Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Madam Chair. I rise to echo our Primary Production Committee chair's comments and the support from the National Party for this Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2). If I may just start with some comments in response to the contribution that I've just listened to from Rino Tirikatene he said—and I quote—You can't prescribe business success in this House." But I tell you what you certainly can constrain it and it is the National Party view that rural New Zealand at the moment is under one of the greatest collective onslaughts that they've had in a generation. This stuff can't be washed away as immaterial and it's more than a little ironic that we sit and reflect on passing legislation that enables farm debt to be mediated between the creditors—which in most cases are the banks—and the farmers themselves. I do acknowledge the genesis of this bill Mark Patterson but we certainly have thrashed it around a bit in the select committee and I think have got it to a sensible place. We can't ignore the context in which we are debating it which is a rural sector under significant pressure and a banking sector that has signalled quite clearly that they wish to step back from the scale and quantum of rural debt that currently sits on their books. So this is very real. Farmers across the country listening to this tonight know it's very real where they are. Because of the perspectives and vision and outlook that this Government brings to rural New Zealand we're debating water reforms we're debating costs with respect to climate change particularly the emissions trading scheme. I appreciate that's not the specifics of this bill but it is a critical part of the context in which we are reflecting—Hon David Parker: Improved trade access good prices low interest rates more realistic exchange rate.TODD MULLER: —on this particular bill. So I've had an interruption from David Parker which tends to happen actually. He can't help himself. I'm sure we'll get it shortly from the Minister and he'll tell everyone that once I used to work for Fonterra—seems to be his case every time he speaks. But if I go directly to the interjection that I've just had there from Minister Parker he talks about the strength that exists in the sector with respect to returns and interest rates and actually climatic conditions ironically. He's right on those three points. We are at historically high returns from a farmer perspective. So isn't that even more a reason to wonder at why the sentiment of the sector is at the lowest point for a generation? And the reason is the sum of the policies that his hand is part of the architecture of which has created a huge amount of stress in farmers around the country where they look at some of the outcomes that he expects in terms of water quality across the catchments of this country and they can't see a way to farm there. That stress is real and it's there every night and day. This bill is going to come into effect for a number of those farmers who can't see a way through. This bill is going to no doubt assist in some way to help a managed conversation between themselves and the banks who are looking to step back because as they look at their risk profile aligned with the vision of this Government rural debt is not something they want to be quite as exposed to as they were under the previous Government.I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Mr Bennett. I think he has helped facilitate a very effective conversation of the select committee through this process. I do also want to acknowledge the officials. I think even the most partisan on the other side would accept that actually when the Primary Production Committee gets going we are very focused on the detail at hand as opposed to which party you might be coming from which even surprises me at times. So I just want to acknowledge the work that they did.There are a couple of areas that I would like to specifically highlight and ask for Minister Damien O'Connor to provide some feedback on. In Part 1 he has Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 409 that relates to a slight change with respect to the definition of "farmer" which is somewhat ironic because we had quite a debate ourselves in terms of the definition of "farmer". Initially we had in the original bill "means a person who is solely or principally engaged in a primary production operation". After some significant debate internally we changed that to "a person who is engaged in a primary production operation;". The Minister has come back with an SOP that suggests that "primary production operation" changes to "primary production business". Certainly this side won't have an issue with that but I'd just like to understand the rationale that his officials gave to him for that change.Moving on to Part 2 "Restrictions on [the] enforcement of farm debt" particularly "Subpart 2—Mediation process". I think it's really important just to highlight the debate that we had over this. We have clause 14 in Subpart 2 now being very clear that a farmer may request mediation at any time. I think this is a very critical addition that we have brought to this legislation because again reflecting on the operating environment that our farmers are experiencing the concern of the committee was as the bill was presented to us and we went through that select committee process it still had a sense of being an opportunity a pathway for mediation that was at the bottom of the cliff as opposed to earlier on in the process. We thought it was absolutely important that we strengthened the opportunity for farmers if they felt that their creditor situation was not where it needed to be so that they had the ability to ask for mediation earlier in the process as opposed to right at the end. Of course we needed to augment that with some obligations on creditors to ensure that they just simply couldn't say no. So we have clause 16A "Creditor must have good reason to decline [mediation]". Certainly from our perspective we think that that's a sensible change.In terms of clause 21 of Part 2 "Costs of mediation" again we had quite a significant debate. The advice to us was that you know just sort of splitting it in half would work. That was underpinned on the Australian experience that had landed a particular price range and cost range for mediation. Again we tested that as a committee. That wasn't one side versus the other; we collectively tested that and agreed that actually where we have landed which is "A farmer must not be required to pay more than $2000 towards the costs and related expenses of the mediator." is a fair outcome. We did not want to create barriers for a farmer to participate in the mediation process. The whole point of this is to create a framework—an enabling framework—that earlier on rather than later on farmers can engage with and hopefully restructure their affairs in such a way that means that they can continue to sustain their business.As outlined by Mr Bennett earlier we have debated this thoroughly. We had a number of submissions. In good faith we back-and-forthed it between ourselves and the officials. I think we've got a piece of legislation that is going to be useful for the New Zealand rural sector more widely but as Mr Bennett noted earlier it doesn't take away from the fact that we are debating this at a time when the context for rural New Zealand has never been more fraught in terms of sentiment and Government policy despite the fact that they have tail winds in terms of market returns and interest rates. With that I commend the bill to the House."