Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. Today we're here debating the Prime Minister's statement and what I will say about the Prime Minister's statement lines up nicely with what some of the recent speakers have just said. Yes it's a great communication skill that our Prime Minister has. Her speech was nicely presented but yet again the speech had no substance. It was full of words and I've yet to find out what has been delivered by this Government. There were many times through the speech that the word denial" was mentioned. Well this Government is in denial that nothing has been delivered. What has this Government done? We've heard all the time over the last few weeks about this Government being the party of infrastructure. For two years this Government didn't even think about infrastructure didn't even discuss infrastructure and all of a sudden it's 2020 and this Government's discovered that this is a nice word to use. Well I'll tell you a little bit about infrastructure. In my electorate I was surprised on Facebook to see probably about a year ago when this Government decided it was going to do a road safety package that our Prime Minister brought two Ministers and the local member of Parliament into Hamilton Airport. They went out on the road at Ōhaupō put a couple of cones on the road—obviously for protection—did a Facebook post and said "Look how wonderful this is. We're doing road safety projects on roads like this." It's just unfortunate for this Government that they were standing on a road that was Simon Bridges' project that I've been driving on for a year and a half before they stood on it. Now if there's any sort of fake news and fake advertising that was it. Secondly on the page of Phil Twyford all we get is "Look what we're doing. We're doing the Awakino Tunnel." Well the Awakino Tunnel was in Budget 2016. It's been through its consent process. It was announced by John Key and Simon Bridges. I'm very pleased with the Awakino Tunnel bypass going ahead but it certainly isn't to any credit of this Government. So again it's nothing that this Government has delivered and to be quite frank the fact is that it started under this term of Government—I often stand here and wonder if I'm the only member of Parliament that's actually had any road started in this term of Government—and it was something that was well set up before this Government came into power. Also while we're on infrastructure I want to talk about water infrastructure because we don't hear much from this Government about water infrastructure and water storage. It's a well-known fact that in this country of New Zealand we do not have a water shortage problem; we have a water storage problem and right now we have country and city alike screaming out for water. I know we had a recent flooding episode down in Southland but besides that the country has been screaming out for rain. I think it's a time when we can—country and city alike—start really thinking about the sort of infrastructure we need to store our water and put our water in a place where we can use it for both groups when it comes to the dry weather. Historically every time water storage has been mentioned everyone just goes "Oh it's just for the farmers." Well actually I can tell you that in many city communities right now there are people that just can't get enough tanker-loads of water and they're screaming out for it. We're all human beings. We all need water. We all need water to run our businesses and our households and I think it's time that this Government got more serious about that topic. I would like to move on to the mental health funding now. You heard my colleague Matt Doocey speaking on mental health—it's his portfolio—recently but I want to know just like Matt Doocey did where is the money? It's all very well to talk $1.9 billion and if we look back at the Budget from last year that's probably the only significant thing that most people remember because most of the rest of it was very unmemorable. But I want to know: where is the money? I talk to people on the ground and they think that it's great that there's this great pot of money that's sitting somewhere but it's still trying to filter its way through to those people that are out in our communities doing fantastic work. It's a big number just like the number that's bandied around about a billion trees. You know it's easy to bandy around big numbers but when it comes to actually delivering mental health on the ground it's just not there. We think about Northland at the moment going through one of the most serious droughts they've had for a very long time. What do they get? Something like you know a small pittance—like $80000 or some ridiculous amount—to share around among one community. I want to move now on to climate change. In the Prime Minister's statement it says "When we came into office there was no plan for climate change." Well I was at a Bluegreens conference a number of years ago where Lord Deben came out from the UK and I remember under Nick Smith and Scott Simpson and a number of other people that we talked very seriously about the Climate Commission. So we have supported that zero carbon bill but guess where that idea comes from? It's a good idea; we are pleased to have supported it but it does say here that there was no plan for climate change yet there was a plan for climate change. But I think it's even more important than that because some of the targets and some of the numbers that have been set around climate change—and particularly around methane—are very tough and we have no tools to fix them. We owe it to ourselves as a community to sit down and figure out what we can do with the tools we have. We need to make sure we have money into research around methane. I'm really pleased to see that there's a seaweed that might make some difference. There are a number of conversations going on around how we can control methane at the moment. But you know you can't put penalties on people when they don't have tools to solve the problem. So while this big $1.9 billion factor around mental health is being fed as if something's being done when it hasn't actually hit the ground at the same time there are farmers worried about sections of their land being taken around significant natural areas (SNAs). Now those farmers look after those SNAs better than anybody else that might come along and decide that they need to take this piece of land off the farmer. So I think you know the worry about that the worry about water the worry about methane and the worry about the pressure that that's been putting on around capital is causing people a whole lot of stress on top of the weather conditions. Then it's all very well to talk about the $1.9 billion in mental health but it's not being appreciated on the ground because it's not seen. I also can't help but have another chip at the oil and gas and the energy situation coming from a province like Taranaki and we read and hear about the new energy research centre in Taranaki. Well that's great. We have to do research. We have to have a research centre. But why would you stop one of the most efficient products we have—i.e. gas—to burn more coal while you're setting up a research centre to discover how the next energy is going to work? Would you not think that you do the research first you find out what that cleaner more climate-friendly energy is and at that point then you can start working through and shutting down the things that you don't need any more? And by the way why would you shut it down in an industry that is so hungry to solve these issues? It's not a Government that's going to solve these issues. With all due respect there's not any Government that's going to solve the issues that some of our industries have; it's those industries and it's those industries that have the funding to do it. And by the way they don't want to become obsolete by being a thing of the past so they will be striving to solve the problems in their industry. So it's all very lovely to pour a bit of money into research for something out in the future but let's not kill the goose that lays the golden egg that can pay for the new research in some of these projects. The Prime Minister finished her statement by saying there is plenty more to do. There is and we look forward to taking the baton on 19 September and doing a lot more than what this Government has done. Thank you."