Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): What a great start it has been for the National-led Government in 2017. It is a very exciting year. We have got the election date confirmed and we are ready to go. We have proven just since the start of the year how successful a start it has been for the Prime Minister Bill English. Has it not been a fantastic start for this side of the House? When you have had the Prime Minister go up to Europe on the international stage and meet all of those top dignitaries there—and then of course he came back and made the right call to not go to Te Tii Marae. Of course Labour trundled out there and then said: Well the Prime Minister should have been here but actually we're not even sure if we're coming back next year." What a terrible mixed message that was from the Leader of the Opposition Andrew Little.Then of course we had the phone call from the President of the United States of America—a very successful phone call between our Prime Minister and the President. Then we had the Prime Minister shearing a sheep on Saturday night. What Prime Minister around the world could shear a sheep in the style and in the way that our Prime Minister did? No one could. And of course he beat the world champion Sir David Fagan. Anyone who is interested and wants to know how good Sir David Fagan is there is a YouTube clip of him shearing a sheep the fastest ever in 14 seconds. As fast as that machine could go his hand was going to keep up. He is an amazing athlete—and I say well done to Bill English.Then if we look across the other side of the House—what a terrible start it has been for them. We saw Labour and the Greens getting together for a sort of a state of the nation speech that had no policy announcements and then last week the Labour caucus just imploded. I say well done to Poto Williams for speaking her mind. Of course she could not speak her own mind—she needed to get a PR company in to do it—but nevertheless I say well done to that member for actually speaking up and saying something that she truly believes in. What fired up a good part of the Labour caucus was Willie Jackson coming in. Willie has been promised a great list-ranking spot and of course that means that a whole lot of Labour members—who are going to lose their seats this year so they are very reliant on the list—are imploding over on the other side of the House.I remember speech after speech after speech from Labour in this Chamber saying it would never do any electorate deal. No sorry that was the Green Party—it would never do any electorate deal. Well what has it done? It has done an electorate deal on Greg O'Connor running against Peter Dunne in Ōhāriu. Now we have got confusion on what the Green Party really thinks because it wants to do a deal and make sure that its candidate gets across the line in Ōhāriu. My belief of course is that he will not. Then we have another fresh face coming in to the Labour Party—Laila Harré. Really are those three the future of the Labour Party? I am not really sure. We will leave that up to the good voters of New Zealand.Can I specifically focus on the Prime Minister's statement and his motion—just the high-level message that I took out of it. The economy is in great shape. It is going to grow at 3 percent over the next 5 years. Unemployment is going to drop to 4.3 percent. Is that not fantastic? There will be 140000 jobs created over this period of time. We are in a fantastic position. Little old New Zealand down here in the South Pacific is pulling the plough getting on with growing our economy. Tourism numbers are going gangbusters. Then think about the police announcement made by the Prime Minister and police Minister Paula Bennett being really well received in rural New Zealand—really well received. There will be more cops on the beat and a quicker response time. They are making sure that all of our communities are safer with a real focus on rural communities which I think is fantastic.Then if we get a little bit closer to home in the Ōtaki electorate there has been a great announcement on the UFB2 rollout for towns in my community like Ōtaki and Foxton—or Shannon in Ian McKelvie's electorate. They have been waiting ages for the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and the National-led Government is going to deliver it.The really exciting news this week of course is the Kapiti Expressway. The Kapiti Expressway is going to be officially opened on Thursday.Kris Faafoi: You didn't want it.Hon NATHAN GUY: And Kris Faafoi campaigned against it. Kris Faafoi in the northern part of his electorate that he never goes to in Raumati had signs up against it. We are going to remind Kris Faafoi's voters that Labour was against $630 million being invested in our community in our region. We have waited absolute decades and decades. Five hundred jobs—created with the Kapiti Expressway. It is 18 kilometres long with 18 bridges and 16 kilometres of cycleway walkway and bridleway 1.5 million trees planted and wetlands enhanced by about sixfold or eightfold. This is a truly majestic road. The Prime Minister is going to be there on Thursday opening it. When Labour and the Greens were opposed to it David Cunliffe as leader—remember when he was leader? It was a terrible result was it not! The reason it was so terrible was that he came out opposed to the Kapiti Expressway.And we have always been confused about Labour's position on Transmission Gully. Transmission Gully is going to be built and we are going to drive on it in 2020. For my community and for the commuters who come from Horowhenua into Kāpiti and into Wellington each day for work at the moment—just to go a 100-kilometre stretch from Levin to Wellington—it takes at peak time over 2 hours. It is diabolical. This Government is investing $2 billion from Wellington Airport all the way to north of Levin—in fact right through to Foxton where we are going to build a fantastic new bridge over the Manawatū River and a new trestle which will be a $70 million investment.But wait there is more. We are going to invest $330 million in 13 kilometres from Peka Peka to Ōtaki. I would not have a clue where Labour and the Greens are on that one. We are going to start in the middle of the year. Kris Faafoi puts his head down in shame because we know that the Greens oppose roading infrastructure and we know that Labour depending on what day of the week it is opposes decent infrastructure as well because it opposed the Kapiti Expressway. Those members are now so embarrassed I am not even sure whether Labour will turn up to the community walkover on the weekend. There will be thousands who will come to the Kapiti Expressway. It will be the first opportunity for them to walk along a section of it. Get on the bus—it will be absolutely fantastic.But now I think I have ridiculed Labour enough.Scott Simpson: No!Hon NATHAN GUY: Do you want me to go on? Well I could. I could but I would need extra time and I want to talk about a few other important things in the area that I look after which is the primary sector—the powerhouse of the New Zealand economy. It is actually in pretty good shape. Dairy is going well—climbing off the bottom rebounding really well. Horticulture is going gangbusters. The forestry sector is in good heart. Exports into China are going really well. And then of course we should not forget about seafood because it has been doing pretty well as well. Its exports are looking pretty promising.On the other side of the coin it is quite tough for our sheep farmers. The beef prices have stabilised and stayed up. We have got the US herds rebuilding a bit more Brazilian product coming in—it is pretty tough down on the farm for our sheep farmers. We are doing what we can to support them. Of course we have the Primary Growth Partnership whereby we are investing with industry a huge amount into the red meat sector to lift its viability and productivity.This Government is focused on irrigation because it is really topical. When you go to Northland where I was a couple of weeks ago they are finding it pretty tough with drought conditions up there. They are screaming out for water storage projects. So are people in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne. Of course if we had the Ruataniwha Dam built now would that not be absolutely fantastic? But Labour and the Greens oppose water storage projects. We have invested about $145 million into water storage. We believe it is hugely important.This year is going to be a year about acknowledging the great work that our farmers our fishers and our growers do to actually support the New Zealand economy. They are a massive part of it. We will have policies that will support rural communities because the produce that comes off the farm needs to get to the port. Predominantly it goes on the road. This Government is investing in infrastructure. We are investing in roads. We are investing in rail. We have done more than in the history of the New Zealand Parliament to invest in decent infrastructure. It is going to be a fantastic year. Bring it on."