Nash StuartHon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Look it's my pleasure to take a call on this. Let me run through a couple of things that the last member has just talked about. But first of all let me say it's an absolute pleasure to have a new Minister of Agriculture who understands how this country actually works. That last member actually highlighted—I don't know if he did it on purpose but he actually highlighted what was wrong with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and it's why we've made the changes we've made.So I look through the review of MPI OK and what do I see? I see a whole lot of dairying. I see about two paragraphs on forestry. And where's the fisheries? There is nothing in there on MPI about fisheries at all which is why we have said we need to change things. We need to change the way things are done which is why we split forestry out. I see in the report it says that it's business as usual. They're planting 50 million trees for the 50000 hectares that have been harvested. Well it's not about 50000 hectares that have been harvested; we need to plant substantially more trees not only to meet our carbon liabilities but also the environment. In Hawke's Bay alone—and the former Mayor of Hastings District Council will know this—we have identified 250000 hectares in Hawke's Bay alone that needs replanting. Ten million tonnes of sediment every year goes into Hawke's Bay from land that is not suitable for farmland or that was cleared once upon the time. And MPI says it's 50000 hectares across the country—business as usual? The problem is there was no business. There was nothing.I went to two forestry conferences during the election campaign—two forestry conferences—where all the industry leaders were and at one forestry conference there was no one from MPI. At the second forestry conference there was two. There were more people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the forestry conference than there were from MPI which is why the Minister in his wisdom has said Let's split out forestry let's split out fisheries let's split out food safety to make sure they get the attention that they deserve." All credit to Minister Damien O'Connor because he knows how the rural sector works and that's the irony isn't it? That's the irony. They're supposed to be the party of farmers and yet they completely did over the primary industries sector.And when I hear the member say "Surely there's a moral obligation to build these dams"—surely there's a moral obligation to take $100 million of taxpayer money and build the dams—well my personal view is we've actually got a moral obligation to invest taxpayers' money in a way that is going to add significant value. How about a hospital here? How about a hospital? How about our schools? How about our houses? How about our police officers? How about the things that are going to keep our communities safe and health and well-being instead of a dam? Hawkes' Bay's a classic case. So we talked about building a dam. Crown Irrigation Investments was going to put some money into it TrustPower walked away because the return was just terrible—they couldn't make it work. So what we were going to do was ask ratepayers—150000 ratepayers—to subsidise a capital gain for 150 farmers. Now I tend to agree with the Minister of Agriculture when he said that if it can work off its own bat then absolutely—we are not a party that is against water storage for goodness' sake! In fact we're all for water storage if the farmers can make it work themselves. Why should we provide a whole lot of subsidy? Why should we provide subsidies when our hospitals are mouldy and our schools are falling down and we're under-resourced in the police sector?Tim van de Molen: Embarrassing.Hon STUART NASH: That is totally embarrassing—totally embarrassing. You're dead right sir. You're dead right. This is why when I have a look at this—I read the report on the Overseas Investment Office. Goodness me—18 months ago they created an enforcement team. Why didn't they do this nine years ago? We knew—we knew—there were foreign investors coming over here making promises in order to get the consent to buy the land and they were just not living up to the promises they had made. They were just not meeting the promises they were making. So they created an enforcement team 18 months ago. It's a bit late. It's a bit late. Finally what we're going to do with the Overseas Investment Office is first of all resource it in a way that means it can make meaningful decisions and then ensure that people who come over here can meet the promises they make. I mean thank goodness it's a whole new chapter. Thank goodness this is the last time we'll be reading about what happened under a National Government. Next time there will be a whole lot of really good stories. I congratulate the Minister. It's fantastic."