Ministerial Statements — Drought—Extension to Southland and Parts of Otago

I seek leave of the House to make a ministerial statement.

💬 SPEAKER: No, you don’t. You just make it.

On 23 December 2017, a medium-scale drought was announced for parts of the Taranaki, Manawatū-Whanganui, and Wellington regions and extended to include the Grey and Buller districts on 10 January 2018. While some rain has been received in many regions, alleviating some of the drought conditions, Southland and Otago have received little rain and are experiencing record temperatures. Some further useful rain is predicted for this week—and I’m hoping that my announcement might bring that rain on—for much of Southland and Otago; however, the impacts on farms have already occurred and will take time to recover from. Pastoral farmers in these areas have limited options to mitigate impacts of the drought, including record-low groundwater and river flows, irrigation restrictions, stock-feed deficits for coming months, and resulting loss of income.

I can now announce a further extension to the medium-scale drought event to include Southland, Invercargill City, and Gore districts, and parts of Otago, which include Clutha, Queenstown Lakes, and Central Otago districts. The classification triggers additional funding of up to $130,000 for the local rural support trusts and industry groups to coordinate information and recovery support to rural communities. My colleague the Minister of Revenue has welcomed the activation of the Inland Revenue Department’s income equalisation discretions for this drought, and Inland Revenue will also consider hardship situations. Affected farmers should contact their accountant in the first instance. Thank you.

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.

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—

All right. Thank you. I thank the member for his contribution.

The first thing I’ll do is congratulate my colleague the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, for taking the measures that he has taken with the speed that he’s taken them, and for having full regard to the fact that out there in regional New Zealand and in farming New Zealand they’ll be grateful that they’ve got a Government that actually doesn’t just talk but does something when it’s required, and far more expansively than what we’ve been hearing from some members in this House today. For example, the freezing works in Southland will also be—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You made a ruling it had to be right on point as to what this specific announcement was today, and not wider issues. He’s now talking about freezing works.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I’m sorry, I’m not across the exact effect on freezing works of these grants. There may or may not be an effect, and I’m prepared to listen.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for that—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry, Mr Peters. Mr Bridges.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I think this goes back to the earlier discussion before. You are across irrigation issues, and you entered the debate there and sat Mr Guy down, but you’re not against freezing works when Mr Peters speaks. That seems very strange to me, and I’d like you to reflect on that.

💬 SPEAKER: I will certainly reflect on that, and I invite the member to go back and look at the Hon Nathan Guy’s speech and see the proportion of it that referred to today’s announcement and the proportion that was on other matters. [Interruption] I’m pleased, even if the member is interjecting, that he’ll do that, but I do want to remind Mr Peters, while I wasn’t indicating that he was out of order yet, that I think Mr Bridges and myself both sensed he might be heading that way.

Mr Speaker, he couldn’t be more wrong. The reality is that the freezing works in Southland are covered by this decision made by the Minister of Agriculture, because—surprise surprise—the river levels are down. Therefore, they cannot acquire the water, and local bodies are now allowed a more expansive approach to ensure that they can carry on doing their business. It pays to know what’s in a portfolio before you get up and make an idiot of yourself.

So I want to thank Damien O’Connor, the Minister of Agriculture, for that, and say that it’s no use whingeing about what you didn’t do. The reality is, in the coalition agreement, preparedness and irrigation for the future are covered, and in the meantime we’ll get on with running the country soundly in the interests of provincial and regional New Zealand.