Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a great pleasure to speak in the House for the first time in the 54th Parliament. I'd like to welcome all the members that have come back—every one of us in here today knows how hard we have to work to get here—and I'd also like especially to welcome the new members including Jamie Arbuckle who lives in Marlborough in the mighty Kaikōura electorate who represents the New Zealand First Party. Welcome to Parliament Jamie—it's good to have a couple of people from Marlborough representing the good people of Kaikōura.Actually I must mention all of the newer members. I'm looking forward to hearing all the maiden speeches that I'm able to and I certainly enjoyed the two yesterday; what a very high standard they set. Everyone has their own story and that's what we're all interested in hearing: what brought these people to this place and what drives them. It's really important I think that we all get an idea of that so I'm really looking forward to that. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Dr Vanessa Weenink who grew up in Marlborough and is known to many of my friends so I'm really looking forward to hearing her speech later on this afternoon and I know she has a very interesting backstory that people will want to hear.But we're here in the Address in Reply debate and look it's been quite interesting this afternoon. I thought that speech before was more self-reflection than anything else but someone whom I greatly respect on the other side of the House is the Hon Peeni Henare who spoke yesterday. I thought he made an excellent point: this is a debating Chamber; this is where we come to debate the issues of the day—I'm sort of paraphrasing what he said not as well and as eloquently as he put it. This is where we put our ideas and it is a contest of ideas. We don't all agree but that's the point: the best ideas might not always make it but those that do if you've got the numbers that is how laws are made that is what democracy is for and that is how it works. So I think as Peeni Henare said we can disagree without being disagreeable and I think that is something we should remember.The Hon Julie Anne Genter—you've got to admire her passion but she sometimes lets that get away with her and just controlling her emotions a bit more might make her points a lot more marked than they were. Calling people fools is not a way to win an argument. Just because they disagree with you does not mean they don't have a valid point of view and I think we should all just remember that when we're making our speeches.Out on the street and on the farm—Hon Scott Simpson: Vineyards!STUART SMITH: —vineyards—there's a great sense of relief with the change of Government. A change was needed a change was wanted and we have change. The thing about change is sometimes it can be difficult to accept. Because of the changes that we all campaigned on through the campaign and we're now administering it's difficult for some people to accept that. But that's the contest of ideas that Peeni Henare alluded to yesterday and I think we should remember that.The economy and the cost of living is one of our core things that we campaigned on and one of the things we're going to do a lot of work on and quite quickly. But I was just talking to my good friend here the Hon Andrew Bayly about an example of wasteful regulations and rules. We rushed through after the terrible event in Christchurch a few years ago some firearms legislation which was well intentioned but has had far-reaching and adverse effects that hopefully we will be able to unwind. I have a constituent who has a high-end hunting operation where high-end tourists from overseas come in and hunt on this property—they pay a lot of money to do that. They want to site their rifles in when they get there which is a reasonable thing to do—make sure that they're efficient at what they do. But he's had to go out and go through a very expensive process to set up a legal range on his property. On the property they're going to walk off the range and start shooting animals. This range doesn't need this licence—it's needless it's pointless it's wasteful spending and it's all those sorts of things that my colleague the Hon Andrew Bayly was talking about before—how businesses are being dragged down by those needless costs.It's well intentioned I get that but all the shooting ranges—there's quite a lot of perverse regulation in it whereby the owner of the gun has to be the licensed person transporting it in a vehicle for example so that those people in firearms clubs can't transport firearms easily between clubs for shooting competitions. These are law-abiding people who own firearms for sport not for crime. They are not the people we should be pursuing. So it's all those sorts of things that have had a bad effect on our economy.One of the other things that I think is going to be really good is we are going to reverse the union-inspired innovation-stifling productivity-lowering pay agreements also known as the fair pay agreements—that's the new name for it by the way. It was going to be a real drag on the economy and one of the things that people are really concerned about so that will be really good to get off the books.We also today had a question in the House about Lake Onslow. I think my colleague the Hon Simeon Brown neglected to mention that Lake Onslow is very expensive—there's no doubt about that. Again it's a well-intentioned idea. I know the landowners down there—they've been very concerned about Lake Onslow and what impact it would have on their property—very concerned about it. And I did quite a bit of work with them and I know Joseph Mooney did as well. What's been forgotten is it was going to cost $15.7 billion. And you may not be aware Madam Speaker but actually the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment did some research on this and they looked at large hydro projects around the world. The average cost overrun of a large hydro project is 98 percent.Hon Andrew Bayly: How much?STUART SMITH: 98 percent. So—Hon Andrew Bayly: Wow that makes $30 billion.STUART SMITH: Yes that's right—$15.7 billion will be roughly $30 billion by the time it's built. And it wouldn't be built until the middle of next year.Hon Member: Like light rail.STUART SMITH: It's exactly like light rail but it's also had a perverse effect on the electricity prices today and we've seen the forward prices in electricity much higher than the market would suggest otherwise they should be. But it's because of this sword of Damocles hanging over the market—being the Lake Onslow scheme—and also the 100 percent renewables target that the Government had in place. Again a well-meaning objective but it was never going to deliver on what it was intending to do and it had other consequences that were not taken into account. Those sorts of things have to be dealt with properly in the early stages. That's why we're bringing in cost-benefit analyses for all the policies that we bring in. That is an absolutely sensible way to go about making policies; we should all do that.But it is the farming sector that is most relieved about what is going on. They have literally been ground down and the relief from them—they were set up as public enemy number one and it actually really hurt those people.Hon Andrew Bayly: Vilified.STUART SMITH: And they were vilified. And then all of the costs—again well meaning but they were piled on top of those people in their everyday businesses which made it much more difficult for them to get on and farm. And actually they didn't have that spring in their step that they would normally have getting out on their farms and doing the work that they do. Actually without the farmers—they literally carry us on their back—and without the income that they earn through their exports this country would be a much poorer place than it is today. So all of our standards of living are underpinned by those people who get up at 5 o'clock in the morning sometimes earlier and go out and milk the cows who are out there in all weather looking after their animals. They are literally the backbone of New Zealand's economy and actually they should have our respect and we're going to rebuild that. Thank you Madam Speaker.