Bennett David; Mallard TrevorHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Speaker. All my colleagues today have started their speeches in fairness talking about how well the New Zealand public has done in dealing with the COVID outbreak earlier this year and I just want to reiterate that and congratulate the team of 5 million for the work that they did. But in doing that there was a responsibility then also on the Government to play its part in the last three months since the last community transmission. What we have seen in the last week is a definite failure by this Government to uphold its hard part of the bargain. It didn't do its job. Its Ministers were asleep at the wheel. They did not take the responsibility that is entrusted to them and they did not act in the best interests of New Zealanders.We heard Minister Little say they were cruising. They were cruising. That was the mentality of Labour Party Ministers and that is the mentality that has got this country into trouble. There's no excuse for what has happened in the last week apart from Ministers that sat there cruising hoping their leader would take them to the election—Ministers that didn't ask the hard questions and Ministers that did nothing in the New Zealand public interest. That is what has happened to this country in the last three months.I want to talk about one Minister in particular the Minister over there for agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture sat around for three months and did nothing. He did nothing to support the primary industries. In fact he was going around the country saying We need the primary industries at this time. They are so vital for the future of New Zealand." At the same time he was kicking them with greater regulation. But what he should have been doing was working in his office on how if there is another outbreak those farmers actually get to their farms across any inter-regional border. He didn't do a thing. He didn't even recognise that that was an issue because we all knew that if there was going to be an outbreak there would be inter-regional breaks. The Prime Minister made that very clear last time—that next time any shutdowns would be on a regional basis. That Minister sat there for three months and didn't look after New Zealand farmers.In fact when we had this incursion this outbreak and we had the lockdown in Auckland the Minister still didn't act. It didn't register to him that something needed to be done. It was only when the sectors came to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and asked because they had to have an exemption now. In the past the farmers were seen as essential businesses. But now under this outbreak you also need to have a Ministry of Health exemption. The Minister didn't think about talking to the Minister of Health and asking for that exemption for New Zealand farmers. There's no way he can deny that—there is no way he can deny that—because he didn't get an exemption for New Zealand farmers. The only exemption that is out there now is for dairy horticulture and poultry and that's because those sectors have been knocking on MPI's door for the last week. Where are the sheep and beef farmers? Where is the racing industry? Where's the Minister for Racing standing up for his industry? They were nowhere to be seen. They haven't acted in the best interests of New Zealanders and that is a disgrace for those Ministers. They did not do their job.Another thing that Minister should have been doing is looking at what level 3 rules would be. Did the Minister go out there and say "What about our butchers and our greengrocers?"—the people that sell the very products that our farmers make? Did he go and lobby so that any new level 3 conditions imposed on New Zealanders on a regional basis would still enable those businesses to operate so that those farmers and producers could sell their product to them? No he didn't. All we got was level 3 placed on us with the old rules because that's all they had in the bottom of the drawer. They sat there for three months cruising. They didn't think they had to deal with an issue like this and they didn't do the preparation. That is the job of a Minister of the Crown—to do the preparation. Their job is not to sit there and cruise and hope their leader gets them through; their job is to ask the hard questions think about what the issues are and direct their staff to make it happen.If we want to go wider than the Minister of Agriculture we can look at the Minister of Health and Megan Woods—whatever her role is now. They didn't ask the hard questions. We only got testing after the outbreak—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."