Biosecurity Amendment Bill

I move, That the Biosecurity Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The Biosecurity Amendment Bill consists of two parts in 26 clauses. The first part makes 23 small but important changes to the Biosecurity Act. The second part repeals five redundant sections and part of one other section of the Forests Act. These redundant sections deal with issues of forest border control and pest management that are now dealt with under the Biosecurity Act. The amendments to the Biosecurity Act could be categorised as technical in nature and consequently the main policies of the Act are not changed by the bill.

The bill as introduced adds a new section that imposes a duty on all people to inform a chief technical officer of the presence of organisms not normally seen in New Zealand. The Primary Production Committee has recognised the need for three changes to the clause dealing with the duty to inform. Firstly, the committee has amended clause 6 so that a person’s duty to inform is to inform the ministry rather than the chief technical officer. The second change the committee recommended was to confirm that the duty to inform does not apply to organisms contained or released according to statutory approvals under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The third change is that the reporting duty applies to micro-organisms as well as to those seen with the naked eye. The committee also recommends that the Government provide information about unwanted organisms to assist those who have a duty to report, should the bill be enacted.

The bill as introduced provided a power to reduce the notice period to a minimum of 24 hours in cases where the 2-hour notice period would seriously damage the chance of containing or eradicating an undesirable organism. In such cases, notices may be given by way of radio or television announcement, or other means appropriate to the circumstances.

I wish to thank the Primary Production Committee for its work in considering the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. The amendments it has proposed will improve the bill’s provisions. The committee’s recommendations to the Government and to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are accepted and are being implemented.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important Biosecurity Amendment Bill. The National Party will be supporting this bill, because we recognise just how important biosecurity is to New Zealand. It is important in many ways. It is important to our economy, to our environment, and to both human and animal health.

I have huge reservations about the priority and degree of importance this minority Labour Government attaches to biosecurity. I note that this bill was referred to the select committee on 16 August 2001. There were seven submissions, a 75-minute hearing of evidence, and then consideration for 4 hours and 10 minutes. But here we are under urgency, almost 2 years later, and this Labour Government, which has so little interest in progressing such an important bill as this, has just sat back.

I think it is hugely important to focus on this Government’s appalling biosecurity record. Just since October last year there have been 11 biosecurity incursions.

💬 Judith Collins: How many?

There have been 11 since October last year. This bill came to the select committee 2 years ago, and it should have been passed a long time ago. The Government should have shown its interest in the hugely important area of biosecurity, but it has failed to do so.

Let us look at those 11 incursions since October last year. They include the Asian gypsy moth, crazy ants, fire ants, mosquito larvae, Asian tiger mosquito larvae, a Sydney Huntsman spider, Australian redback spiders and eggs, a North American southern ring-necked snake, a cane toad, and a scorpion. It is interesting to note that the general public have been responsible for discovering more than half of those incursions over that period. Clearly, the Government and its biosecurity surveillance systems are just not working.

It is important to point out just how significant this issue is to this Parliament. Treasury has estimated that an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in New Zealand would result in a cumulative loss of the order of $10 billion in 2 years and 15,000 jobs. That is how important the impact would be on the New Zealand economy, yet here we have a Government that is just dawdling along in respect of one of the things that is most important to the well-being of New Zealand. It might make a priority of deciding whether the lesbian parent of a child who happens to be born by reproductive technology should be called a father, but here is something that is hugely important to all New Zealanders. This Government’s priorities are just way, way out of proportion, and that is greatly worrying. To further point that fact out, we had the Associate Minister of Biosecurity, the Hon Marian Hobbs, telling this House on 26 March 2003 that finding only six incursions in the previous fortnight showed that we were really very good at surveillance. That is what she said. That is an indictment on this Labour Government and its Associate Minister of Biosecurity. Certainly, it is a huge worry when we have the sort of Government that just does not give priority to the things that are hugely important to New Zealand.

If the Government had really been concerned about this issue, it would have made sure that the surveillance and education of passengers coming into New Zealand were far greater. It is worthwhile to just go over some of the things that are picked up at the border. At New Zealand’s international airports last year, quarantine officers removed the following from incoming passengers: 8 tonnes of meat products, 15.9 tonnes of fruit, 3.6 tonnes of seeds, 3.2 tonnes of dairy products, 3.2 tonnes of fish products, and 5,800 plant items. That is astounding, yet here is a bill that was referred to the select committee on 16 August 2001, and here we are under urgency, almost 2 years later, finally getting round to progressing this non-contentious bill. The National Party certainly realises how important this bill is. The minority Labour Government just has not prioritised some of New Zealand’s most important issues in the way that it should have.

There have been some very important submissions, including one from Federated Farmers of New Zealand. I want to pay tribute to Federated Farmers for the vigilance it has consistently shown over many years in recognising how important an issue biosecurity is for New Zealand. After all, Federated Farmers has been the group representing those New Zealanders who are responsible for such a huge proportion of our exports. It points out in its submission that New Zealand pastoral exports are valued at $13.2 billion, and in 2000-01 pastoral exports comprised 42.7 percent of all exports. It goes on to say that New Zealand is heavily reliant on passive surveillance to detect new and unwanted pests and disease risks to nearly half its export earnings. What a hugely worrying concern it is when we have a Government such as this minority Labour Government that dawdles on such a hugely important issue as biosecurity.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: It’s so popular.

We have the “Minister of the Painted Apple Moth” over there saying “it’s so popular”. That Minister’s organisation of the control of the painted apple moth has been a shambles. It has been a disgrace in every sense. He talks about popularity, but it is certainly not deserved when it comes to the issue of biosecurity.

There are some very important issues within this bill that we support. Firstly, we support the duty of people to inform of the presence of organisms not usually seen in New Zealand. As the Minister pointed out, clause 6 reintroduces a previously repealed section that imposed a non-enforceable duty on all persons to inform of the presence of an organism not usually seen in New Zealand. Once again, the amendments address the question of reducing the amount of time relating to notice of aerial spraying. There was another excellent submission from that wonderful organisation, the National Council of Women, which pointed out that the time limits are vital, and the select committee has indeed recommended that time limits are absolutely imperative.

I will end by saying this is a hugely important bill, and National supports it. The Government has dawdled over implementing it.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. First, in response the speaker before me, I want to indicate how pleased we in United Future are to be supporting this urgency week so that bills like this can be passed through this House, instead of being left sitting on the Table for so long. This is an important bill that deals with an important subject for our nation. The intent of the bill is to amend the Biosecurity Act of 1993 to reflect experience of its practical application over 10 years, as well as make changes to clarify responsibilities for administering pest management.

In terms of better defining responsibilities, the merger of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Forestry has made some provisions of the Forests Act redundant, so those will be repealed. The bill ensures that the protective provisions of the Wildlife Act do not conflict with the use of the Biosecurity Act to control a wildlife organism that has since proved to have undesirable effects, as it did with the rainbow lorikeet. In the same vein, the Supplementary Order Paper in the Minister’s name was developed to ensure that the proposals of the Department of Conservation for regulating ferrets under the Biosecurity Act are not frustrated by wildlife regulations regarding farming of unprotected wildlife. The bill also allows persons not employed under the State Sector Act to be appointed as inspectors, which is sensible in emergency situations where additional biosecurity inspectors, who might not be Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry staff, could be required. They would still be subject to the supervision of ministry staff, however.

As I noted before, some provisions in the bill have arisen from the experience of officials and others in applying the legislation in practice. For example, the bill extends the ability to inspect and treat unaccompanied imported goods to include transnational facilities such as those areas used to process passengers. Normally, goods accompany passengers in those areas, but inspectors have found that that is not always the case, so the law needs to give them the power to check goods in this instance. The bill also extends the power to search persons and seize goods beyond unauthorised goods to include risk goods—in other words, organic matter—and allow for routine audits where uncleared risk goods or unauthorised goods might not necessarily be suspected. In certain circumstances, leaving uncleared risk goods or unauthorised goods would create a real risk of further spread of the pest or disease if these goods cannot be removed and placed in a secure facility.

One of the most important aspects of the bill is perhaps the provision that re-enacts a previously repealed section that imposed a non-enforceable duty on all persons to inform the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the presence of foreign organisms. The new provision revives that reporting requirement, but it is coupled with a new offence provision that applies to persons who would reasonably be expected to recognise an alien organism yet fail to alert authorities. The Primary Production Committee recommended that to make it easier for the public to pass on information, the obligation to report should be to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in general, rather than the chief technical officer. That seems a sensible move, and would make it as easy as ringing the 0800 number listed in the phone book.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK emphasised the importance of an early warning system, so we support the proposal to create a general duty to inform authorities on becoming aware of the presence of an organism not normally found on these shores. Without that legal obligation, commercial interests could conflict with the duty to report. For example, a commercial entity might be unwilling to report due to the potential financial impact that it could have on that individual business, or because it would be a breach of a contractual arrangement. New Zealand is very reliant on the reporting of incursions by those not employed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Ministry cannot be everywhere, and this bill gives greater legal weight to that role.

The select committee also suggested that the Government should provide information about unwanted organisms to assist those in a position to report their presence. It would seem unfair to insert a duty-to-report requirement into the legislation without ensuring that the people at whom it is targeted know what they should be reporting. United Future would like the Government to demonstrate a commitment to providing those educational resources. We know that some work has already begun to make farmers more aware of unwelcome pests and diseases. For example, leaflets were distributed at the recent national field days illustrating the symptoms of six key ruminant diseases, under the slogan “Look, check, ask a vet”. That is a positive sign, and we look to the Government to extend this campaign to other groups, such as those involved in the importation of goods that might carry unwanted pests.

The proposal that pest management strategies must include a general description of the measures to be taken to implement the strategy is worthwhile. Often it is the implementation that causes concerns, and people who are being asked to consider a strategy should have reasonable information on how it should be implemented. We hope that this will lead to a better-informed consultation process.

One of the most important provisions is the one that drastically reduces the notice required for aerial spraying, in an effort to ensure that a pest incursion does not spread beyond its early stages. Some speakers have already discussed that measure, and I would like to focus on it in more detail to express some of United Future’s concerns, so I intend to take a call during the Committee stage.

Our biosecurity strategy is vitally important to New Zealand’s ongoing economic viability. The Reserve Bank has estimated that a foot-and-mouth outbreak in this country would result in a loss of 20,000 jobs and a $10 billion drop in gross domestic product over 2 years. The primacy of the agricultural industry in New Zealand, and the fact that we are free from many foreign organisms because we share no land borders, makes our economy vulnerable to such incursions. Vegetables and fruit alone generate almost $2 billion worth of exports annually and the majority of domestic market requirements. Exports are forecast to hit $3.8 billion by 2010, so it is a very valuable industry to us. All of it is dependent on keeping New Zealand free from pests and diseases, yet over the past 5 years we have had 30 biosecurity incursions requiring eradication or control at an estimated cost of $100 million.

The select committee recently heard the Acting Minister for Biosecurity admit that the cost of the Government’s war against the painted apple moth in west Auckland is almost as much as if the moth had been left to its own devices, and that really is an unthinkable thought. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry budgeted $90 million over 3 years for the all-out aerial attack on the moth, but it is also estimated that the pest could cause between $58 million and $356 million in damage over 20 years.

Strangely, the funding provided for biosecurity in this year’s Budget has been reduced. Only $25 million was earmarked this year for incursion surveillance, when $90 million was approved in principle by the Government in 2002 for the eradication of the painted apple moth alone. Surely it would be better to put more money into proactive measures, such as freight-container monitoring and surveillance, rather than spraying the population after the incursion has spread.

United Future supports this bill, but feels very strongly that more needs to be done to beef up our detection of biosecurity incursions before we need to start spraying the poor population again.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill and its intent to rectify some of the difficulties resulting from the discovery of the new and exotic harmful organisms that have arrived in New Zealand since the introduction of the original Biosecurity Act in 1993. This bill goes some of the way towards reducing the possibility of those unwelcome organisms becoming established; it goes some of the way towards reducing the risks.

Clause 6 inserts new section 44, which requires every person to inform the ministry “of the presence of what appears to be an organism not normally seen or otherwise detected in New Zealand.” The only problem with that is that there is a need for a comprehensive and ongoing education programme, to inform the public of the organisms that are normally seen in New Zealand. The lack of informed knowledge in this area may make that clause unworkable. However, I understand its intent, and it may well provide an early indication of new organisms when they arrive in New Zealand, after having already slipped past the border controls that are in place.

Many MPs in the House may well have received a letter, as I have done, from a Bruce Hollamby of Mystic Ferrets, which is one of only three private ferret businesses in New Zealand. The business creates close to $1 million in exports of desexed live ferrets to the United States as pets. There is also a small domestic market of similarly desexed animals. Mr Hollenby maintains that he is being unfairly treated under clause 4 of this bill, and I understand that he intends to sue the Government for the loss of business.

In his letter to us, Mr Hollamby indicated that he has two main concerns with regard to this bill. Firstly, although his business and his company is able to continue as long as he is running the company, that effectively makes his business and company valueless. The moment that he tries to sell the company, it will no longer exist. Secondly, and more important to the New Zealand economy—in particular, to New Zealand’s domestic economy—Mr Hollamby maintains that by banning the farming of ferrets, amateur breeders will simply go underground and create a huge black market, without the safeguards of the animals being desexed. That would certainly be a concern. If amateur breeders start to release pets into the wild that have not been desexed, then we will have a major problem.

I would also like to touch on the issue of aerial spraying. This bill reduces the notification period for that from 2 weeks down to 24 hours. In fact, the bill even has a clause in it that reduces the period down to less than 24 hours under certain circumstances. I see that as a very important part of the bill, because if an organism is discovered and is one that has the potential to spread rapidly, then the minimum period is probably zero hours if we are to make sure it is eradicated immediately. However, under the circumstances of the aerial spraying of a large area like west Auckland, the concerns there are that a 24-hour minimum period is possibly not even enough for the people who will be affected to become aware of the dangers and the difficulties that they may suffer health-wise.

Therein lies a problem, given that there has not been any extensive research on the people of west Auckland prior to the aerial spraying commencing. When it was discovered that many people were suffering ill effects from the spraying of that area, there was no background information on those people that could be used as a basis for identifying or admitting that there was a problem with the spraying. Basically, those people were allowed to move out of the area and their expenses were paid, but it is not acknowledged that the spraying may well be causing some major health problems for those people. We need to examine that area of this bill in more depth during the Committee stage. We can examine it during the Committee stage and look at some ways of tightening it up to improve that situation.

Another area that concerns me is to do with the lack of a database of the exotic and unwelcome organisms that are present in our trading partners. If the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the other biosecurity bodies had a comprehensive database of the organisms that are potential dangers to New Zealand and are known to exist in the countries that are our trading partners, then we would have a much better idea of the risks, and a better chance of identifying those organisms as they arrive on the border. That is one of the difficulties that the authorities ran into when the painted apple moth and some of the other similar organisms were discovered. The organisms did not exist on a database, so the authorities had to track them down and find out whether they would be a threat. By the time the painted apple moth was tracked down, it had spread beyond an area in which it could be easily contained. Therefore, it required a much larger spray programme, effectively trying to contain the painted apple moth. In the meantime, while a spray programme was going on in the central area the painted apple moth was spreading beyond that area before the authorities had even got to it. It was unfortunately that that organism had already spread outside the initial spray area before spraying began.

So I think we need to tighten this bill up. The intent of the bill is very good, and we will support it.

It is always a pleasure to speak on issues on which there is a huge degree of unanimity within the House. Unfortunately, the Government brings far too many bills before the House that do not have any common sense and do not reflect the wishes of the entire select committee, but this surely is one that does. Who amongst us here would deny the value of biosecurity to this country? No other issue is more important to this country. I will not bore the House or the public by going through the figures again. I think it was Dr Paul Hutchison who gave the House a very good indicator of the impact that a major outbreak of a disease such as foot-and-mouth would have on this country.

I want to turn my attention to the practicalities of biosecurity—that is, the way that things work outside this ivory tower, out in the real world. I want to give the House a couple of examples. The bill states that there is an obligation on members of the public to inform the authorities if they have cause or reason to suspect that an organism they come across is one that is not wanted. Let me tell members of an instance of that. Some years ago in the Maniototo a well-known farmer discovered what he thought was nassella tussock. He swore his employees to secrecy, because if it had been notified to the authorities it would have cost him a lot of money. He did nothing about it in terms of informing the authorities, but did a lot of work in terms of trying to grub that particular nasty tussock out of our environment. He did so for about 15 years, only to discover by chance that it was not nassella tussock but was, in fact, a thing called Australian sedge. The guy just about broke down in tears to think of all the work he had done for all those years, in grubbing out something that was not really a problem. I tell that story to make the House understand the importance of people in New Zealand failing to recognise and report those sorts of plants, or what could be potential incursions, to the appropriate authority. It should not be a threat to do so.

I would also like to talk about one of the more recent and highly publicised biosecurity threats. It even got me on the Mary Lambie show. A man cannot aspire very much higher than that! It was the Mary Lambie show at 10.30 in the morning—about the appropriate time for all good farmers to be in for their lunch or morning tea, and not breakfast, as is the case with the Green Party farmers. That show was about the introduction of rabbit calicivirus disease, as it was then known, which is now known as rabbit haemorrhagic disease. What a marvellous result that disease has had for this country and for the environment. We hear so much about this Government being very concerned about the environment, but it did nothing about introducing that disease. I will touch on another issue a little later on that the Government is studiously ignoring. But rabbit haemorrhagic disease was only brought into this country—and illegally—because the authorities would not recognise the benefit of myxomatosis before that.

The Government had virtually promised for years that it would introduce those organisms to protect our environment. Who amongst us can stand in this House with a hand on his or her heart and say the introduction of rabbit haemorrhagic disease has been a disaster for this country? It has been an absolutely outstanding success, and it was brought in illegally.

Yet there have, of course, been huge failures. I think back to many, many years ago when the early settlers brought things like gorse and broom, rabbits, stoats, weasels, and those sorts of organisms that have produced enormous harm to our economy.

💬 Brent Catchpole: Red deer.

Red deer have almost become indigenous. They are just like brown and rainbow trout. Now there is an issue. The Fish and Game Council would say those trout species provide a fantastic recreational opportunity for the people of this country. The rabid “greenies”, and there are one or two of them in the Minister’s office, would say we should get rid of those unwanted organisms, brown and rainbow trout, because they are—let us wait for this—introduced species, so they are not welcome in this country. Yet each one of us is an introduced species. I include my Māori colleagues in that statement. Each one of us was introduced to this country one way or another. Some of us are more wanted organisms than others, and we have to live with that, I guess.

But there have been very, very significant biosecurity breaches that have been devastating, and I mentioned a few of them before. The most recent devastating one was the varroa bee mite. I suspect that the full impact of the varroa bee mite coming into this country is not understood to this day, in terms of the impact it will have on our native flora and fauna. Wild bees pollinate much of our native flora, and that could well be lost. The Government sat on its hands for months before it decided to give control of the varroa bee mite a go.

We have a disease that seems to permeate this Labour Government, and it is called procrastination. Labour members thought that was a big decision. That does not surprise me, because Government members are so unused to decision making that they struggle to know which side of bed to get out of in the morning. They toss a coin and ask what they should do today, and then ask what will happen if they make the wrong choice. That is just a reflection on the Government. It desperately needs the experience of people from the Opposition side of the House, who have had experience out in the real world, the real environment, and who know how to react. [Interruption]

I would like to ask that rather vociferous-sounding individual, the chief Government whip, why this Government will not make a very simple introduction into this country, in order to enhance our biosecurity enormously. I am talking about the gamma radiation of fruit, which would have an immediate impact on anybody bringing product into this country—and we have heard that over 8 tonnes of meat product comes into this country illegally.

💬 Stephen Franks: Radiate them with their fruit.

My colleague is absolutely right. But why do we studiously ignore the huge opportunity that gamma radiation gives to the biosecurity of this island country of ours that is so dependent on ensuring that we do make sure that unwanted organisms do not come into it?

I, along with all members of the Opposition, deeply lament the total lack of research and development that has gone into biosecurity in this country. Yet again, the Australians have beaten us. I see a blank look on the face of my colleague Ian Ewen-Street, who is wondering how they have beaten us again on this issue. Technology developed in Australia just recently has shown that if nitrogen gas is bubbled through the ballast of ships, it will kill virtually all the organisms that exist in that ballast. That is a huge problem, because ships come into New Zealand constantly for trade. We can even export water out of Deep Cove, for example, but there is concern about the ballast brought in from the Far East, or anywhere else in the world. Ships remove the ballast, and introduce the fresh water out of our wonderful pristine environment in its place.

Technology and science—dare I say those words in this House in the presence of Government members, when I know how they hate science and dismiss it? I say that we have huge opportunity to upgrade the security of our borders by just listening to scientists and spending more of our resources on the things that matter, like science, technology, and introducing chemists to study the problems that we do face and must solve. We will not solve the problems just by burying our heads in the sand and pretending that gamma radiation is not really the major advance that it is. We have the opportunity right now to introduce it—in fact, it is old technology—and we could move forward quite rapidly to introduce new technology.

It is a privilege to speak in the second reading of this bill. When reading through the report of the Primary Production Committee, which addressed this bill, on getting to the committee membership, the name of a member of that committee—Gavan Herlihy—leapt out at me. It is a name that this House has not heard for some time. As I recall, Gavan Herlihy was a very good member. Unfortunately, he is the only member from that committee who is no longer in the Parliament, but that matters not.

The Greens will support this bill. We recognise that biosecurity is enormously important to this country. The greatest danger facing this country is not from invading armies, but from invading species.

I was very interested to hear my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison list some of the species that have invaded this country just recently. He is quite right. But what Dr Hutchison overlooks is that at the same time as he is concerned about biosecurity, he is also a very proactive zealot in terms of promoting genetically engineered (GE) organisms. Obviously, Dr Hutchison fails to recognise that those organisms are themselves alien species. We know that they are alien species because a natural species cannot be patented, whereas a GE species can be. GE organisms are, by definition, alien species. We do not know what the long-term consequences of releasing them into our environment may be. We do not know whether they will be the gorse, possums, and rabbits of the future; we simply do not know that.

We have only to look at the example of what has happened in Canada with GE organisms there. GE canola was supposed to be the saviour of Canadian agriculture, but Canada found that GE canola, which was designed to be resistant to herbicide—in particular, to glyphosate, which is the generic name for Roundup—escaped from the paddocks, and got into roadside verges and gullies. Because it was resistant to Roundup it could not be killed with that, so more toxic and persistent chemicals than Roundup had to be used to get rid of it. That created a major problem in terms of weed control, and Canada finished up by declaring GE canola to be a noxious species.

💬 Phil Heatley: They created a monster.

They did create a monster.

💬 Phil Heatley: Frankenstein.

Frankenstein food. It is very interesting to listen to people in this House talk about biosecurity. The free-trade zealots like my colleague from ACT, Mr Eckhoff, are very keen on having free trade come into this country. Yet it is free trade and tourism that are creating the major problem for biosecurity in this country. People are tempted to open sea containers or to smuggle goods through on their person when they come in on aeroplanes. That is where the real problems lie in this country.

In terms of the bill itself, I am very pleased to see that people can now report unusual organisms on an 0800 number, rather than having to go specifically to chief technical officers. I do have concerns, though, about the non-requirement to report unusual species that are legitimately in New Zealand under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. My concern is really about what I have just outlined, with regard to GE organisms. Those organisms may well be legitimately in this country. They may have been approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority and approved under the Act, but what happens in a situation like the one the Canadians have had with their canola, when those organisms start to appear in places where they should not be? It is the people who know their farms, the vets, and the stock agents who know when those species start to appear, so they should be required to report all alien species, and particularly GE ones.

I suspect that if we do buckle under the free-trade pressure of the United States and destroy our own main economic base of providing clean, green agricultural products, then we will need to further amend this legislation. I can see the day coming when this legislation will come back to the House and we have to amend it to compel people to report alien species, particularly GE ones.

I have some concern about the phrase in clause 24 that refers to a person who knows or could reasonably be expected to know what an alien species is, and where it should be. How do we judge whom those people are? Who does the judging?

💬 Phil Heatley: I’ve been “taken”.

Phil Heatley knows; he will be the judge. That only compounds my concerns.

💬 Phil Heatley: I’ve been operated on.

He has been neutralised! People will say that farmers could reasonably be expected to know whether an alien species has arrived on their property. That is perfectly true. North Island farmers may be able to recognise that the varroa bee mite has infected a beehive, because they know how bees normally behave in that situation. But could a South Island farmer reasonably be expected to know what a varroa bee mite infestation looks like?

💬 Dianne Yates: They are very small.

I am talking about the behaviour of the bees. Farmers, vets, stock agents, and people like that are the front line of our defences. They are the eyes and ears of our defences. They will almost certainly identify things, rather than Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials. I believe it is incumbent on the ministry to establish and maintain very good working relationships with those people, because they literally are the eyes and ears of our defence.

I will step to one side for a moment, and mention the relationships between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the people of west Auckland. The handling of the painted apple moth incursion up there was a debacle. Even when I use the most encouraging phraseology possible, I cannot think that that was in any way a successful operation. Oh, yes, the ministry may have spent $90 million on the blanket spraying of west Auckland multiple times, and it may have just about eradicated the moth, but the public relations war with west Auckland residents has been largely lost. The ministry’s behaviour over that incursion was despicable.

I turn now to the reduced notice period for aerial spraying. I support the basic rationale for that, which is the idea that if something is invading a farm—let us say foot-and-mouth, for argument’s sake—it is incumbent on the ministry, or whoever is responsible for getting rid of it to do so as soon as possible. If that requires aerial spraying, so be it. But to wait for 14 days before that can be done is simply ludicrous. We discussed that at some length in the Primary Production Committee, I seem to recall. We talked about whether to have 1 day’s notice. The idea was that if one was spraying in remote areas, one needed to give farmers the opportunity to go back to the homestead, or to give people the opportunity to pick up their kids from school or to take the domestic pets away—that sort of thing. In the end, we decided it was better to leave the provision with no specified notice period and to leave such notice to the discretion of the chief technical officer.

I do have some doubts about that. I do not doubt the competence of the chief technical officers, and I think they would demonstrate a degree of flexibility in introducing aerial spraying very quickly. But they need to be aware of the problems that can be incurred if they immediately spray houses, domestic pets, children’s schools, and so on, without any notice, at all. I am sure that is not what is intended, but I have a sneaky suspicion that maybe we need to do more in terms of specifying that.

Overall, I see the amendments in this bill as being very good, but they tend to be like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. The best way to keep New Zealand free of alien species, quite apart from not releasing GE species—

💬 Marc Alexander: Ban all trade.

—is not to ban all trade, but to be very careful about how we trade and with whom we trade. We simply cannot afford to have destructive species like foot-and-mouth, the Asian gypsy moth, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, and whatever else, cross the border in the first place. It is much easier to keep them out than to eradicate them after they arrive. In recent years, biosecurity control at the border and at airports has improved out of sight. There is now something like a 100 percent inspection rate of people coming into the country, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry calculates there is something like a 94 percent interception rate. We inspect 100 percent of all mail coming into this country. I have no problem with either of those two areas.

I do have concerns about the present scheme of inspecting only 24 percent of the 400,000 containers that come into this country, though I am very pleased with the recent Government initiative to move towards 100 percent decontamination or inspection at container devanning sites. My concern about that proposal, though, is that the Government wants the owners of the devanning sites to look after the biosecurity issue. That creates a potential conflict of interest, because on the one hand those people make their money by getting the goods out of the containers, into warehouses, and off to clients, and on the other hand the biosecurity aspects will only slow that process down.

I am very pleased to speak on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill under the name of my esteemed colleague the Hon Jim Sutton, who is a hard-working and conscientious member.

I see in the commentary that the Act is the principal authority for actions to keep harmful organisms out of New Zealand.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Would that apply to ACT?

That would be the only amendment I would be tempted to move—that it apply to the ACT party. There is no doubt that the ACT party is certainly a harmful organism for New Zealand.

When we look over the report of the Primary Production Committee, we see it is a very good one. It states: “Surveillance forms an important part of New Zealand’s biosecurity system. We are aware of New Zealand’s heavy reliance on passive surveillance and agree more needs to be done to assist those who are in a position to provide early detection of an organism not normally seen in New Zealand.” Of course, the good thing about the ACT party is that, at 3.2 percent in the polls, it is now starting to become a very endangered species, and more surveillance is needed because it is an organism that might no longer normally be seen in New Zealand. So we need to keep up the surveillance. Of course, as the report states, surveillance is important for “our front line defence against unwanted incursions”. Certainly, the ACT party has been an unwanted incursion. The report also states there needs to be more support for people who are carrying out surveillance, and: “The duty to inform must be backed up by a comprehensive education campaign.” I am certain that the Government will be continuing our high-profile education campaign on how we might keep biosecurity incursions, like the ACT party, out of New Zealand.

This is very good legislation from a very good Minister in an extremely hard-working and progressive Government. I am very proud to support the bill.

It was interesting to hear the Minister of Transport. It would have been good if the Minister had got up to speed with the bill, because I know that many members are interested in the actual contents, both technical and factual.

I was on the Primary Production Committee, and members will be well aware of that. We took on board this bill way back on 16 August 2001, when it was referred to the committee. The House is reading it now for the second time. My maths tells me that that is 2 years on. There has been no sense of urgency from the Government, and that is quite disheartening for us, because we did sweat hard over this bill. We know the significance and the importance of biosecurity to this nation. It is unfortunate that it has taken 2 years.

We can—and members know this—list a number of breaches of biosecurity since the Act was passed, particularly in the last 4 years. The painted apple moth has come up time and time again, but there has been a whole lot of other incursions. I would like to thank Marian Hobbs for the painted apple moth and various other pests! The 11 biosecurity incursions into this country include the Asian gypsy moth, which is not a Green Party member, but a bug that could hurt many of our crops. The fall web worm and crazy ants—[Interruption] No, I tell Minister Dalziel, that is not a Green Party member. Other incursions are fire ants, mosquito larvae, Asian tiger mosquito larvae, the Sydney huntsman spider, and the Australian redback spider and eggs. It sounds like a tour of the world, does it not? When this Labour Government is in power, who needs to travel? We have had the North American southern ring-necked snake. Cane toads are coming, as well. When we drive home tonight we will hear all sorts of popping as we speed along the road, because cane toads from Australia are here. And we have had a solitary scorpion.

So we have had visitors from Asia in the form of the Asian gypsy moth and Asian tiger mosquito larvae. From Sydney we have had the Sydney huntsman spider, the Australian redback spider, and the North American southern ring-necked snake. Who needs to travel the world? Who needs air points? Not one member in this Parliament does, because the world is coming to see us. Thank you, Marian Hobbs! The world of animals, the world of the invertebrate, are coming to visit us here in New Zealand. Eleven of them have come in the last 4 years. It is a hugely disappointing record from the Minister.

On 16 August 2001, the closing date for submissions was 24 September 2001, so members can appreciate how quickly we called for submissions. We closed them off and spent a lot of time speaking with the submitters, listening to them, and putting our thoughts into the bill as reported back, with its changes. I emphasise once again our frustration—knowing how important biosecurity is for New Zealand—that it has taken 2 years for the bill to come back to the House.

I would like to go through various issues that we discussed during the select committee process. First of all, clause 9—[Interruption] I can tell David Benson-Pope that, compared with those 11 visitors to this country from Australia, from Asia, from North America, and from around the globe, he is the most harmless incursion that Parliament has had in the last 4 years, or however long he has been sleeping here. Does anyone know how long David Benson-Pope has been sleeping here? He is the most harmless incursion that this country and this Parliament have had. I ask him to wake up and take a call later.

Clause 9 gives the principal Act a slightly more punitive air. It targets pest management levies at those who either actively, or through their inactivity, cause a problem. I assume we will be talking more about clause 9 later on tonight. It is headed “Restrictions on levies”, and is a very punitive, user-pays or polluter-pays type of measure. It states that the persons who will undergo the punitive measure of levies are those who are likely to benefit from the implementation of the strategy—that is, growers and those who raise animals. Anyone who is likely to benefit directly from the strategy will incur the levies. That is something we should consider during the Committee stage. But the levies also affect those who, either actively or inactively, create or exacerbate the problem of an incursion. Marian Hobbs, who has invited 11 different species from around the world into this country, could be defined as someone who has exacerbated the problem here in this country. That is the Government’s immigration policy; it welcomes from around the world—

💬 Ron Mark: All sorts of vermin.

—visiting invertebrates, snakes, and vermin. People like Marian Hobbs will incur a punitive measure under that user-pays or polluter-pays philosophy.

So we addressed that issue. The next major issue that we addressed is in clause 18, which is about spraying programmes. Ian Ewen-Street, I think, talked a little about Auckland. He visited Auckland when the spraying programme was going on up there, and I know he is quite concerned about it. Most of us here in the House tonight can see the results of his visit. While many who have visited Auckland are reporting scratches and itches in all sorts of private places, Ian Ewen-Street has created a snow of his own with falling hair! That illustrates that there is a genuine concern in Auckland.

Clause 18—and, obviously, we will deal with this clause in the Committee stage—is about the degree of notice that needs to be given to people living in a spray area. One can appreciate that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and those responsible for curbing the biosecurity risk—curbing the incursion invited into this country by Marian Hobbs—might want to act very, very quickly. One can appreciate how much the population of an incursion might explode in 2 weeks. Not all invertebrates, snakes, or vermin that enter the country will breed quickly. Some are quite slothful. It is as though they are asleep. I talked about David Benson-Pope, who is a harmless incursion; these incursions will move a lot faster than he does. For a start, they will be awake. We may need to act quickly, so we may have to reduce the time available to inform local residents that there is to be a spray programme.

If there is that urgency, we can assume—and the bill actually outlines this—that although people will get a warning period that is shorter than 2 weeks, that warning will be as thorough as possible. We would not expect to see a small, inch-by-inch advertisement at the back of the local weekly community paper; we would hope instead that the warning would be advertised in the New Zealand Herald, on television, and so on. So in putting in that amendment—narrowing down the time from 2 weeks to 24 hours in some cases—we do say clearly that the notice must be advertised as thoroughly as possible, and I am sure the officials involved at the time will apply that rule.

Although I recognise the humour that is passing backwards and forwards tonight on this bill, it is a very serious and very important biosecurity bill. I wish to support it, and also acknowledge the support of all members of the House.

The member who has just resumed her seat is quite correct; this is a very, very important amendment bill. I would like to start by paying tribute to some of the members on the Primary Production Committee for the work they did. First of all, I pay tribute to the work done by Gavan Herlihy, Shane Ardern, and, of course, my colleague Phil Heatley, who has just resumed his seat, having given a rather humorous, if not novel, but also very full and practical speech about the implications of this bill.

Biosecurity is one of the key problems facing this economy, because, frankly, if we get an incursion we do not want, the economy could more or less come to a halt within a very short space of time. I used to work within the agricultural industry so things like foot-and-mouth disease, scrapie, mad cow disease—

💬 Phil Heatley: Marian has all of those!

I am not sure about that, but if any of the problems that are faced around the world were to come here, we would certainly have problems. One commentator from the agricultural industry said that if foot-and-mouth disease were to come to this country, the economy could potentially shut down within 3 months’ time, such is our dependence on agriculture. Such is the concern about an incursion of that nature.

It is interesting to go over a bit of the history of this portfolio, because it is a very, very important one, and when things go wrong in this area the impact can be huge. What did this Government do? It gave the portfolio to Marian Hobbs. She was the previous Minister for Biosecurity, and during her time as Minister we saw a number of incursions, a number of uninvited guests, that the rest of the country was not very keen on—for example, the yellow flower wasp, the kentia palm seed borer, the southern saltmarsh mosquito, the avian pox virus, the lettuce aphid, the eastern flower thrip, and the Asian kelp, not to mention the varroa bee mite, which many bee-keepers got for Christmas from that particular Minister. Because of her inaction and inability to act in a timely manner, the whole problem became very out of control, and now is threatening the entire honey industry.

But let us also mention the painted apple moth. So far the cost has been about $90 million to try to deal with that particular problem. If money had been spent on biosecurity in the first place, the country would not have to fork out such a large amount of money now. That moth should not have got here in the first place. It was interesting listening to Mr Ian Ewen-Street talk about the spraying in Auckland. Initially I was very supportive of that spraying, as I understand the importance of the agricultural industry to this country. But, as a parent, I am concerned about the continual spraying of children, the elderly, and others, who do not know what is being sprayed on them. I am beginning to accept that people up there have some real concerns. I too would be livid if my family was being continually sprayed with something, and I did not have a clue what it was. Certainly, we are seeing some unwanted outcomes within the community.

This bill has some technical amendments but also some quite important ones. It reduces the time frame required before the ministry can act in relation to newly discovered pests. It also tidies up what the public need to do to inform the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of any biosecurity incursions that they become aware of. Not to do so would be an offence, and the guilty person could be fined up to $5,000. I think it is quite important that we understand the impact of that. It sends a quite clear message that biosecurity is important to this country, and that if people do not play their part by telling the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry when they come into contact with incursions, a penalty may apply.

It is important also to look once again at what the potential impact could be if we have problems in this area. Let us look at the value of some of the industries that are very much dependent on our keeping a lot of bugs and pests out of New Zealand. Horticulture and fruitgrowing, for example, are worth $847 million to the national economy. Livestock and cropping are worth $1,757 billion. Dairy cattle farming is worth $1,832 billion, and other farming is worth $332 million. Unwanted pests and diseases coming into this country could potentially have an impact on such major industries. One sees why biosecurity is something that this side of the House takes extremely seriously.

I was concerned when I read a recent story about the way the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry goes about reviewing containers as they come into the country. Last year the ministry inspected about 24 percent of high-risk containers and randomly selected another 5 to 10 percent for internal inspection, which means an officer basically just shoves his head inside the container and has a wee look. I had expected that inspections would be far more thorough than that, but I was wrong. The ministry did a survey. For the first time the ministry did a thorough check, and containers that had already been “door inspected” were inspected once again. The results of that particular investigation were very worrying. The officers found five live alien spiders and three insects, in 1,517 containers. That goes to show that once-over-lightly—a head poked into the odd container—does not pick up all the pests, bugs, and incursions that potentially can come into this country. Obviously, a far more thorough investigation needs to be made of containers when they come into this country.

As we know, that will have a cost, but what we are facing now in dealing with one particular incursion, the painted apple moth, shows that if incursions are not dealt with before they are established here, we face the cost of eradicating these pests and diseases. So, in a way, a biosecurity policy is very much an insurance policy. It is an insurance policy for the agricultural and horticultural industries—an insurance policy against potential economic disaster should scrapie, mad cow disease, or a number of other real problems around the world threaten our country.

So I am a great supporter of quarantining. I am a great supporter of ensuring that there are more stringent requirements both at the borders and in terms of the importation of goods. At the moment, trying to track down incursions is very much hit-and-miss. It does rely very much on the general public. I think the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry sometimes hopes that it has a bit of luck, and that somebody will discover something before it goes too far. But it relies very heavily also on having a Minister who will act in a timely manner and make decisions when those decisions are needed. The previous Minister—thank goodness there has been a change—did not really inspire great confidence in the hearts of the New Zealand public, particularly amongst those in the rural community.

Increased biosecurity does mean increased costs to the public, but, as I have said, it is an insurance policy and something that very much protects our economic prosperity and our ability to pay for the things we hold dear, like health services, education, etc. If we were to have a major incursion such as foot-and-mouth disease, potentially our economy could shut down within 3 months, and certainly we would go from being a First World country to being a Third World country in a very short amount of time. So I look forward to the Committee stage of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill, so that I can look at some of the individual clauses that members on this side still have some concerns about. We will be putting some amendments to make some improvements to what we think are holes in this legislation.

Bill read a second time.

Instruction to Committee