Cameron MarkMARK CAMERON (ACT): That Cyclone Gabrielle was terrible is beyond debate: the damage devastation lives lost many lives upended. So many in the provinces were the hardest hit—whole properties changed for ever crops destroyed with the loss in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Silt by the mile in many places feet or even metres deep. Communities banded together despite these mammoth challenges. They continued to unite behind their shared common humanity as Kiwis always do in crisis. Cyclone Hale but weeks earlier left Auckland awash inundated floodwaters abreast buildings businesses and homes and even in the shared turmoil generosity and kindness a place of Kiwis helping Kiwis always shone through. We know of the physical havoc the emotional scars. For some this will last days; others weeks or even months especially for those the hardest hit: Hawke's Bay Gisborne Northland and beyond.But there is a parallel often offered to me by those in the rural sector a parallel that speaks to a different kind of reality—contextualised as a different kind of cyclone you might say a different kind of struggle; a war of attrition they tell me. Farmers speak of foul winds of compliance blowing all over rural New Zealand carrying mountains upon mountains of red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy seemingly often laying waste to the emotional wellbeing of farmers and rural folk. We hear the snide retorts from the other side of the House routinely but most do not share in their reality. Sure financial grants help no doubt but no one knows of the minefields—red tape that remains long after the clean-up—other than farmers.Rural confidence is at an all-time recorded low a 50-year low. How can this be when we hear plaudits from up on high? Farmers and rural folk speak their truth unashamedly; I and many of them do it routinely. They ask of this Government: cut the red tape be rid of the nonsensical lawmaking that we are facing in rural New Zealand from those high of moral fibre but of little consequential knowledge of the outcomes that affect us as farmers.In the enormity of the recent events farmers small-town NZers do they need lawmakers to really be connected with reality? We say yes in rural New Zealand. They speak of hundreds of thousands of tonnes currently of silt covering farms orchards and a mess of rotten fruit for miles to see. They ask of the Government: when you remove the foot on the throat of rural New Zealanders we will finally see better outcomes.As the challenges only mount farmers speak of a pricing structure for on-farm emissions in consternation abject disdain; freshwater reforms and centralisations over localism; disconnections from outcomes they speak of; bloated Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms. What will they make of that in rural New Zealand? None seem to know. As we across rural New Zealand deal with a mess of destruction sedimentation and the slash one can only ask: will prescriptions in the existing RMA hamper the debris removal and hamstring recovery?Well the ACT Party is listening to them. We know councils need agility now more than ever before to move away from central planned moulds and actually listen to real people on the ground in rural New Zealand. We don't need more hoops to jump through in rural New Zealand; we have way too many already. No more hare-brained schemes where problems remain ill-defined and solutions are often routinely misunderstood. Now more than ever the Government must work alongside rural New Zealand listen and invest in tenable outcomes and ACT is helping them share their concerns in doing that very thing.