Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koe Madam Deputy Speaker. It is my pleasure to stand and speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). I speak today for the first time on this bill as my colleague Mark Patterson is unable to be here today following a family tragedy. So I will take this call on his behalf. Thank you for your time here today in the House.I'm not familiar so much with the dairy industry other than my short time as a 15-year-old as a foster child on a dairy farm. I did spend some time in the herringbone milking shed learning how to dodge as you run from one end of the shed to the other in your pair of overalls hopefully not getting—Rt Hon David Carter: Keeping a hat on.JENNY MARCROFT: And the hat absolutely with a wide brim as well. So that is a particular love I have from my childhood—those memories of those cold freezing mornings in the cowshed where I did actually learn how to milk by hand. I might not be the cavalry coming in from New Zealand First on this particular reading but I perhaps am the dairy maid and so am able to speak on this with some hands-on experience so to speak.New Zealand First will support this bill as we have all the way through the readings in the House. We support this bill because it will prevent the expiry in May 2018 of certain provisions in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) that regulate the South Island's dairy industry. When I looked at the purpose of this bill it aims to prevent that expiry of the certain provisions in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001 which creates a process for periodic reviews of competition in the dairy industry and to provide certainty for the dairy industry about the regulatory regime.Certainty is one of the things that farmers don't have a heck of a lot of. Certainty is something they would like more of I am sure. They don't have certainty in the weather. All seasons can blow across a day especially when it's haymaking season. Certainty in milksolid prices—they would obviously like to have more of those. So this bill will supply our dairy farmers and particularly those in the South Island with more certainty and that is a very good thing.This bill will give these farmers certainty around the regulatory environment they're working in now while making sure we don't jump the gun and make rash changes to other legislation. We would like to ensure that our dairy industry continues to thrive. That is very important for us and it is very important for our economy. So that our farmers too get a fair go we need to take a strategic approach.This is a very important issue for our primary sector. It's important for our South Island dairy farmers. It's important for all of our dairy farmers and their contribution to the primary industry and how important that is for all of us. So I'd like to thank the Minister the Hon Damien O'Connor for bringing certainty to this sector. The dairy industry and Fonterra is a valuable institution a valuable business and it provides certainty that milk will get picked up from the gates as well.I'd like to just make mention of my pāpā Manuera Tohu. In his younger days as a young man he had a job as a tanker driver picking up the cream cans in Dargaville. He told a lot of stories to us about how much he enjoyed that job getting those cans from the gates of the early-days dairy farmers in the 50s and how often he may in fact have picked up a kid running to school who'd had to milk the cows by hand put out the cream cans and get themselves 7 miles down the road in bare feet to school.I've perhaps exhausted my family tales of my experience in the dairy industry for now and so thank you for allowing me to do so. I would just like to reiterate New Zealand First's support of this bill. I thank the Minister and all the supporting partners of this Government. Kia ora koutou.