Cameron Mark; McKelvie IanMARK CAMERON (ACT) (remote): Well thank you Mr Speaker. It's an absolute pleasure to rise to speak to the 2022 Budget and what it ultimately means to rural New Zealand. Fifty billion dollars in export I know that Minister O'Connor canvassed this earlier. That's absolutely tremendous if not for the fact that we have come through COVID and we've seen a Government that's sprayed and walked away with billions of dollars of extra spending. So thank goodness for the rural sector to shore up the fiscal wellbeing of New Zealand!Too often though we've seen a rural sector that felt marginalised and overlooked by this Government where routinely political pontificating outweighs pragmatism. If I can I'd actually like to contextualise what I mean by that. How many members of Parliament go outside in the banshee winds and the rain and sleet and the snow to understand what farmers go through every day? They've no idea. Winter grazing rules that were rewritten several times so they can actually make sense and be implemented on the ground; the ban of the live animal exports well there's $261 million gone out of the sector; issues that are around significant natural areas and private property rights; and the national environmental standards and what it means for fresh water in rural New Zealand. Nonsensical and in consternation you can imagine farmers look at the sky frustrated.We have seen several changes on the horizon affecting those in farming circles most notably and front and centre around methane mitigation technologies and what reduction will ultimately mean. So how on earth when other emissions and initiatives in the methane space have never created commercially available technology—I want to touch on that if I can. Previously the Minister of Climate Change asserted that over 12 years or approximately 12 years $200 million had been allocated towards research and technology and to methane mitigation. Well where is the commercially available technology so farmers have surety of investment? It's missing in action. And then he got offside with his own Minister of primary industries when he agreed that there was no need to reduce the national herd size and then got pressed in the media and flip-flopped.Well I'm not an economist. To everyone here that's abundantly clear. I'm a farmer. But I was doing the numbers on $200 million over 10 years with little or no deliverables and to commercially available methane mitigation technology. I'd wager anyone here that investment is a bust. How on earth can the rural sector honestly invest the belief that this Minister is investing in if not for a failed model that's previously been illustrated here?There's a genuine need for significant investment. The ACT Party totally agrees with the technological research and R & D for on-farm emissions is an imperative for New Zealand farmers to front-foot this research and most importantly—and we all agree on this—minimise our emissions.There has been several times where in response to written parliamentary questions gaping holes have appeared. What I mean by that there is $339 million that has been appropriated for the Centre for Climate Action. Where will this actually go? Is it an indictment of a Government that's making things on the fly? Now I could contextualise this further notably in response to written question No. 15729—and I'm paraphrasing for my colleagues here—it did not inform us that the explicit funding allocation decisions within the investment have not been made. Well $339 million and we don't actually know where it's going. Reply to No. 16177 when asked Will the new Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions hire farm advisors if so how many farm advisors will it hire?" Fair question I asked. The answer if anyone in this House can make sense of it it reads "The Centre for Climate Action will accelerate the research development and commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce biological emissions for agriculture." Well that's a fair statement. But then he goes on "The Centre will not hire any farm adviser." Seriously? If we are taking this problem seriously which I hope we are we are not hiring farm advisers in this slush fund. Are we going to create a centre for farmer emissions where they have the tools at their disposal and the advice?In short order farmers are going to be pushed into an emissions trading scheme (ETS). We can see it coming the ETS or He Waka Eke Noa or something of that equivalent.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member's time is up. I call Greg O'Connor—five minutes."