Patterson MarkHon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): Thank you Mr Speaker—Mark Patterson" I think. But may I start by congratulating you on your ascension to the Chair and it's pretty historic for your party as well as for yourself. So that's a fine achievement. I'd also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon on becoming Prime Minister of New Zealand. It is the highest honour we can accord one of our citizens and we in New Zealand First have been impressed by the way that he's tackled the task so far and his relationship that he's sought to establish with us. He's been very direct in his expectations—gone is the fluff and in is the action. Also I congratulate the Hon David Seymour and the ACT Party on forming the balance of the coalition and we look forward to working with you over these next three years. I would like to congratulate as has been said the new MPs in the House and across the House particularly. If my experience is anything to go by no matter how much you've been around this place until you've sat in these green chairs and had to debate the issues big and small and the gravity of those—every issue is important to someone somewhere and some of them are important to everyone and nothing quite prepares you for that. So enjoy the ride but it is a big responsibility. I'd like to congratulate particularly the new New Zealand First team: Casey Costello Tanya Unkovich Andy Foster and Jamie Arbuckle. They will be fine contributors to our team. To Ingrid Leary for winning—or just squeaking in I might say—over myself and Scott Willis in the Taieri electorate I say congratulations Ingrid. It's great to see you here and Scott as well who is the most rarest of rare species: a practical Green. We've had a bit of a pledge between us. We do have quite a constructive relationship and we will work together on local issues. Ingrid and I have already started on lobbying for some extra funding for a forestry school in Milton. Scott and I have already started on a much more serious matter. He had to bring the suits up from Dunedin that I'd forgot on Sunday when I headed up to Gisborne. So thank you Scott. New Zealand First is back and we can thank a lot of people for this but I think the people we really need to thank are the Labour Party for their increasingly authoritarian stances for their attack on our very democracy for being out of touch with the working New Zealanders that they purport to represent for trying to centralise almost everything and for running our economy into the rocks to where our economic outlook is sitting at 159th in the world by IMF measures sitting only just above Equatorial Guinea which actually happens to be in the middle of a coup at the moment. So the cavalry has arrived in just the nick of time and the attack on our agricultural community as the Hon Nicola Grigg was just outlining before—and I'll get back to that shortly—was nothing short of extraordinary. In fact my decision to stand again for this House was not one that was taken lightly but when the Labour Party announced that they were prepared to sacrifice 21 percent of the sheep and beef sector at the altar of the climate change policy I just could not sit by and take that. So New Zealand First is back I am back and I'm sure our farmers are pleased that the coalition Government is now in charge and that sort of policy would never be allowed to pass anywhere near into legislation. Thank you to the voters. They turned to New Zealand First for our pragmatic common-sense and egalitarian policy platform. I must pay tribute to the Rt Hon Winston Peters one of the most consequential politicians ever to have sat in this House. You've got to realise when you're a political party outside of Parliament outside of this platform to get back into Parliament—the leadership to do that was inspirational it was totemic and it was historic. It is probably the one thing that we do have in common with Te Pāti Māori is we're the only parties that have fought our way back from outside Parliament. The wealth of knowledge that he brings to this House will be most needed in this time. I also must take the chance to acknowledge Darroch Ball Julian Paul Holly Howard and Dot Jones who gave their time voluntarily full-time for three years without a pay cheque to put the structures in place. While Winston's out front—and we as politicians were out front—they were laying the foundations. We stand here guys on your shoulders. We need to turn New Zealand around. We need to be lifting our growth. We need to be providing more opportunities and that is just what we intend to do as a coalition. It is my great honour to have been named and trusted with responsibility of Minister for Rural Communities and Associate Minister for Agriculture. I do acknowledge the Hon Nicola Grigg and the Hon Andrew Hoggard and the team that Nicola referenced under the Hon Todd McClay. We intend to set the agricultural community alight with some common-sense and pragmatic stewardship. We can say that agriculture is back in this House. It's not only the leadership that I've referenced but I welcome the gumboot-wearing MPs—I think Wayne Langford the President of Federated Farmers. It is great to see so many farmers back in this House and that is a consequence of the uprising from rural New Zealand. They saw that they needed to have some leaders in this House to represent their interest. Rural confidence was at a 20-year low; it didn't come before in the nick of time. Agriculture and horticulture are New Zealand's only industries of scale that are internationally competitive. They are incredibly important to this country. The numbers get thrown around time and time again to the point where they seem to not mean anything: $57 billion or $58 billion of foreign exchange to an economy that is running a current account deficit could not be more critical; 350000 New Zealanders directly employed; it is 82 percent—82 percent—of New Zealand's merchandise export trade. We will champion our farmers and growers we will respect our farmers and growers and we will see them as the solution and not the problem. [Bell rung] Time goes a bit quicker after three years I've noticed! We do have our challenges: water quality and quantity our emissions profile from agriculture and how we're going to do that and getting the right tree in the right place. I am glad to see that not only is New Zealand First back in the House agriculture is back in the House but wool will be back in Government buildings. It is my favourite part of the coalition agreement. It astounds me that we could not get this past the Green Party the last time we were in Parliament to champion this. This sustainable fibre is back in Government buildings and we intend to do a lot more with wool as we look to get it back to contributing to the New Zealand economy. Rural communities—those 700000 Kiwis—as I've said it's where the nation's wealth is created. We need to return the vibrancy back to that. It is not just farmers or the shearers or the truckies or the stock agents. We want the artists and the entrepreneurs and the small-businessmen out there. After COVID people have reassessed their priorities. These communities are now starting to grow again as people question the merits of sitting two hours a day in traffic and sitting in a glass tower behind a desk. People are coming back. We have to make sure we are ready for them. We have to make sure they've got good primary healthcare including mental health good education good roading and increasingly connectivity and communications. They need a police presence and they need access to resources so they can actually sustain their economies. The Rt Hon Shane Jones outlined earlier exactly what we intend to do to build our economies. So in this role I will be a strong advocate. I expect to have a battalion of rural MPs knocking on my door filling my inbox with invitations. My door is open. Let's get rural communities back on track. Thank you."