McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. The great thing about speaking last in the general debate is you get to hear an awful lot of nonsense in the course of a day. I want to start with a couple of pearls of nonsense I've heard today. One is from Minister Jones about the great job he's done increasing the regional population in New Zealand. That population statistic that he was claiming of course was to the beginning of June or the end of June this year and that clearly was as a result of the last nine years of very strong policy not as a result of a bit of cash he sprayed around in the short time he's been the Minister.The next thing I want to touch on was the Minister of primary industries—the Minister of Agriculture I think he's called now—who spent two minutes talking about everything but his own sector. So he took exactly one minute and 43 seconds actually to get on to primary industries at all and when he did he claimed what a great success he'd made of the sheep and beef sector in his six or eight months of dealing with us. Of course the ram went out before he became the Minister but we'll put that aside too. So whilst he was right about the fact that that sector is doing extremely well it's also propping up the Government's tax take so that's a great piece of news for rural New Zealand.I just want to get back to the regional population stuff for a minute and talk about Ruapehu alpine lifts in the north of the Rangitīkei electorate where we've seen an extraordinarily good ski season—thanks to the weather to some extent but also thanks to a very good organisation that's putting in place some very strong regional strategy. And of course we've seen populations in those areas increase because there's a whole lot of opportunity being created there in the last few years that has suddenly come to fruition.Last Friday I had the opportunity to go to the Massey University agricultural awards at Massey University in Palmerston North on Friday night and to see the young people coming through in that sector as a result of I guess the change in fortune of agriculture in New Zealand and the primary industries doing really well. It's very exciting—a whole lot of young people coming through in that sector that I think—really exciting for us.This is a Government that's full of surprises—expensive surprises—and I want to talk about two or three of them. One I came across today. I found this map in my travels today and I just thought it was obviously a map of the blue voters in the Rangitīkei electorate because it's pretty much covered in blue—my electorate. And I thought that's pretty encouraging until I found out it was the new trees the Minister is proposing to plant in the Rangitīkei electorate. So instead of having a few sheep dotted around my electorate we're going to have a whole lot of trees and no people at all and they'll all exit the Rangitīkei electorate—off to Auckland they'll go. This is the sort of danger we run with policy—I'm not going to say made on the hoof because it's been around for a little while—that doesn't give a whole lot of thought to the outcomes. And I think that's a great concern when you see electorates like the Rangitīkei pretty much covered in trees. Rangitīkei of course currently is the biggest sheep-breeding electorate in New Zealand. That's a talent for us.The next thing I want to touch on was the oil and gas decision. I of course live very close to Palmerston North a city that's pretty much built its infrastructure on gas supply. It was one of the first cities in New Zealand to have a gas pipeline to it and as a consequence of that they undertook to deal with a whole lot of gas in that city. Very encouraging and you've got to wonder—and there's a lot of businesses wondering—about their future as a result of that oil and gas decision.The third thing I want to talk about is the working-party issue. I hear there's some 180 of those working parties. Well the one interestingly that's just reported back to Parliament is the one I want to deal with and that's the Messara report which deals with the racing industry—an industry which is certainly dear to my heart. I was virtually brought up in it I guess. There's no question that that industry does need restructure and we in the National Party understand the need for that restructure and we certainly support parts of that report.However there's some great challenges in that report as well—also from a regional perspective—and so whilst we've got the Minister who proclaims he's the regional champion on the other side of the House we have his party as well looking at perhaps the potential to undermine a whole lot of regional infrastructure that deals to the racing industry that provides entertainment for those communities and that builds the spirit of those communities and things like that. Part three of the Messara report deals with that infrastructure in regional New Zealand and it certainly needs to be considered in a much different manner than that report has put forward. I think that that issue will clearly be debated as the result of this report moves its way into legislation. It's an issue that we're very interested in and will be very concerned about.In that case the report also appears to have picked up some very good work the industry undertook but unfortunately it's introduced it into the report in a manner that won't last.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.