National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill

I move, That the National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.

New Zealand has a highly effective biosecurity system to manage the risks posed by harmful organisms, including the risks to our very important livestock industries. Actively managing those biosecurity risks maintains or enhances New Zealand’s already high reputation for quality animal products and our access to premium markets. Other countries are increasingly moving to mandatory individual tracing systems for their livestock. We cannot afford to lag behind our competitors.

It is vital during an animal disease outbreak to quickly find out the extent of the problem and start to manage it. This requires good knowledge of where infected animals are, and the other animals they have been in contact with. The National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme—or NAIT, as it will be called—will meet that need by collecting information on animals, their location, and movement history throughout their lifetime. That means we can more quickly and effectively target our resources to contain and manage a biosecurity or product contamination event, and provide evidence to reassure our trading partners. The scheme will also improve consumer confidence by providing more background information about the source of food products, to support general trade and high-value niche markets. It will support management of adverse events, such as drought.

The scheme will benefit both the country as a whole, and the industries and individual farmers involved. The scheme is a partnership between industry and the Crown that started in 2004 in recognition of the growing need for better animal identification and tracing systems. The livestock and animal products industries continue to be key partners in developing and implementing the scheme. I pay tribute to their involvement and to their constructive approach. I also know that there are members on the opposite side of the House who approved the development of the scheme in its earlier stages. I would like to thank them too for their contribution. The scheme will begin with cattle and deer, which already have some identification and paper-based tracing systems in place. The scheme will, however, introduce radio frequency identification tags and a computerised database to accurately record the details of individual animals and their movement histories.

The bill sets out the basic requirements needed to make the scheme work. They include the governance arrangements, and the powers and functions of the organisation that will run the scheme. The scheme will need to be flexible to allow for changing information needs. The bill will enable regulations to prescribe the detailed requirements for the animal sector or sectors covered by the scheme. People who are in charge of animals covered by this bill, such as farmers, saleyard operators, and meat processors, will be responsible for recording and updating information on the National Animal Identification and Tracing database.

But the value of the scheme goes beyond the information that this bill will require. The national animal identification and tracing infrastructure provides industry with a much more efficient way of holding its own animal-related data, such as genetic history and production data, if it so chooses. Improving on-farm management will help New Zealand farmers expand their comparative advantage.

This Government is conscious of the need to protect personal and commercially sensitive information from misuse. Although people will be able to access their own data, the Government agencies responsible for biosecurity and food safety may access personal data only for the purpose for which it was collected under the bill. The data needs to be protected, but at the same time it represents a valuable source for research and statistics. Permission may be granted to access non-personal information if it is in the interests of the industry and the public good.

Many dairy farmers currently use commercial organisations to complete their herd-recording and herd-testing requirements. This approach will continue under the scheme. After the scheme becomes law, the emphasis will be on educating people on the new requirements. But we are dealing with important measures to improve our biosecurity and maintain our international markets. We must have sanctions against people who deliberately evade their responsibilities and put the integrity of the scheme in doubt. The bill includes some offences and penalties. The highest penalties are appropriate for knowingly accessing or disclosing information about an individual, or commercially sensitive information.

The industry and the Crown will share the running costs of the scheme, with the bill setting out the principles for industry cost recovery. Other regulations may be made to help implement the bill. They include a mechanism to add or to remove species from mandatory scheme coverage following a proper process. The type of animal identification and whether it is for individual animals or for groups of animals, such as herds, will be assessed for each species in consultation with that industry.

In conclusion, this bill establishes a scheme that will provide accurate and timely identification and tracing of livestock at least cost. This will protect New Zealand farmers in the market place, bring us into line with most other agricultural producing nations, and strengthen our already excellent biosecurity system. In commending this bill to the House I wish Mr Kris Faafoi the very best for his maiden speech. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to speak on the National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill. I will not take all of my time as I know the good people of Mana and Porirua probably did not come to listen to a debate on the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme, but, none the less, they along with the rest of New Zealand will be really pleased to know that this is a very important bill, and it was with much pleasure that I listened to the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon David Carter, say that.

If we go back 2½ years, we see that the current Minister of Agriculture and his friends in Federated Farmers campaigned absolutely against the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme. It is nice that the Government has had another road to Damascus experience. This is very, very important because, once the Primary Production Committee has carefully scrutinised this bill, we will have that system. Federated Farmers and others were, I guess, rightfully concerned that the system may bring in a huge bureaucracy. I will not go into the detail of some of the clauses other than to say that they specify right down to the kind of levies that might be imposed, the search warrants, and what might or might not happen with ministers of churches. So it is very, very prescriptive legislation.

The principle of this legislation was laid down by the previous Labour Government in 2008. I wish that my colleague the Hon Jim Anderton was here to hear the Minister’s speech, because Mr Anderton, as the previous Minister of Agriculture, put this measure up to the industry. He said that we needed animal identification and traceability to convince our trading partners that we have the safest food of the highest quality for them to buy, and that if there was any outbreak of a disease, then we had a sound and robust system of identifying animals, tracing them, and knowing where they were, so that we could minimise the spread of any disease, such as—and I do not even like to say it—foot-and-mouth disease. It could be something like that—yes, I said it. That would be a potential cost of $10 billion to this economy. That is why it is so important to have the highest-quality biosecurity systems. Unfortunately, the Minister failed to say that he had dumbed down biosecurity by cutting 54 front-line positions, which has put New Zealand at risk. But this bill is putting in place a system of identifying animals from birth right through until their death and knowing where they are. If there is any problem with disease, then we will know what the possible impacts or contacts with other animals or other farms might be.

When the previous Labour Government originally proposed this bill, we made a commitment of $10 million to do our part in this programme. At that time, National encouraged Federated Farmers to oppose the system. It opposed the system on some vague line of not knowing whether high-frequency or low-frequency receivers were the best way forward. That was the most sensible thing it said. A less sensible thing it said was that we did not need it. Mr King said the same thing. All of the National members said it. We need traceability of our animals so that we can convince our trading partners of the quality of our stock, of our food, of everything. Yet, for shallow political reasons, National and Federated Farmers opposed it. The Minister of Agriculture shakes his head, but he knows it is true. National now expects Labour to support this bill. We will support it because it is the right thing to do. We knew that in 2008 and we were progressing this legislation.

I will not say too much more. The detail is in this big bill. It will effectively put in place, soon we hope, an electronic system. Animals will be tagged; initially it will be beef and deer, but I think sheep farmers should be warned that they need to be part of this system, too—there is no doubt about that. Although we claim to be one of the best producers of quality food in the world, the reality is that most other pastoral and livestock - producing countries have traceability systems in place that are far better than ours, so we really are playing catch-up at the moment. I know that the Primary Production Committee under Mr Shane Ardern—who probably should be the Minister of Agriculture, and he knows that—will deal with this bill very quickly and enable the system to be put in place.

A number of people on the stakeholder reference group that is guiding this legislation opposed the initial roll-out of this scheme. Ian Corney, the Federated Farmers representative at that time, was part of the organisation that opposed the legislation, but is now heading the stakeholder reference group and is passionately committed to having an animal tracing system in place.

I hope that the technical issues of low-frequency and high-frequency eartags and how best they might work into the future can be resolved. Although the regulation-making powers in the bill will determine ultimately the technical system, Labour will support the system in the meantime.

I personally would like to see the next step that backs this up. I know the Green Party will support us in the call for country-of-origin labelling, so that when we do impose the cost of $2 to $3 on farmers, they know they will get more than that value back through identifying their stock as quality stock and safe food when it goes into the market place.

Labour supports this bill, welcomes it into the House, and acknowledges the great work done by the previous Minister of Agriculture, Jim Anderton, to get it this far.

Debate interrupted.