Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well I will address the Prime Minister's statement shortly but I also want to acknowledge all of the people who have been badly affected by the cyclone and the heavy rainfall event in Auckland. But I particularly want to focus on the wine industry which is where I came from before entering into Parliament and acknowledge all of those people who have lost their vineyards—all that work that they put in—or lost their crops. They've gone right throughout the year just to get to harvest and then have it all taken from them. That's a very tough and bitter pill to swallow and just kia kaha to all of those people.I have to also say hats off to the Restaurant Association and New Zealand Winegrowers who have put a programme together where you all—Madam Speaker and everyone else—can do something to help by going to a restaurant in Cooking up a Storm on 20 March. The proceeds from you dining with a two-course meal goes to the cyclone relief and to those in the hospitality sector in those affected areas. I think that's something tangible that we can all do—we all have to eat and you might as well spend your money when it's going to such a good cause. And well done to those wineries that have supported by giving wine and other suppliers who have given their supplies to those restaurants to be able to run that programme. I think it's a fantastic programme and please let's all get in behind that and do something tangible to help them.That said vintage is getting under way in Marlborough now and the fruit coming in is pretty good so things are starting to move. But despite what the Prime Minister said in his statement there are significant issues out there. A lot of them are really self-inflicted by really slow policy adjustments to a changing situation. Any of the tourism businesses I go into in my electorate—and there are many—are struggling. They're not struggling because they haven't got customers; they've got plenty of customers—they don't have staff. This has been talked about for months. My colleague Erica Stanford has been coming up with a really good policy: what could and should have been done months ago and it hasn't been. We're paying a very dear price for that now with restaurants not opening at night or not opening during the day or having a day off when they would normally be open because they simply don't have the staff; they don't want to exhaust the staff they do have and not give the level of service that they would like to give. So that is a really simple solution that could and should have been put in place very early on but wasn't. These things have to be acted on quickly and ahead of the game not afterwards. Unfortunately we have a history of that.Another issue that's causing significant problems in my electorate and for a lot of people around New Zealand is the ferries are not running at the moment reliably. I spoke to KiwiRail this morning and I've got a fantastic contact there who very generously gave me a rundown on what's happening. We have got old ferries in the Interislander fleet which have had a significant run of breakdowns that have effectively helped Michael Wood out with his pothole programme that he's got rolling them out all over the country. Now we have Cook Strait as the biggest pothole on State Highway 1. We can't get trucks across there. We can't get passengers across there. We have got a significant issue there which is holding up our economy. I think it's just one of those other things that could have been got in front of years ago and hasn't been.Bluebridge have also unfortunately had the same run of issues or different issues of their ferries also not being able to run reliably. It has caused a significant issue and I think that we should acknowledge that it's been a massive impost on our economic activity. Those costs are going to really come home to roost for a lot of companies around New Zealand and they've slowed up a whole lot of other activity.So just to finish off I'd like to please remind everyone again Cooking up a Storm on 20 March. Have a good night out and put your hands in your pocket to help—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member's time is up.