Simon Bridges National MP simonbridges.co.nz

One of the real highlights in the annual social calendar for me is the BNZ Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Awards.

Held at Baypark, it is always an amazing night and last Friday was no exception.

This year's theme was Cluedo and the stage was decked out as a library with well-known TV and radio personality Te Radar, assisted by Miss Scarlet, doing a terrific job as MC.

Everyone entered into the spirit of the evening and most were costumed Cluedo style.

Apart from the great fun, the other reason I love the night is because it celebrates local success that is vital to our country's future.

Tauranga has a strong exporting culture, nurtured by ExportNZ. As I said at the event, our exporters are heroes who help us re-balance our economy and pay for what we need as a nation.

Hearty congratulations to the five award winners: Powersmart Solar, Doherty Engineered Attachments, Hemi Rolleston, Kay Rogers and Bluelab Corporation. You are all leaders and innovators succeeding in a difficult global environment.

Setting targets for better public services

Delivering better public services to New Zealanders, within tight financial constraints, is one of the National-led Government's key priorities for this term.

That's why the Prime Minister announced specific targets this week, as part of our plan to build a brighter future for you and your family.

We've outlined 10 challenging results and their related targets to get further traction on difficult issues such as reducing crime, reducing long-term welfare dependency, and reducing educational underachievement.

Some of these targets are very aspirational; in fact, some of them will be extremely difficult and demanding to achieve.

We want to see our Government agencies pulling together with a very strong focus on delivering results that make a difference.

We want to see our social agencies working closely to support long-term beneficiaries into work and to protect vulnerable children.

We are also making it easier for all New Zealanders to interact with Government.

Over the next five years we aim to reduce the number of people on working-age benefit for more than 12 months by 30 per cent, or more than 20,000 people; reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever by two-thirds; and reduce the violent crime rate by 20 per cent.

We've already seen some good progress, which gives us some confidence about achieving better results.

In the justice sector, where justice, corrections, and police are working together we can see the effects already. We have declining crime rates, and by the end of this year we'll actually be closing prisons, and that will be a significant saving.

That's why we want to extend that approach across other sectors, so we are giving agencies more tools to achieve these results, and there is a programme of legislative change coming through the system to the State Sector Act, the Public Finance Act, and the Crown Entities Act.

The National-led Government makes no apology for having high expectations in wanting New Zealanders to get the best out of their public services.

These changes are about setting specific and measurable targets to get results from the services that matter most to you and your family.

Together, these changes are a big shift – a shift towards better results that matter to New Zealanders.