Uffindell Sam; Parker DavidSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Mr Chair. I note both Ministers' comments just now and I rise as the horticulture spokesperson for the National Party and have been talking with Horticulture New Zealand a fair bit and also with other stakeholders and there are just three things I wanted to touch on. There's firstly the silt debris which is out there at the moment and quite a lot of the feedback is that they want regional councils to be able to open sites so that then they can deposit that silt. In a lot of cases it's not practical; there's too much of it to plough it into the soil. Whether we can look at any emergency powers to force regional councils to open up those areas. Secondly and I know Simon Court from the ACT Party has been talking about it with the wood and the debris and the slash and all of that. I understand it's extremely complicated but it's really difficult for people who have lost everything aren't going to get any income this year and are facing huge rebuild costs—are they even going to bother cleaning up their orchard if they can't do it in a practical sense? What they've been saying to me is that they would like—with proper operation controls—the ability to put that debris into an area and then at the right time ignite that and get rid of that. And would the Minister look at emergency whatever it may be—emergency legislation or passing it through to enable that to happen in a timely manner—so that they can start moving forward? The third bit is around the funding for these folks. I know the Government has offered $2000 per hectare for orchardists which is a start but we're looking at clean-up costs here at around $40k to $70k per hectare where it's been badly affected and then rebuild of about $200k. So $2k per hectare is nice but it's not viable going forward. And these people they're getting through the emotional trauma the adrenaline's wearing off a bit and they're now thinking Is it even worthwhile me doing this?" We want Hawke's Bay to be a thriving community. We want it to keep those jobs all their ancillary services that run off the back of the apple and pear industry—almost a billion dollars a year in the apple industry. And I would want to hear from the Minister—and I asked Minister O'Connor last week—when we would expect a bigger and frankly a more practical financial package to be announced for those folks.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): On the sediment issue I'm aware that councils are doing their best to create areas that sediment can be moved to. Some of this sediment is actually useful for the councils to rebuild stopbanks because it's a very fine sediment which is mixed with aggregates and compacts well to rehabilitate the flood banks. So I'm not sure whether those decisions have been finalised by the councils. If the councils need assistance from central government to override their own rules in their plans in order to allow quickly sediment-deposition areas for sediment to be stored—for example while it's being used for a stopbank—they can approach us. But I'm not aware of there being any delay occasioned by that. In respect of the woody debris I answered that question. I thought people can already pile up their debris and are and yes some of it's going to have to be burnt in the future. It's not viable to chip it all; although some of it could be chipped perhaps. In respect of the financial assistance the substantial financial assistance that has already been provided is not necessarily the end of the matter but that's being worked through with industry-good organisations through the group that has been chaired by Sir Brian Roche and the relevant Cabinet committee that has been set up to deal with the emergency response."