National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

A well-functioning animal tracing system is vital for our biosecurity and to protect our most valuable exporters: our primary sector. This is the second reading. Ironically, the first reading of this bill was in 2012. It has taken some time, I guess, to come back and upgrade this bill—or the Act, I should say.

This bill addresses the issues found during the response to Mycoplasma bovis and the recommendations from an industry-led National Animal Tracing and Identification (NAIT) review. It addresses the inaction of the previous Government in ignoring enforcement and ignoring the promotion and utilisation of NAIT in the way it was intended. As I said—

💬 Hon David Bennett: That’s rubbish. That’s lies.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I heard a word that was very unparliamentary. The honourable member that said it should stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

As I said, this Act was first put in place in 2012. We’ve had to move forward—learning from the lessons of M. bovis—to make the changes in this piece of legislation. I acknowledge the valuable input from submitters and the support the bill received from key industry stakeholders. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Primary Production Committee for their work on the bill.

Mycoplasma bovis was the first real test of NAIT traceability, and the scheme was found wanting. Mycoplasma bovis will cost New Zealand almost $1 billion to eradicate, and that cost would have been considerably less if the NAIT scheme had been working well.

The bill package contains a number of provisions. The package amends the NAIT Act and five sets of regulations. The changes ensure the framework underpinning the scheme is fit for the future. They tighten the focus on the basics for good tracing. The amendments support the operational changes being done by NAIT Ltd, the organisation running the scheme.

The changes that we are making include a number of things. Firstly, the NAIT number on a tag is specific to a given location. That is not the current situation. This is fundamental to getting better traceability. Persons in charge of animals—or PICAs, as they are known—will no longer be able to put tags issued for one location on to tags at a different location.

The second thing we’re doing: we’re encouraging better compliance. Most people across New Zealand would say that if there’s a law, then there should be compliance with that law. The reality for NAIT is that was very, very poor. By now, no farmer should be in any doubt that everyone needs to do their part and comply with their obligations under the NAIT scheme and legislation. We are making it easier for the location history of animals to be provided to potential buyers—an issue that was raised during Mycoplasma bovis and the complications with the Privacy Act, although I, personally, have some doubt as to its interpretation on certain matters. We are increasing penalties for non-compliance. I make no apology for stepping up the sanctions on people who continue to not meet their NAIT obligations. The cost and consequences of that behaviour fall on everybody else—the taxpayer and every other farmer across New Zealand.

Thirdly, we’re dealing with the performance of the NAIT organisation. NAIT Ltd is a private company with significant regulatory functions. The bill puts in place some standard ministerial oversight provisions for the NAIT organisation to address identified weaknesses. I have to say that I was very frustrated when I exposed some of the weaknesses but was unable to intervene directly, as any normal Minister would be, given the responsibility that I had to ensure full traceability across the agricultural system. That will now be addressed through these changes. There is a graduated set of tools to ensure that the company that runs the scheme stays on track. The Minister will be able to notify the board of priorities and expectations related to scheme functions and is able to issue a direction if needed. These are very sensible improvements, and I think any Minister with a portfolio responsibility would understand the value in having an ability to give clear guidance.

Other enactments in the legislation: the changes tighten the exemption for sending untagged animals going to meatworks. The direct safety of an individual farmer will be the only justification allowed. This is where sometimes an animal may go on to a truck and be sent to a works, penalty paid, but it’s been a simple opt out for farmers when they haven’t had to tag animals. The expectation is that animals should be tagged before any movement on or off a farm, and the exemption that was allowed for what were unsafe-to-tag animals will now be changed to ensure that that exemption is not abused.

The current voluntary annual reporting of other animal species on farms will now be mandatory so that in disease management, particularly in the terrible and, hopefully, unlikely event that we would ever have foot-and-mouth disease, clearly other species such as sheep and goats that may contribute to the spread of foot-and-mouth disease—currently, there’s no obligation to tag—at least now we will have to have notification of the presence of those animals on farm.

The select committee has recommended that the bill package proceeds with a few revisions, and I support their recommended changes. The committee recommends that the Act does not confirm that the core data within the NAIT system is the property of the Crown. So the Act will remain silent on this. However, other provisions ensure that the core data set is protected by the Crown on behalf of all systems users. I have to say that, personally, I have some unease with the paranoia that was spoken of at select committee about the Crown taking ownership of the database, should that NAIT private organisation ever be sold. As we saw with the previous Government, they tended to sell anything they could lay their hands on, and that did expose databases like this to being passed into private hands. Our provisions that would have ensured control in the hands of the Crown are now left silent, and it will be upon a future Government to ensure that the database of farmers’ information is in fact protected.

As I said before, the committee agreed to change the terminology of the existing exemption for moving untagged animals to meatworks if they are impracticable to tag. That was the exemption. Sadly, we know that some farmers have been misusing this exemption, choosing to interpret “impracticable” as being inconvenient for them. The term “unsafe”, that will be introduced now, focuses this exemption on its primary purpose, which is to manage dangerous animals and protect the health and safety of farmers. The NAIT scheme’s been in place for seven years. Farmers should have the right equipment and the processes to tag their stock, because otherwise they can’t move them anywhere other than to the meatworks. That’s why we considered that this exemption, which was always a temporary measure, could be removed in five years’ time. So that’s a clear warning to farmers that you need practical equipment. The committee has recommended, of course, that instead there is a review of whether the exemption is still needed five years after this legislation is passed.

One of the other issues here: good tracing relies on all animals being tagged. One key checkpoint for biosecurity is when an animal is moved off farm. PICAs are currently responsible for making sure untagged and unregistered animals are not moved. So the provisions in the legislation put in place a more robust scheme—with clear obligations and clear responsibility on PICAs—and there was some discussion around transport companies and whether they should be responsible. What we have is a requirement that transport operators receive an assurance that the animals have been tagged or notification has occurred.

These changes, and the amendments agreed by the committee, reflected a balanced consideration of the comments received from submitters. I commend the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was a particularly weak speak from the weakest Minister of Agriculture that this country has ever seen, and we expect that kind of activity. He spent five minutes talking about the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) legislation without actually talking about the Primary Production Committee and what actually happened there. It is disgraceful, I know, what that Labour Party gets up to. Let’s tell the truth of what happened in the committee and what the Labour Party actually did to farmers in this legislation.

There was a process where all farming organisations were engaging with the Minister in good faith, and they were then sitting down and talking about how we could make the NAIT system better, and that was all fine. And then that Minister, at the last minute—you can see the grin on his face—changed the bill on them and took ownership of the data of farmers. That was what this Minister was trying to do in the bill. He had to capitulate in the select committee and give up on that attack on the farming base of New Zealand. That’s the reality of what happened in this bill. He’ll go and talk about how he never had the regulation and the ability to do what he wanted to do; that is rubbish—absolute rubbish. The Minister had all the powers he needed at any point in time. It was his inefficiency and his misguidance that meant that it wasn’t used properly.

This bill is just another part of the development of our animal identification system, and that will continue in the future. This bill will not be the end of the system. But what actually happened in this bill is that the Government tried to make an attack on the data ownership of the New Zealand primary sector—that’s what actually happened. Now, the Minister is not going to dispute that, I’m sure, because that’s exactly what the bill said. At the Primary Production Committee, we had to deal with that issue because it became a very blatant attack on the farming sector, because data is so important for any industry going forward.

To have the data of one industry taken in one fell swoop is a very New Zealand First concept of corporatisation by the Government. They were going to do that with the power industry; it never actually happened, though, did it? We were going to have that grandiose plan. Well, they tried it with NAIT’s data, but they didn’t realise that they had a slight problem with trying to take the NAIT data off farmers, and that was that the NAIT organisation itself had been sold some years prior to that.

So you could probably make a legal argument that if the Government owned the organisation that that data went to, they may then own the data. But you can’t make that legal argument once the organisation has been sold. So we got Crown legal opinion, which showed that the Government was out of step, that the Minister had breached his rights in the sense that he had no ability to take ownership of that data, that the submitters were actually completely right in saying that there was never any intent for data to be taken by the Minister, that the Government had actually overstepped and the Government had to backtrack, and—by their own legal opinion—the Crown found that this Government had acted outside the law in trying to take that data off the farming sector.

Now, they took this clause out of the bill, and now we see in it that the core data is no longer in Government ownership, and, although not clarified to the satisfaction of all farmers—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: No one owns it.

Well, no one owns it for this stage of the commentary—but, in legal terms, you actually look at the debates in the House as well; they are very important to give context around the commentary. I would say that the debates in this House will clearly show that there can never be—there can never be—any attempt by a Labour Government to try and nationalise the data like they did in this attempt, because they do not have that ability and they do not have that legal standing to do so. So to anybody that may be looking at this in the future and wondering what the legal standing of the data is: the Labour - New Zealand First Government had no right to nationalise it, and they actually had to withdraw.

So it is more than being silent around ownership of data; it is actually saying that the Government does not have the right to that data, because it tried to gain that ownership and then failed through the select committee process.

💬 Hon Member: Is that the best you can do?

Well, that’s pretty good. You know, it’s not often that many Governments are found by their own legal opinions to have acted outside of the power that’s entrusted in them, and were trying to nationalise an asset that they shouldn’t be allowed to. So thank you for that interruption over there from the member that’s a new member, I note, but who will soon learn not to do that again.

Then my second issue when we came to the legislation—which was another point which we had to deal with the Labour Party on—was in regards to transport companies. Now, the Labour Government and New Zealand First tried to bring in a requirement that all transport companies would now be liable—not, actually, the farmer; the liability would be on the transport company. It took a while for them to understand that that wasn’t a great, smart idea; we had to go through it about five times before they realised that it wasn’t in the best interests of the transport community and, necessarily, anybody involved in the industry. But, finally, we did get there, and we had to coax them around to looking at different options around what could be done, and the best we could get out of them was that they would have another declaration on the declaration paper in regards to animals that had been transported off a property, and it puts the responsibility back on to the farm owner, which is truly where it should be; not on to the transport company, because it’s very difficult in a range of circumstances for transport companies to be able to guarantee that.

So that was bad enough, and the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party finally came to a realisation that they were impractical in wanting to make sure that transport companies had to operate under the basis that they were liable. So it was added to the documentation that would come off a farm. There was no attempt at all from the New Zealand First or Labour members to have any consideration of costs that that would impose on the Government. So there will be an extra cost on the Government because of the decisions of those two parties at select committee. And there was no consideration of the timing of it; they just thought you just click your hands and you can change all the documentation in New Zealand. So it wasn’t until officials came in and said “Well, you might want to have a six-month limit on that to actually make it practical” that the Labour and New Zealand First members actually woke up to the idea of what they were doing, which was actually causing a lot more documentation and another set of processes within the farming sector.

Now, there were a couple of other little things in the bill as well that were changed at select committee: cost recovery for audits and accreditation, quite minor changes in regards to the unsafe exemption that is limited now to five years—Federated Farmers wanted that to continue, but it now has the five-year limit on it. So, effectively, there are a number of other smaller changes, but the two fundamental things that came through the select committee process were the ownership of the NAIT data and also the liability for those that transport NAIT animals.

It is a major backdown by the Government in this area. We were never told by the Government why they wanted to get the data; we can only surmise that they wanted it for purposes that were not needed for this bill, that they wanted it in a manner which could be used on other purposes, and it was very obvious that there is no limitation on the Minister in being able to pass on this information—basically, any Government organisation can apply and basically get this information from the Minister once the Minister has it. Why they would want ownership is something that was never explained to the select committee, and, really, left us—as members of the Opposition—and also the submitters, thinking only the worst of this Government, as you would do, because they are not in the interests of anybody in the agriculture sector.

💬 Jamie Strange: Ha, ha!

And we’ve seen that—and they may laugh over there, but this is one of the steps that they have done to attack the farming sector, and the National Party stood up for farmers and got the result we needed. New Zealand First were backing the Labour Party in trying to nationalise the assets of farmers—that’s what they were doing in this bill. We stood up, we stopped it, we used their own lawyers against them, and we managed to get a result which is fair and reasonable for New Zealanders and for New Zealand farmers. It’s a win for the Opposition and another failure for that failing Government.

Mr Speaker, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) legislation that is before us this afternoon.

As the deputy chair of our Primary Production Committee, I often have the opportunity to follow directly behind the chairperson, the Hon David Bennett. It’s an interesting experience having to follow that member in these discussions, which are so fundamentally important to all of rural New Zealand and our agricultural sector. For a sector that contributes so much to our rural communities’ economic background and to our nation’s export prosperity, you often want to come into this House and speak to the bill and the things it does for our communities. However, I’m often tasked with the job of having to respond to misinformation consistently from that member that chairs our Primary Production Committee—and I just have to put on record that it’s disappointing, to say the least.

The Mycoplasma bovis outbreak for New Zealand—we’ve set aside just under a billion bucks as a nation to tackle just the trauma that that’s caused throughout our country. I would have thought, for a party that prides itself on wanting to stand up for rural New Zealand, for the farmers of this country, that the Opposition’s lead spokesperson on these matters would have turned and spoken to the impacts of that biosecurity outbreak, to the bill that was introduced—this national animal tracing system that was introduced in 2012, that was found to be woefully deficient in its application.

The first real test of the NAIT system was just prior to the last general election. This was consuming the minds and the lives of rural New Zealand, as many of us will know because we live in those regions. Many of us know there was a lot of fear that was coming out at that time in mid-2017, when it became very apparent that the system that our farmers were reliant upon to ensure that we could trace the animals, to ensure that we could track where these biosecurity incursions were coming from—it was really traumatic for farmers up and down the country when we realised that the trust, faith, and confidence that they had in the previous Government to administer a system that would protect our biosecurity was woefully inept.

So I would have thought that that member David Bennett, who chairs this select committee, the Primary Production Committee, would have stood up and had the humility to actually turn to the deficiencies of that system. I would have thought that that member would have spoken to the merits of this bill that we have been considering since—I think it was introduced late last year. We’ve had some tremendous submissions from a broad range of stakeholders, from big farmers and corporates that are mindfully watching over, I guess, the overarching regulatory environment all the time—the Dairy NZs, the Fonterras, the Federated Farmers—through to those farmers that have had to watch the eradication of their stock, through to those farmers that have lost a lot during this entire process.

It was Miles Anderson from Federated Farmers—he’s a spokesperson for their meat and wool sector. He came to the select committee and he said that the NAIT system simply had to work and it didn’t. And it failed our communities. It failed our regional New Zealand. In his remarks—and I think his remarks really got to the substance of why we’re here this afternoon debating this legislation—he said, look, you know, farmers didn’t want to be woefully negligent. They didn’t go about to undermine the requirements that were set out in that 2012 Act. But there wasn’t enough resource put into educating those farmers that had to administer the system, there wasn’t enough resource in terms of ensuring it was seamless and it actually worked, and there wasn’t enough time and energy in that initial legislation to ensure that the regulatory mechanisms to ensure compliance with the system actually functioned effectively.

So I turn to what this bill actually does and what we heard submissions on through the select committee process. I want to start with—normally I wouldn’t start with this, but this is where I want to start—the mechanisms by which we think it is important. And for all those we heard submissions from—like I said, Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ—there was a general consensus that it was very important to lift the penal regime. The penalties as were first introduced under the initial legislation in 2012 were very minimal. If you failed to tag an animal: $150 fine. Those penalties have been lifted. We have lifted those penalties—so it might be a mistake, but we’ve lifted it to ensure that there are fewer mistakes—to $400. Where there is a failure to register stock, those initial penalties were around $300. We’ve lifted that to $800 to ensure that, again, we’ve got the right mechanisms to ensure compliance.

I think some of the substantive penalties that we’ve really made amendments to in this bill, where there are individual failures and these are blatant failures to administer and perform the functions required of persons in charge of animals (PICAs) under the Act—the initial maximum penalty in the 2012 Act was $10,000. We have substantively increased those—with the, I guess you could say, permission or with the blessing of the industry—to $100,000 to show that non-compliance with this Act simply will not be tolerated. If you read any of the analysis on how M. bovis was introduced into New Zealand, there was a consistent view, I guess, that had this system been working right at that time and people had done what they were meant to do, it wouldn’t be costing our country a billion bucks. So that’s at the individual level we’re increasing those penalties, but at the corporate level, that’s where, I guess, the rubber really hits the road. So we’ve increased those penalties from $20,000 to $200,000.

We’ve heard—well, I think amongst the drivel that we heard before—there was a bit of a comment around data ownership. I do want to acknowledge the comments that the Minister Damien O'Connor made in this respect and also those that submitted on this point. It was a point that we received substantive submissions on—as to who actually owned the data that feeds into the NAIT system. This was a legal ambiguity, and that was something that we received advice on from the Ministry for Primary Industries. Why our side of the House, at the very least, agreed that this is something that should lie silent for now is because there was no conclusive view as to where actual ownership does lie. So I want to acknowledge those officials who took the time to inform us as members, because it wasn’t just that side; it was all of us that had shared concerns about the actual legal ownership of that data.

Secondly, another big issue that was really put to us, and there were some exceptional submissions to this point, was around whether or not transporters—so those guys that drive the trucks, pick up the stock, take them from A to B—would be legally responsible or liable under the amendments. And, under the first draft, they were; they were going to be legally responsible for transporting stock that hadn’t been tagged. We heard some exceptional submissions in this respect, which really were persuasive amongst our select committee to ensure that we listened to those transporters. They weren’t the targets of the NAIT scheme and this regime, and all legal liabilities would remain with the PICAs. So those were a couple of the amendments where I think we worked collectively across the House quite constructively to achieve those outcomes.

So, despite the rubbish that gets said in this House from some of the members of the Opposition, I want to acknowledge those who actually do work constructively to ensure that we’re sticking up for rural New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2)—let’s call it “NAIT”—here for the second reading, reporting back from a very robust select committee process.

I would like to start, if I may, with just some reflections on the comments made by the previous speaker, Kiri Allan, who does some good work in the committee. But I think her summary of our critique of what has been put on the table misses the mark. She tried to frame it up as if somehow Mr Bennett, who’s a very superb chair and I’m sure we’d all agree on this side around the contribution—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Well, now we know you’re lying!

Well, see, here we go. It’s all very well to talk about humility and to try and anchor yourself with the tone of caring and then, the moment the Opposition holds a view, you just guffaw and try and tear the person down. I mean, they need to look in the mirror. But I’d like to specifically reference the comments that were made by Kiri Allan when she talked about the importance of her approach in terms of approaching this issue from a position of humility and wondered why she thought there were aspects of Mr Bennett’s very strong contribution this afternoon that were not anchored in the same.

Well, dare I say that she obviously wasn’t listening to the contribution from the Minister, because this is what we have come to expect—the way he framed up this bill, even though, for a number of months, in the context of our response to M. bovis, we have sought at all times to be appropriate, bipartisan, putting the farmers’ interests first. You’d expect that from the National Party. He immediately starts his contribution on the attack, framing us up, in terms of the critiques that we had round the select committee, as paranoia—and I quote directly. And then, of course, the Government side wonders why we react. All I say directly to the Minister is that, instead of succumbing to the red mist that appears every day he appears in this place, he might want to focus on the food safety issues and the biosecurity issues which are front of mind. We’re dealing, of course, with M. bovis. We have, essentially, an avian disease which is already impacting a number of South Island chicken farms in particular. We have swine flu on our doorstep. We have brown marmorated stink bugs on our doorstep. Mr O’Connor, could we respectfully ask you to focus on doing your job as opposed to coming here and spending most of your speech trying to frame up how we are somehow culpable? It does him no credit, and that is why David Bennett’s contribution was so robust and pointed and accurate.

I would like to specifically raise comments and issues that came up through our select committee process. Firstly, as mentioned, we had a number of submissions. Our total was 70 submissions that we considered. We had 10 oral submitters who brought a significant industry experience and perspective to the table, which certainly the National Party found particularly interesting. We have already traversed a number of the issues that were front of mind as we reflected on this bill. The first, of course, was the issue around clarifying ownership of core data. I think the previous Government speaker has skipped over this somewhat. I accept that, at the end of our deliberations, we landed in a place that makes sense in terms of the bill being silent around ownership. But she omitted to make it very clear to the House that the bill as introduced had a very different view as to where ownership sat, and that was the specific intent of the bill. And, as we listened both to officials and, of course, to industry submitters, it became very clear that this was a relatively last-minute—in fact, was a last-minute—insertion into the bill by the Minister.

So the issues that this has raised and the sort of nervousness in the sector over what was the true intent of actually putting that clause in, which made it clear that that ownership of that data would lie with the Crown—that all sits with the Minister, because he chose to put it in. It caught the industry by surprise. It’s all very well standing here and talking about the importance of the industry working together to identify the failings of the NAIT system and, where we can, collectively improve it only to put in, at the eleventh hour, a piece of legislative intent which, essentially, as Mr Bennett, I think quite aptly, put it, sought to nationalise the data, and then wonder why there was such a reaction from the industry. It was poor process. He was caught by it.

The area that I’d like to move on to next is the obligations that sat in the original bill for transporters in particular to be accountable should there be any stock on their truck that wasn’t appropriately tagged and in the NAIT system. We in particular—the National Party side—right from the start signalled that we had major concerns with this, as, again, Mr Bennett earlier articulated. It gives us the sense—and we see it pretty much every day, in terms of our Primary Production Committee deliberations—that the Government’s side are devoid, I think, of very many members who are anchored in the reality of farming and anchored in the reality of the implications of the legislation they put forward.

💬 Jo Luxton: That’s not fair—that’s not fair.

It became very clear to us right from the first submission that this was a flaw in the proposed bill. And I hear them saying, “Well, it’s not fair.” Look, ultimately, Government, you have to take accountability for the legislation you frame up and put into the select committee. If it is identified as deficient in thinking, if it’s identified as deficient in intent, then you’d expect us as the Opposition to critique it, to identify your failings and ensure that it’s changed. That’s what’s happened here, and it was a very strong pushback from the National Party that identified the issue. We listened to the transporters. We understood the fact that putting with them the obligation, the ultimate legal obligation, to ensure that animals are tagged when they are simply a transporter from A to B was clearly not the right outcome. We have sought changes, and we have seen changes to clause 12, particularly new section 31A, which gives transporters some comfort that now the obligation sits with the persons in charge of an animal to have certified for the transporter that all those animals are indeed appropriately tagged.

One issue that I would like to touch on, in conclusion, really relates to an area that hasn’t come up yet in our conversations. It came up during the course of our deliberations, and I think it’s an important message to get out there, and that is that for all the changes that sit in this legislation today that we’re reflecting on, it still doesn’t deal with what I would call the operational clunkiness that farmers have to experience in terms of the day-to-day engagement with the NAIT system. Now, we were given very strong feedback and commitment by NAIT themselves and the officials that support this Government that that would be an area of focus and outcome.

Well, certainly from the National Party side, we have a very strong expectation that that’s going to be followed through, because as all of us know, when we strip our particular partisan perspectives away from this debate, part of the success of compliance is actually the rules—and that side have particularly focused on that—but the other is the culture that exists in a sector and, in particular, the ease of the operational interface. If they have been designed in a way that makes it easy for farmers to update and it’s intuitive and it reflects the day-to-day reality of farming, then you’ll find that the compliance will lift. That, ultimately, is not a function of rules and regulations and legislation that we are debating here today; it is, in my opinion, a function of the capability of the management of the NAIT team to be able to identify and put in place a system that can be incrementally improved, year on year, that works for our farmers’ day-to-day realities. I do hope—and this side of the House very much expects—that that is a priority for the organisation and is appropriately supported by this Government over the next few months and years.

Look, in conclusion, this is a solid bill. It is a bill that is needed, and we have collectively, through our unique Primary Production Committee style, landed on a bill that we think will make the system better, will make it more effective, but, ultimately, as I’ve mentioned before, the test of that will be the commitment that the farmers have to the system and the ease that the farmers have in terms of using the system for their own business benefit. Thank you very much, and I certainly support this bill this afternoon.

It is a pleasure for me to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) to make sure that our primary biosecurity response and animal tracing programme is fit for purpose. Just picking up on some of the comments that were made by the previous speaker, Todd Muller, there has been a real effort within this Mycoplasma bovis biosecurity outbreak to depoliticise this, because there was some squabbling at the start which wasn’t doing our farmers any good. This was a significant outbreak, and it was time for us to support our farmers, not to play political games. So it’s a little disappointing to see that reversing out a little bit this afternoon.

There has been, with this biosecurity outbreak, a huge threat to our bovine agriculture sector, about $20 billion, or probably close to $25 billion between dairy and beef. We found that we had a National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system that was found wanting. Frankly, we had inherited a scheme that had been administered in benign neglect. Quite extraordinarily, in terms of enforcement, there had been one $150 fine up until that outbreak. That was the fact of the matter. It had almost been totally unenforced. We heard through the select committee process that non-compliance of the NAIT system could have been as high as 50 percent, and, boy, have we paid that price. The cost of dealing with this Mycoplasma bovis outbreak, which has been complicated incredibly by a lack of ability to trace animals as was intended, and is actually the purpose of the scheme, has cost us—we have allocated $900 million to that response. If there was ever an example of this Government getting behind our farmers and sitting alongside our farmers, that has got to be it. For those just tuned in or listening in on radio, the previous bill was the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2), another example of this Government getting beside its farmers.

So it’s absolutely imperative that we have a system that works well. Cattle, particularly beef cattle, are traded heavily. There is a lot of movement of cattle. We have to have an efficient system, and one of the key failings of the system is the tags. The tags often come out, and how that is dealt with is key to making sure that the system stays updated and accurate. One of the core issues is with unsafe animals, and through this process, we have a new category, “unsafe to tag”. It was previously “impractical to tag”, and there is a difference there, because I think what was happening—and with that 50 percent non-compliance, there was a portion of PICAs, or persons in charge of an animal, who just weren’t really bothered. There was no enforcement; there was “just put the animals on the truck and be done with it”. We have tightened that up considerably and made “unsafe to tag” as the threshold.

It’s important that that threshold remains, because for those of us that do live in rural New Zealand and do work on farms and have had a lot of experience in putting stock, cattle, on trucks, there are some cattle that are just dangerous. They need to get on a truck and they need to go to the works. That’s the place for them to be, but it is a health and safety matter for those farmers to not have to take their own health into their own hands by being absolutely obligated to have a tag in the ear. But we have to have that threshold high so that it is a genuinely unsafe animal—does have to be visibly rattled—and we are looking to have that review in five years to make sure that that system has not been taken advantage of, as it had potentially been previously.

The other thing I think it does, just talking about the non-compliance before and that single $150 fine—what we had previously was that non-tagging of an animal was $150. That is now $400 under these proposals. Non-registration of an animal has gone up from $300 to $800. Of course, if this gets to court, if it’s a particularly egregious case that gets to court, it was $10,000 for an individual farmer, family farmer; that has gone up to $100,000, and $20,000 for a corporate has gone up to $200,000. So this bill now has teeth.

There’s been quite a lot of discussion around the privacy and who has the access to the information or who owns the information, and that’s been traversed by previous speakers. I guess my comment on that would be how the Government let this key information get into private hands in the first place. We’re not here to relitigate that. We’re here to work out how we can make the best of a situation that probably should not have been. We did take on a lot of advice, and we did land in a place that made the information more available to the Minister so that the data can be available to the likes of the police or territorial authorities, and it has clarified some of those provisions. It exempts animal compliance officers who, essentially, could have been classified as PICAs, or persons in charge of an animal, if they are rounding up stray animals. It authorises the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to access NAIT data.

Of course, this is a unique situation where this data is held by, essentially, a private company. The Minister for Biosecurity did say within his contribution that in real time, responding to a genuinely significant biosecurity outbreak, the lack of access to that information by him as a Minister had impeded the response of MPI. So it’s now much clearer who can apply to access this data, and we did thrash that out through the select committee process. It was potentially a little bit loose. We know where the chain of command is now, and it’s much clearer who has access.

The work around the transport operators: as the bill was originally introduced, the transport operators were going to be caught up in this, and they’re not totally exonerated, but they do have the ability to contract out or get a declaration from the PICA that the animals are tagged as they should be to be legally compliant. So it doesn’t totally exonerate the transport operator, but it does take them out of full responsibility, because, essentially, it’s not them that will not have tagged the animals. But what we found in real time is if those animals are getting on a truck not tagged, the transport operators have often known about this and not had any power to intervene and make sure. So there’s an extra level of accountability for the PICAs in terms of not wanting to put their transport operators in a position of vulnerability. I would say it is credit to the farmers, and through the select committee process—Miles Anderson from Federated Farmers was mentioned—they said, “It is up to us. It’s up to us as farmers to take responsibility for our animals, and we don’t want the transport operators to be unintentionally captured in this.” So that is to the credit of farmers and farming organisations that they are taking full responsibility.

So this is an evolving process, I think, this NAIT process. I personally believe that we have to look to some alternative technologies. I think the tags are not—you know, that’s where it breaks down a lot of the time, when the tags come out, and they do come out; probably, in my experience, 10 to 15 percent of them will come out in the lifetime an animal. So that’s a significant issue, and we do have to keep evolving the system, but this is a step in the right direction. The Primary Production Committee has worked through the original bill well, improved the bill, and New Zealand First believe this is a further step in the right direction as we evolve our ability to respond to major biosecurity outbreaks. So we continue to support this bill to the House.

Can I just ask members on both sides of the House to remove the boxes and party files from their desks, please—Mr McAnulty and Mr Guy.

We all know the introduction of pests and disease into New Zealand carries a huge amount of risk, especially if we get some unwanted bugs or diseases past the border. You only need to look at what’s happening currently. You’ve got infectious bronchitis virus, which is a chicken disease. It’s affected two chicken farms in Otago. Currently, the exports of chickens to Australia have been stopped because of this. Basically, once you have one farm in New Zealand that tested positive for the disease, it affects our exports greatly.

You only need to look at Mycoplasma bovis: it hit the South Canterbury, North Otago region, also the Southland region hard, not just the financial costs, which will cost the Government and the industry close to a billion dollars, but the emotional costs, the emotional fallout. You know, you’ve got young children seeing calves getting loaded on to trucks, getting taken away to the works, never to be seen again, and farmers—they build up genetics over years, often decades, and often they know the cows individually. So it’s heartbreaking for the children. You’ve got the Queensland fruit fly. One fly costs about a million bucks to get rid of. You’ve got to find it, you’ve got to then eliminate it, so it’s not a cheap exercise. You’ve got stink bug. The stink bug incursion rate into New Zealand has increased tenfold over the last four or five weeks. And then you only need to look at foot-and-mouth. The predicted cost of foot-and-mouth hitting New Zealand would be about $16 billion.

So this bill here, the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) bill, which is all about tracking animals, tracking cows, tracking deer, for people who aren’t quite familiar with this word, “NAIT”—it’s a good bill. It’s not supposed to stop disease incursions into New Zealand, but it can stop the spread relatively quickly.

With Mycoplasma bovis, some of the problems—tracking these animals, through faults of the current system, is like a puzzle. It’s like dropping a 1,000 piece puzzle on the desk and then trying to figure out where these cows, where these movements have been. I just want to talk briefly about several amendments the National Party suggested to the Primary Production Committee. I just want to acknowledge all members of that, including the hard-working chair, David Bennett. He does a very good job, a very neutral chair, and I appreciate that David gives everyone a fair go, and also the officials. He really respects the work that the officials do for the committee.

So the key points that the National Party are very happy with: one is around privacy; another around unsafe tagging and non-compliance. We had a big issue around privacy because we had the bizarre situation where you give your information to a public department, then it was being shared to a private company. It’s good to see that changed, and also data duplication. You only need to ask a farming couple in Southland, Mr and Mrs McCallum—they’ve got 1,600 cows. They had to go through 80 different pages of data tracking, nine-digit numbers, and they basically had to track them up between NAIT and also another system called MINDA. So, hopefully, all these changes make it a bit easier for farmers. I just want to finish by acknowledging all the farmers affected by Mycoplasma bovis. Hopefully, we can get through this. And for those reasons, we support this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this legislation, the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2).

Now, the Green Party supports improving the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) regime because we need to have accurate information about what’s happening to animals. Now, we were caught unprepared when Mycoplasma bovis hit New Zealand. It’s cost us hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Tens of thousands of animals have had to be slaughtered and our tracing regime wasn’t up to snuff to deal with what was a serious biosecurity incursion. So this is about improving it. I acknowledge the previous speaker, Hamish Walker, and the difficulties many farmers have had engaging with the system previously. This is about improving the regime, because, ultimately, it’s in all farmers’ interests to make sure that we have a strong, robust regime that works, so when tragedy strikes we are prepared.

Now, I wasn’t on the Primary Production Committee, but I’d like to acknowledge the members, acknowledge the chair, acknowledge all the submissions. I think it has been improved in the committee. Four big changes I’d like to pull out. Now, the first: one of the reasons why NAIT was so ineffectual early on was the penalty was a miserly $150 per tagging offence and only $300 for registration offences. In the first reading speech, I said, “That’s akin to being like slapped on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.” And it’s true, so I’m glad the committee has increased those penalties from $150 to $400, $300 to $800—still not massive penalties, but, hopefully, will act as more of a deterrent. Alongside the other benefits to make sure the regime is easier to work with, I’m sure many more farmers will be complying.

Now, the obligations around transport was a big area where the committee considered and made some amendments. Now, originally it was that any person moving a NAIT animal was liable. Now, what the committee has decided is that transport operators and drovers shouldn’t have that strict liability. Now, part of the problem was that we know that so many NAIT animals were just being driven around by transport operators who didn’t, I guess, have a stake in maintaining the NAIT requirements of those animals. Now, I think the committee’s erred on the right side, because they’ve said that under clause 12, which inserts new section 31A(2), transport operators or drivers are exempt if a declaration from the person in charge of the animal says that the animal was in the system. Now, what we’re trying to do is encourage NAIT registration and tagging of the animals, as long as the transport operator gets that declaration from the person in charge of the animal. I think that’s where it should lie, so it’s fair to move that strict liability away.

The committee has also recommended amending the legislation in terms of cost recovery. Obviously, the new NAIT system is more advanced. There will be greater administration costs as a result. So the previous old-fashioned per unit charge or flat fee system isn’t really futureproofed. So the idea of a graduated fee response based on the number of animals makes a huge amount of sense. It’s simply going to make sure that their resources are going on to make sure it can protect New Zealand and our economy.

Now, the last area I’d like to touch on is the access to data, because what the committee has done is clarify who’s actually able to access the data. In terms of the Public Service, they can apply for a data access panel through the Ministry for Primary Industries in terms of, I think it’s the 1955 legislation, what’s it called, the territorial authorities—the legislation about animals that are lost and councils have to go find them.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: The pounds.

The cows?

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Pound.

The pound, that’s right—clarifying the relationship between data access and that old 1955 legislation. But I guess the big area where I wasn’t privy to the conversations, but it looks a fascinating debate from the committee, was access and ownership—not the access to data, that’s been clarified, but it was the ownership of data. Previously, the understanding was this data was the Crown’s, and the committee’s decided to stay silent on this matter but, obviously, it’s going to be a huge debate going forward. The committee has clarified, however, that the Minister can request that data. There is no cost fee in terms of undertaking the roles of the Minister to get an accurate understanding of the situation. This is an area that needs to be cleared up though, I believe, and ultimately I think, given the State’s responsibility—the State’s very clear interest in it—the State’s ownership of that data, I think, is a very important issue. So I guess it’s going to be a debate that’s going to continue. But I’d like to thank the committee for improving this legislation. The Green Party can continue to support it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s been a good afternoon and, I think, quite a good, reasoned debate on this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). I remember when it came into the Primary Production Committee, and the debates in the House preceding that. This system, indeed, was tested with M. bovis, and it was found wanting in a number of areas. I think it’s appropriate that the Government has moved to make the necessary changes. Of course, prior to that, we had a bill that came in under urgency with no consultation with industry, the public, or even the Opposition. So we certainly attacked that process, but I’m pleased to see that this one has gone through the full transparency process involving industry and others that came and submitted.

What it does do is it really clarifies a few things, but I think there is a bone of contention around who owns the data. It looks as though Government members pushed pretty hard to say that the Government owned the data. Industry said, “Well, we own it.” So it hasn’t necessarily been easily clarified, but there’s been a bit of a workaround that’s been resolved by the Primary Production Committee and the good chairmanship of the Hon David Bennett. What it does mean is that the Minister can request some information or all of the information from the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system at any time that he or she wishes.

What has been also interesting in the debate, reading the bill, and through the select committee process, is the transport operators being liable for an animal that isn’t indeed tagged. I felt from the start that that was never fair on those truckies, because when you consider it, often these truck drivers can turn up at any hour of the night to load out stock. It’s not appropriate for the driver to be able to—and often these yards aren’t lit, so the driver may have a spotlight on the back of the trailer of the truck, may be able to see that some of the animals are all tagged, but there’s no way that the driver would be able to see that all this particular load of animals are all tagged. So I think the committee has worked through a good process there and the onus is going to sit on the natural person in day-to-day charge of a NAIT animal, which is the person responsible for the animals to ensure that they are correctly tagged, and there will be a six-month lead-in process to that.

The other one was these unsafe animals, where there was another, I think, good robust debate in the Primary Production Committee at the time, because we need to be mindful of the fact that these can be very large bulls. They might be five years old. They could be a tonne in weight. Or stags could indeed be older and they get very, very aggressive at certain times of the year. So I think it’s appropriate to say, well, there is a period of five years to allow the person in charge of the animal to tag these animals, and that will be reviewed in five years by NAIT.

The other thing that we have some concern about on this side of the House is indeed the ministerial direction where the Minister of the day can say to the NAIT board, “Well, here are all of my priorities and expectations under this term of Government, or indeed under the leadership of the Minister.” So we don’t agree that the Minister can just go and direct the NAIT board or senior NAIT staff to say, “Well, here are all my individual priorities and expectations for the period that I’m a Minister. You should follow suit or toe the line.” So we have some concerns about that. We will take the opportunity in the committee process when the Minister is in the chair to ask him very specific questions around some of the areas that I’ve canvassed today. But we do support the changes that are in the bill, and I think that the select committee has done a good job. Thank you.

This is a split call. I call Marja Lubeck—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to take a short call on this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). As we have heard, of course, the real test with National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) was Mycoplasma bovis, and it was clear that that test and the scheme have failed. As the previous speaker, Mr Nathan Guy, mentioned, the scheme absolutely was found wanting. So this bill is an important milestone in dealing with the problems of the NAIT scheme. It is dealing with the incredibly detrimental impact for our provincial and regional communities when we had the outbreak of M. bovis, and it made it very clear that we had shortcomings in this NAIT scheme, which obviously needed to be addressed. So this bill will help address the poor tracking of animal movements because we need a well-functioning tracing system, because, as we have mentioned many times now, sadly, a disease affecting one farm can have a ripple effect all through rural communities and, as a result, through the whole economy.

Now, the changes that this bill makes in a well-functioning NAIT scheme will help maintain the confidence not only of the sector but of the wider industry, and, of course, also of our overseas markets. I wasn’t party to the Primary Production Committee process, but I’ve heard several of my colleagues—Kiritapu Allan, Mark Patterson—mention very eloquently the issues with penalties and non-compliance. And, quite frankly, it made a lot more sense than the waffle that we’ve heard by the member David Bennett, who actually is very rude to officials, so I’m not sure why so much praise is heaped upon him when, whenever I see him in action, he is actually very rude.

This bill shows clearly that this Government is committed to working with farmers so that they get more value for what they do. It is this bill, as well as the previous bill that was under discussion before, that completely fits with this Government’s plan to help farmers meet the issues head on, after, of course, we’ve seen National ignoring any of the challenges facing that sector. This bill, as we have heard, reflects the wide range of feedback that submitters have brought to the select committee process. And from what I’ve heard from speakers previously, it has been a very robust process that has resulted in this bill. So this bill, as a result, then, clarifies provisions. It closes some of the exemptions, which, quite frankly, should not be in place and closes a very big hole that exists currently in biosecurity tracing.

It is really clear from what we’ve heard today and in previous speeches that a previous National Government completely ignored the scheme. I mean, one non-compliance notice in four years—you’ve got to wonder. Mr Walker, in fact, with his examples that he mentioned, clearly outlined that his National Government left us a legacy of haphazard attitudes towards biosecurity that this Government now is cleaning up.

So to conclude, then, after nine years of neglect and a National Government that completely ignored the scheme, we are taking action, tackling New Zealand’s long-term challenges head on, making life better, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I call Matt King—five minutes.

I think the Labour members over there have got to get some new material, get some new lines—that “nine years of neglect” is wearing very thin. The facts don’t back it up, so get some new material, get your spin doctors working.

We at National, we kicked off a review of National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) in 2016 and we acknowledge that it has been severely tested by Mycoplasma bovis and it’s been found wanting. We acknowledge that. This bill amends NAIT to make improvements to the framework governing it, so I acknowledge that. It’s all about animal tracing and identification, but it also overlaps into biosecurity and food safety. So we’re supporting this bill. We want to ensure that it’s fit for purpose and that it’s working. You know, when we’re in Opposition, unlike the Government, we don’t oppose everything for the sake of opposing. We’ve supported a good portion of the bills that have gone through the House in the last two years. We’ve supported them. Some of them are our bills so, of course, we support them—

💬 Hon Member: Most of them.

Most of them are our bills, actually—yeah.

There were 92 submissions; 10 gave oral evidence. I was privy to about an hour or two of submissions when I subbed in on the Primary Production Committee. I’m a farmer myself, so I know all the issues to do with NAIT. National recommended removing the reference to core data being the property of the Crown as it could be problematic, and I understand that. Also exempting transport operators—I was in the select committee when the transport operators were coming in. And when you’re a truck driver and you’re loading cattle late at night, and especially wild cattle, ensuring that they’re all NAIT-tagged would be a nightmare. And so it’s just a practical amendment to the bill to be realistic. So the farmer takes the liability. He takes that off the transport operators’ books, so I agree with that. We requested it. Amending unsafe tags to cover over five years—I’ve had cattle on my farm that you could not get near a cattle yard, and in fact, recently, I had to have one destroyed because of that; it was out of control. So I think it’s a good amendment to the bill to allow that—just a practical way. And so we need to improve our system, our system of traceability. We all agree to that.

I understand when NAIT came it was phased in over a period of time. And for me, it necessitates the purchase of a $2,000 scanning gun plus the NAIT tags themselves. It’s really expensive. And I found that is a decent-sized expense for a farm my size. Also, the NAIT issues are hard. When I’m buying stock off neighbouring farms or nearby farms, they’re meant to scan them and send it away. Well, my experience with doing that with NAIT has been a nightmare, actually—I’ll be honest with you. I’ve scanned all my animals on my farm and sent them in to NAIT in a nice little spreadsheet, left messages for them, phoned them, emailed them several times, and not one reply. So I think there are issues at the moment with the NAIT system and I’d like to see that they are sorted out.

Having one NAIT number per farm location is a good idea. In the previous situation there you could have one NAIT number for a farmer and he could have several farms, or two or three, and so that’s a sensible amendment. I agree with that. And non-compliance with NAIT is a real concern, and I understand that. It’s a frustration for farmers, it’s a frustration for NAIT, but non-compliance is an issue. If you have a system that’s foolproof and you have a NAIT system that works, you would have more compliance from farmers. I acknowledge that. My own experience was sending in information and it not being loaded—very frustrating for me.

And privacy issues—I see this bill solves the privacy issues around information being shared and it increases the penalties: $10,000 to $100,000; $20,000 for body corporates to $200,000; for minor, small-scale offending, $300 to $800; failing to tag offence, $150 to $400—it makes sense. In terms of data access, I had—some people had some stock stolen, the thief put them through the works. They got notified that their stock had gone through the works, and applied to the freezing works for the information to try and track down who put it through. The freezing works cited privacy issues and didn’t produce it. So I’m glad to see that those sorts of issues will be sorted out. So, all in all, a reasonable bill; I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with pleasure that I rise in support of this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). Why am I pleased to rise in support of this bill? Because this bill is going to go a long way to protecting our $46.4 billion primary sector industry, which is hugely important to this country and the economy.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of things that members opposite have brought up previously. The Hon David Bennett: he’s talked about some of these changes that have been made to the initial legislation as being a big win for National. Well, I challenge that member, because I was once the deputy chair of the Primary Production Committee and, actually, it is a split committee, equal members on either side, so nothing necessarily will get through unless both sides agree. So whilst this select committee process has included some extremely robust conversations and discussions, I disagree with the fact that one thing or the other has been a big win for the National Party. And, actually, I find that quite disappointing, and I find it very insensitive of that member to politicise something like this when I have come from an area which has been hugely affected by Mycoplasma bovis. So I find the fact that this bill is being politicised very, very disappointing as, I’m quite sure, the farming and rural communities of Rangitata will too.

💬 Hon David Bennett: No, they’re very thankful, actually. They just want you gone.

That’s fine, Mr Bennett, if you want to make fun of it and make light of it, go right ahead; so much for the party that is for the farmers and fights for the farmers.

Anyway, I would just like to move on from that. We had another member talk about the expense involved with National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) tagging. Well, actually, I say that that’s a very small price to pay when it comes to protecting our biosecurity for this country. I also want to mention the fact that I am no longer a member of that select committee, but I have sat on it maybe once—

💬 Hon David Bennett: And that’s a shame.

—why thank you, Mr Bennett—or twice during the process of this piece of legislation going through. Now, we know that there are a couple of recent events which have highlighted the deficiencies within our NAIT system and how it’s been inadequate, actually, at best. One was an industry-led review that was held from 2016 to 2018. But the biggest event that we’ve had that highlights the inadequacies of the NAIT system is the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis, the cost of which has been absolutely huge. I think by the time—working towards eradication, there’ll be close to a billion dollars that will have been spent on eradication. And we know that this would have been a lot less had the NAIT system been working well.

Whilst the financial cost has been huge, it is nothing, in my view, compared to the personal cost—the stress that it’s caused families, the mental health that has suffered in our rural communities when dealing with the issue of having to destroy their animals, the impact on our communities, the impact on people who were friends, neighbours. So no longer can we simply afford, financially, and on a personal level, to sit back and do nothing. I think there’s been talk about one person having, I guess, been punished, if you like, over the past few years for not doing what they’re meant to do as far as this NAIT system goes, and I think that’s actually appalling. It is appalling when it is something that is so important to our biosecurity. So we can’t continue to have a bit of a haphazard attitude towards biosecurity, as my colleague Marja Lubeck mentioned earlier. And so there is now going to be an increase in penalties for non-compliance, and I think that is long overdue. It has been well-traversed by previous speakers about what the different amounts of non-compliance are going to change to.

There was talk before about the change for the transport operators. I think, as the piece of legislation was initially introduced, they were going to perhaps be held liable for transporting animals that didn’t have proper NAIT tags, etc. But there have been some great submissions around that, one being from Nick Leggett, the Road Transport Forum chief executive. He talked about the fact that the freight industry was 100 percent behind protecting New Zealand’s biosecurity, but, as has been mentioned by members opposite, it can be difficult for transport operators when collecting animals. We’ve heard about, you know, being at night when visibility is low, etc., etc. So now the transport operators are no longer going to be captured within this piece of legislation, but, actually, the onus is going to be on the farmer or the person selling the livestock. So I think that’s really great for the truck drivers, in this instance.

Another thing that I wanted to touch on was the fact that there have been changes made so that the PICA, or the person in charge of animals, cannot use a tag that’s been issued for an animal at one location on an animal at another location. I think there’s been a bit of an allowance for a bit of a transitional-type period, I guess, whereby they don’t have to—they’ve got 12 months before that will come into effect, so they can continue to use up the tags that they currently have, etc., although it is in the best interests of our farmers to start acting in the best way possible and moving forward with this, at pace. I don’t think the country can afford to sit back and wait for this.

There was also the fact that, prior to this, it was voluntary for declaration of non-NAIT animals, but now that’s going to be mandatory. I think what this comes down to, again, is the fact that this is a big deal when it comes to our biosecurity, our risks, and potential incursions. Prior to this, we’ve had animals that have been onsold, moved around the country—we cannot trace where they have come from. We’ve seen that with the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis—the difficulty in finding out where this animal has come from, who sold it to whom, and so on and so forth.

So this piece of legislation—I’m hugely proud to commend it to the House and I look forward to seeing this go through the third reading and see it become legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Moving livestock around New Zealand is an everyday part of farming in our country. We need to get the rules right around this and, certainly, with this piece of legislation, we can acknowledge that changes needed to be made. A review was actually kicked off in 2016 to look at ensuring that we were in the right space with that, and I think we can all accept that we weren’t.

Changes have subsequently been made, and some of the proposals in this particular amendment bill are necessary. Increasing the fines is a good aspect within that.

One of the key elements that I’m absolutely glad we’ve seen change from what was originally proposed is around that transport operator liability. We’ve already heard it mentioned a few times, but the impracticalities of expecting a transport operator to be able to identify animals as they’re flying on to a truck at speed in the middle of the night—it is not entirely realistic. So it’s good to see we have achieved a change in that space.

The other big one that we heard about from Mr Bennett, when he talked at the start, was around the ownership of that data, and that was actually one aspect that I suspect hadn’t been wholly understood by the Government when they were looking to put forward these amendments in terms of understanding—

💬 Hon David Bennett: They knew what they were wanting—they wanted to nationalise it. Don’t underestimate these commies.

—the implications of what they were proposing. Of course, the more sinister option is that perhaps they were looking to do something with that, or, indeed, a theme that we’ve seen over the last two years around Government wanting to control much more than indeed they needed to, and in this case, I’m glad that we have seen that change has not actually occurred and the ownership of the core data does not sit with the Crown in terms of this piece of legislation. It’s been omitted altogether, so that’s appropriate.

Now, M. bovis—the Mycoplasma bovis—obviously, has been a devastating biosecurity incursion that we’ve been dealing with in the dairy and beef sector, and that’s ongoing. Now, the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Act is important to ensure that tracking those movements minimises that risk, and I think it’s fair enough to say that perhaps had there been some stronger elements, maybe it would have been different and maybe it wouldn’t. We can’t spend too much time looking back on that, but we actually need to focus on getting this in the right space, and I think we are.

But I’d just like to take a moment to acknowledge all of those farmers that have gone through the terrible challenges presented by Mycoplasma bovis and, indeed, those who are still in that phase, where they are currently a confirmed infected property or under an ownership direction, or whatever stage they may be in. It is tough and it’s difficult, and there is the help out there, so I would encourage them to reach out and make sure they have support through that process. The Rural Support Trust, in particular, have been doing some fantastic work in that space, so I commend them for that.

With biosecurity in general—and this is a part of it—it’s important to have controls when breaches happen, but, actually, we need to make sure that we’re getting the right investment up front to minimise the likelihood of incursions, not just in the dairy and beef sector but actually in horticulture, as well, and there are some significant risks in that space. We have seen it over the last summer as well, with the brown marmorated stink bug and the Queensland fruit flies. These are incursions that, typically, do come in at the borders and they have so far been contained, but it’s an ongoing and ever-present risk. So whilst we’re supporting this bill—and I’d like to just reiterate that—biosecurity needs to remain a strong focus, and we need to have continued strong investment in that. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Well, it truly is a delight to stand here and speak on the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2), and I want to start by acknowledging most of the speakers from the National Party because, for once, on the whole, we’ve actually said pretty much the same things—pretty much the same things. They have acknowledged that the initial bill was substandard, and I want to acknowledge that, and good on them for that. We acknowledge that even though you’ve got to start somewhere—you put proposals out and the select committee process is there to change bills and improve them—this bill has improved because of the solid contribution from most of the National members of the select committee. So, on that basis, I think that it is a great message, yet again, for the second bill in a row that the members of this House can work together on matters that are important.

Of course, you know, we have overcome some pretty difficult situations. We have worked together, despite having David Bennett as the chair of the Primary Production Committee. That man is so worried about his reputation now that he has cajoled his friends Nathan Guy, Todd Muller, and I think it was even Matt King, who said something nice about him. I’ve been an MP for two years, and I have never heard anyone say something nice about David Bennett. Now, all of a sudden, the focus comes on the chair of the select committee, and three speakers in a row say something nice.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Deceitful.

Mr Speaker, is it appropriate for a member of Parliament to call another member deceitful? I’m not sure it is—no.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Are you taking a point of order?

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You know, we all like a bit of banter in this House. We all like to poke a bit of fun, but I think it’s a bit unparliamentary to call another member deceitful.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I didn’t hear the comment, myself, and I don’t know who it came from, but if a member did use that word, then I’d ask him to withdraw.

💬 Hon David Bennett: I withdraw.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that, David Bennett. Thank you—thank you. You know, it all gets a bit heated in the House, so there’s rules for a reason. There are rules for a reason. Don’t look at David Bennett, he’s going a bit red—“Beetroot Bennett” they call him.

Anyway, back to the bill. There are some changes in here that have come out of the select committee—and I repeat that that indeed is what the select committee process is for, to improve the bill—and the one that I am actually really pleased it has improved is the obligations that were proposed to be on the carriers of livestock. The fact is that when you are in a situation where the country is facing something unprecedented like Mycoplasma bovis and the initial legislation is proven to be inadequate, it is actually difficult to know where to start as to how to fix it.

The crucial question here is where does responsibility lie when it comes to tracing, because that is, essentially, what we want to do. We want to have a tracing system that everyone has confidence in and one where we can—if it’s needed—trace back to the source of an outbreak of some disease like Mycoplasma bovis. But, in fairness to both sides of this House, the days of finger-pointing around Mycoplasma bovis are long gone. It started when we wanted to bring in a response, but very quickly it stopped, and I think that’s good, because both sides of this House recognise that what this Government, supported by the Opposition, is trying to do with Mycoplasma bovis is something that no other country has done before: eradicate something like that disease, which has spread around pretty much the whole country, essentially, by tracing it back when there are gaps in the system. It is, essentially, those gaps in the system that this bill is trying to address.

So the question that we faced was: where does the responsibility lie? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that at the point of cartage, which is the key element here, where it’s tracing for the moving around of livestock—at what point in that transaction does responsibility lie?

The question was floated: should it lie on the transport operators? We got submissions. I had submissions in my office in Masterton, the most compelling of which was from Martinborough Transport, who came in and said “Look, we understand what you’re trying to do. You need to pass this bill—it is a good bill—but we don’t think it’s fair for responsibility to lie on the carriers.”, and I agreed, and, actually, the members on our side of the House in the select committee, once we heard the submissions and heard what the submitters had to say, agreed also. So I think it’s a good move. It’s a good move, and it has improved this bill in terms of confidence in the system.

We heard Matt King, the one-term member from Northland. He said that—[Interruption] Well, he’s only served one term. He’s only served one term. Jeez, they’re very sensitive, aren’t they? They are very, very sensitive over there. Goodness gracious me! Anyway, Matt King—he stood up and he talked about the difficulties—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if that member would explain if being a one-term member is more than that member is.

That’s not a point of order. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Mr Speaker—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): There’s a vote going on. Sit down.

Bill read a second time.