Estimates Debate — Vote Primary Industries

It is great to take a call in this debate on the appropriations. I want to say what a fantastic year it has been for primary industries. Just in the last couple of weeks we have released a document, the Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries 2014, which records that our primary sector is in boom times—a nearly $38 billion return. Is that not fantastic?

💬 Andrew Little: Why are you ripping off farm workers?

Andrew Little chips in. He would not know one end of a cow from the other, even though he is standing in the New Plymouth electorate. Labour does not care about the rural communities. I want to take Andrew Little and Labour and the Green Party through why the primary sector is so vitally important to the New Zealand economy. As I was saying, $38 billion was returned from our exporters in our primary industries this year. Is that not fantastic? Dairy is up to around $17 billion. Meat and wool are up to and through $8 billion, which is fantastic, and is forecast to return 22 percent out to 2018. Then, of course, we have the forestry sector. There are boom record times for it—$5.1 billion. Horticulture is going strongly, with $3.6 billion in terms of its exports. It is forecast to go to $4 billion by 2016. And we should not forget about our seafood exporters, who do a fantastic job of producing a quality product that goes all around the world, at $1.45 billion.

But, of course, we cannot have a big-growth target of doubling our exports to $64 billion by 2025 without focusing on protecting our primary industries, and that is why I am excited about Vote Primary Industries. It is strengthening the core systems for biosecurity and for food safety. We are putting more resources into our overseas footprint. I want to talk specifically about biosecurity because it is my No. 1 priority as Minister for Primary Industries. We have doubled the funding since 2000 in biosecurity, and there is more funding in this Budget. What we have also done is roll out 12 new X-ray machines. We have trained more front-line quarantine inspectors—125 were trained in the last 18 months, including new dog detector teams. What we have also done is introduce Government-industry agreements, and we have had the first signing of the deed with the kiwifruit industry.

What we have also done in just the last few weeks is announce $65 million for a new biocontainment facility at Wallaceville in the Hutt Valley. It has gone down fantastically well with those in the primary sector because they know that we need to have our testing regime up to international best practice. They know that $20 billion worth of animals and animal product exports is the result of our farmers and the fantastic work that they do. This is the insurance premium and policy for the next 30 years for our primary sector—to know that we have world-leading and best-practice scientists doing the testing for exotic animal diseases.

The other important thing is, of course, that we have the opportunity to grow Māori agribusiness in New Zealand. We did a study about a year and a half ago that confirmed that 1.5 million hectares in New Zealand is Māori freehold land, and the opportunity for Māori to work closely with the Government to lift their overall performance is huge. We are talking about $8 billion in terms of export returns, and we are talking about 3,600 jobs.

The Green Party and Labour do not like talking about irrigation because they do not believe in it. They do not believe in rural communities. They do not believe in jobs and exports, but we on this side of the Chamber do. We believe that irrigation is good.

💬 David Shearer: Subsidies.

We believe that irrigation is good, and I will tell you why. Mr Shearer might be interested in this, because he would not understand rural communities. There are 400,000 hectares of land that could be under irrigation that is not under it currently, and the size of the prize here is $4 billion. The other important thing about irrigation is that it is good for the environment, and the reason it is good for the environment is that you take the pressure off the aquifers. You can store water—we collect and store only 2 percent of the water in this country; the other 98 percent goes into the streams and rivers and heads out to sea—and we have got numerous cases up and down the country, particularly in the South Island, where, as a result of irrigation, rural towns have been repopulated and schools have benefited, as have businesses and the New Zealand economy.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in this debate. It is interesting to follow on from the Minister for Primary Industries, who talked about the opportunities coming from irrigation. If you had been listening earlier to the debate on the estimates for environmental portfolios, you would have thought that this was going to be the end of the environment in New Zealand, when, in fact, the opposite could not be more the case if you look at science, and, of course, we are asking people to look at science—which is a step too far for, more or less, two-thirds of the Opposition, as far as I can tell.

We are asking people to look at actual scientific evidence, and the reality is this. When irrigation was developed in the upper part of the South Island, in the Kaikōura and Nelson regions, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, large amounts of land were developed for viticulture. So I guess what we are saying is that those grapevines should go and that land should revert back to what was there prior to the pinot and the sauvignon blanc being planted, and then we would be in a much better position, because the automatic presumption is that if you irrigate land, it is all going to go into dairying. That, in itself, would not be a bad thing, because there is plenty of technology now to mitigate the types of environmental effects that they talk about. In fact, if they had gone to the Fieldays—and I invite the Green Party to look at this technology—and had a look at some of the new innovation that was on display there in regard to environmentally sustainable use of land and water, they would not hold this Luddite position that they have.

So let us just have a look at what actually has been achieved in the dairy sector, in the primary industries area, in the last wee while. The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord—87 percent of the streams, rivers, and lakes and 90 percent of the races, or access ways, for cattle have now been fenced and bridged. No other industry has achieved that, in that time. Ninety-nine percent of dairy farms have nutrient budgets. I am not asking those who are in the Chamber to understand what that means, but what it basically means is that all nutrients that are applied are budgeted for and calculated against what is used. It is not very hard to understand. There is a warrant of fitness system for dairy effluent management, which is controlled both by the regional councils and the dairy companies that they supply. Dairy effluent non-compliance is less than 10 percent nationally and coming down. It is substantially reducing each year.

There is research for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, based on science once again, and New Zealand’s investment in this area is world-leading. Why do we not hear the Greens or Labour touching on that from time to time? Dairy companies are implementing stringent criteria in terms of their supply regimes.

Why do we not hear from the Labour members, who I know are passionate about increasing wages, about what has actually happened in terms of dairy worker wage limits or wage rises in recent times? Why do we not hear about the stories of young couples now in that sector who are earning $130,000—what they call the total value package? Why do we not hear about that? The majority of them, in the larger operations in a mid-management position, are earning that money and more, and some are earning up to $300,000 and $400,000. When do we hear about that? When does the Green Party talk about that?

Why do we not hear about the massive investment that is going on in local communities in philanthropic ways, through the likes of milk in schools, for example—that is one starting point—as well as all the local investment that goes on in small towns and communities in regard to philanthropic activity? It is all driven on the back of investment in our primary sectors.

Why is it that we constantly hear the negative carping in the background from our Opposition? Why do we not start celebrating the areas that we are good in? Why do we not get over the fact that we are an agricultural nation and we depend on our agricultural sector? Seventy-two percent of our export earnings come from the agricultural sector. I cannot help it if two-thirds of the members in this House do not like that—I cannot help it—but it does not change the fact. If they do want to develop something else to replace it, please do. But let us not pretend there is some silver bullet. This is a sector that will grow the New Zealand economy faster than any other sector.

I want to say that this is the first year I have not been to Fieldays. I have been to it for the past 4 years. I can tell you that the same thing happens to me every time I go there. Somebody will come up to me and say: “You know, we in the rural sector always do better under Labour.” They always say that. I am telling you, this is what people say. I say to them: “Well, why don’t you vote Labour?”. “No, no, I still vote National.” I do not get it, but, anyway, that is what they tell us.

There are a lot of people who have been sitting here, if they have not gone to sleep listening to the last two speakers, and who are in front of their TVs waiting for that cold spell to come up New Zealand. They are thinking about whether they will have to turn up their heaters a little bit more in order to stay warm. A lot of them are thinking: “I’m not sure whether I can afford to do that.” The power prices, they know, have gone up 20 percent—20 percent—in the last 4 years under a Government that said it was going to bring those power prices down. That is four times faster than inflation—four times faster than inflation—that power prices have been going up.

Here is the interesting thing about that. When Labour was in power—and, yes, I agree that power prices went up then—the demand for power was rising at an ever-increasing—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are actually on Vote Primary Industries.

Are we? I thought he was talking about energy.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: We use electricity, though.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

So you want to put the motion, do you?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, so the member has just lost a call, unfortunately, because we are on Vote Primary Industries, and I think the member was—

Can I carry on, on primary industries in relation to energy?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You can talk about primary industries. Otherwise you have just lost the call, because what you have done is you have actually taken a call. I am happy for you to continue, but you must relate it to primary industries.

The thing about these power prices going up is that it is affecting farmers right across the country. In every dairy shed, in every processing plant, these farmers are being affected by electricity prices going up at four times the rate of inflation. It is not just the urban areas; it is the rural areas. It is affecting the farmers, who are the backbone of this country. They are being hit harder than anybody else. This is Economics 101. When demand falls, prices should fall, but, instead, farmers all across New Zealand, throughout the rural sector, are paying more for their electricity than they ever have before.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest. You wouldn’t have a clue.

Do not interrupt me, Mr Bridges.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest.

Let us be honest? That would be a change—that would be a change—because today all we have heard is the exact opposite of that. Your Minister of Foreign Affairs stood up and told a whole lot of rubbish about what has been going on.

I come back to the rural community. Farmers deserve to have transparency around their power bills. They want to know how much of their power being delivered is being charged to them from the electricity companies and how much is being charged to them from the lines companies. In that member’s area many of those lines companies are coming to people and saying that they are paying too much, when it is actually the electricity companies in those members’ electorates, in those rural areas, that depend so heavily on funding.

What have we got? We have got falling demand and rising prices that are hitting the farming community right across New Zealand. Sixty percent of our power is coming from hydroelectricity generated in some of those farming and rural areas—60 percent of power is coming from there. We have paid for those dams over and over, and yet we are still paying far more for our electricity than just about anywhere else in the Western World.

We are just asking for a fair deal—we are just asking for a fair deal. People are sitting at home right now watching this debate on television, thinking twice about turning up their heater in order to stay warm, and knowing that if they do their power bill will be through the roof. I feel for them, because this Government has raised those prices four times faster than inflation, at a time when demand for electricity is falling. If you know anything about economics, that is absolutely wrong. Thank you.

I rise to speak on Vote Primary Industries mostly in response to hearing what seemed to be waffle from the Government side. I was going to speak on food safety because of the shortfalls in food safety and the many things that that Minister for Food Safety is not doing—and should be doing—in her role, but we will come back to that.

The Minister spoke clearly about his priority in biosecurity, and I commend him for having that as a priority. But what I am not seeing is real delivery in biosecurity. What we are seeing are things that make us still very, very nervous in terms of incursions into this country. Inspections are way, way too low. Containers once were inspected, right round them. Containers are now maybe inspected on four sides of them, and then it is random enough at that, although it is based on an improving system through the joint work of the Customs Service and Ministry for Primary Industries.

The problem is that we then allow retailers, wholesalers, and importers to inspect their own containers, and how crazy is that when those same people have a conflict of interest? They have got a vested interest in having the goods out of that container and out on to the shelves in shops and things. If they see something, are they going to report it to the Ministry for Primary Industries? And even then, is the Ministry for Primary Industries going to do a decent job?

I have mentioned to the Minister before about theileria, a particular strain of theileria. This Government allowed this cattle disease to get loose, which is costing millions, and it will cost millions for ever because it allowed the disease to get loose and to spread. At the same time, Government members were chortling that they are ready for foot-and-mouth disease, should it come here. That was a prime example of what they might have used to actually test their systems. They have no reason to be confident. New Zealanders have no reason to be confident that they can really control foot-and-mouth disease, should it come here.

I am pleased there is more and more work being done on it, and the report expresses that. But there was a prime opportunity to jump on a very—how shall I say—effective protozoan parasite in cattle and use that as an example. What have we got the National Animal Identification and Tracing system for, if you could not use that for animal controls and to get on top of that pest? That happened within this Parliament, and this Minister has to share some of the blame for that. That one is just one.

But one that also concerns me is another part—the genetic engineering in some laboratories. That is where we think genetic engineering should be, but there was a breach—and the breach was back in early 2013—of a genetically modified fungus out of Lincoln University. But it is the Ministry for Primary Industries that has the responsibility for monitoring and making sure these facilities are working within the constraints of their conditions. We have been chasing the information on the report of the investigation on that for so, so long, and the Minister has ducked and dived and tried not to supply it. I wonder why? The report showed that for 3 years Lincoln University had inadvertently got GE fungus and was even potentially putting it out into apple orchards and Pinus radiata nurseries in this country because it has been poorly supplied by AgResearch.

It is the Ministry for Primary Industries that has failed in monitoring and keeping an eye on that. Can we trust the Ministry for Primary Industries and the current Minister, and this current Government, to be doing better than this? We still have not got the final report on this released. Have we got confidence? No, we have not got confidence because they have not been able to supply the report to the people who are caring about it, the people who are very, very concerned. The research was fine. The research had good intent.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Commerce and Consumer Affairs agreed to.

Vote Energy agreed to.

Vote Labour