Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Mr Speaker. As I rise to give my contribution to the debate I too will add my sincere condolences to the families who have been caught up in this dreadful tragedy of having to live with the pain of loss and the pain of not yet quite knowing the scale of the loss. That is an incredibly difficult situation that people—in many cases visitors to our country—have found themselves in. I acknowledge all those who are part of the comfort that the collective Aotearoa are wrapping around these people—thank you for your efforts.Can I also make a small comment to the community of Whakatāne. I come from Papamoa Tauranga and I know that you will have been deeply impacted by this because Whakaari / White Island is as precious a jewel for you as Mauao Mount Maunganui is for us. So when something like this happens on your special taonga it really does cut quite deep and I just want to acknowledge that.The general debate is a time where you critique a Government and I do wish to do that on behalf of the 23000 farming families that as the National Party spokesperson for agriculture I have a great privilege to seek to represent. The Prime Minister at the start of the year said that this was going to be the year of delivery. Well for those 23000 farmers it feels like the year of the kick in the guts. You step through the policy framework and the policy solutions that this Government put on the table with a particular focus on rural New Zealand during the course of this year. First up was the capital gains tax. Now yes eventually that got put back in the box but you look at what was in that document. There was a capital gains tax a water tax a fertiliser tax a nutrient tax. It was a clear direction of travel; a clear view around where this Government frames and puts rural New Zealand in terms of its import and it is way down the bottom of the list.Following that we then had these significant impacts and changes around how we approach climate change from an agriculture perspective. This Government trumpets the fact that they have reached agreement with the sector leaders around climate change. The way they frame it up is that success in that context is that they've co-designed a tax that they can tax the most emissions-efficient food producers in the world that somehow if they reach that position in 2025 that's a success. Well that is a complete failure from our perspective. It is weak public policy thinking. The actual way you make a difference is to work with the sector to firstly measure it then manage it invest in innovation and technology to come up with tools to mitigate and then—from our perspective—you will see the market respond as it always does with farmers responding to the tools that they have at their disposal. But to think that the future in terms of climate change adaptation is a function of tax talks to the narrowness that this Government brings to these critical debates.And then you move on to the fundamental issue that is confronting rural New Zealand at the moment and this is significant land use change from pasture to forestry; huge numbers. The Government doesn't have the data; they only have the overseas investment data. They've opened the door to foreign investment and closed it to every other aspect of rural New Zealand unless you want to buy a farm to put into forests or you want to buy a forest. It is a distortion and it's creating massive challenges in rural New Zealand.Then you look at the water reforms. No economic analysis. No social analysis. They put the—in their mind—leading scientists in a room and say Your job is simply to come up with what you think water quality looks like from a set of values and that's what we will take to the country." No sense at all of the doability of it. No partnership with farmers. No actually sitting with communities who have to grapple with the trade-off of values between economic social ambition and environmental outcomes—none of that put was in the paper at all. It was just a David Parker blunt instrument to really make a signal that they see from this Government's perspective that they believe the agriculture industries have their best days behind them. It has been a theme that has stuck with the Labour Government for 20 or 30 years. They want to diversify the economy rapidly away from agribusiness. Well on this side of the House we understand farmers we understand the struggles they do every day to deliver for their family deliver for their community deliver for the country and deliver for the environment. It's about time that was celebrated as opposed to constantly condemned by that lot on the other side."