Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We're looking at, the member for Kennedy, capturing more water here and using that water more efficiently, as the Deputy Prime Minister has been talking about for some time. But New Zealand irrigation encaptures about five per cent of their arable area, whereas in Australia it's around one per cent of our arable area, so it is an important sector. Of course, as the intensification of agriculture occurs, they're having challenges around the contamination of water courses and other things.

I'm going to leave it to the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources to mention some of the particular visits and site visits that we did, but I just want to run through some thank yous before I wind up. I particularly want to thank Ruth Lewis from the visits and ceremonies office in New Zealand, who was fantastic and did a wonderful job of running the trip smoothly; Winton Holmes from the clerk's office of the New Zealand parliament, who was also there to support and advise us as we travelled around; His Excellency Peter Woolcott, the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand, and, particularly, his staff Ms Anna Brown and Ms Alison Duncan for their support and advice during the trip; and, of course, our own Anthony Overs and the secretariat here in our Parliament House, along with the international parliamentary office, who made all the arrangements for a very smooth, very informative and worthwhile visit.

I just want to conclude by saying that New Zealand is our closest friend in the international community. We compete fiercely on the sporting field and in the trade field, but we have many, many common interests and we can certainly work together to achieve those interests.

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