van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm happy to take a call on this because we're in a situation here where we have a report-back period that is significantly shorter than what would normally be the case for a piece of legislation. In this instance we're talking only seven weeks or so until early November which raises some concerns around whether or not we're going to see the depth of submissions that we might like to see. So from a dairy farming perspective obviously the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act is an important piece of legislation and we're at a stage in the dairy calendar at the moment where we're just coming off the back of the calving season and I do just want to acknowledge all of those wonderful farmers in the mighty Waikato who've put in the hard yards now for some eight or nine weeks through calving and are now finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. That's a hard piece of work. They finally get a bit of a break off the back of that at this time of year and then we are very shortly into the mating season on-farm as well. That generally in my area starts in that first week of October somewhere around 7 to 10 October typically and so then there's another very busy period for six to eight weeks before the bulls then go out and the pressure starts to ease over the summer. That's the typical format we see in dairying in the Waikato and there are slightly different time frames around the rest of the country based on whether they're before or after climatically. So Southland is slightly further behind for example.So on that basis there's some concern around the time frame and whether or not we'll be able to see a sufficient range of submissions by anyone who wishes to submit given the pressures they may be facing on-farm within their own dairy businesses through that period of time and whether or not they'll be able to traverse fully the proposed changes in this legislation. Although at this stage the changes have been supported by 85 percent of Fonterra farmers—all those who voted in December I believe it was for the proposed changes to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act—it is important that we now traverse that in more detail rather than just the vote and actually unpack that in a little bit more detail through the select committee process.Of course I expect other processing companies to submit on this bill because it has significant implications for them whether it be Open Country Dairy or Miraka or Synlait or Tatua or any number of the wonderful dairy companies that we have around New Zealand. They may all have a slightly different opinion on the relevance of this legislation and the appropriateness of it and of course on the timing around that and how their business model fits within that. So on that basis the seven-week report back that we've got is a very tight window of time and we were typically expecting a number of months to be able to traverse that more fully. Often as I'm sure members will be aware during that select committee process there can be requests for additional information or additional submissions from either the people who originally submitted or from other people or businesses—I use the term person" in the context of natural persons as well as different entities within New Zealand who may wish to provide some additional context to back up a submission that's been made by one of the other parties. Whether or not we would have the time frame to do that is seriously in question when we're looking at a very reduced period of only seven weeks compared to the longer period we would typically have. So I think we really need to consider whether seven weeks is appropriate and whether we should be extending that longer to allow as I say for not only the farmers to submit but also the dairy companies. Of course that's only two aspects. There could be any number of other submitters who may wish to engage on this bill and such a tight window reduces significantly the impact to get this right. And of course the purpose of all of this is to ensure that we're able to get the best piece of legislation possible to go forward for the sake of the sector to enable them to operate within that framework as best as possible. This really is an important change that's being proposed here. There are a number of aspects to it and a number of areas that have raised some concerns and we've heard that from speakers on this side of the House. There are aspects that will need to be addressed more fully at the select committee and we'll be testing each of those individual concerns against the submissions made by the range of submitters. So again it's really important that we have the time frame to do that and as we're moving off the back of this week to a two-week parliamentary recess we're looking at only a few parliamentary sitting weeks in which to consider the bill under the proposed time frame that's been put forward by the Minister just now. It's a very short time frame and I think we really do need to reconsider whether we should be pushing that further out. So I think on that basis I will end my contribution. Thank you."