North Canterbury and South Marlborough were suffering from a drought—second year in a row, actually—and staring down the barrel of a pretty ugly spring. But that's all changed since that rain event has gone through. The other day I was down in Okuku, which is in the south western corner of my electorate, which was pretty badly affected by the drought there as well. I know from my experience in farming previously in mid-Canterbury how important it is to keep the fairways of the rivers clear. Quite clearly, that is not happening—no pun intended. It is not happening at the moment. Environment Canterbury (ECan) are not spending the time and the money. It seems to be they are using consents and so on as an excuse to not clear out the river. And it's so important to do that because willow trees start growing in the middle of the riverbed. Eventually, when a flood comes, it redirects the river straight towards the bank and it changes its course. And unfortunately, as my colleague mentioned before, every rainfall event now, until those rivers can be repaired, will cement in that new course and it becomes very difficult to reverse. Canterbury has been formed by rivers; that's how the Canterbury Plains were formed millions of years ago. But we have tried to control them, and now the die is cast, we have to get in there. It's just simple work that ECan should be undertaking on a regular basis.