Kuriger Barbara; O'Connor DamienBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Madam Chair thank you. I'm not sure how much time the Minister actually has in terms of asking questions but if we run a bit short in the spirit of primary production we're happy to give him a few of our minutes so he can answer our questions. I've just got three and so I'll ask them all at the same time but I'd like to know from the Minister how the relocation of the workforce is going under COVID-19. I think it's actually a commendable thing to do but practically is a little more difficult. It's a good idea but I'd like to know how it's working. My second question—and it's related to that question as well—is about the agricultural training establishments. I know some of them particularly Telford are doing some taster courses to get people into the industry but in the long term we want more long-term trainees. So I'd just like a further comment on that one. And the third question I have is: what work is being done to bring native planting into our carbon farming because there's been millions and millions of native trees being planted voluntarily by farmers and it would be great if that could be measured in some way so that we can take some credit for the work that we've done. Thank you.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you Madam Chair. Firstly on the relocation of the workforce that's an issue that I guess Ray Smith as the director-general is doing and I know he's working comprehensively with the team acknowledging all the good work of those people. But there is you know obviously a reduction in the need at the border. So those people are being shifted as I say firstly into the areas where we can I guess lift the level of scrutiny whether it be through containers or through the post and fill some gaps across the system. The skills that they've learnt are ones we don't want to lose but we can't pretend that just sitting around and waiting for people to fly into New Zealand is a good use of our resources. So that I think is going on very smoothly and I trust the director-general to get that right. Can I just talk on agriculture training courses. I've just been over this morning to Taratahi. We've reopened it. It's been you know of concern—a wonderful establishment with much pride and heritage. It's now up and running again and that will build from a small base short taster courses. The DairyNZ course GoDairy is starting next week I think. So we'll build on that. Contractors are wanting courses for tractor—skilled operators actually not just tractor drivers and so we'll be rolling those out. Telford is doing so and it's had a wonderful uptake of trainees. So we've committed close to $20 million for that directly. Clearly there's money coming through the apprenticeships—over a billion dollars that the Government's committed to that. Some of that will funnel down into you know courses with slightly higher standards. But at the moment we're doing as much as we can as fast as we can to get people into the jobs that are available now.The third question on native plants is a very fair question: can we have some credits for native planting? In fact two-thirds of the money that's gone out from the billion trees programme that Minister Jones has been running—two-thirds of those have been native plants and that's great and we've had it around waterways. We are working and I understand Minister Shaw is working on a way of calculating that that is if not entirely accurate and exact a fair kind of consideration of what sequestration through native plantings might be. To allocate even if it's a small amount in my view should be an acknowledgment for farmers that in planting natives they are contributing to the sequestration of carbon. So that's a work in progress.