Over the weekend over 700 people attended the National Party conference. Key members of my team and I attended. The highlights for me for the weekend were firstly the chance to spend some time with all the other great new candidates from around the country and meet many of their partners, but secondly share experiences and learn from more hard nosed campaigners within the party.

 Additionally were the announcements of key areas of policy. Especially on infrastructure developments. I have personally spent quite some time over the past two years working on this key area of policy for the party and our little policy group of skilled people got a special mention in Bill English’s address for our work. It is great to see the fruits of much of our toil finally freed to the world.  For too long we have as a nation underinvested in the backbone of things that make a modern society, our water, wastewater, energy, roads, communications systems all those big chunky things that we take for granted - until they don’t work or are clogged and congested.  Labour doesn’t understand this and instead wants to invest in things they call social infrastructure. Well explain that to the voter in my Electorate in the morning on Mairehau road trying to get to work on time stuck in traffic I know what they want.

But perhaps the quote of the conference for me was John’s “I believe you can judge how successful a nation is by the way it treats its sick and its old. I am a man of compassion” - how many of the media picked that one up. I get sick of people who time to time try to stick us with a badge that National is not compassionate.  But we must have an economy growing to give people what they want.

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