Estimates Debate — Vote Biosecurity - Agriculture and Forestry

It will certainly be my hope that a vote that is so critical to the New Zealand economy is a vote on which all parties in the Chamber will work constructively to achieve the best outcomes. I take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the Primary Production Committee for the way that we conducted a debriefing this morning into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s biosecurity exercises. I am referring to Operation Taurus, which was a simulated exercise that took place a couple of months ago in the Manawatū, and also to the hoax scare on Waiheke Island immediately following that. During that select committee process, all members of the committee worked diligently with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to make sure that we did our best to help to identify the inadequacies that had been shown to exist in our response to what was a hoax scare.

I want to talk specifically about two issues. One is a concern that the Primary Production Committee has expressed on numerous occasions over the time I have been involved with it, which is over the availability of a standing army to respond to a major disease incursion, particularly of foot-and-mouth disease. In the past, though we have been unsure of the availability of that standing army, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has taken the opportunity to assure us that it did exist. The debrief this morning showed clearly to the committee that there are inadequacies in the availability of that standing army. I am pleased that the ministry acknowledged that and will be looking at ways and means to make sure that we achieve far better cooperation with sectors such as the stock and station industry, the meat-processing industry, and the dairy processing industry—people who obviously have the skills and the manpower resources to be muscled into any genuine response.

The second issue the committee was certainly concerned about was the accuracy or, more correctly, the inaccuracy of the initial database as to where farms existed and where livestock existed, and as to the numbers of livestock on particular properties. Again, the ministry has acknowledged that more work needs to be done. To be fair to AgriQuality, which has over a long period of time supplied the agri-base data, it has a reasonable system of accounting for those who are genuine farmers. But the incident on Waiheke Island showed a glaring inadequacy in the boundary between genuine farmers and lifestyle farmers who held a few livestock. They have as much ability to assist with the spread of foot-and-mouth disease as has any genuine farming operation located adjacent to an outbreak.

In my opening comments I said that I hoped biosecurity would be treated seriously and in a more apolitical way. Already we have had an interjection from Clayton Cosgrove that Don Brash had suggested the original response to the scare on Waiheke Island should not have been carried out in the way it was. That is absolutely not right. For the record, I confirm that on the day when Mr Brash was interviewed by Television One his first comment was that the incident was very serious for New Zealand. His second comment was that if it were a hoax, he was surprised that the Government was responding to that extent, and his third comment—the most important comment—was that, however, he wholeheartedly endorsed the Government’s response. Although Government members enjoy playing cheap, incorrect politics, I remind them that biosecurity is of far greater importance than that.

While I am on that point, I also ask the Minister to start being more honest in his press releases. I remind him of his press release immediately after the Budget, with the headline “Government boosts biosecurity again’’, which stated ‘“Biosecurity funding has been boosted again’, Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton said today”. Yet when Audit New Zealand came before the select committee in preparation for our examination into this vote, it was able to tell us that the total appropriations of $157 million were less than those in the 2004 Budget, which were $164 million. I want to make sure that Mr Sutton will take the opportunity to assure this Committee that he and his spin merchants will start to tell the truth.

It is certainly a good indication of the level of desperation in the National Party that its spokesperson on agriculture should spend his call in the biosecurity estimates debate trying to paint some whitewash over the comments made by his leader Dr Don Brash when we found we had the threat of the release of the foot-and-mouth virus on Waiheke Island. There is no question that Dr Brash was caught out in public saying that he was very surprised that the New Zealand Government would make this matter public. Frankly, subsequent events proved that that was entirely the wise thing to do. The Government had responded completely appropriately, and Dr Brash had put his big foot right in his mouth, put the other foot in there after it, and danced a jig to the acute embarrassment of his troops back here in Parliament. They had to take him outside to explain the whole matter to him in words of one syllable. Subsequently, after that, he kept his mouth shut. I think those words were all of one syllable: “Keep your mouth shut, Don”. That was sound advice, but of course, he has been following that advice only spasmodically every since, which gives us some confidence in the approaching election.

I want to speak on the matter of biosecurity, because the one thing that I do agree on with the member who has just resumed his seat—or who has beaten a hasty retreat—is that biosecurity is extremely important to New Zealand. The New Zealand economy is founded upon exotic species— both plant and animal species—that are not indigenous to New Zealand. Fortuitously as much as by good management, those species were imported largely without the serious pests and diseases that accompany them and limit their productivity in other parts of the world. We have to put a lot of effort into trying to maintain that comparative advantage, and we do.

When this Government took office we found an absolute mess. We found a growing number of tourists and crew coming into this country without being examined or inspected to make sure they were not bringing in risk material. Research showed that tonnes and tonnes of meat products that could carry foot and mouth disease were coming in unchecked in pockets, in cabin bags, and in hand bags of passengers coming to New Zealand, and being distributed around New Zealand. They were being chucked out car windows, and so on. The incursion of fruit fly in Auckland some years ago was caused by someone bringing in a capsicum with fruit fly larvae. No doubt the passenger whistled his way through the airport because the Government of the day had not put enough quarantine officials on the job to do it properly.

We have done the job. We have made New Zealand’s quarantine system the most rigorous system at the border of any country in the world and we will keep it that way. We now ensure that every sea-freight container is opened in the presence of a properly authorised, trained person. We have stemmed the flow of new incursions, in the face of an ever-increasing torrent of freight and travellers, and we will make the system better and better. Continuous improvement is the only rational, responsible response to the situation and the challenges that we face. It was not happening before we took office and now it is.

If the member who spoke before me is saying that from now on this will be a bipartisan policy, I would say that is great; it is good to see a man big enough to admit his failures and mistakes and undertake to mend his ways in the future. I hope he is speaking for all his colleagues, although it will be some years before we find out.