McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. When I shifted across the House this afternoon and came and sat up here I was reminded I was on skid row—I shan't be back here again for a while! Some of my neighbours weren't very complimentary about the position I was sitting in.I wanted to begin today though by acknowledging one of them who was sitting on this very same row and that's the Hon Nathan Guy who has been my neighbour; I suppose my friend; my mentor even; and my adviser and a Minister for quite some time as my neighbour in the Horowhenua. He also was on the Horowhenua District Council at the time I first got into council and became a mayor when he left the Horowhenua District Council; it's gone backwards ever since. The Manawatū District Council has gone forward ever since.I also wanted to just congratulate Todd Muller on his appointment to what I consider to be the most important portfolio in the New Zealand Parliament at a critical time in our history. I'm about to outline some of the issues that I think are hugely important. As a rural MP you get to know the feeling of your electorate pretty quickly. I have the fortunate position of having an office right across the road from the Feilding Sale Yards where in excess of a thousand farmers every week walk through those saleyards gates and you get to talk to them—easily that—quite often and they never hesitate to give you their opinion. I don't think in my time I've ever noticed—in my 50 years in agriculture probably—the uncertainty that we're seeing on a daily basis right now in rural New Zealand. Those farmers that come through Feilding come from all over the lower North Island and the upper South Island.There can be no doubt that this nervousness is not caused by a downturn in prices because I've never seen prices for particularly lamb—beef is in great order and even the milk price is holding up—I've never seen the agricultural sector—in fact you can go right across the board—in great order.Greg O'Connor: Must be what they're getting in the mail from the National Party.IAN McKELVIE: So it is in good order and the old left-arm googly bowler from over there's not going too good. No this nervousness uncertainty and lack of—[Interruption]SPEAKER: No sorry. I was signalling the member—I accidentally pushed the Opposition whip's phone but I meant the Government whip's.IAN McKELVIE: Ha ha! I thought you'd signalled no-ball Mr Speaker. The uncertainty and lack of confidence to invest is caused by a Government who in my view are moving at a pace into the unknown. Potential changes to the banking system driven by an idealistic Reserve Bank putting pressure on bank portfolios the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill which has in its current form the potential to strip some $50 billion out of the sector in the next 30 years—yes $50 billion—with its current methane targets included at present.An ill-conceived tree planting regime brought about by poor settings in the carbon trading scheme and the plantation forestry policy statement driving forestry and carbon farming investors to plant land that should not be in trees. This could be fixed in part by appropriate incentivising of native planting in red zone land. I think we could do a lot with our native planting that would improve the situation here dramatically. The great concern here is if the carbon price is freed up and allowed to find its real value—or it's potential real value—under the current policy settings we may see massive increases in planting on land that I think in 50 years' time we'll seriously regret were ever planted in trees. A better use of land-use planning would also help a great deal in this area and I think there's room for us to revisit the way we plan our land use in New Zealand and probably the way we plan the use of our oceans as well.That's not all. The changes the overseas investment regime have ensured that much-needed foreign investment has deserted agriculture other than the dreaded trees except of course they still have carte blanche opportunity to buy up our processors—in my view the quickest way to turn our farmers into peasants we've ever thought up. Then we have the proposal to charge a climate change levy or tax at the processors' gate and this of course in my view sends completely the wrong signal to farmers as only those fronting up with product at the gate get to pay the levy. The rest get off scot-free. I expect that farmers will find a way of overcoming this challenge. The way they'll do that is to produce more than ever; exactly the wrong answer and one we don't accept.All this and the Government hasn't released its freshwater plan yet. There's no doubt the farming sector feel they're under siege and they are. We in rural New Zealand accept we have a vital role to play in change. However if the pace of change is not steadied the demands are not eased and the real discussion engaged in we'll see our productive sector take this country quickly into recession. That will be disaster for all not just our farmers. Thank you Mr Speaker.