I want to thank my wife Anne for her friendship and support over the years of our marriage. We are approaching, in about three months, our wedding anniversary and they have been 39 fantastic years.

I want to mention my parents Violet and Frank Copeland. My mother's grandparents came from England to Christchurch around the middle of the 19th century so, on my mother's side, I am a 4th generation New Zealander. My father on the other hand came from Ireland to Wellington in 1928 courtesy of a government-assisted £5 fare. Before he died in his 93rd year - incidentally just ten days short of my parents' 65th wedding anniversary - surveying his 6 children, 29 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, he was intent on writing to the Prime Minister to request a refund of his fiver! I guess it will now be up to me to do that and I think I'll be adding on interest compounding at the Official Cash Rate!

I congratulate you Mr Speaker on your re-election and thank you sincerely for the most courteous and helpful way you have welcomed me as a new Member.

I want to honour the tangata whenua, the original immigrants to New Zealand, and the people whose distinctive language and culture give this land its originality and uniqueness amongst the family of nations.

I, along with many New Zealanders, hope that we will see the remaining legitimate compensation claims arising from the Treaty of Waitangi settled as quickly as possible. Settlement is obviously of great importance to the economic and social future of Maori, but it is also of great importance to all New Zealanders. Only then can we truthfully fulfil the vision of the Treaty that all New Zealanders, whether immigrants old or new, and their descendants, have full equality - without any sort of favouritism - under one law whilst, at the same time, recognising and even celebrating our many ethnic and cultural differences.

That I believe is New Zealand's call to greatness.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about the children of New Zealand. I am distressed to find that according to some estimates for as many as three out of every ten of our kids childhood and poverty go together. Certainly, based on the 2001 Census figures, published just the other day, 16 percent or our children live in households where the annual income is less than $20,000 per annum and of those living in a household with one parent only a massive 61 percent have a total household income of $20,000 or less. Over 300,000 of our children receive Child Support from IRD, which also collects liable parent contributions from 212,000 people, mainly men. The projected trend is even more distressing with the phenomena of fatherless and sole parent families - mainly women - increasing rapidly. I salute those sole parents. They are doing the most important job in the world in difficult circumstances.

However we need to be able to speak of the desirability of all children, or as many as possible, having both a mum and dad at home. Studies clearly show that such two-parent families on average provide the best outcomes in terms of health, education and income.

Dr Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called "The End of History" predicated on the thesis that we cannot move beyond the liberal democratic model for government and the free market model for economics. In that sense we are at the "end of history".

Well let me say that when it comes to the model of the family "the end of history" occurred at its beginning! A woman and a man committed to one another in marriage usually, shortly thereafter, become mum, dad and the kids! That extends back through the generations to grandparents and great-grandparents and widens out to aunts, uncles and cousins and includes the unmarried, the gay, the celibate, whatever. It doesn't get any better than that!

Its vital lubrication - its CRC - is love. Love of the sort that takes out the "me" and puts in the "we".

Now we cannot in this House legislate for love and indeed we don't have to; fortunately it's a naturally occurring phenomenon. As Mother Theresa said "we are made to love and to be loved".

However we can begin to talk the family up. This House can fund marriage preparation and parental guidance courses. We can, through income splitting and a home carer's rebate encourage and enable, through the tax system, attainment of the ideal of a mum and a dad for more of our children. We can implement character education in the school curriculum for all, but especially for our young men who are so disproportionately represented in crime, drug and alcohol abuse and, as they grow older, in the liable parent statistics.

We put ideals before our young people in sport and education - how much should we therefore teach them ideals when it comes to marriage and the family?

I applaud the commitment of the Government through its agreement with United Future to a Commission for the Family. It is a welcome return to the days of Norman Kirk who said in 1973 and I quote "The Labour Party places first emphasis on the quality of family life", a tradition which United Future continues in 2002.

However we must support the family and not undermine it: The State must resist any temptation to think that it can somehow substitute "experts" for parents. Our role and that of the "experts" is to back up parents not rob them of their confidence. Strong families will result in a strong nation and we cannot have a strong nation without strong families.

Lastly I want to speak about the need for us to grow our economy at a much faster rate for the benefit and welfare of all New Zealanders. Here are just a few suggestions, some old, some new.

To add value to our primary products prior to their export. I still for example observe thousands of unprocessed logs leaving our shores. We are literally exporting jobs and handing so much of our wood value on to others. As an oil man of old let me say too that I hope we will not use our next large gas find to generate electricity. In doing that we downgrade the intrinsic value of gas - a non-renewable resource - and effectively lower its value. Better to search the world for a gas market and generate our electricity by wind or water - since fortunately both are perpetually renewable resources in New Zealand.

To learn how to market our exports better so that we move our products into the high value category at the wholesale and retail levels. In my opinion marketing remains an undeveloped skill in New Zealand; a challenge to the marketing schools at our tertiary institutions.

To systematically grow our population and with it our domestic markets. Our domestic market is too small and the demographics are against us with the first of the baby boomers reaching 65 in 2010. We need to see our abortion rate come down, our fertility rate boosted, our graduates - including those educated here as international students who want to stay on - staying in this country. We need targeted immigration of young, skilled people who can make an immediate contribution aimed at adding at least 0.5% per annum to our growth rate.

To increase the number of professional engineering and science graduates significantly through the provision of free tertiary education in these disciplines. Where Sweden has 6 such graduates, Japan 4, Australia 2 and Singapore 3.5 we have just one. Yet it is these skills that drive the Knowledge Economy.

To overhaul a discriminatory tax system which skews New Zealand investment in the direction of housing whilst starving business of much needed growth capital - something identified for us by Sir Ivor Richardson, one of New Zealand's tax experts, in the 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy. The United States has 34% of total household assets in housing; and 66% in other investment assets such as stocks and bonds. New Zealand is almost diametrically the opposite with 61% in housing and just 39% in growth-orientated assets. I have been a Director of a publicly listed company and I know just how thin the market in this country is for equity capital and yet it is the vital ingredient in wealth creation. We need to find ways of recapitalising New Zealand.

To ensure that wage rate increases relate to productivity so that every sector of our society has an efficiency incentive and that no one misses out of a slice of the growing cake.

A lowering of the company tax rate to 30% - if nothing else this would help to offset the compliance costs incurred by companies in collecting so much of Government's revenue via GST, PAYE, FBT, petroleum tax, etc etc.

I