Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Chair. Well the last speaker the Hon Shane Jones said he enjoyed listening to hearty farmers so here's his opportunity but I would like to go back to the previous speaker Mark Patterson who got up and he said that this is a period of uncertainty for farmers. It's definitely a period of uncertainty and it's not around prices and it's not around weather and it's not around interest rates; it's around a Green - Labour - New Zealand First Government. Right now the period of uncertainty is about the future and if that member was out listening to the people in his electorate he would work that out.I'm looking through this report and I wasn't on the committee but some of the things that stood out for me were the extension clusters and it's been mentioned before—$35.4 million over four years for 2200 farmers. Interestingly noting in here it said clusters in farmers and growers will be set up across New Zealand to share knowledge and advice and then down further we heard Beef and Lamb and DairyNZ have already developed their own extension system. Well those extension systems have been going for years and years and years way back to the 1980s and beyond Mr Patterson—way back probably to the 1960s. But what it says in here and what's quite concerning for me is that however these are based on their industry objectives and may lack information about the Government's objectives. So what are we creating? It's like the industry doesn't know what it's doing so the Government has to come along and tell it how to do better. Well let me tell this Government that the industry's actually done a lot of things without the help of Government—a lot of investment; a lot of time and effort. The other part of this was it says here the director-general told us that a range of extension services already exist. So where was the Minister? Missing in action—doesn't seem to know that the work's already going on.There are the methane targets in the zero carbon bill. The Minister said he had not received any advice on the cost—this is what he told the committee—because he considers it nearly impossible to calculate a long-term projection to 2050. It also says that he'd asked for information about the most accurate model because he's not yet seen a model that he considers reliable. So that to me is really concerning when we've got a bill up there we've got people making submissions and we've got all this talk about where the methane targets should lie—and they've been set pretty heavy and that's one of the main bones of contention. But this is really really interesting: that the Minister hasn't yet seen a model that he considers reliable to do this.The next thing I noticed when I was going through this was the $8.5 million for Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. Well that's great. We need that but this is not a new initiative for this Government. This is another thing: it's good to have some extra funding into it. The member Patterson mentioned genetic engineering and that before around some of the pastures and things and we do need to have that discussion. It's a big discussion that we need to have but you know this is not something new that this Government's developed; this is something that farmers have been working on for a very long time. So please in announcing some of these things don't forget to give farmers and industry organisations the credit for where they've already been.Then I get down to agriculture in the emissions trading scheme and it says here the Minister can see the value from an international trading perspective. Well I can see that other countries will be laughing all the way to the bank if the Minister can see the value from an international trading perspective because the ball will be in the court of all of our trading partners and our farmers will not have anything left to bat with under the current conditions that they're being exposed to.Then we go down to the review of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. Well currently one member's going to be appointed to the Fonterra milk price panel; two had apparently been recommended. Again Government knows best. Every part of this document that I've looked at having not sat on the committee but going through it bit by bit is Government knows best. The agricultural sector doesn't know anything according to this Government and it seems like the industry's not meeting the Government's objectives. Well how about the Government start to think about meeting the industry's objectives and provide some certainty. Thank you.