Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): It's very appropriate that the Minister has made that decision today to extend the medium-scale adverse event for those particular regions in the South Island. What has been fascinating in the last few months since the general election—and we heard it from the Green Party this afternoon talking about climate change—is that on this side of the House the National Party has been very supportive and instrumental in making sure that regional water storage projects get up and going. On average they take about 15 years to get concluded so that water flows.If this Government was really serious about drought mitigation then they should be standing up and supporting projects to ensure that more water is captured particularly when you think about alpine water flows in the South Island where there's an abundance of water. On average 5 metres of rain falls in the Southern Alps but we don't have enough water storage in this country. Now there's real confusion out there amongst the primary sector about whether this Government is going to support the projects—SPEAKER: Order! I'm going to interrupt the member now and indicate to him that a debate—the first point is that I have encouraged Ministers to make their statements and announcements in the House. I think it enhances the House to have that done. It's a practice that has not been that common not just in the term of the last Government but in the one before as well. But one of the rules is that when an announcement is made the response is directly about that announcement. It's not the chance for a general traverse over agriculture or water or storage policies. It's that announcement—what's happened today—rather than something that is more general and I'm going to ask that member to restrict himself because I think otherwise what he'll have is that one of the members who follows might be even more inappropriate.Hon NATHAN GUY: Well Mr Speaker thank you for that clarification. The importance of today's announcement covers three or four things. One is support for rural support trusts. They do a fantastic job and I congratulate Neil Bateup on getting a recent honour at New Year's time. He's a fantastic leader in this space. The other thing it does for farmers that are finding it really really tough is they can go into a Ministry of Social Development office and seek some financial hardship help. That's really important. The bar for farmers to meet that is incredibly high. Also there's some taxation flexibility.But fundamentally when you actually open yourself up to what can the Government do to mitigate these prolonged summer dry periods that we are all experiencing right now particularly in the areas that the Minister of Agriculture has just alluded to it is support water storage projects. In my view this announcement doesn't go far enough because what farmers and growers want to hear from this Government is are they prepared to support projects that are in the pipeline? There's a big review under way. It's caused a huge amount of uncertainty because you can't just acknowledge the support which is actually very small to support rural communities that are experiencing very drought-like conditions right now unless you are prepared to acknowledge that water storage is fundamentally important as well. We collect only about 2 to 3 percent of rain that falls in this country and what this Government should be doing is acknowledging those projects that are now stalled because the review is under way. The pipeline was full. The handbrake has gone on these projects. They don't know—SPEAKER: All right. Thank you. I thank the member for his contribution.