Kuriger Barbara; Salesa JennyBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. I too this afternoon would like to acknowledge those who have had a really traumatic beginning to 2023—those who have lost family friends and homes. It's been a very tough time for many people and we in Taranaki - King Country have been relatively unscathed in all of this although I do want to make mention of the people in central Te Kūiti who back in the stage where Auckland was flooding in the early stages actually also had a state of emergency. So it's been a very rough time for a lot of people.In the Prime Minister's statement the Prime Minister said We've got to build back better we've got to build back safer and we've got to build back smarter." I as the conservation spokesperson am spending a lot of time—as many people are across the House in the Environment Committee—looking at the replacement legislation proposed for the Resource Management Act. It's been a lot like working in real time because as we're talking about how we build back better and how we should do things in the future and the submissions that we're hearing from people who have been through a lot—it's like actually doing legislation in real time because normally you know we're a little bit removed from what's happening at the particular point in time but in this situation we're not.We've seen a lot over the last little while on electricity and connectivity and the effects on our roads going out during times of these cyclones. I have to say that actually the roads weren't good before. The Prime Minister said "Business as usual won't work anymore. We have to accept that … additional investment is going to be required". But the other thing the Prime Minister said is that these people "are going to need to innovate … we will need to innovate and [we will need to] do things differently." Well I put it to you that actually to build roads we are going to need metal; to build bridges and connectivity and all of those things we're going to need steel; and we're not going to do it without the good use of our own natural resources. Because at the end of the day if we can't grow it and we can't dig it then we aren't going to have it because there's not many things in this world that currently exist that help us build our infrastructure without those things. Also it doesn't help us feed people and I also acknowledge those people that have lost fruit trees and orchards and vegetable plots because that hasn't been easy either.So I am looking at a lot of things in conservation now—as the new spokesperson looking at biodiversity looking after the animals and the plants—and I dare say we've lost a lot of that on the East Coast and up in Tai Rāwhiti and Northland and Auckland and various other places. But we shouldn't look at rebuilding our future as an either/or. It's not going to be "Should we use our natural resources or should we just do conservation?"—we have to actually use both. It's an "and/and" and unless we get that balance and circle right of the environment the social factors and the economic factors all working in tandem we are not going to build back better. In fact if we don't actually think about all of those things we're not going to be able to build back at all.So I have no doubt in the floods recently that we probably have lost a lot of possums and stoats and rats and that's a good thing. But we've also lost a lot of other farm animals—you know indigenous biodiversity. And just even talking to people from Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust: the hard work that people have put in to those areas on their land in perpetuity—a lot of that's been washed away in the floods as well as the fences and the extent of that is not even currently known.So the Prime Minister said "The worthy will sometimes have to make way for the urgent." but when we actually live our lives as humans and we look at the population of New Zealand and the needs that we have we need to take many things into consideration. We've done it before as a country and we did it through the Christchurch earthquakes and I was down there recently and a lot of things have been built back better but they haven't been built back without resources and we've got lots of good resources that we can use and we should do that looking forward. We will build back better but we are going to have to agree on some ways forward. So thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Anna Lorck for five minutes.Maureen Pugh: Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I'm sorry Anna. Sorry. The split call was for National—she hasn't taken her five minutes. The next call is Maureen Pugh."