Biosecurity (Status of Specified Ports) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Biosecurity (Status of Specified Ports) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The Biosecurity (Status of Specified Ports) Amendment Bill is unfortunate in terms of the parliamentary process, because we have had here an oversight that has gone through a series of checks and balances and has not been picked up. It demonstrates that clearly there are huge gaps in our biosecurity in this country. If something as basic as this can slip through in Parliament, where law is supposedly drafted, checked, implemented, and then followed up by officials, it is no wonder that whole shiploads of stuff can slip through in the middle of the night. It is no wonder.

The Minister Jim Anderton’s biosecurity is full of as many holes as this bill is here to fix up. The Minister needs to get off his chuff over the summer months and get on top of this portfolio. He is now in charge of a very important area, and I have seen no evidence at all that the public of New Zealand can have any confidence, so far, in what the Minister proposes to do. The Minister is clearly either suffering from the after-effects of whatever he was on last night or lacking what it is that he should be on. He is sitting there giggling like some demented teenager at some of the serious things that have been put forward here today, and he is not, in any way, attempting to address them.

During part of the time that this obvious deficiency existed in the legislation, this Minister was the Deputy Prime Minister of the country. How many people knew that? Not very many—about as many as those who know that he is ranked No. 1 in his caucus of one. The Minister, who now has that high ranking, should do something, and so far we have seen no evidence of him doing so. We have seen Jim Anderton give speeches to a number of different outfits, and he has said: “I’m the Minister who gets out and does things. I’m the Minister who fixes things up.” Well, I am not sure that the Minister of Finance, who is sitting next to him, is as confident in Jim Anderton’s ability to get things fixed up as Mr Anderton is. The Minister needs to do something, in that regard.

The first thing is that the Minister for Biosecurity needs to be in touch with his own department. In 2002 MAF Biosecurity released a paper on the future funding of biosecurity services. That paper asked about industries being involved in pest management strategies. In two major speeches so far, the Minister has said that there cannot be a pest management strategy until there is an incursion. It is mad to do that. So we get a situation like the one we had with the post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome in pigs, in which the industry itself was misguidedly led to believe that when something like that happened, the Government would be there with a strategy to fix it up. Of course, we had years of inaction and of virtually nothing happening at all. There was a lot of discussion and no action. Ultimately, the industry said to the former Minister: “Look, Minister, if you had told us that that was the case, we might have been prepared to put in some dough ourselves.” So why does this Minister not talk to industries—in particular, to our primary industries—and say to them that this is a big threat to New Zealand and our economy, and that obviously it is in the national interest for those threats to be addressed?

National understands that industry may be prepared to get alongside us and work with us. This Minister will not do that—never in his life will he do that. The simple reason is that philosophically he is deadly opposed to it. It would be like talking to them—to those who might know what they are talking about—and accepting their advice. We could not have that—not under this Government. It will never happen.

When we look at what happened with the varroa bee mite, we see the reality that it took the Government 5 years to implement what is now a very inadequate strategy. We do not even know what that will cost the country. Has the Minister ever considered what that will cost the arable industries?

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: How do you fix the varroa bee mite?

Well, it cannot be fixed now that the Government has let it go. It is a permanent resident. We will not even be able to keep it out of the South Island. How good is this Minister—can he keep it out of the South Island? Can he stand up in the House today and tell South Islanders that it will never go into the South Island? This Minister cannot even guarantee that the varroa bee mite will not go across to the South Island.

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: Are you going to guarantee it won’t go out of the South Island?

Well, the Minister could have guaranteed it would not come into New Zealand if he had done something about it. He knew about it in time to actually treat it. They got rid of it in northern Australia—in a much greater geographical area than we have. How did they do it? What did they do? The Minister might want to have a look at what the Aussies did. I am not one who likes being beaten by the Aussies, but this Minister accepts it without any trouble at all.

On average, every day in this country 337 people are caught at our airports bringing in something that is a biosecurity risk. What has the Minister done about that? What has the Government in its 5 years done about it?

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: We’ve caught them.

Well, OK, so what about the ones that have not been caught? Biosecurity New Zealand, the Minister’s own department, estimates that only 90 percent are caught, at best. So what will the Minister say in response to that?

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: What are you going to do?

Well, we will certainly do a bit more than what this Minister is doing, which is absolutely nothing. So far we have seen from the Minister a lot of hot air and absolutely no action. He needs to realise what a threat this is to the country and get on top of that.

I ask the Minister of Finance whether he knows that the painted apple moth has so far cost $52 million, and that $794,000 a year is allocated on trying to control that alien. Did he know that? The reality is that if that money had been spent upfront on surveillance, there would not be that ongoing cost. That is a typical, short-sighted approach of: “Let’s try to fix it up once it gets in here.” The Minister of Finance needs to talk to his Minister for Biosecurity and get him to do something about that, because he is costing the Government and the country a lot of money.

The Minister for Biosecurity has so far shown an absolute lack of knowledge of what he is supposed to be doing. I repeat for the Minister that under section 69A of the Biosecurity Act a national pest management strategy must specify the following matters—the Minister needs to hear this—it must specify the pest, first of all, and then the strategy or management process in terms of eradicating that pest. That is what must happen under the Act. The Biosecurity Act also states that any person may prepare a proposal for national pest management strategies. How does that square with the two speeches from the Minister that said we cannot have a pest management strategy until there is an incursion? His Act actually requires that there be a pest management strategy. The Minister is in breach of his own Act, and he does not even understand that. So I suggest he read the Act over the Christmas period, and once he has read it he should be able to see the inadequacies in it, such as the one that we are here today to fix up.

He should get some good advice, though; he should not rely on the advice he has been taking so far. He should not talk to the feather and twig brigade; he should get some proper advice. He should get some solid support for his ministry. He should talk to his colleague the Minister of Finance and get some horsepower into this area.

Bill read a third time.