Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): First of all I want to acknowledge the Hon Damien O'Connor. When we first came in I think this was one of the first pieces of legislation that we had to address pretty swiftly because there were regulations that were about to expire and this had been a piece of legislation that had been kicked around by the Opposition. It had some very challenging political components to it. I was reading some comments earlier this morning by some dairy farmers who basically said that for about eight years the previous Government sat on their hands and didn't get to a resolution on where this bill should land.So when the Hon Damien O'Connor came in by dint of necessity he had to introduce some very quick pieces of legislation just to fix a gap and now has undertaken a very comprehensive review of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act that has required him to make some very politically challenging decisions. To that end I want to acknowledge my colleagues from across the aisle and from our coalition parties who have worked diligently to be rather constructive. But I don't want to take away from the fact that it actually took real leadership because somebody had to make the tough calls and he's done that and he's done that across a whole range of areas. I wasn't going to turn there but I will because my colleague from across the aisle just mentioned a range of issues that impacted rural communities and farmers. I think that the line in her speech was you know I don't want to see farmers be the target of political campaigning". Well on this side of the House I couldn't agree more. So I would ask that in the nature of how we have worked constructively on this piece of legislation which was an absolute requirement for dairy farmers—I ask that all sides of this House take out that fire that somehow it's our side of the House that is out there to destroy the livelihood of our primary producers because it's absolutely incorrect. Whether that be on labour issues—we're working very constructively with industry. Just this week I've sat down with Federated Farmers DairyNZ the Meat Industry Association—I mean that's just in my little small component let alone what the Minister has been doing day in day out working with leadership from across the primary sector but not just the leaders and the sector leaders. I know because I see it all over the work that he's doing he's out there out on the backblocks in farms up in the highlands doing what he can to ensure that our food producers—and particularly those of our food producers who have undertaken exceptional practices—are really highlighted and promoted on this side of the House. So I must dispute that. Whether it was in the emissions trading scheme whether it was in fresh water let's be very frank: there have been substantive and monumental wins for our food producers under this Government. But most specifically apart from everything that side of the House left our rural infrastructure behind. But anyway I didn't mean to go into this debate to be political. We have worked very constructively together so to that end I want to acknowledge the submitters that came before us whether they were from some of the newer milk-producing companies or from those more established sharemilkers farmers and so on. There was a real recognition across the sector that there needed to be a raft of changes. As the Minister just said prior when Fonterra was last reviewed it held about 96 percent of the sharemarket. That has been reduced to about 80 percent now. That was about where the Commerce Commission recommended that at that point things like those open entry provisions could be reviewed and that is what has occurred under this piece of legislation.I don't want to take too much of the House's time but I do really want to acknowledge the officials that worked with us and worked very hard. I think I heard in some of the earlier comments in the committee of the whole House around—we really as a whole committee wanted to ensure that new entrants to the dairy milking sector could be ensured an open entrance. Getting the legislative framework together was very challenging so I want to acknowledge the extremely diligent work of our officials and again just the cooperative nature of those that sat on that committee so Barbara Kuriger Amy Adams Nathan Guy Andrew Falloon and Hamish Walker from that side and David Bennett—and I think we've got McKelvie now—and from our side Rino Tirikatene Kieran McAnulty and Mark Patterson. We've been the tight four. We've had too much change but—we've seen a little bit over that side; hopefully it's nothing in the water. But here we all are.Just finally I just want to say that it has not just been over the course of the lockdown. Our food producers they do what they've always done. They work hard and they get the job done and that's what we saw. I know that our Minister here worked hard to make sure that the requirements and the regulatory environment over lockdown was there that the mechanics were there so that they could just do what they needed to do but let's be clear: it wasn't just an overnight revelation that we had that oh all of a sudden our primary production sector is key. We've always been champions for our primary producers. Fonterra in fact is a creation of this Government as is Zespri as are many other very key components to our primary producers.So look without further ado may I thank again the nature of the collaboration. I hope we see that continue to endure over the election campaign because I would hate to see that our primary producers are seen as the football that everybody continues to kick around. So without further ado I commend this bill to the House."