Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): There's a whole group of people on the National side of the House tonight that would gladly grant the Minister of Agriculture's wish. The Minister said he would like to spend the summer riding his bike through the high country. We would gladly like to take over the Government position and give him all the free time he wants to be able to do that. So what's really interesting tonight is I've actually taken speech No. 4. It's 10 o'clock at night. We're doing things in urgency. We're doing urgency on a bill that describes something that's been a long-term high country value of New Zealand and here we are rushing it through again at 10 o'clock at night under this Government. I almost wish that I'd gone in the next speech No. 6 because I'd really like to hear what Mark Patterson has got to say because I've listened to Minister Eugenie Sage's speech and I've listened to Minister Damien O'Connor's speech and I think about this Government that pretended to be coordinated for so long and actually I don't even think that Minister Sage and Minister O'Connor were talking about the same bill. So it seems to me like you know Minister Sage really wants to take control over this because the Government knows best and we've been hearing about this and forestry and a range of other things tonight. Then Minister O'Connor comes and says Look isn't it wonderful—the sheep and the high country and the merinos?" This is what farmers have been doing for a very long time.This bill makes changes to ensure that Land Information New Zealand will administer Crown pastoral land "in a way that maintains or enhances the ecological landscape cultural heritage and scientific values of the land for present and future generations while providing for ongoing pastoral farming of the land." What does the Government think farmers have been doing all of this time? All this bill is doing is again adding more regulations more restrictions on farmers. Under Crown ownership this land was neglected and consequently eroded and through permanent tenures on the land farmers have been repairing it and tending it for generations now. When I think about some of the quotes and slogans that I'm hearing out there now like "Let's keep moving." I reckon this sounds like we should "Let's keep moving backwards." Right? So we've gone through a stage where farmers have done some fantastic stuff. Do you know the romantic view of the high country? If our visitors come here part of that romantic view is seeing merino sheep on that country because they know that's the culture and the heart of New Zealand. Farmers have the heart for this; a Government does not have a heart for this sort of thing. According to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment public concerns have focused on three issues: the loss of lower altitude ecosystems the impact on landscapes and public access. Now the interesting thing for me is that we go through a whole lot of times where we talk about you know "Farmers are bad for this and farmers are bad for that and farmers are having an effect." Well I can tell you during lockdown when people were in their houses you go out into the landscape and there was very little rubbish. To me the biggest devastation—and we had to come out of lockdown and we need to because we can't stay locked up for ever. But actually sometimes people are our own worst enemy. The rubbish that I'm now starting to see lying around the landscape is devastating. Sometimes we don't get what we wish for. In contrast groups like the High Country Accord are worried about the following issue. The land has to be purchased at a great cost to the taxpayer. It has to be maintained managed for weeds and pests and such work is carried out by the farmer. But now in light of how the Department of Conservation is struggling for funding the fear is that this won't be done. So many times if you look at these significant natural areas on farms and all of the language around that about how this has to be taken over because it has to be protected one of the best things in this country around land protection is the QEII National Trust. There are farmers out there who are putting land in perpetuity and they're looking after it. This whole thing is just absolutely another Government grab as my colleague Jacqui Dean said.Land that's currently used for economic activities will be locked out of use for ever in the merino industry. This is something that will be severely impacted by this move. The merino industry is the successful part of our wool industry and if I've had more feedback than anything else lately it's what are we going to do with the wool industry? We need to pick up the wool industry and we need to get it up and running. We talk about Government procurement. We've heard all the promises about that in the last campaign and it never happened. It absolutely never happened. So merino is a success story. And now we've got a Government that is here putting a bill in place that actually has the potential to damage our merino industry which is actually the part of the wool industry that's extremely successful. So at this point I'm going to conclude my speech by saying we absolutely oppose this bill. It's just absolutely frustrating to think about the regulation the red tape the takeover and everything that this Government's trying to do. Thank you Madam Speaker."