Mooney Joseph; O'Connor GregJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Mr Chair. To the Minister: our farmers produce $52 billion in export receipts. New Zealand is facing a pretty challenging 12 months ahead of us. We have the biggest balance of payment deficit in the developed world so this country needs to sell more things to the world because we're frankly spending more than we're earning. Why have we not heard more from the Minister about the critical importance of the primary sector for New Zealand? If New Zealand wants to buy cellphones wants to buy Teslas wants to buy fridges etc. that are manufactured overseas and that New Zealand doesn't have the capacity for we need to be selling things to buy those so why have we not heard more about that? The other thing is I note the point earlier about sheep and beef farming that Government proposal which did say that it would reduce sheep and beef farming by 20 percent and beef and dairy by 5 percent by 2030. Two-thirds of the reduction in emissions in New Zealand could be undone by high emissions shifting overseas through doing that. Why haven't we heard more about the fact that for example the sheep herd was almost 58 million in 1990 reduced to 26 million by 2020 so there's been a huge reduction in the sheep herd in New Zealand. Why haven't we heard more about the unique pastoral farming system in New Zealand which is quite different from most other places in the world? We have a unique system in New Zealand. We have a effectively free-range farming system that most other places in the world can't replicate. Why aren't we telling this story more strongly to the world—the unique value that we have; the unique proposition that we make?I'll just note that people want food and yes you need to listen to what the consumers want but take eggs for example. I went to the local supermarket with my youngest daughter. She wanted to make a cake for Mother's Day. You couldn't buy eggs. I mean people want to be able to buy food. So how are we protecting our food producers making sure that they can continue producing food for this country and for the world? And I'll just note the point that there have been more than 20 changes to legislation regulation and all new rules since Labour came into power in 2017. I talk to farmers regularly who have to spend at least two days a week in the home office working on these compliance regulations that they have to do rather than being out there farming. We need them out there farming and getting their goods out to the world. So why has there not been more focus on the integration required to bring this together so we can actually focus on good environmental regulations that can ensure our food producers can do well and get their food out to the world?And I'll just note one example the significant natural areas (SNAs): they were so broadly defined that farmers faced the risk of being shut down. In 2021 a third of the Far North district—250000 hectares—was tentatively declared an SNA including 100 percent of some properties. I mean we're getting all these signals coming from the Government that aren't well thought through. Why hasn't there been more thinking at the Cabinet level to actually get a good signal out to our farmers saying We recognise that you're the most carbon-efficient in the world; we're going to help you meet these environmental regulation outcomes that we want to achieve and produce food for the world and food for our country."?CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The honourable Minister—three minutes 56 remaining."