I move, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency's Speech.
To the fallen heroes, whose final resting places adorn these walls, and who fought for our freedoms and our precious democracy, I acknowledge you.
To the people of New Zealand, who put their faith in us to represent them in this great House, I acknowledge you.
To the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, congratulations on your victory. I acknowledge you.
Prime Minister, with great power comes great responsibility, and I know that you will discharge that responsibility as a man with great courage, conviction, conscientiousness, and compassion.
To my colleagues across the House, who now carry the burden of great purpose, I acknowledge and congratulate you all.
This is a special place, one which bestows upon us the power to make the laws of our land and exert great control over the people. Please use that power lightly and infrequently.
To you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge and congratulate you on your election as our Speaker.
Mr Speaker, I have known you for almost a decade now—not as long as others here, but longer than some—and in that time I have known nothing but generosity, wisdom, and fortitude from you as a leader in this House of Representatives.
You are selfless, you are generous, and, in my view, you will go down as one of the most important politicians the South Island will have ever seen.
To my family and my friends, I acknowledge you. Without you, I could not be here.
And to my flaws, of which there are many, I acknowledge you. Because without my flaws, I would not be me.
I am flawed, perhaps a little more than some, perhaps a little less than others, but flawed still the same, much like we all are. It's our flaws that make us who we are, and it's the flaws in our society that I think bring us here to this House. For some, it's the urge to right the wrongs of our predecessors. For others, it's the drive to seek out and eradicate injustice. For some, it's to simply and gradually move society in the right rather than in the wrong direction. It is the flaws that we see in everything that I think brings us to this House. Our purpose is to fix what we see is wrong in the world. Our purpose is to seek a brighter, more prosperous future for all New Zealanders. And so I stand here, flaws and all, in the most powerful room in the land—humbled, completely humbled.
My family has never sought the limelight. This entrance into public life won't come easy for us. We are simple, straightforward people from a simple, straightforward part of the world. My dad is Ngāi Tahu, a freezing worker most of his life, a little Māori kid who was kicked out of school at 14 and who never told his parents, hiding in bedroom closets and spending afternoons down the river until he was old enough to convince his folks to let him go to work at 15. Until yesterday, he had never stepped foot in the North Island. His father, my grandfather, was a truck driver and a freezing worker, and my nana was a seamstress and a wool carder in Ashburton.
Dad's a hard worker. He's a bloody hard worker. You can't stand on your feet for hours on end on the chain and in the boning room for 40 years without knowing what hard work looks like. Dad wasn't around much growing up and that's put a strain on our relationship, which has never healed and which may never heal, but I don't blame him for that. We are products of our upbringing. We navigate through the world with the tools that we are given, and sometimes those tools just aren't fit for purpose. Forgiveness and redemption are words that are often overused, but they are words that are fit for this moment. We should never judge people based on who they once were. We can only judge someone on who they are today compared to who they were yesterday. And I know my dad is making up for lost time. I'm so glad he's here today and I love him dearly.
On my mum's side, our family come from Devon and Cornwall in the South of England. Grandma was a cleaner; Granddad fixed fridges. Their parents were farmers, mechanics, inventors, and also freezing workers. To be fair, it's hard to find someone from mid-south Canterbury whose family doesn't have some connection to the meat and wool industry in one way or another. And Mum's done a few jobs in her life—cleaning, teacher aiding, and now very proudly works at Countdown in Timaru. I'm glad she is here today and I love her dearly.
My mum and dad split up when I was in kindergarten, so Mum brought me, my younger brother, and sister up on her own—a single mum in a State house on the benefit with three kids. So I know what it's like to be poor. I know what it's like to grow up sharing a bedroom with my brother until I was 18. I know what it's like to have to walk everywhere because we didn't have a car until I was nine. I know what it's like to see a father struggle to pay his bills and borrow money from his kid's school savings account. I know what it's like to see a solo mother juggle three kids, part-time work, correspondence school, and all the other worries that a single parent living in South Timaru has.
I know what it's like to have your very first memory be of the police trying to coax you to come out from under the bed, telling you that everything would be OK. But make no mistake, we had a great life. We never went without. My mum has steel in her bones and grit in her soul. My recollection is that, yes, we were poor but we were never in poverty. My mum always made sure there was food on the table, clothes on our backs, and books in our school bags. Mum made sure schooling was everything. We always went to school, every single day.
There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be here today if it weren't for my education. I would not have practised law. I would not have gone to Otago University. I would not have had the privilege of being head boy and dux at Timaru Boys' High School. And that's what brings me here. It's why I'm in politics. It's why I'm in this place. Because I know that in New Zealand today, not every child will have the same opportunity that I had 30 years ago. Not every child has a mum like I had, someone who drove home the importance of education, of working hard, of being a decent person and living a decent life. Too many children in our country will grow up without that opportunity. Some won't grow up at all. So that's why I'm here. That's the injustice; that's the flaw in the system that I want to change.
Perhaps to some I am a walking contradiction—you know, a part-Māori boy, raised in a State house by a single parent on the benefit, now a proud National Party MP in a deeply rural farming electorate in the middle of the South Island—but there is no contradiction there. Members opposite do not own Māori. Members opposite do not own the poor. Members opposite do not own the workers. No party and no ideology has a right to claim ownership over anything or anyone.
We, on this side of the House, are a broad church: town and country, liberal and conservative, old and young, and professionals and workers. What unites us is our fundamental belief that it's the individual family unit that knows what's best for their family—not the State, not the Government, and not us. It's not the State that saved my family; it was my mum. She took responsibility for our situation. When we fall on hard times, as we all will at some stage, it's our neighbours and our community that should rally around in support. Only after that does the State become our safety net, as the neighbour of last resort.
Our system should be one which helps pick us up when we fall but which then gets out of the way when we're back on our feet and lets us lives our lives. The job of Government must be to create a system which makes it as easy as possible for good people to make the right decisions. But, instead, we have a system which creates broken families and turns good people into lost souls. It's not right, and it must change.
I truly believe that social investment is that change. When we see people as having agency and dignity in their own right, rather than just as numbers on a spreadsheet, we will have a just society. When we look at spending as an investment rather than a cost, we can focus on outcomes that benefit not only the health and wellbeing of the individual but also the back pocket of the taxpayer. That's what social investment does.
If we invest thousands in supporting the first thousand days of a child's life, we can save millions in long-term costs that stem from poor health and poor education. If we can give more people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to accident compensation, if we can get them the treatment they need as quickly as possible, not only will we improve their health and their wellbeing and change their lives, we can get them back working, earning, and paying their way. If we are sensible with the rules and the regulations that we put in place about who can work in our education and health systems, for example, by allowing those who train in CANZUK countries—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—to work here as a right, we will save millions in costs associated with burnout and the constant under-resourcing of those sectors.
But this approach only succeeds if we are willing to follow the evidence so we can prove what works. Good programmes should be enriched, and bad ones should be cast aside. We don't need complicated audits and reporting mechanisms for community organisations to administer taxpayer-funded programmes. The Government has this information. It can do the work to measure those programmes against long-term individual outcomes in health and education, in reduced welfare-dependency and better housing, in lower crime and in lower drug and alcohol use. All we need is to be more reasonable, be more sensible, and be more savvy with the use of this data.
The Privacy Act, with all of its good intentions, is a major barrier to getting New Zealanders the help that they need, and our approach to how we share information deserves a serious rethink.
This is why we are all here: to debate freely; to have an open, robust contest of ideas; to challenge one another in an environment where disputes are resolved by the showing of hands and not by the throwing of fists. We are here to represent the people who put us here. And some of us are here to disrupt and to challenge the status quo, and I get that—I really do. But in doing so, we must respect this institution, we must respect its traditions, and, importantly, we must respect those who have come before us and who have cleared the way for our many voices to be heard. We are here to fight for what we believe in, each and every one of us, without fear or favour, laying aside all personal interests.
We are a Parliament of the people, by the people, and for the people. Much faith has been placed in me by many people. I intend to work hard to repay that faith—flaws and all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
To the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, congratulations on your victory. I acknowledge you.
Prime Minister, with great power comes great responsibility, and I know that you will discharge that responsibility as a man with great courage, conviction, conscientiousness, and compassion.
To my colleagues across the House, who now carry the burden of great purpose, I acknowledge and congratulate you all.
This is a special place, one which bestows upon us the power to make the laws of our land and exert great control over the people. Please use that power lightly and infrequently.
To you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge and congratulate you on your election as our Speaker.
Mr Speaker, I have known you for almost a decade now—not as long as others here, but longer than some—and in that time I have known nothing but generosity, wisdom, and fortitude from you as a leader in this House of Representatives.
You are selfless, you are generous, and, in my view, you will go down as one of the most important politicians the South Island will have ever seen.
To my family and my friends, I acknowledge you. Without you, I could not be here.
And to my flaws, of which there are many, I acknowledge you. Because without my flaws, I would not be me.
I am flawed, perhaps a little more than some, perhaps a little less than others, but flawed still the same, much like we all are. It's our flaws that make us who we are, and it's the flaws in our society that I think bring us here to this House. For some, it's the urge to right the wrongs of our predecessors. For others, it's the drive to seek out and eradicate injustice. For some, it's to simply and gradually move society in the right rather than in the wrong direction. It is the flaws that we see in everything that I think brings us to this House. Our purpose is to fix what we see is wrong in the world. Our purpose is to seek a brighter, more prosperous future for all New Zealanders. And so I stand here, flaws and all, in the most powerful room in the land—humbled, completely humbled.
My family has never sought the limelight. This entrance into public life won't come easy for us. We are simple, straightforward people from a simple, straightforward part of the world. My dad is Ngāi Tahu, a freezing worker most of his life, a little Māori kid who was kicked out of school at 14 and who never told his parents, hiding in bedroom closets and spending afternoons down the river until he was old enough to convince his folks to let him go to work at 15. Until yesterday, he had never stepped foot in the North Island. His father, my grandfather, was a truck driver and a freezing worker, and my nana was a seamstress and a wool carder in Ashburton.
Dad's a hard worker. He's a bloody hard worker. You can't stand on your feet for hours on end on the chain and in the boning room for 40 years without knowing what hard work looks like. Dad wasn't around much growing up and that's put a strain on our relationship, which has never healed and which may never heal, but I don't blame him for that. We are products of our upbringing. We navigate through the world with the tools that we are given, and sometimes those tools just aren't fit for purpose. Forgiveness and redemption are words that are often overused, but they are words that are fit for this moment. We should never judge people based on who they once were. We can only judge someone on who they are today compared to who they were yesterday. And I know my dad is making up for lost time. I'm so glad he's here today and I love him dearly.
On my mum's side, our family come from Devon and Cornwall in the South of England. Grandma was a cleaner; Granddad fixed fridges. Their parents were farmers, mechanics, inventors, and also freezing workers. To be fair, it's hard to find someone from mid-south Canterbury whose family doesn't have some connection to the meat and wool industry in one way or another. And Mum's done a few jobs in her life—cleaning, teacher aiding, and now very proudly works at Countdown in Timaru. I'm glad she is here today and I love her dearly.
My mum and dad split up when I was in kindergarten, so Mum brought me, my younger brother, and sister up on her own—a single mum in a State house on the benefit with three kids. So I know what it's like to be poor. I know what it's like to grow up sharing a bedroom with my brother until I was 18. I know what it's like to have to walk everywhere because we didn't have a car until I was nine. I know what it's like to see a father struggle to pay his bills and borrow money from his kid's school savings account. I know what it's like to see a solo mother juggle three kids, part-time work, correspondence school, and all the other worries that a single parent living in South Timaru has.
I know what it's like to have your very first memory be of the police trying to coax you to come out from under the bed, telling you that everything would be OK. But make no mistake, we had a great life. We never went without. My mum has steel in her bones and grit in her soul. My recollection is that, yes, we were poor but we were never in poverty. My mum always made sure there was food on the table, clothes on our backs, and books in our school bags. Mum made sure schooling was everything. We always went to school, every single day.
There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be here today if it weren't for my education. I would not have practised law. I would not have gone to Otago University. I would not have had the privilege of being head boy and dux at Timaru Boys' High School. And that's what brings me here. It's why I'm in politics. It's why I'm in this place. Because I know that in New Zealand today, not every child will have the same opportunity that I had 30 years ago. Not every child has a mum like I had, someone who drove home the importance of education, of working hard, of being a decent person and living a decent life. Too many children in our country will grow up without that opportunity. Some won't grow up at all. So that's why I'm here. That's the injustice; that's the flaw in the system that I want to change.
Perhaps to some I am a walking contradiction—you know, a part-Māori boy, raised in a State house by a single parent on the benefit, now a proud National Party MP in a deeply rural farming electorate in the middle of the South Island—but there is no contradiction there. Members opposite do not own Māori. Members opposite do not own the poor. Members opposite do not own the workers. No party and no ideology has a right to claim ownership over anything or anyone.
We, on this side of the House, are a broad church: town and country, liberal and conservative, old and young, and professionals and workers. What unites us is our fundamental belief that it's the individual family unit that knows what's best for their family—not the State, not the Government, and not us. It's not the State that saved my family; it was my mum. She took responsibility for our situation. When we fall on hard times, as we all will at some stage, it's our neighbours and our community that should rally around in support. Only after that does the State become our safety net, as the neighbour of last resort.
Our system should be one which helps pick us up when we fall but which then gets out of the way when we're back on our feet and lets us lives our lives. The job of Government must be to create a system which makes it as easy as possible for good people to make the right decisions. But, instead, we have a system which creates broken families and turns good people into lost souls. It's not right, and it must change.
I truly believe that social investment is that change. When we see people as having agency and dignity in their own right, rather than just as numbers on a spreadsheet, we will have a just society. When we look at spending as an investment rather than a cost, we can focus on outcomes that benefit not only the health and wellbeing of the individual but also the back pocket of the taxpayer. That's what social investment does.
If we invest thousands in supporting the first thousand days of a child's life, we can save millions in long-term costs that stem from poor health and poor education. If we can give more people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to accident compensation, if we can get them the treatment they need as quickly as possible, not only will we improve their health and their wellbeing and change their lives, we can get them back working, earning, and paying their way. If we are sensible with the rules and the regulations that we put in place about who can work in our education and health systems, for example, by allowing those who train in CANZUK countries—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—to work here as a right, we will save millions in costs associated with burnout and the constant under-resourcing of those sectors.
But this approach only succeeds if we are willing to follow the evidence so we can prove what works. Good programmes should be enriched, and bad ones should be cast aside. We don't need complicated audits and reporting mechanisms for community organisations to administer taxpayer-funded programmes. The Government has this information. It can do the work to measure those programmes against long-term individual outcomes in health and education, in reduced welfare-dependency and better housing, in lower crime and in lower drug and alcohol use. All we need is to be more reasonable, be more sensible, and be more savvy with the use of this data.
The Privacy Act, with all of its good intentions, is a major barrier to getting New Zealanders the help that they need, and our approach to how we share information deserves a serious rethink.
This is why we are all here: to debate freely; to have an open, robust contest of ideas; to challenge one another in an environment where disputes are resolved by the showing of hands and not by the throwing of fists. We are here to represent the people who put us here. And some of us are here to disrupt and to challenge the status quo, and I get that—I really do. But in doing so, we must respect this institution, we must respect its traditions, and, importantly, we must respect those who have come before us and who have cleared the way for our many voices to be heard. We are here to fight for what we believe in, each and every one of us, without fear or favour, laying aside all personal interests.
We are a Parliament of the people, by the people, and for the people. Much faith has been placed in me by many people. I intend to work hard to repay that faith—flaws and all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
James Meager worked as a senior solicitor before being elected as the National Party MP for the South Island’s Rangitata electorate.
6 comments:
And thank you, James Meager. As a South islander, I am so proud of you. Well done so far and may you stay long in the House of Representatives - we so need people like you *****!
Future prime minister in the making?
A politician divides mankind into two classes: Tools and Enemies. ---Friedrich Nietzsche
How's about we make his Mum the Prime Minister !
A breath of fresh air and common sense, why can we not have more of this pragmatic leadership rather than the decisive, destructive, biased narrative exposed be others. I would vote for this man in a minute. Well done!
Yes, well done James! The difference between you and the likes of Takuta Ferris couldn't be more stark. Humility & Hard Work vs Ignorance & Entitlement. Or, Unity vs Division. Whatever - there's only one way forward as a Nation - the other will lead to just another corrupt banana republic.
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