Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well it is a great pleasure to speak on this bill. I too would like to recognise the contribution of Parliament's own horse whisperer in Ian McKelvie. Ian has involvement in horses of all sorts from gallopers harness racing and some polo ponies. So he's knows his horses inside out. Hon Grant Robertson: Is he any good with tips?STUART SMITH: Well he doesn't share them with me. But should he you'll be first on the list. Well look this is a great bill now and it was a lot of work that went in. I think Ian's in-depth knowledge of the horse industry as well as Andrew Bayly's commercial acumen as well as his involvement with horses has knocked this bill into shape; not diminishing other people's contributions but I know they were the major contributors to the shape that the bill is in today. There's been a lot of talk about the details in the bill. I want to focus on the local impact in my area which is in Marlborough starting there. There's been 150 years of racing in Marlborough but the Waterlea course where racing is currently held today—just recently celebrated 100 years of racing when the first thoroughbred racing event was held in March of 1920 so it's got a long history. It's one of the courses that could have been badly impacted by the shape that the bill was in as it went to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. The course is now struggling to get licences to race or dates to race and now in that situation they could have had their assets taken and redistributed into the code. Fortunately they have quite an active racing community. There are a number of horses trained there. The bill now quite clearly sets out that if it's utilised for training that would be a major advantage. It's also its location. Geographically virtually at the end of the Cook Strait means that a lot of horses overnight there in their transport either north or south from island to island and it's utilised very frequently for that purpose. Waterlea Racecourse is kind of unique almost in that it has an all-weather harness track and a grass thoroughbred track and it's utilised by both codes which jointly own the track. It's also utilised significantly by community events. There's a massive classic car event there which fills up all of the car-park area and hundreds of people if not thousands turn out to that. They also have motor homes that stay on that property and lots of other events in the racecourse. So it is a community hub and it's proudly owned by the community. A little further south if we go two hours further south to Kaikōura there is the racetrack there where the Kaikōura Cup is held every Marlborough Anniversary Day. And it's the last hit out before the New Zealand Trotting Cup. So it's a big event in the racing calendar where those horses that will go on to shine at the trotting cup have that last outing competitively before then and it quite often shows that the horse that wins will win the Kaikōura Cup. That event is well attended from people all over the country actually that turn out to watch that. They spend a great day right by the sea. Sometimes there's the odd southerly that comes through but generally it's a beautiful day there. Again this is a community track. It has the A&P show held in that event. The show jumping's in the centre of the track and the sideshows and so on around the rest of it. It is often used for horse events throughout the year. So it's a valuable community asset. Had this bill not been knocked into the shape it was it could have been taken and those seats vested in the codes. That would have been outrageous from a community perspective. Fortunately National put that into shape and those two members that I particularly mentioned before were largely responsible for that; I really thank them for that. And with that I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.