Biosecurity (Status of Specified Ports) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Biosecurity (Status of Specified Ports) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. As I said at the first reading, the bill is needed to ensure that persons and the Crown who, because of a technicality, have inadvertently not complied with the law are protected from civil action. I have to say that the National member for Taranaki – King Country blunders around where angels fear to tread. I mean, in 1993, 1995, and 1998 was I or any member on this side of the House in charge of this matter? I do not think so.

💬 Shane Ardern: What was the Opposition doing?

Oh, I see, it was the Opposition’s fault. I just missed that. National was governing, but it was our fault! I see; that is how it works.

I say to New Zealand First that the Port of Greymouth is approved under the original process in the Act, so that does not need to be mentioned in the schedule. For the Māori Party’s benefit I say that a close analysis of the spraying programme in west Auckland for painted apple moth does not show any conclusive connection between the rates of reported medical conditions and the spraying itself.

As a consequence of non-approval of ports of first arrival, it was an offence, for example, when persons in charge of a craft failed to enter a designated port of entry, or when uncleared goods were permitted to leave a craft and did not proceed to a biosecurity control area. It is possible that persons arriving in New Zealand would be deemed not to have proceeded through a biosecurity control area, and that port operators represented a port as “approved” when no approval was actually given. So all those unintended consequences flowed on.

The bill is needed—I think all members and parties have indicated that. I recommend that the bill proceed as quickly as possible through the House.

I agree with the Minister. In 1993 it was a National Government, and again in 1995 and 1998. But that was the forty-fifth Parliament. Which Parliament are we in now? Maybe the Minister has forgotten. He has been here a long time, and he has been through so many Parliaments he cannot remember. This is the forty-eighth Parliament. Let me just say this. That Minister has been a Deputy Prime Minister in that time, and it has taken him until today to pass legislation that will be enacted on 13 December. Currently out in the wide world it is 14 December. Those who are listening on radio are confused already when one tells them that the bill is being passed on the 13th and it is the 14th, but in Parliament that is what happens.

Can I also challenge the Green Party member who said—and it certainly is linked to the discussions that the Minister just had about the need to close up this gap—that I from the National Party had suggested we should go out and attack all the rivers in the South Island. I did not. When didymo was first found in the South Island it was in the bottom third of two rivers in Southland. So I suggested that there may be a way—and I know that there is, because many people have made submissions along this line—of chemically treating those rivers. Yes, it would have been devastating to the biodiversity in the bottom third of those rivers.

💬 Darren Hughes: It is a problem.

Yes, I know what the problem was. The Labour Government was scared about what Green Party members—the rest of its twig and feather mates, on whom it relies for support—would do, so it never even considered that option.

I tell members that the pristine rivers in the whole of the South Island are now contaminated with an algae that will absolutely devastate the biodiversity of those rivers. The members of the Green Party will say that they stand for green principles. I ask them to reconcile that for me because I cannot figure it out. Perhaps the Green member will take a call and tell me how that is so. The bottom third of two rivers in the South Island would have been devastated, under the proposal that I am suggesting, for about 2 years and then the biodiversity would have returned. That is what I understand to be the case. If members want to know where this information came from, I got it from the Minister’s office—surprise, surprise. So I ask the Green Party member to do some research.

There is a bigger issue even than didymo at stake here. It is the fact that our biosecurity, both in terms of our legislation and in terms of the adequacy of the Minister and the Government to respond, has gaping holes in it. It is a historic issue that has been inadvertently discovered, as it were. It is a bit like the bee varroa mite when it came across our borders, and 5 years after it was here the Government announced a strategy. This Government, the Government of Mr Anderton—the member ranked No. 1 in a caucus of one—has decided to introduce a strategy to contain the bee varroa mite 5 years after it was introduced.

I ask the Minister, for goodness’ sake, over the summer months, to sit down with his advisers and to let them bring him up to speed. The director-general is a fine chap, I am sure the Minister will agree, and he will be on top of some of this stuff. I ask the Minister to give him the time to bring him up to speed, please, for the sake of New Zealand.

When the Minister has done that, I suggest that he ask a few hard questions about how, even though we have all these grand overviews about how we have the best biosecurity in the world, we have endless incursions—weekly incursions, in fact. The Minister has just resigned himself to not even trying to eradicate. He has just walked away and washed his hands—and he will not be able to wash his hands in the South Island rivers any more, because they will come out covered in didymo. I ask him, for goodness’ sake, to get on top of the portfolio and have a look at some of the gaps in it.

Even if that does not work—and I suspect it will not—I ask the Minister to listen to some of the international advice. Professor Roger Morris has put together many, many discussion papers on this, and the Minister and his officials will not listen to that advice. The Minister might find that he can do this within baselines.

I notice that the Minister of Finance is in the Chamber, which is very good, because if he looks at what has been spent on some of these belated eradication attempts that have failed, he will find that it is millions of dollars. A little more should have been spent on surveillance in some areas and on strategy upfront in terms of an instant response, and I agree with the Green Party member who suggested we should have had an instant response to didymo.

The Government knew about this problem in October 2004. Here we are now, in December 2005, and about 3 days ago the Government released a strategy whereby people had to wash their fishing rods and were not to go across Cook Strait with dirty gear. What was wrong with the Government doing something straight away, particularly when it knew that there was something it could have done? Why did the Government not do that?

Instead of sitting over there laughing and carrying on when somebody suggests an alternative, the Minister needs to hold his officials to account and ask them why they never, at least, considered that option. The Minister can laugh and go on, but we already know what the answer is. The Minister is too closely aligned with the twig and feather brigade that he depends on for his support. The Green members said it was impossible to treat the bottom third of two rivers in the South Island because the biodiversity in them would be devastated, so we will just have to live with didymo, which will devastate the biodiversity in all of the rivers of the South Island until it comes into the North Island and then it will do it there as well. The Minister needs to take some account of what has happened there.

The sea squirt situation is, of course, yet another area where we have no strategy. We are chasing it around the country, hopscotch. There are ways of treating that, which are biodegradable and will not devastate the environment. The Minister will be aware of them. He can sit over there, chirp away like some kind of budgie, and support the rest of his team, but the reality is that there is a way of treating that. Why not do it? [Interruption] The Minister should go and talk to his advisers, because they can tell him. They have told me.

I tell the Minister to go and talk to his own department. There is a way of treating sea squirt. For didymo, it is too late. The Minister has allowed it to go. He has let that go.

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: We could not have treated it before.

It could have been treated, in the two rivers where it was.

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: How could we have treated it?

The Minister knows the answer, and I am not going to bother with that.

Let me just say to the Minister that 19.9 tonnes of fruit fly material came into this country last year, carried by people. What will the Minister do about that?

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: Do you want to spray them?

I would not mind spraying the Minister, but the people do not need spraying. What we need is thorough checks. I ask the Minister to listen to this figure, because clearly he is not aware of it—people at airports carried 9.3 tonnes of meat and poultry products into this country last year on their person. How is that able to happen?

The Minister sits there, laughs, and makes light of it. This country is at huge risk of a foot-and-mouth outbreak, and the Minister sits there and thinks it is a big joke. That shows the depth of this Minister—absolutely none; zero depth. He is going to go out and hug and cuddle all these people. When he first became the Minister, he gave a speech and said: “I’m the Minister who gets things done.” I remember this Minister telling us he was also the “Minister of Lower Petrol Prices”. Do members remember that? This Minister needs to go out and get something done about this.

Biosecurity is a major problem. Three tonnes of seeds came into this country last year, in grannies’ little handbags. And that Minister has done nothing about that, either. If the agriculture sector wants to import a new cultivar of some sort and it has to go through the hazardous substances system, which of course is a robust one, it cannot get it through. But granny can bring it in, in her handbag. The Minister will say that we have the best biosecurity system in the world. People carried 5,829 plants into this country last year, on their person. The Minister would not know that.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Where did you get that from?

I got it from his department. He would not know that, because he has never bothered to have a briefing. He should have a briefing from his own department.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: No you didn’t. You stole those facts and that speech.

Stole them from where?

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: From that Minister.

How could I steal them from that Minister? That Minister does not even know that they exist. How could I steal them from there? I did not get them from that member. The member got them from me. [Interruption] I am on my feet, here. That member got them from me. That is where they came from.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes you did, it is 4 months old.

It is more than that. It is about 8 months old.

The saltmarsh mosquito cost $36 million—the Minister of Finance might want to know this—and the list still goes on. Do something!

Bill read a second time.

Procedure