Ewen-Street Ian: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Ewen-Street Ian: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21284] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I would like to address an anomaly that I have picked up in the agriculture supplementary estimates. In 2004 there were two major flood events—one in the Bay of Plenty and one in the lower North Island in the Wanganui-Horowhenua region. The estimates have given $6 million to the Bay of Plenty and over $26 million to the lower North Island for farm restoration. That sounds really good. I applaud the Government for giving that money to farmers. But for farm restoration? Basically that says that we have had those severe storm events the farm has been destroyed or the farming operation has been interrupted in some way or another but here is money so that the farmer can put the farm back to the way it was before the event. That may have been fine back in the days before we were aware of climate change when we could do whatever we liked and be fairly certain that pastoral land would be sustainable in the long term. But Cyclone Bola proved that that was simply not the case—that land use actually plays a major part. If we simply restore pasture to pasture after it has been devastated by a flood we will not stop the same thing from happening again in the future. 
At the time of the floods I implored the Minister to consider the afforestation of marginal lands and he agreed with me. But let us look at the estimates. Forestry encouragement under the estimates has zero dollars. There is absolutely nothing for developing forestry. If we had forests on marginal lands those lands would not slip. Trees actually hold the soil together on the steeper slopes. We have to say that climate change is here to stay. I am not suggesting for one moment that if we plant trees on marginal land those trees will change the climate. Of course they will not. But what they will do is ameliorate the effects of climate change. When we talk about one-in-100-year flood events or storm events we simply have to say that that is no longer the case. We are looking at maybe one-in-10-year events. 
I think the Government should take a much stronger line in terms of climate change factors and think about land use that will mitigate the effect of future events. One of the things that I think we should do is to get a realistic and updated assessment of the erosion susceptibility of soils particularly in hill country. It just makes sense to convert marginal pastoral land use to some other land use. I accept that in the short term farmers who are farming sheep and cattle pastoral farmers simply cannot afford to close up their paddocks and plant trees or allow them to revert to native bush. But we do have to say that those farmers need to be supported in some way so that their land use will not have a detrimental effect on people further downstream. We need to find out what crops—whether trees or other crops—are appropriate to topography to vehicle access to soil type to steepness of slope and all that sort of thing. It makes sense for us to grow trees. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What about hair? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: We could grow hair as well. That would slow down one kind of erosion I suppose. 
One thing that I think we could have done in the supplementary estimates rather than giving money to farmers and telling them to go back and restore their farms was to say farmers had to come up with a plan that would make their farms more sustainable in the longer term. Farmers should have to come up with a management plan for their farms before they get the money. So if the farm has a variety of soil types for argument’s sake the farmer could say the class 7 soils would be put under trees and the higher class soils would be kept for pasture and what have you. That sort of thing is very easy for the Government to do. It is a condition of the farmer receiving the money. Most farmers would simply say that it makes sense. Why does the Government not do that? I do not know. We are not talking about rocket science. It is a simple thing to do to simply put a condition on the money. 
I think it also makes sense to have a public insurance scheme to cover events like the floods. Why does the Earthquake Commission look after residential properties but not farming properties?