McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It has been a long Tuesday. I just looked at the cricket score before I stood up and I can assure you that the day has got longer.Dr Megan Woods: What is it?IAN McKELVIE: It is not good; they got 380-odd and we are about 20-odd without loss. Back to the bill. It is a pleasure for me to take a short call on the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill and to I guess outline some of the work that was undertaken by the Primary Production Committee to get to the point we got to and to explain the value of this bill to New Zealand horticulture or agriculture actually but horticulture in particular. There are nine horticultural-based export industries that operate under this bill currently and as alluded to by the previous speaker Rino Tirikatene there are a number of others that operate on the fringe of it and may well as a result of these changes to the bill come into it at any time they wish.The ones that operate under it currently are the avocado exporters the blackcurrant exporters the buttercup squash exporters the chestnut exporters—and I bet you not many of you knew there was a chestnut exporters authority—the kiwifruit exporters the persimmon exporters the summer fruit exporters the tamarillo exporters and the truffle exporters. And of course Mr Deputy Speaker you would know well what was part of this bill as you were part of the select committee that dealt with it.The object of this bill is to create I guess extra value for New Zealand horticulture and to give its members the opportunity to trade in a manner in the world market that enables them to trade as a collective and in a strong environment. Whereas individually they would be picked off in a world market place collectively they have significant strength and so this bill gives strength to that opportunity for them and enables them to compete in a world market that is very competitive.It is also worth noting that the horticultural exports from New Zealand have grown significantly in the last few years continue to grow and I think have reached some $4 billion now. But it is also worth noting that some of our environmental policies that we are implementing around New Zealand have the effect of limiting land-use change in the future. One of the interesting things with horticulture as it grows very rapidly—and I think it is probably going to in the future be the significant grower in New Zealand agriculture—is that it needs the opportunity to acquire more land and to use more land as it goes forward. Some of our environmental policy around the country at the moment is precluding that opportunity. So that is a challenge for us in New Zealand as we move forward—to get that resolved and to enable the horticultural sector to grow as it should.If you think about our horticultural sector the big opportunity for it is to put fresh produce into our markets. Some years ago fresh produce into Asia would have seemed a distant hope. But nowadays modern transport and the very quickly cheapening air routes around the world are enabling us to put fresh fruit and produce into those markets very quickly so we can provide fresh-to-the-supermarket-door in Asia any time we wish. That is really the future for New Zealand agriculture and horticulture. So that is a real opportunity for us and I think it is something that will be a priority for this industry. So the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill enables the industry to collectively gain strength very quickly in that area.There were some changes as this bill came through the select committee and through the Committee of the whole House—which was very brief. The bill will be passed with the following amendments as recommended by the Primary Production Committee. The first is to clarify that a vacant office is considered as an office holder being unavailable—you might think this is minor—and also applying this change for the purpose of identifying who the alternative chairperson is when the chairperson is unavailable. It does seem a little pedantic but none the less that is quite an important change to this legislation. It enables those authorities to move with nimbleness I guess.Other changes also enabled the clarification that grade standards can be included in export marketing strategies. They changed the interval between proposals for amendments of tiers of export licence from at least 2 years to at least 1 year. They added a requirement for the authority to consult the Privacy Commissioner before amending certain information-sharing agreements which is quite important and obviously a part of a lot of legislation we pass through this House. They also clarified the provision relating to fee and levy regulations.There was Supplementary Order Paper 247 put forward during the course of the Committee stage; that was to add a levy provision to the legislation. The levy provision was necessary because a legal interpretation of what was previously thought to be fees I guess proved that in fact they were levies. That Supplementary Order Paper amendment needed to be added. It needed to be added to clause 31 of the bill inserting new section 62 and changed the word fees" to "any fee or levy".I have got the role of thanking my select committee for a great job. As Rino Tirikatene said a moment or two ago the select committee gets on pretty well with these things. We got this done. It is a pleasure for me to support this bill in its third reading as it goes through the House. Thank you."