Ewen-Street Ian: Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11676] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill. We extend our sympathy—our deepest sympathy in fact—to all of the victims of the flooding both in Picton and in the lower North Island. We are very conscious of the personal devastation suffered by many people particularly farmers and we applaud what the Government is doing. It is not nearly enough for a lot of people I know but it is something and it is something constructive. The Government’s move is to reduce the financial pain by deferring taxation such as provisional tax and other penalties that other members have already detailed. 
As a farmer myself I am very aware of the relationship that exists between farmers and their land. It can be a very moving experience to realise the dependence one has on the land one farms. In particular livestock farmers have a very deep relationship with their animals and awareness of a mutual interdependence between their animals and themselves. The loss of any animal can be quite devastating for a farmer and can cause grief—sometimes quite profound grief. That is particularly true for dairy farmers though I am not one myself and never have been. I say that because they come into contact with their cows twice a day for most of the year and they establish very close relationships even when there are large numbers of cows. 
From my own personal experience I can still recall the pangs of grief guilt and self-criticism I felt some years ago when I lost about half a dozen prime cows to milk fever. It was a preventable thing I suppose. Had I been a better farmer they would have not have been lost but they were in magnificent condition one day and dead the next morning. So I can only empathise with farmers who have lost entire herds of cattle or flocks of sheep. I express my sincerest sympathy to them. 
The emotional cost of an event like this is really enormous but it is not just an emotional cost—there is a financial cost as well and I am pleased to see that the Government is aware of the short-term costs that build into long-term problems for farmers. It may not be immediately obvious to urban dwellers but the impact on farmers of natural disasters can take many years to work through. It is not just a matter of getting the insurance company to come and replace the carpets of tidying up the mud from the lounge or of spending hours fixing the fences. It is a loss of a source of income as well as a monetary loss in the short term. 
I am particularly aware that in places like the Manawatu many farms have very high-quality pasture covered by many centimetres of pretty infertile mud. That in itself will take a long time to work around. Obviously in the very short term there is no immediate feed for farmers’ stock. In the longer term there is no feed to be made into hay or silage for winter feed for that stock. So the floods had a dramatic cost and impact on farmers. 
But I guess it is the plight of dairy farmers that again I particularly want to refer to. I find their loss really most poignant. I am very aware of the story related by Landcare Research. The Primary Production Committee had cause to have dinner with the Landcare group just recently and its members related the story of how many of their quite extensive herds of dairy cattle were simply swept away. Water came up and cows in water are basically like 44-gallon drums with legs. Although they can swim quite well they also float extremely well so they were just picked up and carried away. 
In Landcare’s case the short-term grief was at least mollified to a degree because a lot of the cows swam to shore and were not swept out to sea but I am very conscious of other farmers whose entire herds were washed out to sea. One of my colleagues talked earlier about how the animals were shot out at sea because there was no way of saving them. As a farmer I can only grieve in thinking about stories like that. 
Replacing a dairy herd is a slow process. Replacing any kind of cattle or flock of sheep is a slow process as well. It is not just a matter of identifying and buying new stock. Cows in particular are extremely social animals and they take time to settle in if they have been brought to a new property. They tend to be much rougher on fences on properties they do not know. If a farmer were bringing cows from a variety of sources—as would be the case if a big herd of cows in the Manawatu were being replaced—there would be social conflicts within the various subgroups of the herd. 
Anybody who knows about dairy cattle will know that cows have a pecking order and that they always go into the milking shed in a particular order and come out in a particular order. There is a very strictly regimented regime within the social hierarchy of those cows. They not only take time to adapt to their new social environment they also take time to settle down physically and start producing milk. 
After a disaster such as the one we have had in the lower North Island and around Picton farmers have not only lost their houses but a lot of their possessions stock pasture and fences have gone. They are really up against it. I have not noticed too many of the banks holding back on their mortgages in the way the Government is trying to help at the moment. We would live in a much happier country if the banks could do that. At the end of the day a bank is rather like a partner on a farm—it does none of the work but is always there with its hand out first when the money is being given away. 
It is not just the fact that short-term income is affected so is capital stock. One can probably afford to lose one’s profit for the year—the stock that is in effect harvested such as the culled cows and prime steers that have got to a certain point before being sent to the market. Farmers can afford to lose a year’s income but if they lose their capital stock as well then it will take a very long time to recover. They are not only losing their profit they are losing their cash flow. 
Most people will be aware that provisional tax payments are made for the year ahead in which no income has been earned. Provisional tax is based on the past year so in a disaster situation like we have at the moment income for the past year might be quite healthy but income might be zero—or even more likely negative—for the coming year. If farmers have to pay provisional tax on the basis of a good income for the last year and are paying from a negative income for the coming year then they are in a very tight spot. I applaud the Government for intervening in that scenario and saying it would taihoa on provisional tax. I guess at some stage it will be paid but in the short term let us forget about it. We really do support that initiative. 
I would also like to take the opportunity to commend Federated Farmers. Their behaviour and performance in the lower North Island is very reminiscent of the way they behaved during the Boxing Day fires in Marlborough a couple of years ago. Their support for the farming community there was exemplary. I resigned from Federated Farmers some years ago because of their attitude to genetic engineering and I still cannot bring myself to rejoin. That said I cannot help being impressed by the way the organisation gets in behind the farming community at times like this. 
Without wishing in any way to diminish the pain farmers are feeling I want to give one very gentle message to the Government. Actually there are two. The first is that inappropriate land use exacerbates the problem of flooding. In clear-felled forests for instance the rainwater runs off more quickly. It erodes more and is more turbid so there are greater floods. We need to think about appropriate land use and not clearing too much at any one time. 
The second point is that the unseasonality and severity of the storms we suffered last month are a stark reminder that global warming is a reality. It is something that we have to address upfront and stop pretending that it is not happening because it really is. It is something that we have to address now. 
In closing I would like to reiterate my sympathy that of my Green colleagues and I am sure of all members of the Chamber. The sympathy and good wishes of the Green Party go out to the affected farmers and their families. I want to let them know that our thoughts are with them. Like Doug Woolerton I have not been there but I will go in the very near future. The Green Party has great pleasure in supporting the passage of this bill.