Clendon David: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1470. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):I was pleased yesterday that the beautiful region of Northland got a mention in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. I notice that it got another mention today. It could be that a by-election is what it takes to finally get some Government attention for a region that has been neglected for the last 30 or 40 years at least. It is an unexpected by-product perhaps of an unfortunate situation.Unfortunately the PM’s comment was in the context of a particular stretch of motorway that for his information will not actually enter Northland. The “Holiday Highway” to Wellsford actually will not deliver benefits to Northland on anything like the scale of what was being proposed. Northland actually does not particularly need and will not benefit from a billion-dollar investment in a gold-plated “Holiday Highway” to Wellsford. What Northland does need is a reliable roading and rail network. We need to build resilience into that roading and rail network for very sound economic social and indeed environmental reasons.We saw last year in the middle of a particularly wet winter that it rained for 4 days in a row and the roading network in Northland collapsed. It is interesting to note that 9 months later a major diversion on State Highway 1 still has a sign that says “Temporary Bypass”. We are seeing no investment in building resilience into the roading network that is critical for the ongoing economic and indeed social well-being of Northland. A lot of the products coming out of Northland be they primary production or manufactured goods are time-critical products. If we cannot reliably get to ports and if we cannot reliably export from the region to the markets then our economic well-being will be stalled if not doomed for the foreseeable future.We did see a useful contribution to the debate—a document released jointly by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for Primary Industries grandly titled Tai Tokerau Northland Growth Study: Opportunities Report which is actually a very useful piece of work. Some of the analysis some of the extrapolation from the data in it is questionable and debatable and that is not unusual but it is a very useful snapshot. There is a lot of useful data in it. We were particularly pleased to see that the document does acknowledge and overtly recognises that we must build the reality of climate change into any future strategy for Northland as with our other regions. If we do not recognise the reality of that then we are doomed to get it wrong and otherwise we will be planning for some past situation rather than making sensible plans for what we know will be our future.The report talks about the possibilities around horticulture a more diverse horticulture—higher-value horticultural products apiculture bee-keeping. Mānuka honey is the new liquid gold and hopefully there is a sustainable industry to be built around that. It also talks about an indigenous forestry to convert low-value price-taking softwoods into high-value hardwoods where we can start setting prices on that. All of these potential very positive industries—economically and socially for Northland—are actually climate dependent so it is critical that we build that reality into our thinking or we will get it wrong.What we know Northland does not need is offshore drilling or a commitment to mineral extraction. Those were perhaps appropriate industries for the 19th century and the early 20th century; they have no part in the 21st century. Oil drilling as we are told will bring a bonanza in jobs. That is actually at odds with what a senior director of State Oil said at a public meeting in Kaitāia last year—that if there were any jobs for locals emerging from the offshore drilling programme it would be at least 6 years from now and they would be low-value jobs: truck drivers cooks and cleaners. That is not what the north needs. We need investment in social infrastructure access to health care access to education access to those basic social services access to high-quality affordable homes. We see nothing from this Government that will assure that those opportunities exist for Northlanders.The future of this country will depend heavily on the well-being of the regions. If the regions are not performing then the country will not perform well. We will continue to see negative social statistics. We will continue to underperform economically and environmentally we will see degradation which we simply do not need to experience. We are moving into a new low-carbon future. We need to recognise the reality of that. We need to create policies and investments that will seek to close rather than widen the inequality gap in New Zealand. We need to acknowledge the reality of climate change in Northland as well as elsewhere. Thank you.