House. His chosen issue of wasteful spending under the whanau ora programme is a good one for him (and one I approve of). Labour and Greens are reluctant to go there, as they worry that they may be seen as being against the aims of whanau ora, which is seeking to improve the lives of whanau.

But also note:

There has been a fascinating series of exchanges between the Speaker and Peters. Peters complains that the PM has not answered his question, and the Speaker points out it is totally unreasonable to expect the PM to be able to answer a supplementary question on details of a small grant, when the primary question did not refer to the grant in question. Despite being told this on Tuesday and Wednesday, Peters persisted with this approach, and again on Thursday got the same reply from the PM. If he is smart, he will take the advice of Mr Speaker, and start providing details of the alleged wasteful spending in the primary question. But maybe secrecy is so ingrained with him, he can’t bear to reveal his target in advance.

I also look at the Greens and Labour.

The mandatory bicycle helmet law has cut the number of cyclists in half and contributed to 53 premature deaths per year, new research says.

The research, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal today, found a 51 per cent drop in the average hours cycled per person from the 1989-90 period when compared to 2006-09.

Colin Clarke, the honorary secretary of the Yorkshire Region’s Cyclists Touring Club in England who produced the research, has worked as a safety instructor and cycled in more than 20 countries including about 8000 kms in New Zealand.

Clarke estimates the 1994 law has translated to about 53 premature deaths per year (through adverse health effects from not cycling) and promotes discrimination in accident compensation.

He said safety should be improved through policies supporting health, the environment, and without the legal requirement to wear a helmet.

I actually think people have the right to risk themselves. Hence they can bungy jump, climb mountains, swim, work as salvors etc. That right should extend to wearing no helmet while cycling, and no seatbelt while driving.

With cycling, people should be able to judge for themselves whether the extra enjoyment they get from cycling without a helmet outweighs the probability of more severe damage if they crash. If you cycle 10 hours a week, and you have say only a 5% chance of a serious crash over your cycling life, then it is may be a reasonable decision to not wear a helmet.

Now some may argue that the decision is not one of people’s rights to take risks, but an economic one. That as we have a socialised health system, we should force people to minimise their chances of disease and injury, as otherwise we end up having to pay for their bad choices.

I have some sympathy for that argument, but it can be slippery end of the slope. You could use economics to justify making condoms compulsory for sex to reduce the prevalence of STDs.

But this story above, is a nice reminder that even if you do accept the economic argument to reduce risk by say banning cycling without a helmet, you run the risk of unintended consequences. In this case, the unintended consequence is alleged to be fewer people are cycling, and hence unhealthier, which has actually led to more premature deaths and a greater cost to the economy.

This is another reason why we should be extremely reluctant to interfere with people’s personal choices. You may have the best of motivations, but you don’t know what the impact will be.

• Seasonally adjusted employment up 4,000 for the quarter and 35,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted unemployment down 7,000 for the quarter and 6,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted labour force down 3,000 for the quarter but up 28,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate down to 6.3%. Was 6.7% a year ago.
• Under 20s unemployment rate up from 23.4% to 24.2%
• Of 34 OECD countries, NZ unemployment rate is 12th lowest

TVNZ OneNews coverage before 7pm on 26 November 2011.  It is the Electoral Commission’s view that the broadcast breached section 197(1)(g)(i) of the Electoral Act 1993 because it included statements that were likely to influence any elector as to the party for whom the elector should or should not vote.

I didn’t see the news that night (mainly because I was actually at TVNZ getting ready for the election broadcast) so can’t recall what they broadcast, which has triggered this referral.

It will be interesting to see the details of the material complained about, once it is made public.

He was one of Wellington’s finest. At the age of 30 he set up Infratil, and it has become a major infrastructure company.

He also led the campaign to change the NZ flag, and helped bail out the Phoenix.

Lloyd was also a big supporter of the arts – setting up a musical trust and has served as a director of the NZSO and trustee of Chamber Music NZ Foundation.

He has been given so many awards for business leadership, I won’t even name them. Suffice to say he was a brilliant businessman, and a passionate New Zealander and Wellingtonian who did much for his country and city.

My condolences to his family, and closest friends.

He battled for seven years to win compensation – and now a Paraparaumu man has admitted he also spent seven years cheating the state insurer of nearly $86,000.

Simon John Kruidenier, 58, pleaded guilty in Porirua District Court last month to claiming seven years’ worth of weekly compensation payments from ACC while he continued to work as a repossession agent for 11 finance companies.

Kruidenier began receiving compensation in September 2005, paid on the basis that he was unfit to work because of occupational neurotoxicity – a result of his former job as a printer’s assistant.

He said he had developed bad headaches and migraines after working for three years at Porirua plastics and packaging manufacturer Cryovac.

He lodged a complaint with ACC in 1998 – and payments were event-ually backdated to that year – but he failed to tell ACC that he had started working again in 2002.

He kept working while claiming compensation until October 2009, receiving $85,878.99.

So he spent seven years battling to get ACC, and won his case, getting it backdated. And he was a fraud, as he was in fact not just capable of work – but actually working.

In 2005 he told The Dominion Post he had been assessed by six doctors and had been round and round the system since lodging the claim in 1998.

“I have been prodded and poked. They keep contradicting each other – one says yes, the other says no.”

Kruidenier said at the time that his condition was “a hell of a thing to live with”.

He could not work because his health was so unreliable that even petrol fumes or perfume triggered migraines.

“I think ACC is going to be bloody-minded about it. But I can’t quit now.”

So he actually went to the media, trying to build public sympathy for his right to steal money off us.

It was the Al Blacks’ year. No arguments from me.

Also of note:

• Sports Hall of Fame - John Kirwan, Philippa Baker, Brenda Lawson
• Lifetime achievement award: Bruce Cameron
• Leadership award: Sir Murray Halberg

Halberg is now aged 78. He set up the Halberg Trust to help children with disabilities almost 50 years ago.

One of this nation’s finest leaders once said of leadership “having a vision is not enough.  Change comes through turning a vision into a reality.  It is easy to espouse worthy goals, value and policies, the hard part is the implementation.

Tragically, 10 years ago the architect of those words, Sir Peter Blake lost his life in the pursuit of turning his vision into a reality. 

The essence of the Blake ethos centred around the notion that it is your actions that define you, not your words, something that can be easily forgotten by the well intentioned in their pursuit of public service.

Simon Power said something similar in his valedictory. That the honour comes from doing things as an MP, not just being an MP.

At this stage Mr Speaker I would also like to pay tribute to my predecessor Hon John Carter for the massive contribution he has made to the Party, to Northland and NZ. 

Of course “massive contribution” could also now describe his tab at Trader Jacks, but I’m sure the Cooks will be well served with him as High Commissioner, not only for his passion to make a difference, but for the range of new jokes he will be unleashing on an unsuspecting population.

Heh, so true. John had an endless supply of jokes. Some were even printable.

I am the eldest son of Lew and Merlene Sabin, with one brother and sister.  I’m the proud father of three amazing children; Brook, Darryl and Brenna. I am of mixed genealogy, like most; and am proudly of Tainui Whakapapa on my mother’s side.  It gives me a uniqueness in this world which I celebrate, but more so I celebrate that NZ is my home and that I am a New Zealander.

My early years were spent in Auckland before my family moved to Whangarei.  A product of WBHS, I followed my father’s footsteps in the Navy as a Seaman Officer, but before too long I found myself back in Northland dairy farming.  As a young father I was keen to join the Police, essentially to contribute to making the community a better place to bring up my children.

Navy farming and the Police. I like MPs who have had some real life experience.

My career in the police shadowed the introduction of Pure Methamphetamine (or P) into NZ, an area I developed and expertise in, but while working on squads running undercover and electronic surveillance operations I literally saw NZ explode from virtually no P problem to the worst in the world within 5 years.   

Our well-developed drug culture saw us primed for the only hard drug in the world that can be made on your kitchen bench from readily available retail chemicals.

Those 5 years have changed NZ forever and led me to the conclusion that the fight needed to go back to the top of the cliff.  Quite simply Mr Speaker I knew we wouldn’t win the war trying to heal the wounded.

This desire to find a better way gave rise to MethCon Group, a drug education and policy company I founded and operated from 2006.  The mission was simple; empower employers, students and community with education while looking for policy solutions to help provide government with better tools. …

Mr Speaker, while there are some who would say I am a one-trick-pony, here to further the anti-drug cause, far from it, my journey into politics has come about as an evolution of many professional experiences leading me to the conclusion that if one wants to support their community and nation to reach its real potential there is a need to be around the tables where the decisions that most affect our communities are being made.

The reality is Mr Speaker, my efforts with the P issue demonstrate more my on-going willingness to try to make a difference than my focus on that particular issue alone.  Much like my son, I just wanted to try and find solutions, while many others were finding ways to tolerate the problem.

And then more generally:

Personal responsibility, the very source from which self-respect springs is intrinsically related to the individual’s willingness to accept responsibility over one’s own life.  To do so is to give value, purpose and freedom to the soul.  To refuse it leaves a hole from which the spirit of the individual will slowly but surely drain.

Yet years of socialist ideology, welfarism which has evolved to provide perverse incentives to opt out and the insidious encroachment of government on the minds and lives of citizens has seen the notion of personal responsibility pilloried like it were the ramblings of capitalist zealots.

This country is Gods own yet we condemn many innocent children to abuse, neglect and homicide.  For a generation we have vainly sought solutions, largely ignoring the fact that we have created a culture which too easily traps parents in welfare, who often through no fault of their own, lack even the most basic of life skills and for whom personal responsibility is an unnecessary and irrelevant commodity surpassed by a sea of social agencies that seek to provide what they will now never have to.

Mr Speaker too often we have become consumed with addressing the symptoms of these very problems  while failing to challenge the cause of them, something that often requires courage and honesty in uncomfortable amounts, but nonetheless something in my view New Zealanders expect of its leaders.  To that end, I’d like to commend the work being done by the Minister of Social Development in this particular area.

Hear hear.

The full speech is after the break.

One of this nation’s finest leaders once said of leadership “having a vision is not enough.  Change comes through turning a vision into a reality.  It is easy to espouse worthy goals, value and policies, the hard part is the implementation.

Tragically, 10 years ago the architect of those words, Sir Peter Blake lost his life in the pursuit of turning his vision into a reality.

The essence of the Blake ethos centred around the notion that it is your actions that define you, not your words, something that can be easily forgotten by the well intentioned in their pursuit of public service.

Mr Speaker, I raised this because in 2008 as a recipient of a Sir Peter Blake Leadership award I had cause to reflect on my own journey, the importance of leadership and the visions I wanted to see become realities.

Indeed Mr Speaker that moment was a turning point in my life and much of the reason I am here today, something I will expand on shortly…

But firstly Mr Speaker can I acknowledge your re-nomination and the dignity and decorum you bring to the role.

Can I also acknowledge the PM and Ministers of the Crown for the tremendous social and economic leadership they have shown and will continue to show this nation and express how humbled and privileged I feel to join this National Caucus, working  to serve the positive aspirations of New Zealanders.

Mr Speaker, can I also acknowledge our Party President, Peter Goodfellow, the National Party board he leads, and the team from the Service Centre.  I want to sincerely thank you all for the assistance you’ve provided me and acknowledge the outstanding leadership and support you provide our Party.

In particular can I thank Grant McCallum who was also my campaign chair.  Thanks Grant for your outstanding support and dedication.

I also want to pay tribute to my electorate team from Northland.  Our success in the election is exactly that – our success.  Nothing could have been achieved without you , and while the net result of your efforts is my election as MP, I want you to know that this has, and will always be, a team effort and I feel very fortunate to be a part of the team.

Mr Speaker I want to make special mention of Sally Macauley our Electorate Chairman, the longest serving  in the Party, Neil Clements, my Deputy Chair and man of great political wisdom, Ross Miller a loyal and guiding hand and also a special thanks to the evergreen June Levet, the Mrs National Party of the North.

At this stage Mr Speaker I would also like to pay tribute to my predecessor Hon John Carter for the massive contribution he has made to the Party, to Northland and NZ.

Of course “massive contribution” could also now describe his tab at Trader Jacks, but I’m sure the Cooks will be well served with him as High Commissioner, not only for his passion to make a difference, but for the range of new jokes he will be unleashing on an unsuspecting population.

Mr Speaker I want to offer my thanks to all Northlanders who supported me through the campaign and who have entrusted in me to be their representative.

I owe you all a debt of gratitude and I hope to repay it in kind by being as effective as I can as your MP in representing the hopes and positive aspirations of Northlanders and the region.

Lastly but most importantly I want to thank my family – my wonderful parents, siblings and children.  I am who I am and where I am because of you.  I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of the family we are.

I also want to give special thanks to my partner Sandra.  I may not have always been lucky in love Mr Speaker, but my Powerball number came up in that particular lottery when you came into my life Sandra.

Thank you for sharing my life with me in the way you do.

Mr Speaker I would now like to share with you three important themes: Who I am, what I believe in and why I am here.

I am the eldest son of Lew and Merlene Sabin, with one brother and sister.  I’m the proud father of three amazing children; Brook, Darryl and Brenna. I am of mixed genealogy, like most; and am proudly of Tainui Whakapapa on my mother’s side.  It gives me a uniqueness in this world which I celebrate, but more so I celebrate that NZ is my home and that I am a New Zealander.

My early years were spent in Auckland before my family moved to Whangarei.  A product of WBHS, I followed my father’s footsteps in the Navy as a Seaman Officer, but before too long I found myself back in Northland dairy farming.  As a young father I was keen to join the Police, essentially to contribute to making the community a better place to bring up my children.

With that in mind my policing career was soon focused in the area of drug enforcement, primarily because I felt the best way to make a difference was to focus on the cause of the problems and one quickly comes to the conclusion in that vocation that drug and alcohol abuse is the cause more often than not.

My career in the police shadowed the introduction of Pure Methamphetamine (or P) into NZ, an area I developed and expertise in, but while working on squads running undercover and electronic surveillance operations I literally saw NZ explode from virtually no P problem to the worst in the world within 5 years.

Our well-developed drug culture saw us primed for the only hard drug in the world that can be made on your kitchen bench from readily available retail chemicals.

Those 5 years have changed NZ forever and led me to the conclusion that the fight needed to go back to the top of the cliff.  Quite simply Mr Speaker I knew we wouldn’t win the war trying to heal the wounded.

This desire to find a better way gave rise to MethCon Group, a drug education and policy company I founded and operated from 2006.  The mission was simple; empower employers, students and community with education while looking for policy solutions to help provide government with better tools.

I sprang to public prominence over this time, a deliberate effort to give the issue a voice and sense of urgency.

It was a long, difficult and often lonely journey Mr Speaker, one that many told me was futile, one that many told me was someone else’s problem to fix.  Nevertheless I stuck to the task for no other reason than my belief that something needed to be done.

Can I pay tribute to the PM and acknowledge his outstanding leadership on this particular issue – it’s been a game-breaker

That challenge was put into chilling context however when on ANZAC day 2009 my fight went from P to my son’s survival when he suffered a catastrophic bleed on the brain during a game of rugby.

Following emergency surgery I was confronted with the news that his death was imminent, something I refused to accept, as I did their contention that if he did survive it would likely be in a vegetative state.

Like his old man though, my boy is a fighter – I knew that even if they didn’t and I pledged I would fight with him to get his life back.

It was a frightening journey, full of heartache but one in which I never lost hope.  Sometimes Mr Speaker hope is the only thing you have to cling to, and when that’s the case you just have to learn to develop an iron grip, something we have been rewarded for Mr Speaker because today I am proud to say my son sits larger than life, fit and healthy in the gallery.  It’s not what happens to you in life that defines you Mr Speaker, it what you do about it.

It was a difficult couple of years but by now my goal was to enter politics and eventually I sold my business to allow for a full time campaign to try to win selection and the election that followed.

Mr Speaker, while there are some who would say I am a one-trick-pony, here to further the anti-drug cause, far from it, my journey into politics has come about as an evolution of many professional experiences leading me to the conclusion that if one wants to support their community and nation to reach its real potential there is a need to be around the tables where the decisions that most affect our communities are being made.

The reality is Mr Speaker, my efforts with the P issue demonstrate more my on-going willingness to try to make a difference than my focus on that particular issue alone.  Much like my son, I just wanted to try and find solutions, while many others were finding ways to tolerate the problem.

I’d now like to share a little about what I believe in.

I am proud to be a representative of the National Party because its founding values resonate with who I am as an individual, central to this – personal responsibility, reward for hard work and enterprise, limited government and equality of opportunity and citizenship.

Mr Speaker it is a fast paced world we live in and much has changed, even in my lifetime with regard to the fabric that binds society together and the balance required to maintain a healthy socio-economic equilibrium.

Too often now in my view a sense of pride, self-reliance and independence is usurped by a culture of entitlement despite the implicit irony that so many who contribute nothing to society have developed an almost self-righteous belief that society owes them something.

Striving to succeed and success itself is so often frowned upon as threatening and somehow discriminating against those who seek refuge behind an ever-growing vale of mediocrity.

Participation it seems Mr Speaker is now the goal and winning is equal part unnecessary and intimidatory.

Personal responsibility, the very source from which self-respect springs is intrinsically related to the individual’s willingness to accept responsibility over one’s own life.  To do so is to give value, purpose and freedom to the soul.  To refuse it leaves a hole from which the spirit of the individual will slowly but surely drain.

Yet years of socialist ideology, welfarism which has evolved to provide perverse incentives to opt out and the insidious encroachment of government on the minds and lives of citizens has seen the notion of personal responsibility pilloried like it were the ramblings of capitalist zealots.

This country is Gods own yet we condemn many innocent children to abuse, neglect and homicide.  For a generation we have vainly sought solutions, largely ignoring the fact that we have created a culture which too easily traps parents in welfare, who often through no fault of their own, lack even the most basic of life skills and for whom personal responsibility is an unnecessary and irrelevant commodity surpassed by a sea of social agencies that seek to provide what they will now never have to.

Mr Speaker too often we have become consumed with addressing the symptoms of these very problems  while failing to challenge the cause of them, something that often requires courage and honesty in uncomfortable amounts, but nonetheless something in my view New Zealanders expect of its leaders.  To that end, I’d like to commend the work being done by the Minister of Social Development in this particular area.

Mr Speaker the long and short of it is that a little bit of personal responsibility goes a long way, but a lack thereof will go a lot further – just in the wrong direction.

And why am I here?

I am a great believer that a marriage of quality education and equality of opportunity are essential building blocks to social wellbeing and prosperity.  Mr Speaker I am here because I want to do all I can to ensure this environment exists to help Northland and NZ reach the obvious potential we hold.

I also come here with a focus to see Northland develop a whole-of-region economic plan that clearly outlines a path to reaching that potential, the barriers that may stand in the way and where the opportunities are to make our boat go faster – and there are many!

Too often Mr Speaker Northland is singled out for many of the wrong reasons.  But let me make it quite clear today, the less than flattering statistics are not the failure.  Our failure is that Northland is blessed with economic potential but we have no plan to achieve it – well not yet anyway.

On that note, can I suggest Mr Speaker if any of the members of the house are looking for a nice patch of beachside land in Northland, it might pay to get in quick!

Mr Speaker the last point I want to make relates to judgment.  As elected representatives one of our primary roles in my view is to exercise judgment.

Edmond Burke, viewed by many as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism said of judgment

“Your representative owes you – not his industry only, but his judgment – and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

In a world that is over-managed and under-led Mr Speaker judgment and leadership is what New Zealanders need and expect of us, something I will always keep top-of-mind.

So in conclusion Mr Speaker who am I?

A proud family man with a blended family of 6, richer in spirit for the good AND bad experiences in my personal life – poorer (financially) for the fact that I have managed to amass so many children in the process!

I am passionate about Northland and NZ and the pursuit of potential therein.

What do I believe in?

That personal responsibility is just that – the responsibility of the person – not the government

That carrots work better than sticks, but both are necessary.

That the first question we should be asking of New Zealanders is what is your dream? And then aim to create a social and economic climate to help make those dreams possible.

And why am I here Mr Speaker?

For the implementation…. quite simply I want to help turn visions into reality.

Ports of Auckland workers are set to strike for a full week in a new escalation of their long running employment dispute.

The just-announced strike action is set to start at 7am on February 24.

It is in addition to a partial strike set to take place from February 15 to 22.

So basically, they will be on strike for two weeks continuously.

How long until all the customers have gone to Tauranga?