Dear John,

A week on from the Election, I greet you with a hearty ‘’thank you” to the 31,532 voters in Papakura who voted in the 2023 General Election. You are to be commended for exercising your right to decide who your Member of Parliament is and which political party forms the next government of New Zealand.

I am humbled and extremely pleased to have received the majority vote of 18,858(as at 16-10-2023), for the Electorate of Papakura and to be confirmed as your Member of Parliament for another three years. I acknowledge everyone who voted for hope and put their trust in National.

I am very grateful to my wonderful Campaign team led by Chair Russell Bennison and the Papakura National party chair Adrienne O’Connor who despite a fractured shoulder carried on organising so that on all fronts we delivered a slick and smooth campaign. To all the volunteers who had hoardings on their properties or participated in putting them up and taking them down, thank you so much it really made a difference. To everyone who scrutineered or baked or drove or delivered flyers or telephoned or came door knocking or made donations, my many thanks for your valued support.

As your Member of Parliament whether you voted or not, I promise to serve you to the best of my ability and to provide energy and experience to make Papakura an even better place to live, work, be educated, entertained and relax in.

As you know one of the first things on my list for the Electorate is Mill Road and I will be advocating for an early start to this project as well as other local transport and infrastructure initiatives.

My priorities also include supporting the reduction of tax to help middle income families cope with the cost of living and measures to bring down the everyday cost of necessities like food and fuel.

I will be supporting bringing back targets for reducing hospital waiting times for emergency departments and for patients seeing specialists and getting operations.

I will be supporting our education policies including getting children back into school, getting them reading for an hour daily and writing and doing maths for an hour every day.

During the year, it has been my pleasure to meet constituents in Papakura’s suburban streets and rural areas. I have visited and met many business owners in the town centres across the Electorate too.

It will be good to meet more of you at the upcoming Clevedon A&P Show now in its 114th year, on 4 and 5 November at 107 Monument Road, Clevedon.

At the moment and until 3 November when the special votes are all counted, Chris Luxon is the Prime Minister Designate and Chris Hipkins remains the Prime Minister and we are in a care-taker situation so all decisions have to be taken with consultation.

There will be a by-election in Port Waikato at the end of November which Andrew Bayly will likely win but it all adds to a slight uncertainty.

This situation will not stop me and my National colleagues from making good our promise to “Get New Zealand Back on Track”. It is a challenge that we in a National-led government accept and we will do our best to achieve.

Many thanks again for your support in the General Election 2023,
Judith