Dean JacquiGENERAL DEBATEDebate resumed.Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Mr Speaker thank you very much and thank you for this first opportunity to speak in the House in the New Year. Gee it's great to be back and gee it is great to be a member of the National Party caucus as we go into 2018 refreshed encouraged and ready to hold this Government to account.It's been a great summer for all of us; not so great for some of us in rural New Zealand and that is going to be the subject of my intervention today. It seems to me that the current Government has asserted this Pollyanna-ish" attitude where all is wonderful all is rosy. Of course they are promising the world they're congratulating themselves on what a great job they've done already when the reality is far from so. All they've done is announced a couple of inquiries and failed to plant any trees whatsoever despite some big promises. And yet in rural New Zealand there are dark clouds. Those dark clouds are because of current Government policies which they are wanting to foist on rural New Zealand as well as the rest of the New Zealand economy.There is a reason for four or five or six drops in business confidence in New Zealand. It is not just a blip because business doesn't like the change of Government. No it can't be explained away so simply. It is because of this Government—and the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway said it just now—that National is worried about jobs. Yes we are. We are worried about jobs. Business confidence is lowering. The regions are worried about employment and getting workers and rural New Zealand shares the same fears.But it's not just this Government's industrial relations policies; it is also this Government's approach to water storage. Just yesterday the Minister of Agriculture declared a medium-sized drought in parts of Southland Otago and other parts of New Zealand. Of course to the city slickers over the other side of the House that probably means very little. Well I'll tell you what it means to rural New Zealand and to those of us who represent real communities in rural New Zealand: what it means is that farmers and rural communities are under extreme stress and while they are well supported by the rural support trust which is a benefit that comes out of declaring a drought that support can go only so far.This Government and its support partners who've made much of the impacts of climate change on New Zealand's climate are completely at odds with their policy of not supporting future irrigation and water storage initiatives. So on the one hand we have a climate that's changing. It's going to get hotter in Central Otago; there's going to be more summer—and in other parts of New Zealand. It is going to be harder for farmers and rural communities to make a living and yet on the other hand we have the Green Party New Zealand First and Labour who have said that there is no commitment to continue supporting rural New Zealand in water storage initiatives.So what's that going to mean? Well first of all at its simplest form it means a loss of confidence for rural New Zealand across a number of interests. It's not just dairy farming the pet hate of the Greens. It's not just dairy farming; it's viticulture it's agriculture and it's fruit growing. There are a number of industries who if they don't get supported by this next Government into water storage initiatives will simply go out of business.The climate is changing. It's getting hotter. We need water storage. So you can but wonder at the "Pollyanna-ish" attitude of this Government who on the one hand cry crocodile tears about climate change and then on the other do the very thing that farmers don't need to support them and that is call a halt to irrigation because for some reason they cannot see past their own ideology into supporting that very thing that will not only will enhance the environment enhance water quality—it's been shown to do so—but support that very part of the New Zealand economy that is productive. Well this party does support rural communities."