Barry Maggie; Mallard TrevorHon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Seniors): Well following that rude discourse from a member of Parliament who ought to know better because he has been around for a while let me pick up on one of the themes that the Prime Minister set the tone on when he made the statement. It is about New Zealanders caring for other New Zealanders. We are a Government that cares.As the Minister for Seniors one of my priorities this year is going to advance the notion of an age-friendly New Zealand by creating places where our vulnerable elderly can walk around at their leisure. Helping our elderly to be safe in their communities with a police force that is answerable to burglaries and to other more serious crime is something that really will make a difference and will make an impact on the lives of New Zealanders. Age-friendly New Zealand is something that has been picked up by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a general template. The WHO set the boundaries if you like and we have picked it up and it is now being trialled in Hamilton Kāpiti coast New Plymouth and my Office for Seniors is supporting them in that.Some of the very real challenges that exist for New Zealanders are around the most shameful of problems and that is elder abuse. Elder abuse and neglect are things that are growing in New Zealand—perhaps growing at the pace of our ageing population. It is very difficult to determine. There are around 2000 recorded cases per year and we know that figure is only a very small proportion of the people who do not come forward and complain. In a population of our size we could expect it to be closer to about 17000 people. What I am aiming to do this year as the Minister for Seniors is to evaluate the way we deliver elder abuse services to New Zealanders to have a more involved and inclusive approach and to put more resourcing into delivering outcomes for vulnerable older New Zealanders.The SuperGold card is an important part of ending social isolation which is one of the things that leads often to elder abuse—when people are in their own homes or they feel that they cannot get out and about. So the card with its transport concession which this Government has funded very generously for a long number of years now is making sure that people have access to that. So as the Minister from very humble beginnings when we inherited the card we looked around the world decided it was worth keeping and we have—my predecessor Jo Goodhew and I—put a lot of time and effort into making sure that that card gives deliverable resources discounts and privileges to seniors. I think of it as an entitlement. It is what seniors deserve because they deserve our respect they deserve our support and they deserve dignity. So that is one of my main priorities as the Minister for Seniors and it is one that our Prime Minister Bill English understands very well and supports absolutely.The other thing that was signalled by the Prime Minister in his statement was about the continuation of conservation and environmental initiatives from this Government. I am speaking primarily of Predator Free 2050 which is one of those big hairy stretch goals that the world admires and takes notice of. The Department of Conservation (DOC) is very good at dispatching unwanted mammalian eco-invaders so what we have been doing is helping DOC to partner with others. We have set up the Predator Free 2050 entity. I convened its first board meeting 2 weeks ago. They are a high-powered very focused group of people who will make key decisions about landscape-scale predator control. We will probably start around Taranaki but we will move around New Zealand and community by community and town by town we will take over again what is our birthright for our flora and our fauna—and that is to get rid of the big three initially—that is rats stoats and possums. We are doing that across the Crown with Operational Solutions for Primary Industries New Zealand. I am working with the Ministry for Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy and with my colleague the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith as well. And I commend our newcomer if you like. He is the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee Scott Simpson who spoke earlier. He is our new conservation and environment parliamentary private secretary and he is already doing great work.So this is a Government that takes our environment and our conservations measures very seriously indeed We are about to launch a series of initiatives around planning ahead; not being caught up in the 3-year cycle but having a 20-year plan so that we can have a conservation - environment science road map. We will be announcing something to that effect a little bit later this month and encouraging people to have some input into scientific evidence-based conservation and environment that all across-Government entities can buy into and plan in advance. This is how we are going to get to where we need to go and that is what we do as a Government. We try to measure and then make decisions that are informed about the science and that is why we use 1080.I was in Northland last week. We made several announcements on another environmental issue that is very close to my heart and that is the War on Weeds. Chief amongst them are wildings. Last year in the Budget Minister Nathan Guy and I managed to get another $16 million so we are giving that out to a variety of groups who are doing excellent work in keeping these wildings—which are really escapees from forest farms and domestic gardens—controlled. One of the ones of course that Labour might benefit from here is in the dirty dozen. The War on Weeds includes wandering willie. I know you have a wandering Willie of your own. Let me say to you here that we have the technology to deal with this pest—this invasive thing. There are biological controls. You can chop them down but if you are not vigilant gee they will come back again with a vengeance. And that particular individual Willie Jackson I know of old has reinvented himself more times than you would imagine possible. But we have the technology. We can help Labour take this pest out so I am just saying the offer is there.There are even more serious problems than that one of course that plague our forests. In Northland we have an issue where the kauri dieback needs management. Our discussions with iwi have been very fruitful around using 1080 which is the only effective predator landscape-style weapon that we have actually against these unwanted eco-invaders. So we have dialogue with iwi and communication with volunteer groups coupled with a good funding model—which is the DOC community fund I announced $700000 worth of last week in Northland going to about eight different groups—these are the kinds of things that will really make a difference to New Zealanders' lives and to returning our natural taonga to their place where they deserve to be and to get rid of the creatures that we do not want.In the arts culture and heritage field the other initiative Landmarks is something that I feel that the House and the wider public will know more about and will need to because it is going very well. Landmarks combines the Department of Conservation Heritage New Zealand and Arts Culture Heritage along with Tourism New Zealand to attract visitors to the paths less well trod. So Māngungu Mission House Te Waimate Mission House—these are places that people do not go quite as often as they do to Tāne Māhuta or the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. What we have done is we have put together the Landmarks which are the important places that tell our stories and that talk to us about the values that we have around our history and our heritage—our natural heritage as well as our pre-European and our colonial. So Landmarks which is going particularly well as a pilot is something that we are going to be hopefully rolling out around the country and we will have some announcements on that a little bit later in the year.The Regional Culture and Heritage Fund has also been very popular. Todd Barclay has been a very articulate advocate in his area and one of his area's museums was given funding. It is a fund of last resort so the Crown will fund one-third the local community will come up with one-third either through philanthropy or business and we will also have a way in which we can help fund through local authorities and regional councils.I acknowledge Dr Shane Reti because in the Whangarei area he has been very persistent around the Hundertwasser facility. We put $4 million towards that last year. We are very determined that such an excellent facility which will really allow development of an economic nature to occur in the region attract visitors encourage people to get jobs and to work. Conversations with articulate local MPs really do help individuals who are struggling to go through the paperwork not sure where to start. That connection with Government is really very helpful to ensuring the projects that are difficult to fund will survive and will thrive and that is my aim as a Minister: to make sure that we listen very carefully to them.So that fund which has about $6.5 million—I have just announced another round and there is about $12 million in that and there will be a third round of funding as well this year. So I encourage all of you who have excellent heritage places—art galleries museums performing arts venues. I made the fund a lot more flexible last year and those dividends are now going to be handed out to people so that they can preserve their own special places.First Encounters 250—the arrival in New Zealand of Captain James Cook. He would not have made it as far as he did without the Tahitian chief Tupaia. They circumnavigated New Zealand and in one particular visit they went to a place and Captain Cook—his story is that he wanted to visit Gisborne. Tupaia helped him. This is a story of two men and their encounters with our tangata whenua. The story will be told—it is about the beginning of our nationhood. This is a programme that is being funded by Government. There are some very exciting things that are happening and I am very proud to be part of this Bill English - led National Government.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am informed this is a split call—Paul Foster-Bell.