SpeechIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's with a great deal of interest that I take a call on this the Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. In doing so I want to thank all members of the House for accommodating the Hawke's Bay A & P and the Hastings City Council in respect of this bill because it has a date of 31 March which is critical to the payment of the money which enables the Hawke's Bay A & P to keep going. Without that they'd have had a great deal of difficulty raising money—they'd have had no land no equity and still had to run an organisation. So I just want to thank the House for its consideration of that and allowing this bill to get through all stages tonight—well I hope it does—it's very important for them and very important for the Hawke's Bay.The Governance and Administration Committee considered this bill. It was a pretty simple bill to consider because it was basically well put together. As Penny Simmonds and a number of others noted it had a bit of history in that it came through in almost the exact form for the Southland A & P. And there'd been a number of other A & P societies who have had legislation come through this House in this manner including my own local A & P the Manawatu & West Coast A & P Association who sold their showgrounds to the Palmerston City Council in much the same manner as Hawke's Bay are selling theirs to the Hastings City Council and Invercargill's was similar.So these assets have been built up over hundreds of years interestingly. The interesting thing about this is that almost all the A & P societies in New Zealand all 108 of them were controlled by the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908 which is a pretty prehistoric piece of legislation and a frustration for many of those A & P societies still in existence because they really have to put an Act through Parliament to change the way they operate. And that's necessary these days because we've seen a very big change in the way our small communities and our larger communities operate.In respect of the comments made by the last speaker Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki about having never been to an A & P Show one of the prime roles of A & P Shows is to take basically the rural aspect to the city. One of the absolute critical shows in that respect is the Auckland Easter A & P Show which for years has had a very strong agricultural presence right in the middle of Auckland. The whole aim of that show which became the Royal Easter Show was to enable agriculture to promote itself and the good things it did to the people of Auckland City and it is an opportunity.It was quite interesting tonight because all the speakers have talked quite a bit about A & P Shows and I think it's pretty cool that people understand them and know what they're about. And of course just last week a number of us—including the current Speaker in the Chair the Hon Jacqui Dean—were at the Wānaka show which is an amazing event in the middle of the South Island—Mark Cameron: Crazy.IAN McKELVIE: —a long way from anywhere. But it took us a while to get there didn't it Matt Cameron? But once we got there we were fixed there. And that's the secret of A & Ps: some of them are great and run hugely positive A & P Shows still; some of them are struggling. And the reason some of them are struggling—and that was epitomised in Palmerston North last weekend when on the same weekend as the Wānaka show we had the New Zealand Rural Games in Palmerston North. And I suppose to emphasise the diversity of what shows did—aside from livestock and machinery and those sort of things and the machinery part of those shows of course has to some extent been overtaken by the Field Days that are now run throughout New Zealand. And of course we've got the South Island Agricultural Field Days in a couple of weeks' time in Canterbury. This week—and tomorrow in fact—we've got the Central Districts Field Days starting in Feilding at Manfeild Park and those Field Days will attract some 35000 people through the gate. So they're pretty popular events the Field Days. But of course we have the National Fieldays and the Northland Field Days. The three provincial Field Days are a little bit similar but they have taken a lot of what the A & P Shows used to do away from them.But just very briefly to emphasise the kind of diversity that we have in these things at the rural games they showcase things such as egg throwing. You wouldn't believe it but people can throw an egg almost 100 metres and catch it without breaking it. I don't know whether it was hard-boiled or not but they do—in fact they're not allowed to be hard-boiled. But not only do they have egg throwing they have obviously shearing tree climbing wood chopping and coal shovelling. There's a very nice bloke from the West Coast called Richie Banks who turns up there—and I wouldn't know what age he was Maureen Pugh might know him. But he'd be at least—I'm not going to put an age on him because you'll accuse me of it but he's not young. He's the fastest coal shoveller in New Zealand.Andrew Bayly: What do you mean not young"?IAN McKELVIE: Amazing. Well he's as old as I am Bayly. And of course Curly Troon the gumboot throwing champion of New Zealand all the way from Taihape.But the last event I just want to very quickly talk about—oh! Loader driving. They had a significant loader driving competition there which was really interesting. And they also had what they call the big highlanders I think or the big highland plugs. They had to lift six stones. The lightest was 75 kilograms the heaviest was 150 kilograms. And you can imagine a stone shaped like that 150 kilograms—they had to lift it on to a barrel. The fastest bloke lifted those six stones on to a barrel and they were 10 metres apart in 29 seconds. Pretty extraordinary. But those are the sort of events that we used to see at A & P Shows and that's why I think that they're such an important part of the fabric of New Zealand society.Back to the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds. The Hawke's Bay Showgrounds are probably the most attractive piece of—almost the most attractive piece of Hastings I was going to say but they're are beautiful showgrounds almost right in the middle of Hastings now. I think they're a very special part of the Hawke's Bay fabric. Some of us will remember going there over many years to the showgrounds. And of course shows have changed as I've said earlier but it's got a large part of the history of Hawke's Bay contained within that showgrounds. Some of the best-known families in Hawke's Bay have been associated with it families such as the Nelson family who were early meat exporters in the Hawke's Bay—still farming in the Hawke's Bay many of that family. It also adjoins a very large marae the Waipatu marae right next door—in fact it almost surrounds it. And of course I can't help but mention just right across the road is the Hawke's Bay Polo Club where all the very important decisions are made in the Hawke's Bay. But it is a pretty special part of the fabric of New Zealand history.I think the real concern or the proper concern—but I think the interesting issue will be for Hawke's Bay to ensure that they invest this money wisely because we have seen I guess cases in the past in New Zealand where all sorts of organisations from churches which are the subject of the next bill to any number of other voluntary community organisations who have sold assets like this and not retained the asset as well as they might have. We even see the odd bill coming through here which enables—and we had one with respect to the New Plymouth District just last week where those funds need to be protected. So you would have to hope that the Hawke's Bay A & P Society will as a result of this sale put in place a very strong management of their $7.1-odd million.The other interesting thing about the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds is it's protected from building on effectively. I'm not sure what the conditions of that thing are but Anna Lorck will know. But they can't build on that land. It's I suppose Class I agricultural land or something like that. They've opted to retain I think two hectares of that land as well. So they will still have not only the cash and the right to use that showgrounds in perpetuity but they will also have a couple of hectares of land which they've retained.The challenge for our A & Ps is that they have these assets and they have a few activities. Almost all of those activities are run by volunteers so it's quite testing for those voluntary organisations to get full value from those assets hence the need to sell them and have them used by the community and managed by the community. As everyone in this House will know running a couple of soccer pitches doesn't make much money. And so whatever you do on that are community-based activities and they need to be supported by our local councils whether we like it or not because there's neither the cash nor the ability for most of our community-based organisations to play an equitable rent that would enable these things to become commercial. One would hope this doesn't go down the path that so many have and try to commercialise itself to that extent in the future because that will be very challenging for it.So I think the bill is exciting for Hawke's Bay. In fact I've met most of the presidents of Hawke's Bay for the last few years—quite a quite a number of them—but Paul Beamish the current president of the Hawke's Bay A & P Society met with me over the Christmas period to explain the urgency of this. And we had one submitter who turned up in person and that was the Hawke's Bay A & P Society themselves. So that pretty much sums it up. I think it's one of those things we do in this Parliament—quite important very important for the local community. And so I want to congratulate the—well I was going to say all the Hawke's Bay MPs for encouraging this to get through Parliament particularly the Hon Meka Whaitiri. So thank you Madam Speaker that's my lot."