Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): It's great to be able to take a call on the Estimates for 2018/19. I want to cover some of the topical issues and look back since the coalition Government has formed at some of the decisions that the Minister has made that indeed reflect either positively or negatively on the primary sector.Of course we remember back to the campaign when Labour went out and said that they wanted to create all of these stand-alone entities. Remember it? There was food safety and biosecurity and fisheries and forestry. Well when the Minister got his feet under the chair in the first week he received some very chilling advice from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) which said basically you can't smash apart MPI because of the competent authority which means you would lose the status in international markets particularly for biosecurity and for food safety. So he had his first big loss early on.Then he had to go through a face-saving exercise of effectively rebranding MPI which was really costly about $17 million from the primary growth fund. That's what it will cost to rebrand to do the signage and put stickers on doors.Simon O'Connor: How much?Hon NATHAN GUY: About $17 million raided from the research and development Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) fund that's been really successful.So that was the first cross that the Minister has against his name when he set up these four branded units within MPI. I could never see the need for setting up four separate entities for MPI because indeed people work across the different entities and indeed now the different units.What was also really topical when we look back was a very dry summer remember it? We had six regions declared in drought. And then the Crown Irrigation Investments officials were writing to the Minister saying We need to come and see you." Because they had read the Speech from the Throne and they had seen the confidence and supply agreements with New Zealand First and the Greens—as a result of that the Minister was confused. Remember that I was asking him questions in the House here—whether he'd met them whether they'd asked or not—and he had to come down and correct his answers on two occasions. Indeed he hadn't bothered to pick up the phone or his officials hadn't and welcome these Crown Irrigation officials into his office. As it turned out pretty much all of that money has been raided from Crown Irrigation and gone into other things—other things outside the primary sector I must say too. Isn't it ironic that we had such areas six regions in drought and the Government decided to ditch water storage?Hon Members: No way.Hon NATHAN GUY: Yes. And then wait for it—wait for it. The Minister turned up to open an irrigation scheme the day after he'd canned the fund and he said "We're not against water storage; in fact we love it." But wait for it read the fine print—"We're just not going to help fund it." And we know that water storage is hugely important for food security. In fact when we think about climate change it's about climate mitigation as well.Then of course we're waiting for the Primary Growth Partnership review. The Minister any time soon will be receiving a report on the review of PGP. He spent most of his time in Opposition going around and bagging it bagging this fund; quotes like "Oh this is just confetti. They're spraying around money like confetti. It's a slush fund for National's mates." Well I reckon what's going to happen is the PGP report is actually going to be very positive. And we got a little sense of this last night when the Minister spoke at the red meat sector dinner in Napier.Mark Patterson's just sort of smiling over there. He doesn't know quite where to look because he's a bit of a fan of PGP and he was there in the audience last night. He heard the Minister say "By the way to all you processors and farmers in the room I'm going to have to swallow a small mouse." It's not a big dirty old smelly dead rat even though it's a big part of the engine room of the primary sector. He stands up and says "Ah yeah well I'm going to have to swallow this little mouse." What he was meaning was he's received the report and it's pretty good on Primary Growth Partnership he's been and talked to some key players in the Red Meat Profit Partnership—remember that these are all the key players in the engine room of the primary sector who come together to unite to work on a strategy and innovation and all of those really important things reaching right into markets and adding value. Then he said "Yeah well I've had a second thought. Park up all the bagging I've done for the last six years or seven years about PGP. Now I'm probably going to have to support it."What I will commend the Minister on is M. bovis and reaching a decision with industry on that and thank goodness for the Prime Minister coming in and supporting that.I still feel for those farmers that are going through and having their herds culled; it's a terrible time for them. The focus needs to be working constructively as I believe the Government is with rural support trusts who are providing that mental wellness support and the key people in each community ensuring that farming families that are having their herds culled know who to turn to.The other one that's fascinating in the biosecurity space is this brown marmorated stink bug. That is going to be really big when it turns up in New Zealand—but wait it's already turned up. It's already here. Remember we had all those cars coming in from Japan and the Minister for Biosecurity was out there saying "I'm turning the boats around. I'm doing the right thing." Well the reality is that over that period of time or since they've been in Government—the coalition has formed—there's been 324 stink bugs that have arrived in New Zealand; 52 of those were alive.So I'll tell you what's going to happen. These stink bugs are already travelling all over New Zealand in these Japanese-imported vehicles. The stink bug season is coming in 30 days' time. On 1 September is when the stink bug is most prolific. It takes daylight and sunshine and a warming temperature for these bugs to come out. The reason I raise this: when MPI finds one out there—and they've already found them post-border several of them and remember about 12 of them went on a road trip. They were inspected in Auckland; they turned up in Christchurch alive. So they're already here they're waiting. When they have to stand up a response there's no lure they're training a dog; they were talking to the Agcarm conference in confidence last week making sure there's chemical to stand up. There isn't enough chemical in New Zealand currently. So this is going to be a massive thing.Hort produced a report—that rhymes doesn't it?—that said when stink bugs get going in New Zealand it'll cost the horticulture industry about $3 billion and the thing about these terrible stink bugs is that they don't just impact on horticulture crops; they get into households and they—Simeon Brown: Stink.Hon NATHAN GUY: Yeah they literally stink. One person described it to me like your pair of tramping socks that you've had on on a week's expedition that you haven't taken off—that's what they stink like. They get in the nooks and crevices of your house and then they breed and populate and these things are terrible. So we'll be interested in the Minister's comments on what he's going to do in the next couple of months when they turn up.The other one that's really topical is this Primary Sector Council. Now I've been trying to get the minutes from MPI and the Minister and we're getting sort of a bit of a rush-around as to who's holding the minutes. You would think that the Government who wants to be open and transparent—they would just release the minutes the day after the council has met but we're having to do an Official Information Act request and get the minutes and find out what was discussed. Well we heard from the chairman yesterday at the Red Meat Sector Conference Lain Jager who I have a lot of respect for—I'm just not quite sure what the sector is really going to achieve. I think in the first couple of meetings they were getting to know one another and talking about the primary sector. The second meeting I think was putting some of these Post-it notes on a chart and working out what the primary sector means and exports and things. They've got some good people in there but I'm just not sure that they're going to achieve anything. It's all about advising the Minister. Well what's their advice going to be on red meat sector reform? I don't hear anyone in the red meat sector saying they need to be reformed but the Minister was speaking to a couple of hundred people last night at the dinner saying "Oh I'm all set to reform you."Then we move into the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. That's going to be really topical soon in a couple of months because a report's going to come out and then of course there'll be a bill. We'll wait and see. I express my gratitude to John Wilson the outgoing chair of Fonterra who I have a huge amount of respect for and who's standing down because of health reasons. I wish John Monaghan the incoming chair extremely well—the Minister did that as well. But the reality is that Damien O'Connor doesn't like Fonterra. He likes co-ops but he doesn't like Fonterra. So he and his mates over there—Mark Patterson's mates—want to deal to Fonterra. They want to smash the place apart. I heard the Minister talking at a Federated Farmers thing about a month ago where he said "Oh yeah I'll be probably meddling in their constitution as well." So the gloves are going to come off. It's going to be fascinating to watch.Anyway I think it's been a mixed eight or nine months from this Government focusing in on the primary sector."