SpeechTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It's Muller but that's fine. What a great night this is. If I may Mr Speaker the House is unaware that when I arrived in 2014 a certain member of Parliament from Hamilton West was appointed as my mentor. So this is a great day for both of us celebrating his achievement. And as you all can understand looking back over my eight years the arc of my career in no small way is because of the contribution of David Bennett—you know the ups and downs. I thank you sir. But it is great to see you finally acknowledged by this House and esteemed as you are sitting there basking in your bipartisan glory. Can I just spend a moment reflecting on this bill. I do wonder what David Parker and Damien O'Connor must think when they've got to sit and usher this legislation through. I've known these guys for quite some time and actually despite the fact they're on the red team I do respect them. I think they bring a bit of horsepower certainly to their side of politics. But they had to sit back in 2018 when the then Government which they were a critical part of put the original Act into place. All of us on this side of the House said that this will lead to an unintended consequence because essentially you are reaching out to investors that want to spend money in this country saying: We welcome your capital but we really welcome your capital if it's going to go towards farming and if it's going towards forestry. In fact we welcome it so much that we will give you a permissive free pass so you can come in here you can buy up forestry you can buy up sheep and beef farms to put into carbon farming and welcome on in." The irony of the fact that that was promoted by an anti-foreign investment party like New Zealand First is one thing but the double irony from my perspective is that same bill had David Parker and Damien O'Connor standing up over that side of the House extolling its virtues knowing in here because those gentlemen had been around for a little while that what they were putting in place was a public policy nightmare that it would create the incentives for capital investment to roll on in and it did and turn up to the Wairarapa—and I see the newly minted Minister looking down reading his papers as he should. He's a reasonably impressive performer on the red side too but I bet he as a junior backbencher watched the ushering of this going "My goodness me. This is going to play well in Wairarapa. Not!" But he still had to say all the right things and not at the right time saying "This is a fantastic public policy initiative."No it wasn't; it was hopeless. And those of us who actually know a thing or two about how the primary industries work said many times to the Government: "This isn't going to work. Through these incentives you are going to distort the market. You're going to attract capital in a way that is a false economy and you will see sheep and beef farms and other land turn into long-term forestry." and that's exactly what has happened. So guess what! They get rid of the New Zealand First component of their Government and what's the first thing that comes out of Damien O'Connor's and David Parker's sphere? It's: oh actually let's wind this back because actually it's a nonsense. Now they don't say "it's a nonsense." They're not honest with New Zealand saying "Fair cop. Actually what we put forward in the last Parliament was wrong. It's distorted a market. It has created huge pain in the primary sector huge anger in Wairarapa. They'll never forget this as they watch all that beautiful land so much of it turn into green when actually it's better sheep and beef country." But here they are back saying: well actually no it was a public policy mistake and now we're going to rewind it. I guess they get some credit for acknowledging the mistake in the first place. But why aren't you honest with New Zealand? Why didn't you stand up in your speeches and say "Actually we got it wrong. We shouldn't have done it like this. We did but we got it wrong."? Instead we have all this fluff and nonsense and nonsense and 30-second contributions that actually this is part of a long-term plan for the growth of the primary sector and the growth of Forestry New Zealand. Absolute waffle absolute nonsense and New Zealand can see through that at 50 paces.So what does this bill do? Well it does what it should do which is to say that capital that comes into this country that is interested in investing in the primary industry has to follow the same New Zealand test that every other foreign capital has to do. It has to demonstrate that it's actually going to be a benefit to New Zealand Inc. Not some sort "get out of jail free go straight to go" special permissive test that was there previously. It rights a wrong as it should.Now since I seem to be in the mood of handing out some bouquets this evening I do want to acknowledge the contribution of Eugenie Sage. I don't normally find myself nodding to her contributions. But I thought her relatively rational and dispassionate assessment of what went on over the last four years what is indeed included in this legislation and the feedback that the select committee reflected on summarised the changes very well. So I'm not going to go through all of those again. It obviously got unanimous support from the Primary Production Committee. But I do want to conclude with this final message: this Government needed to be honest as opposed to framing this as part of a strategic intent that was their plan all along. They needed to stand up and say: "We were part of something that delivered an outcome for the primary sector that was wrong and that resulted in a distortion which has seen good sheep and beef farms hoovered up by foreign investors to put long-term carbon farming on. It wasn't the right incentive and this is an attempt to fix that wrong and actually get it back to an appropriate balance in terms of the incentives for foreign capital." That's what they should have said and their silence does not do them credit on this issue. Thank you."