Wilkinson Kate: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilkinson Kate: General Debate[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11058. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri):Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in this general debate this afternoon. Was it not interesting what the Opposition speakers’ chosen topics of debate were? The Green leader seems to be demonstrating paranoia about privacy. Is that really the most important issue facing New Zealand today—the Greens’ privacy issues and whether somebody is snooping on them or eavesdropping?Then the next leader of the other Opposition party—well one of the leaders—spent his whole 5-minute contribution talking about personalities. There was not one skerrick of substantial argument in his contribution. It was all about personalities and perceived and imagined scandals. Is that really what is important to New Zealand and New Zealand’s economy? Is that really what we should be focusing on? On this side of the House we want to focus on the issues that matter. We want to focus on policies that will help New Zealand and we want to focus on policies that will help our economy grow and make the boat go faster.This week is one of the most important weeks I believe in the calendar of our agricultural industry in New Zealand. We have the Fieldays this week. It is the largest agricultural event in the southern hemisphere. It is important I think and timely to remember actually the huge importance and impact of the primary industries on oureconomy. We have already heard that the industry is worth in exports alone something like $30 billion. It is not the sunset industry that the Labour Party predicted. In fact as my colleague Minister Woodhouse has already elucidated it does not appear that there is a rural bone in any of its members over there on the other side of the fence.This is a very significant week for New Zealand’s primary industries and I would have to say we should be proud of our farmers of our primary industry contributors. I believe that we have some of the best farmers in the world and I believe that we need policies—which we are delivering on—to support those farmers. We need to support those farmers just as they support our economy and we have already seen the huge contribution that they make to our economy.This week we have also announced the 3-year anniversary of the Primary Growth Partnership. That growth partnership is about investing in research investing in innovation and boosting productivity in our farming forestry and food sectors and it is about making our contributors in those industries the best in the world and world leading. So far we have heard that Government and industry have committed $658 million in 13 projects alone. I commend the booklet that has been produced by the Ministry for Primary Industries because some of these projects are absolutely mind-boggling with one of them being $85 million of Primary Growth Partnership funding and $86 million of industry funding to transform the dairy value chain.The policy of the Opposition is to put a cap on cows. That is not going to grow our economy but actually investing in our farmers will grow the economy. We do have that vision of doubling those exports by 2025. This economy would be in a sad sad sorry state if it were not for our primary industry. If it were not for our exports to China and other countries we would not be able to pay for the world-class education health and social welfare systems that we have in place.Some of these projects are absolutely fantastic. We are investing $15 million in the merino wool industry and the industry funding of that is $21 million. This is not just about the Government throwing money at research and innovation; it is about the industry itself participating and putting its money where its mouth is. It is about the industry investing in its own future.There is a variety of projects in that Primary Growth Partnership programme with one of them including worker safety in forestry—the steep-land harvesting which I think has already been mentioned. National is delivering for the rural economy for the rural sector. It is about time the other side of the House realised it. We need our farmers.