Biosecurity Amendment Bill

It is good to be able to speak to clause 2. I would like to talk about the commencement date. It is an absolute tragedy that this bill has a commencement date of maybe tomorrow or maybe 2 weeks from now. This should have been—

💬 Brent Catchpole: It should have been 2 years ago.

Absolutely. It should have been 2 years ago, in 2001. It is an absolute tragedy that it has had to wait as long as this. We fully understand the importance of biosecurity, on this side of the Chamber—that is, my colleagues over here, excluding the ones over there, and we all know to whom I am referring. This commencement date is a tragedy. Only 7 months ago we had several reports on biosecurity—I have a pile of press releases here about incursions. Here is one from 9 January, which talks about New Zealand being ill-prepared to meet any looming biosecurity threat. Here is another one from January: “Eye out for agriterror”, stating that how New Zealand reacts is a key to dealing with agricultural contamination. It is a huge issue for New Zealand. The consequences are absolutely enormous, and I will elucidate on that later in my presentation. I am sure I will probably far exceed the 5 minutes allotted to me.

Here is another one on 17 January: “Search intensifies for foreign mozzie”. Of course members have heard my learned colleague speak about the range of pests. I am sure I will be forced at some stage to go through that list again, but for the moment we are talking about the headline “Search intensifies for foreign mozzie” on 17 January. So far I have hit only January and that is three press releases already. There are still a lot more. Here is another one for January, so this is the fourth one: “Man admits importing tussock moth eggs”. Here is a gentleman actually importing them, so that is another one that was missed. This is the absolute—

💬 David Parker: No, we caught it. How else was it reported?

I beg the member’s pardon? “Man admits importing tussock moth eggs”—this is one that was caught. How many more are actually getting through? So far we have four press releases for January alone. I cannot remember any other time in the history of my time in agriculture that we have ever had incursions to this degree, and the Government has allowed this Biosecurity Amendment Bill to languish on the shelves for 2 whole years while this has been going on. We had four activities in January alone. Now I will move on to February: “Auckland to battle the eucalypt leaf moth”. Then here we go, on 27 February in the Dominion Post: “Another moth gets out”.

This reminds me of one of the problems they have with the painted apple moth in Auckland. I remember when they first wanted to do something about the painted apple moth. There was a whole heap of resistance to the initial spraying round. Where did that resistance come from? It came from the Green Party, if I recall. Oh it came from the Greens, certainly, the real fundamentalist greenies who did not understand the importance of immediate eradication, and did not want to understand the huge impact, not only on the rural sector, but on the nation’s economy, affecting all the people of the nation. I have the substantial figures here. The net present value of the estimated impact of this painted apple moth is $58 million to $364 million. That is the impact, and what did the Greens want to do? They wanted to gather the painted apple moths together. They wanted to burn them and sprinkle their ashes in the neighbourhood, in the hope that the rest of the painted apple moths would go away. But where would they go? They would just go away into another neighbourhood. This is the type of suggestion the Greens are making.

Sandra Goudie had some very good points there, particularly with regard to the time delay. Clause 2 states that the bill will come in immediately, but that should have been 2 years ago, as Sandra Goudie said. This Government sat on its hands for 2 years and waited. It—wait for it—commissioned a report to see how well biosecurity was doing. That report told us what we already knew from the experience of departments sitting on their hands and doing nothing about all the other incursions. This report told us that biosecurity management was a disaster. In the meantime the Government waited for that report before this bill came back to the Chamber. The bill came back, and now is coming into force immediately after it receives the royal assent. That royal assent should have been given to the bill 2 years ago. The Government should not wait for these reports. They should bring the bill to the House, not wait for these reports. The Government waited, as it did with the painted apple moth, because it did not know whether it should eradicate it or just contain it.

In the meantime, the painted apple moth spread rapidly. Then, when the Government finally decided it was going to eradicate it, the moth had gone way beyond the area the Government had decided to eradicate it from. So by sitting and waiting, by sitting on this bill and not allowing it to come back to the House, the Government has left the door open for other incursions to spread.

We have heard here tonight of numerous incursions. The varroa bee mite has spread throughout the country because the Government was not sure whether it should be eradicating it or just containing it. In the meantime, it got into the feral bee population and spread throughout that population, which meant it was no longer possible to eradicate it from the natural hives, because they are too numerous. So by waiting 2 years to bring this bill back to the House, the Government has wasted a lot of time and allowed a lot more incursions to spread.

One of the great things about being in a debating chamber—well, it is one of the things I would have thought was great about being here—is that we enter into a debate. Surprise, surprise! What do we hear from the Government on these issues? We hear the immortal words uttered by Mr David Parker: “Madam Speaker, I move that the motion be now put.” That is not debating this bill. It is not debating the commencement clause. Mr Mark Peck—that well-known cold-climate sex symbol from Invercargill—sits there doing absolutely nothing, not being prepared to debate this bill, and not being prepared to debate the commencement date.

We have heard very good speeches from Mr Brent Catchpole and Sandra Goudie, telling the Committee, and New Zealand, that this Government is now saying, under urgency, that this bill is important. Yet the bill sat there for 2 years. What are we supposed to consider when we talk about the commencement date of this bill? Every one of us on this side of the Chamber, I am sure, would have said that the commencement date should have been 2 years ago, when the public of this country demanded it.

I find it quite extraordinary—and I think it is important to recognise it—that not that long ago we sat in the House until 5 in the morning, under extraordinary urgency, debating a hugely important issue! Here we are discussing biosecurity, which is obviously hugely important, but what issue did we debate until 5 o’clock in the morning, a month or so ago—Mississippi moonshine!

💬 Brent Catchpole: And the sherries and the ports.

That is the stuff! Those are the sorts of priorities we are getting from this Government. It has failed totally to understand that the commencement date of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill should have been 2 years ago. What is it going to be into the future, once this bill is passed?

Despite criticism of the Government’s handling of the bill, there is a consensus that we need to proceed with real haste on its commencement. However, if the Government is true to form, the commencement will be what—2 years’ time, 3 years’ time? Members on the Government side shrug their shoulders, so we have no idea when the bill might commence. The people of this country are calling constantly for action from the Government on this issue, yet Government members sit on their hands, passing bills like the “Mississippi Moonshine (Let’s Tax ’Em) Bill”, which increased the tax on 23 percent-proof alcohol.

Of course, that sort of legislation is of some importance, but I would have thought that any Government worth its salt would have recognised the importance of the commencement date of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill, instead of allowing it to languish, as it did, for 2 years on the Order Paper. The commencement date of the bill should have been at least 2 years ago, when the opportunities were there. However, the Government pushed in other bits of legislation that it considered more important.

I have some advice for the Government: do a poll. This is a poll-driven Government, so it should go out and poll the people of this country on when the Biosecurity Amendment Bill should have been enacted. The Government would be berated for its inaction and procrastination on this bill—that is the only way to describe it—and for its inability to recognise that a Government must set priorities and recognise what is important to the people of the country.

The Government must recognise that the incursion rate under its stewardship has been appalling. Marian Hobbs can stand up in the House and say: “Well, we’ve had a good week, haven’t we? We’ve only had three incursions.” If the issues were not so terribly serious, that statement would be laughable.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. This debate is probably the most important we will be having. It affects New Zealand’s viability, its position in the world, and its security. In the last part you called one member from National, and one from the other three parties, in 15 minutes of debate. Two other National Party members were seeking the call, and I would have thought that on such important legislation, you would have accepted those calls.

Yes, the next section—clauses 3 to 25 in Part 1—is certainly the main part of the bill.

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act