Mark Ron: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: General Debate[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is really interesting is it not? I want to start by acknowledging the passing last week of one Helen Skurr from Oxford in the Waimakariri electorate. Helen Skurr supported myself and Winston Peters and New Zealand First for 22 years as a founding member. But Helen Skurr was also a lady of the land a farming wife a farmer herself; someone who operated with her husband and managed Mt White Station many many years ago back in the hard times and later on ran their farm in Oxford.She would be appalled as a long-term National Party voter for many many years to hear the answers to questions in respect of the plight of the dairy industry and farmers who are facing the wall right now. It just astonishes me. I can accept that the Green Party has had this thing about dairy farmers for a long time and it is hard to ignore their reasoning. I can accept that the Labour Party does not particularly like farmers because most tended to vote National. But that is changing—changing big time.David Bennett: Oh!RON MARK: I know—because of the reception that Minister Nathan Guy got when he turned up to the rural and provincial local government conference just recently. He was told bluntly by former card-carrying members of the National Party that farmers believe this Government is totally out of touch. I have to say—what does it take? There are 100000 businesses a million people in New Zealand who depend on the farming sector for their income.We have a farmer in the Wairarapa right now—and there are more cases lined up. We are trying to work on this and the Prime Minister says: “Don’t come in crying crocodile tears. Give us some solutions.” Well New Zealand First has offered a solution to assist with the plight of the dairy farmers—of all farmers. It is our farming debt remediation bill and what is the Government’s answer? It will not support it—does not require it. Well let me tell you that we are working on a case right now and we will be working on more because they are coming down the line. Farmers are being liquidated being wound up and evicted from their properties. We know that for every farmer who goes out the back door for every bank that recovers its money there is a raft of unsecured creditors: silage contractors fencers people who do the irrigation people who put in the water reticulation people who drill the wells and trucking companies. These people are unsecured creditors throughout rural New Zealand and they will be hit and they will lay off staff.What has National said? That the wine industry is doing well—Mr Scott may say that being an investor in the wine industry himself—and the kiwifruit industry is doing well. That is fine but what about the dairy farmers who were the champions of this Government’s economic recovery? I call National now—and people are calling National this out in the rural communities—fair-weather friends. They are there to trumpet the gains and the successes and the employment when it is all going well but when it turns to custard and goes down to $3.90 and further what do Government members say? They say: “It’s not a concern. We’ve stress tested and it’s going to be fine.”Well we heard a story of a milk tanker driver who pulled up at a dairy unit just recently—a week ago. He pulled up outside to load up the milk and spray painted on it were some words that I will not put in here. I will abbreviate them and say that this farmer had had a gutsful of Fonterra. When the driver went inside the dairy shed he found this farmer hanging from the rafters. That is not the first suicide that tanker driver has come across and there is more coming.What is this Government doing? Nothing. We have offered a solution—a farm debt remediation bill. Let us put it though the House. Let us help these people in need. Let us stop the banks ripping them off at 9 percent interest and then hitting them again at 22 percent on their credit cards when they try to buy their groceries and buy clothes for their kids because their farms are running at a loss. Let us do something other than sit on our hands National and do nothing while more and more farmers commit suicide and while their families are torn apart. But I guess you just do not want to do you.