McKelvie Ian: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcKelvie Ian: General Debate[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9247. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Is it not wonderful to get into something positive for a change—the ongoing saga of our growing economy—instead of dealing with issues to quote the Hon Annette King straight out ofMadmagazine something that I think we have spent a fair bit of this afternoon dealing with frankly? I also heard Steffan Browning referring to my home town of Tangimoana this afternoon. He was speaking of it as though it was some alien village and I am sure it is not—I live there.The past few months have been very testing for many in rural New Zealand. The drought a significant event across the North Island has had a significant effect on many parts of our farming community. It will also have a long-term effect on many of our rural communities and the economic activity that takes place in those towns. I also want to very briefly mention at the same time the other thing that I think is a significant drain on rural New Zealand and that is the meat industry and the lower sheep meat prices we have been suffering from at this present time. Both of those issues are going to compound in the near future and certainly probably in the next 2 years in the future of our hill country in New Zealand.I want to talk about a couple of the bright lights on the horizon. Certainly the dairy industry in the last few weeks has had a significant lift in price giving new confidence and buoyancy to that sector. I am sure that that is going to assist greatly in the recovery from the drought. The other issue I want to mention briefly—and I think it is very important to us—is the log market. It is apparent by the large number of logging trucks lumbering I guess down our roads on a daily basis to our ports that this industry is in a time of buoyancy that it has not seen for some time. As more and more wood comes to the market in the next few years it will increase the pressure on our roads further justifying the Government’s roads of national significance programme and making the work—particularly in my area from Levin to Wellington or the Wellington Northern Corridor including Transmission Gully as it is known—even more relevant to our futures in the lower North Island. Although Labour and the Greens appear to totally fail to understand the value of these roading developments to our economy the people in my electorate Rangitīkei and oddly enough the people of Palmerston North stand to gain significantly from massive efficiency and cost savings created by these new roading systems. For example we will be able to move an extra truck and trailer-load of logs from the lower end of my electorate to the port of Wellington on a daily basis making those trucks almost 30 percent more efficient. That is a significant productivity gain for the lower North Island.I talked of the drought in the North Island having seriously affected the ability of our farmers and it has seriously affected the ability of our farmers to bank anything. Unfortunately they all fully understand the content of their bank accounts. Certainlymany would love to suffer from the affliction suffered by the Leader of the Opposition that of not needing to remember what they have or do not have in their bank accounts.I wish to commend the performance of Federated Farmers during the course of this recent drought and record the fact that I believe that they have been outstanding in their efforts to assist farmers. They strive for solutions to what is certainly a serious economic event for our rural towns and indeed our farmers. It also needs to be recorded here I think that our farmers have become much more resilient over the years and for the most part have very good contingency plans in place to manage this type of event. The difference in this instance is that this drought has affected places such as the West Coast and the Taumarunui and Taihape area which is certainly a rare event.There are some very positive things happening in my region. Over the hill in John Hayes’ electorate the Wairarapa we at last have an oil rig setting up business. I hate to say that it is in John Hayes’ region and I hate to say “Watch out Taranaki.” but I can confidently say that the Hawke’s Bay will be the next oil boom in New Zealand. I hope the Opposition can again get its head around that.I also want to briefly touch as Maggie Barry has on the Resource Management Act reforms. I have had the privilege I guess of hosting or being part of a number of forums on the Resource Management Act in recent weeks and I think we will make some very positive progress in this area. It will lift the shackles from many of our growth initiatives and improve our environmental responsibility at the same time. Often one finds that when you give people their head they take responsibility they did not take before.This Government has made some great progress with its policies to grow our economy when much of the rest of the world is suffering from the malaise of the global financial crisis. I want to just very quickly refer to a couple of figures that I think are really interesting. One is the growth of trade with China from 2007 until now. In 2007 that trade was around the $2 billion mark. It is now around the $6.9 billion mark—an extraordinary gain. At the same time trade with the UK has moved from $1.6 billion to $1.3 billion. I think that speaks for the change in our environment. Thank you.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.