Cameron MarkMARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. Finally the day has arrived. Industry and industry partners have weighed in on He Waka Eke Noa and what it will ultimately mean for the rural sector as a primary industry family. The rural sector is asking itself how it will reconcile the hardest and most difficult piece of legislation the sector has faced in decades. Will it be a handbrake or will it be an opportunity? New Zealand farmers are the most emissions-friendly farmers in the world. How many farmers I ask will be financially viable with this proposal? After today's announcement will productivity fall? Will the proposals push productivity and exacerbate the potentiality for emissions leakage potentially further exacerbating the problem of global change and effects to the environment. Ultimately there is a risk it could make the New Zealand economy poorer.Now I'm sure everyone here is aware and accepts there as a cost of living crisis that we are all absolutely having to deal with. The Government and its industry partners announced a pricing structure for on-farm emissions—a new direction of travel we as farmers are told. We're going to be part of this emissions pricing scheme. And we are all aware here on the right side of the House that the Government was hell-bent on forcing farmers into some sort of emissions pricing structure. We were the first nation in the world to force its farmers to do so and by virtue risk potentially jeopardising productivity. The proponents of the programme have always acknowledged that New Zealand emissions as generated as part of our primary sector had to be mitigated. And look we as farmers are acutely aware of that and it's incumbent upon us to do the right thing. But when I am reconciling the numbers—and I hear it all the time that we're the highest emissions per capita of most countries in the world—it makes sense of the fact we feed 40 million people.Now to contextualise the problem that we're all facing the food and fibre sector accounts for 82 percent of our trade 11.2 percent of our GDP. It's absolutely monumental. ACT has always said we've got to have a process where technology is in front of a tax that all considerations must be given to science—not this hyperbole that routinely we seem to be having to deal with. A Government and stakeholder and farmer engagement and reconciliation to the problems we know we're going to be faced with a farm levy. Arguably it's the lesser of two evils. Farmers often felt jilted in the process and it was disappointing to hear that the Government was a co-author to the narrative and yet it was not vested in being a co-signatory to the outcome. Moreover half the conversation was missing. I'm a farmer. I'm acutely aware that we're having to have conversations about on-farm sequestration. What does it ultimately look like? Short-term long-term carbon sequestration by soil. None of those conversations were being had with any degree of honesty. When I challenged James Shaw in this House about what technology was available to help farmers he wasn't privy to the fact that $200 million hadn't created anything in my world in the world of farmers. And that was Bovaer had sat on the desk of the Environmental Protection Authority for 13 months. We need honest dialogue and it's got to be genuine. What other technologies is this Government slow-walking in this process? ACT absolutely believes this is a technology before tax. The fundamental reality is that New Zealand farmers and I am one are the best bloody farmers in the world. We will absolutely find the technology to mitigate our emissions if we have the liberalisation of regulations to allow us to do it.There are millions of hectares in New Zealand being farmed by the best farmers in the world. ACT is here we will always be listening to rural New Zealand. We are the number one party that supports rural New Zealand and farming communities. Thank you Mr Speaker.