The North had a strong sheep and beef industry, but seven of every 10 animals were slaughtered south of the Auckland Harbour bridge.
"So what happened to all the freezing works? All the towns that used to be maintained by an industry like that?" he asked. The tourism industry wasn't faring any better.
"Where's the infrastructure? When someone comes down the cycleway with a backpack on, does it look like it's worth millions of dollars for a hotel? Do you think that person represents real wealth coming your way?
"When most of you were children, there were all sorts of timber companies up here, all sorts of operations to do with the meat works," he added.
"We had dairy factories all over the place, which you still see in Scandinavia and Switzerland. They're much more difficult countries to farm than ours, yet they've still got their factories. We haven't got ours. Why? Because those geniuses from the free market experiment said 'We have to be really big - $45 million more to the dairy farmers in the North.'
"And as the New Zealand dollar goes up, that's less and less money for New Zealanders and less and less money for the rural towns.
"When I was young, this place used to be thriving. There used to be a rail car up here. A modern, up-to-date rail car, and it came all the way up here. And trains used to run up here. Now they tell you that trains are out of date.
"Not so many years ago the railways in New Zealand made a multimillion-dollar profit. Now you get people like Mr Joyce and Mr Key coming up here and saying railways is not a financial proposition."
He reminded his audience of the National Party's 2008 promise to make streets and homes safer. The national clearance rate for burglaries was now 10 per cent, meaning nine out of 10 burglaries went unresolved. In Northland the clearance rate was 3 per cent.
"That screams a lack of police resourcing. You've got 22 police stations in the North, in this electorate, and on any given night 15 haven't got anybody there. So if you make a phone call it's going all the way to Auckland. Our police are dramatically under-resourced.
"Kaitaia is now said to be the murder capital of New Zealand. A lot of people in Kaitaia aren't really happy about that, but it happened. So what happened in Parliament?
On the Thursday night we asked, 'What on Earth are you doing with police resources in the North? You haven't kept the numbers up. You've got 15 out of 22 stations with nobody on overnight. Where is your law and order?'
"Minister Collins claimed that she'd gone to Kaitaia recently and they'd never raised an issue with policing.
She did not go to Kaitaia. She went to the police station in Kerikeri, but not an official visit. She was there for a wedding, and decided to walk into the 'cop shop' to say hello. She never went near Kaitaia."
Ms Collins denied at 10am on the Thursday that there was an issue. By 4pm four new police officers were ordered for the Far North. By Tuesday the next week 12 more officers had been appointed.
"That tells you that if you make a lot of noise and get stuck in you might get something in response. But you won't get anything from someone who's just a yes person and wants to make life easy for the Cabinet. If we want safer communities we need to take action."
