McKelvie Ian: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcKelvie Ian: General Debate[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:4995. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I would define that speech by Megan Woods as a cream puff. She talked about what the Government lacks in ideas. Unfortunately every idea that Labour has had in 7 years it has canned. I will not talk for any longer about that. I want also very briefly to mention the outgoing Clerk of the House Mary Harris. It would be an unenviable job listening to us day after day night after night. I was quite excited to hear about her fishing spot. I happen to know where she goes fishing. If she improves her fishing at that rate no doubt I will catch a few more. But the other thing I was really intrigued with was her cricketing record. I have for a long time now had assisting me a couple of New Zealand cricketers who in the words of a previous Deputy Speaker of this House were women of substance. I am sure that that is how you could adequately describe Mary Harris.I want to get on and talk briefly today about the region of the Horizons Regional Council—in fact the Hurricanes region—both of which of course encompass the Rangitīkei electorate. What a fortnight it has been for that region. There has been significant flooding hitting the Wanganui and Rangitīkei areas earlier in this last fortnight followed by a couple of decent thumpings that the Hurricanes have given their opposition in recent times. Of course the other end of my electorate stretches right into the territory of the Chiefs who were the finalists at the end of this week and the Highlanders of course gave them a good thumping in Otago last week. The Government’s response to the storm event in the Manawatū and Wanganui areas in my view has been outstanding. I was around at the time of the previous massive floods in that region and saw the response of the Labour Government of that time. I think Minister Kaye—Hon Annette King: And you praised us for it.IAN McKELVIE: I did not criticise. You are absolutely right Annette King. We loved George Hawkins coming to see us on a regular basis. I want to talk about the response of Ministers Kaye and Guy. Simon Bridges Minister Bridges is in for a bit of a fright I think when he gets his roading bill because there is some significant roading damage throughout that region.I also want to talk just briefly about the performance of the mayors in that region because it does give you a bit of a fright as a mayor when you suddenly see your territory decimated by something you have got no control over. I think Annette Main Andy Watson and Ross Dunlop have done a great job of keeping their communities together and keeping the Government interested. I think it is absolutely key in an event like that that you keep a Government interested. They have done a great job and I think they should be congratulated on the work they have done. I think the region although it has got some significant challenges in front of it is over the worst of it and hopefully the weather will be kind to them in the next few weeks. I spent this morning in the lower part of my electorate looking at some extremely badly damaged farms and houses. It was in a very small area interestingly. This flood was very different from previous ones in that it has caused damage all over the place but not in every place. There are isolated spots of significant damage.The response from the Government in my view has been quick and effective. Taskforce Green is benefiting to the tune of $500000 and another $310000 is going into the regional disaster funds of one sort or another—whether they are mayoral funds or regional funds. As I said Minister Bridges is going to get a significant fright when he gets the roading bill because it will be the biggest part of the clean-up for this job. The roads in rural Rangitīkei and rural Wanganui and in some parts of South Taranaki have had significant damage. There has also been $145000 that has gone into the rural support network which will help particularly the people in the rural areas who are under stress and there are a number of them. The Minister for Social Development has put some money into that sort of support as well.This afternoon Minister Guy announced another significant supplementary funding round going into the Horizons Regional Council sustainable land use initiative. After 2004 it did a significant amount of work right throughout the region from coastal Hawke’s Bay to the mountains in the north on dealing with fragile land that had been significantly damaged during the course of that 2004 event. This afternoon Minister Guy announced another injection of about $4.7 million into that fund. That will make a massive difference to Horizons Regional Council’s ability to continue the work of that fund. The basic work of it is to retire land that is fragile a lot of which should not ever have been farmed. It should not have been broken in. But of course in our history we have had times where we have significantly subsidised the ability of farmers to break land in. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but probably some of that land should never have been broken in. This fund gives those farmers the opportunity to retire that land to plant trees on it to re-fence it and to get it operating again. If you look at the Government assistance that went into the East Coast after Cyclone Bola and you look at the result up there it has been significant. Thank you.