Kung He Fat Choy, Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Year of the Ox to everybody. Welcome to our Parliamentary Chinese New Year celebrations.

Warm greetings to your Excellency Governor General Anand Satyanand, Prime Minister Hon John Key, my fellow Ministers, Ambassador Zhang Limin, Mayors Meng Foon and Peter Tennant, who have both travelled a long way to be here today, Party leaders, MPs and the representatives of our Chinese sister cities.

Also, a warm welcome to the elected local government representatives of Chinese descent, Justices of the Peace of Chinese descent, honours recipients, leaders of the Chinese business community, members of the Chinese Poll Tax Trust Committee, chairs of Chinese non-profit social and sporting organisations, chairs of China friendship societies, New Zealand Chinese Business Chamber chairman Mr Terry Yang and his 80 guests.

It is truly wonderful that you could join me here this evening to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Ox.

We live in a troubled world at the moment, with many of our friends and families within the global community facing great crisis and adversity, but by working together with the various communities within New Zealand, we can remain strong through unity.

In Chinese the term "Crisis" means risk and opportunities and in New Zealand we have been blessed with a Prime Minister born under the sign of the Ox who - with all our help - is well positioned to steer this country through this challenging time.

Those born under the Year of the Ox are said to be leaders, dependable, inspiring and can endure pain without complaint - all attributes possessed by Prime Minister John Key.

After all, at the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations the Honourable John Key fell and broke his arm.

Then, rather than seeing his broken arm as a risk, our Prime Minister saw it as an opportunity and auctioned off his cast to raise money for the Fred Hollows Foundation, making $18,500 that will go towards helping restore sight in the Solomon Islands.

Tonight's celebrations here in the beautiful Banquet Hall serve as a sign of a new direction of  your Government to engage with Chinese and other ethnic communities for the betterment of New Zealand.

I want to assure you all that your new government has brought with it a new vision of engagement in substance.

Our vision is to ensure that New Zealand is a place where all ethnic communities - including Chinese - will play a part in the decision making of this country.

This will be demonstrated later this evening by the Chinese Business Forum, which has been co-ordinated by the New Zealand Chinese Business Chamber to give successful business people chance to offer their ideas and proposals to help lift the current economic situation in New Zealand.

This process will be repeated time and time again with members of all ethnic communities during the Year of the Ox to address issues affecting our country, such as the economy, health and law and order.

For far too long the role of our ethnic communities here in New Zealand has been one of a passive bystander in the decision making of this great nation and this must change if we are to come together to build a brighter tomorrow.

The Golden Ox year brings with it a clear message that Chinese and ethnic communities will no longer confine their aspirations to themselves and their families, but will share them towards the betterment of New Zealand - where we are one nation, many people with shared values.

Again, welcome to you all and thank you for joining us in Parliament to celebrate the year of the Golden Ox.