Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Chair. We have a short time for an industry that's worth billions and it would be nice to have more time but we don't so I'm actually going to direct my questions to the Minister in one call and hopefully we can get the answers to those. Now the chair Jo Luxton who by the way is a very good chair mentioned mental health and I want to make a comment about a working group with Dairy NZ and others that was mentioned in the annual reviews. I've got some information about that working group which says there are two separate considerations for mental health. So we'll go to the second one first and that's the way we organise and support our mental health services but the first is described as matters beyond mental health which includes drivers such as workforce pressures and the speed scale and coordination of regulatory change". I would like to know from the Minister what role he believes the Government has had in the mental health of the farmers including workforce shortages public perception and too many regulations. So that's my first question. The next one was around contractors and I've just been informed by my colleague Erica Stanford that of the 200 contractors that were promised prior to Christmas urgently—for our contactors and contracting farmers out there—we actually got nine. I want to know if the Minister's happy that that's a good enough number because nine out of 200 is a pretty poor strike in my view. The third question is around the meat industry. On 10 February we asked Minister O'Connor about what he was going to do for the meat workforce particularly in light of the fact that it was going dry in Southland—and it's been particularly dry—but all around the country and there was big excitement and flap that morning because finally after about a year of the National Party's Chris Bishop asking for rapid tests this was about to be announced. Interestingly enough in April in the AgBrief issue 14 volume 22: "Meat processors losing millions in value-added products as they attempt to get ahead of a backlog in cattle processing in Southland that may not clear until September." So I'd like the Minister to comment on that. I would also like the Minister to comment on this: we talked in the process around methane which is obviously one of the big issues that we have to solve in agriculture. There are a number of solutions on the horizon and there are a number of solutions that are used in other parts of the world and one of them is more suited currently to housed animals but they are working on solutions for New Zealand. Just wondering what the Minister has done in terms of looking at opening up regulations so that when the technology expands in that particular methane inhibitor we can start bringing it into the country as soon as possible. The fifth one is around soil carbon. We reached some agreement on the day Minister that we both felt that there was more depth in the ability to be able to sequester carbon in our soils. You said at the time—sorry Madam Chair. The Minister said to me at the time that we agreed and he agreed with me so I'm wondering what work the Minister is currently pursuing around soil carbon and its sequestration that will allow some mitigation for the agricultural industry. Thank you."