CHESTER BORROWS MP for Whanganui

Springvale Park
Wanganui

President John Comber, Chief Organiser and Whip Cracker Bruce Hutton, Her Worship Annette Main and other dignitaries. I want to make special mention of Nick Mason (drummer from Pink Floyd) who is here from England to help promote the Rally, and that certainly beats Top Gear any day for us here in Wanganui. Most of all I want to thank those of you attending this International Vintage and Veteran Car Rally, it is Wanganui’s proud privilege to host.

I am reminded of a wonderful old woman for whom I officiated at a funeral for a few years ago. She died 22 hours short of her 104th birthday.

Eva Mills was about 19 years of age in 1920 when a local used car salesman brought a 1914 Maxwell car out to the families Tokaora farm in South Taranaki. The young woman was coached in driving the car around the front paddock of the home and at the end of the first driving lesson was declared to be "ready for the open road". I have no idea what the definition of a road was in South Taranaki at the time, let alone ‘the open road’, but the young woman who had shown plenty of spunk and ability by this time was the first woman to drive on the then new highway between Stratford and Taumarunui. I don’t know what the colloquial name for State Highway 43 was in those days but today it is known as the "Forgotten Highway". The deal was that Eva would drive and her front seat passenger would blow a whistle every time they came to a tight blind corner. If the whistle was responded to by an equally sharp blast, Eva would stand on the brakes and the drivers and passengers would negotiate who would reverse up to let the other past. At times the roadway would disappear as, even today in that blue papa country it still does from time to time, so the vehicles would move from the road into adjoining paddocks and travel alongside the surveyed route until obvious roadway became apparent.

This was a part of the country where the land forms were difficult and unstable. Locals knew how to cut and scarf the land and in those depression days when road making was a significant employer, back-country farmers who were doing all they could to make ends meet on their farms would take responsibility for building some pieces of road way and later maintaining it. They’d blast mudstone and then clear the rubble making a gradient sufficient for horses on a bridle track, then widen it for horse and dray, then later widen it again for motor cars.

The memory of some days stick with you forever. I was at home last Thursday rebuilding a fence – a job that has needed doing for some time – when the cell phone rang. The Prime Minister offered me a place in his Executive as Minister of Courts and Associate Ministers of Welfare and Justice. I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and said ‘yes’ and ‘thanks’ several times, to a boss who has shown his stature and wisdom as a leader over the past six years in Opposition and in government.

Now my challenge is to prove the wisdom of placing this responsibility into my hands and the prospect is challenging and daunting but will bring with it satisfaction and reward.

Well a week is a long time in politics and it can seem a longer time for some of us. The machinations of MMP mean that unless one part gets more than half the seats available, there will need to be a deal done to ensure ‘confidence and supply’ – in other words that the government will be able to keep supplying the money to run the country and its budget won’t get voted down. The upshot of that would be another election because votes are traditionally taken at various times through the term of a government including when the government moves its budget each May. The leader of the Opposition always opposes the motion moving the budget and moves a counter that there is no confidence in the government. The Prime Minister needs to out vote this counter from the Opposition or the government fails and the country goes back to the polls.