Cameron Mark; Mallard TrevorMARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker and the gathered members. Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."—Sir Winston Churchill. On 10 a.m. December 12 1944 Stuart Franklin Geoff Bale and five others flew on that day aboard Juliet-Echo-Echo NG-351. They flew stoic in their silence brave in their intent and petrified in their stare and yet they flew on. Help arrived. Enemy aircraft strafing munitions ever constant ever threatening only to appear then disappear just as quickly. Altitude was evaporating. Controlled mayhem erupted. Their plane smashed into the ground—no landing gear little hydraulics and a 4000 pound "cookie" bomb on board. Unbelievably all survived. Geoff Bale was just 21 years old a sheep farmer from Masterton. Within weeks these men were back in circulation. My grandfather among them Stuart Franklin was a man of few words boundless wisdom and I loved him beyond measure. What so many young New Zealand men who served would have done to be back home like Geoff Bale back on the farm. It is for this sake I believe I owe them a debt I will struggle to ever repay. To have risked so much—the loss to family potential not realised dreams never met—and yet all those brave souls flew on. Thousands upon thousands flew on for the freedom of democracy and prosperity to embrace all things heartfelt and for Geoff and Stu all things home all things Kiwi. Churchill also said "We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us." My speech here today is for all the men and women farmers the fishing folks and all of New Zealand blue-collar workers like all those who risked to dream beyond the war that allowed the rest of us in time to do the same. People like Geoff Bale the sheep farmer who became a living metaphor for all of those that desired to farm would go to any lengths to hold on to what was dear. He was one of so many who chose to risk everything to preserve a life I now choose to enjoy a life of freedoms that sadly evermore seem to be taken for granted.This embodiment of a desired better tomorrow goes back to our earliest settlers those men and women and the love of the land against all the challenges that it might bring—that true pioneering spirit a journey in and of itself being one with the land. This was the nature of farmers and labourers throughout New Zealand's history going to such extraordinary lengths to live on the land and enjoy the toil they're in. The farm I now own in Northland has a long and colourful history. It is a canvas of 150 years of farming in New Zealand steeped in pride passion and zeal. This is unparalleled in so many other countries. In 1869 Ann Rogers left Auckland with her 10 children. By some accounts it is believed she set sail from Helensville up the Kaipara Harbour following the tide. This journey would have taken weeks making landfall when nature allowed following the tide north. Many weeks later they arrived in Rēhia Northland on the farm I now own. Joseph her husband a printing press operator in Auckland was destined to follow the year later. Within 12 months of Joseph's arrival their farming dreams laid out in front of them Joseph was to lose his life to a terrible fever. Farming in the wilds of Northland in the 1860s was fraught with danger and disease. His loss sadly left behind Ann and her 10 children in these untamed lands of Northland. Yet Ann's dreams of making good in this journey remained undaunted. Ever the farmer's way ever determined she remained steadfast and unwavering. Although her challenges were vast her willingness was ever greater and she stuck at it. The generations that followed must have such immense pride. Men like Bob Berridge following in her footsteps some 50 years later on the same farm. He carried the baton forward. He also dared to dream. As a teenager Bob in the 1910s would clear scrub all day to create farmland giving him just enough pasture for a few cows which he would milk by hand when he could in fact catch them. To supplement his meagre income he would ride his horse six or seven hours to supply salted meat to the shepherds miles away often returning after midnight his journey lit by the moon. These are but some of the people that preceded my career on the farm I now own. Many decades on I beam with pride and respect at their exploits. Though the challenges have changed and the difficulties are still frequent that desired passion of New Zealand farmers to work the land to be one with nature and to embrace the farming ideal remains strong—for now at least. I think every farmer has it like those Albertlanders who settled on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour and their aspirations or the Geoff Bale of this world. We now see this belief locked in so many farmers—three four or five generations whence. It is that something special that our farmers our fishing folk and our rural people feel. It's just something in our bones. But evermore unfortunately for many that feeling is slowly dying. I think most farmers and rural people would reluctantly agree. My old friend Winston Churchill again: "The farther back you can look the farther forward you are likely to see." I am afraid our farmers are finding that image ever increasingly more difficult to discern. All our farmers and growers identify with who they are by what they do; ever increasingly that identity is being taken from them. As a young boy of five and six this saw me growing up on a dairy farm in Northland. Small town rural New Zealand is where my life journey began. Every day was an adventure a learning experience the rigours of daily farming life ever present and a community in which everyone knew everyone—and I loved it. Although I spent my teenage years at Auckland Grammar School the pull towards the countryside and rural New Zealand was always strong. The land the animals farm machines all were powerful magnets for a young boy. It was because I felt part of something something bigger than myself and like so many of us who feel it it was tremendous. My life on the farm has been a journey shared with my wonderful family. My darling Jodie—my partner—my mother Julie and sister and my uncle Brian are here today. They shared in my dreams to see me succeed in one of the best industries in New Zealand and amongst the best farmers in the world. I have now been farming for 30 years non-stop and in that time I've seen all sides of rural New Zealand: the trials and the tribulations of those in my community and those that have stood beside me in their rural journey. I have worked with livestock for decades whether goading dairy cows or being chased by wild bulls the latter of which resulted in breaking both collarbones and eight ribs on several different occasions or being on farm with pneumonia in a perpetual wet winter that caught so many farmers out. Also living with the pangs of depression for three or four years in my early thirties. This has been my life in farming. These won't be unfamiliar anecdotes to most farmers many of whom now know colleagues and friends who found the going too tough sold up moved on or in too many cases took their own lives. Yet despite an environment of increasing uncertainty we farmers are still here. We are hanging on always working. After all the world needs feeding and clothing and it's our job to do it. But what has remained till now at least has been the farming communities and an occasional politician who might choose to listen. "But are they listening really?" many would ask. There is a sadly ever-widening divide between urban and rural New Zealand. It is a divide which I and the ACT Party have promised to come here and address. It was heartening to see COVID-19 briefly bringing New Zealand farming communities front and centre again a temporary shift in perception which was so wonderful to experience and seemed by the wider public to be gratefully received. Farmers rightly asked though why did it take something like COVID-19 for so many people to realise how important farmers are to this country and how good we are at what we do? I joined the ACT Party long before anyone had heard of COVID-19 because I saw a need for real change. My mission was to return a sense of pride to rural New Zealand and I thought the ACT Party would help me provide that opportunity. I want all farmers again to feel that sense of fairness which for too long has been missing. We farmers are tired and weary of being political fodder for some New Zealanders' guilty conscience about their own environment or being pandered to during an election campaign to then only be ignored when the votes have been cast. Ever more the political class speaks less to the provincial communities it once embraced so vigorously. Those communities now feel more distant from their urban cousins more at odds with the way they see their own backyard. For the good of New Zealand's collective wellbeing it must not be this way. That is why I have come to the ACT Party to balance the conversation. We can no longer accept cynical soundbites like "dirty dairying" and suggestions animals are destroying the planet or that industry perpetually pollutes. Rural New Zealand deserves better than being told to desist and diversify by people with so little experience on how farming and industry actually works especially when so much has already been done to improve our environmental footprint and the country's collective farming operations. I intend to help change this narrative so more people recognise the good works of all New Zealanders not the chosen few. We have always been a country that embraces technology and our Kiwi farmers are the best in the world at doing it. We should see our future as one that builds on the foundations that have been made and support techniques that allow industry to be on equal footing with that of the environment not its whipping boy. As the ACT Party rural spokesperson I will bring this advocacy. I will extol of all good things in rural New Zealand including the protection of the environment and equally ACT's fundamental principle of the protection of private property rights. I will advocate for sensible-based environmental policies for all New Zealanders which are attainable and pragmatic. I ask all politicians here in this Parliament to bring honesty integrity and practicality to the process of regulating the operations of all New Zealand communities not virtue signalling and catch phrases that cannot be applied to real farming and those that do it. Farmers remain so bloody important such strong threads in the fabric of this country and New Zealand society. My goal here is to restore that understanding so that once again self-belief will be farmers' and growers' and rural folks' greatest asset. That is why I am here to pay off this debt to my constituents: the farmers the rural communities and all those beyond to the descendants of farmers like Geoff Bale and the Albertlanders and those that followed them. But most of all I owe my debt to those brave souls who flew on that day in 1944 and served their country in its darkest hours so that we might all enjoy our lives across this great land so our farmers and our town folk alike can once again rejoice with shared pride and that we all here can embrace this highest altar of our democracy and in doing so bridge that ever-widening urban divide. Thank you Mr Speaker. [Applause]SPEAKER: I call on Dr James McDowall to make his maiden statement."