Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First for this Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. I'm much more enthusiastic than I may have appeared just previously when I missed my call because this is actually a really sensible and constructive bill. It does allow that transfer of 1.35 hectares of Crown-owned riverbed and the approximately 10 hectares of Crown conservation stewardship land to be utilised for this Waimea dam which will have significant benefits for rural and urban people in the Tasman district and Nelson City itself both economic and environmental.Of course it seeks to irrigate some 1200 hectares of horticultural land mainly. I believe there are about two dairy farms in that particular area. So I think the widespread concern around irrigation as has been mentioned by previous speakers—much of it a little bit overblown but in this case certainly there is no particular environmental danger. In fact the benefit to the health of the river through having this water storage and being able to keep the flows going through the often dry summer months will far outweigh any environmental impact that the dam may have from nutrient loss. Of course there are very strict regional council rules around that stuff anyway so it really is a win-win scenario.I note that all the consents are in process. It does have the combined support of the Nelson City Council Department of Conservation Fish & Game and Forest & Bird. It's good to hear from our colleague over here Rino Tirikatene that iwi are now on board. There was some debate a little bit about that and hopefully that's the case because there was just a shadow of doubt there that that was confirmed. But the Tasman District Council of course who have led this and have brought this forward deserve some credit for pulling all those entities together I guess.Of course it hasn't been an easy political process. It did get the speed wobbles there in the first vote and I think it was voted down. But of course they reconfigured the costs and the way that the costs would be covered and a few days later they did reverse that decision. I note there is another vote a final vote coming up next week I believe. So the ball will be hopefully after this firmly back in the court of the Tasman District Council.This has been I think close to 20 years in the making and the Government has contributed pretty strongly here—$35 million in a concessionary loan and $7 million from a pool of money set aside for grants. The $35 million—I just want to emphasise that. It is a loan. Often in these schemes they are considered to be handouts or subsidies to farmers. They are in fact not. They are a loan. They're essentially bridging finance to make sure the scheme can be built so it's fit for purpose and futureproofed—not nickel and dime. So it's actually really good value for taxpayer money to be extending this loan and of course the farmers will pay it back over time because this is a multi-generational decision—to go into investing in irrigation. The farmers themselves are actually often the very last people to benefit because they take on vast quantities of debt that they have to pay off often over a generation. Many of these farmers I'm sure as mentioned in Ginny Andersen's contribution will be multi-generational farmers who will be doing this for the next generation not themselves. But the communities themselves they'd benefit straight away. The earth movers and the builders and the towns they benefit instantly from this injection—and significant injection—of capital.Of course this is the perfect time to invest. I think the Government bond as of this morning was sitting at about 2.67 percent. In fact interestingly the US Government bond sits at over 3 percent. So for the first time—and probably almost unprecedented recently no doubt because of the competence of this Government—we actually see the New Zealand Government being able to borrow money at less than the US Government which is an absolutely extraordinary circumstance. It is a great credit to us as a nation our fiscal responsibility. So this is a good time to be doing long-term infrastructure investments like we're doing now. The $103 million it does seem like a lot of money but in 10 15 years' time it will seem like peanuts and the benefits will be flowing—both economic and environmental—from day one. So New Zealand First is actually a really big supporter of water storage. We have been proactive in that space and have been encouraging the Government to meet its commitments that we made in the coalition agreement and we have done that.I would like to commend Mayor Kempthorne. I actually had the pleasure as a hard-working South Island - based list MP—I was actually in Nelson and Tasman during a recess meeting with business leaders the chambers of commerce and Mayor Kempthorne out at the ports of Nelson and to a person they were enthusiastic about this project. They saw the necessity of it to futureproof not only their horticultural production but also their town water supplies. Of course this is a fast-growing region with great prospects so that infrastructure and that water that the infrastructure needed to deliver is going to be absolutely critical for the Nelson and Tasman region to fulfil its potential.Of course being a good New Zealand First member of Parliament I wasn't just talking to the big end of town. I went to the ratepayers association meeting that night and I did hear the other side of that debate. That's something that we should not take for granted: that especially for those on low and fixed incomes particularly pensioners whilst we might see a rates increase of approximately $150 a week—I think for some; $129 for others. I'm not quite sure how it's delineated. I think it depends if you're in Tasman or Nelson and I learnt that Centennial Avenue is quite a significant road because it's like Northern and Southern Ireland on either side of that. That $150 a week—sorry a year—at the top end is $3 a week and I think even though we've got to be very mindful of those low-income fixed-income people that $3 a week for a significant piece of infrastructure to futureproof your community is a very modest outcome in the grand scheme of things. I would encourage the Tasman council to be brave. It is hard when your ratepayers are many of them on fixed incomes struggling but I think you've got to look sometimes to the bigger picture.Of course it fits in with the coalition's aims to lift that value in our primary exports and the horticultural sector is one that is going extremely well. I think we're nearly at $6.5 billion worth of horticultural exports now. I actually didn't know that the Waimea Plains was the boysenberry capital of the world—30 percent of the world's boysenberries which is really really impressive and 60 percent of New Zealand's boysenberries. So it shows we're a major player in that market and Waimea Plains is the epicentre of that. Of course that contributes to that $932 million that the Northington report showed would be the economic benefit from this scheme. If you look at that over 25 years my calculation is that that's somewhere around $37 million dollars a year. If you look at the $103 million that it costs to set up the capital cost and you're getting $30 million - odd a year of economic gains from that that's a pretty significant return on investment. I'd just like to conclude by commending actually the member Dr Smith for shepherding this bill forward and all the members at the Governance and Administration Committee that obviously travelled down to Richmond and heard the submissions. I think it's great that the Parliament can be behind this bill with a degree of confidence. We haven't had all the parties speaking of course. The Green Party hopefully will see some merit in this bill but if not hopefully as a Parliament we've got the numbers to pass this very sensible piece of legislation. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.Paul Eagle: Madam Deputy Speaker.Hon Ruth Dyson: That was very well observed.