O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): I woke up this morning to hear that member—Chris Bishop—on the radio talking about Hutt Hospital. But what he didn't do unlike my colleagues was commit to rebuild and reopen the Hutt Hospital. Will he do that? That's the question I ask of him.It's an honour to stand up here as Minister of Agriculture as someone that's been brought up on the farm and lived farming most of my life. Sometimes you get things wrong—actually when I go home often I think it's all the time. But look I marched in the 1980s against the removal of subsidies from farmers. I was wrong. We move on to the 1990s. Many farmers opposed the formation of Fonterra. They were wrong. We move into the 2000s. Farmers marched on Parliament against the carbon tax. They were wrong. Some still oppose the announcement of the carbon reduction plan yesterday and they are wrong. We've got it right finally.What happened yesterday was a commitment by our Governments by this Parliament—we hope eventually—to an emissions reduction plan that will meet our targets to meet our international obligations and be part of an international emissions reduction programme. Because if we don't—and the farmers were sometimes the most sceptical because they live with changing climate every day so they said The climate changes. We can't have climate change. That's a ridiculous proposition." They've seen for themselves the acute events that they face almost on a monthly basis now and they realise that they have to be part of the reductions programme.This Government has committed $710 million from the Climate Emergency Response Fund to help agriculture; to help land users; to plant a few more trees—native trees; to make some biofuels out of trees if possible; to work on how we can reduce carbon from trees but more importantly how we can put some money into research and development in a centre for climate action to reduce agricultural emissions so that we can be the best farmers in the world and the best farmers for the world. We will set up the centre of excellence the centre of research and development in conjunction with the industry and many of the major corporates across agribusiness are going to help fund that and be part of that partnership. Let's get that technology out the door as quickly as we can.We await the report from He Waka Eke Noa. This is an industry partnership group who will make recommendations to the Climate Commission on how we can price our agricultural emissions. We will be the first country in the world to do that just as we were the first country to ship refrigerated meat across the world just as we have been the first country to do many things across our economy—leading things that have proven to be right and successful. We want to be the best farmers for the world. We want to produce sustainable quality food and fibre products.There is some concern about livestock protein. We rely on livestock protein for our economic wealth creation. If those concerns can't be addressed if we can't prove to be efficient producers—as we have been but become more efficient into the future—we may be shut out of some of the valuable markets that we see across the globe. Some of the things that are happening out there that we have to take on board are things like Tesco Sainsbury's and Waitrose all committing to carbon reductions making sure that their suppliers are committed to net zero over time. Nestlé a company that takes a lot of produce from Fonterra our single biggest company is committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by having half of its produce come from regenerative farming systems. We have to make sure that we're not shut out of those markets. Our EU-UK trade agreements have all had requirements around emissions reduction sharing technology sharing services around environmental management high standards of animal welfare better commitment to biodiversity protection and as I say a low carbon footprint.Our agricultural sector has an exciting future. We've laid the groundwork for that. We're committed to a system to reduce our emissions from agriculture and be the best farmers in the world and the best country for the world. I'm proud to be the Minister of Agriculture. I'm proud to be part of this and I look forward to He Waka Eke Noa and the partnership that we will develop to price emissions to reduce our emissions and to ensure that we do the best for the planet."