Plant Variety Rights Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Plant Variety Rights Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Plant Variety Rights Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Why?

That is the right committee to consider the bill, I say to the member. The plant variety rights (PVR) issue has been with us for some time. It addresses problems that haven’t been solved since we first had this legislation on plant variety rights in New Zealand in 1973. This bill enables us to meet our obligations under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, our free-trade agreement that is aiming at being progressive. It facilitates economic recovery and, at the same time, it respects indigenous rights and takes a partnership approach, recognising the rights of Māori in the development of our indigenous species and the kaitiaki relationships that they have.

This bill gives certainty to business. It hits a sweet spot that enables progressive trade. It is inclusive. It’s the best of both worlds: indigenous rights and commercial returns for intellectual property (IP) development. This bill and those that support it will find themselves on the right side of history, supporting those who develop intellectual property and growing New Zealand’s GDP. To oppose it, of course, would be to oppose progressive free trade and to undermine both Māori and the business community. I would not expect any member in this House to oppose and undermine business and prosperity for the future of our country. I would not expect any member in this House to oppose this bill and undermine indigenous rights. So, with this bill, we move things forward.

It is interesting that, first, these issues came in a really substantive form with the Wai 262 claim in 1991, and the review of the Plant Variety Rights Act in 1987 began the job of aligning New Zealand’s plant variety Act’s regime with the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 91, about which I will say a little more. Plant variety rights make a valuable contribution to the New Zealand economy, underpinning many advances in the agricultural, horticultural, and ornamental sectors. By encouraging the development and distribution of new plant varieties, farmers and growers benefit from high-yielding or disease-resistant crops, and consumers benefit from a greater variety of high-quality produce that meets new and modern needs. New varieties of kiwifruit, apples, and hops, along with our world-leading ryegrasses, are all examples of innovation brought about by the granting of plant variety rights.

While on the whole the new plant varieties innovation system is in reasonable health, breeders and growers are pointing to an uncertain future if our rules are not brought up to date with modern standards. These standards are set out in the most recent international agreement for plant variety rights, settled upon in 1991 and known as UPOV 91. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership requires us to align our law with this UPOV framework, but New Zealand currently, with the existing regime, is trapped in 1978. The current law, put simply, is not compliant with our obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi.

So, as I’ve mentioned previously, the Wai 262 report concluded that kaitiaki relationships with taonga species are entitled to a reasonable degree of protection. The tribunal noted that some plant species can be classified taonga, and Māori, as kaitiaki, of course then have a connection with them. As a result, the report said there should be a mandate to refuse a PVR grant if kaitiaki relationships are affected, and called for the establishment of a Māori advisory committee to provide advice to the commissioner on plant variety rights.

The report was the starting point, and there was then a good degree of consultation. It was listened to the wider concerns of Māori during the engagement and the review process, and as a result the bill does extend further than that Wai 262 report in some areas. For example, if work includes the use of plants that may be taonga, like some indigenous plant species, breeders are encouraged to identify and engage with kaitiaki early, prior to submitting a PVR application, and the bill will establish a Māori plant varieties committee with genuine—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: There’s no life without plants.

—decision-making power to help protect those kaitiaki relationships.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Photosynthesis.

Now, all applications—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Mr Simon Bridges.

He needs some light, as his interjections suggest! He needs to grow. He needs water. He needs light.

All applications involving indigenous plant species and a small number of species that were brought on the migrating waka are covered by this committee and its oversight, and any species concerning their use must be considered by that committee. Now, if the impact of the development of the plants impacts on the kaitiaki relationship, it may well not proceed as an application.

We do want to modernise the Plant Variety Rights Bill so that it’s finally consistent with international best practice in IP rights, as laid down in the well-known UPOV 91. This is long overdue. Giving effect to UPOV 91 will strengthen breeders’ rights to better reflect the realities of modern plant breeding. It will help stimulate innovation in the sector, much as when plant variety rights protections were first introduced in the 1970s to encourage a rose grower to come to New Zealand, as it happens, to develop rose plants here. We want our businesses to have their intellectual property protected. We want to have reasonable concern to the rights of those with kaitiaki relationships. So I expect that these IP rights and the protection of them will bring benefits to New Zealand and our society as a whole.

The bill does find the right balance. Farmers will still be able to save seed to plant for next season’s crop. Breeders will still be able to build on existing innovation to create new varieties, and home gardeners will still be free to grow new varieties for themselves. I’m aware there are many who would have liked us to have gone further. I think this bill is something to be celebrated, tackling a problem that has been sitting there since the 1970s, that has had challenges through the 1990s—the Wai 262 that came around and was discussed in the 2000s at some length—and a problem that has not been able to be solved by a succession of Governments.

Here we have, as a result of, in part, the progression of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—and I do want to congratulate the Hon David Parker for his work in this area previously. As a result of that work, we found a way through that supports indigenous rights in New Zealand, that brings prosperity with free trade, and, as I said at the outset, that brings the best of both worlds. It will support our industries with the protection of intellectual property. It will support Māori and indigenous interests, and those who support the bill will find themselves on the right side of history. Those who don’t will find businesses questioning them as to why they are not bringing intellectual property rights into the 21st century and why they are not willing to protect and engage the kaitiaki of this land and ensure that indigenous rights are also respected. I commend this bill to the House.

This is an important piece of legislation, and I’ll come to it in a moment. But beforehand, I just lost a bet with my colleague Simon Bridges. I bet him that the Minister couldn’t do a full 10 minutes on this, and he did. Mr Bridges bet me that the Minister wouldn’t say that voting for this would put you on the right side of history twice, and, actually, that’s what the Minister said. Minister, this piece of legislation is nowhere near as important as you say, and if somebody in this House finds a reason that is credible not to support it, it has nothing to do with history.

You are right that the Hon David Parker did a lot of good work here, when he took the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and turned it into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). In fact, I remember him coming to this House, and all that he spoke about was Wai 262 and the International Convention on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants and, actually, how he had, with his new Government, carved out protections so that New Zealand would be able to make sure that not only did it meet the requirements under the agreement so that plants were protected in New Zealand as elsewhere but also that New Zealand could meet its obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi. Except he didn’t, because that was negotiated by the National Government over a nine-year period, and it is one of the provisions that wasn’t touched—it didn’t change at all.

This is an important piece of legislation, because, actually, New Zealand, in many cases, has been able to take plant varieties that are indigenous to New Zealand or from overseas and add significant value to them, and have led the world in creating medicines and being able to feed people more and actually creating great value—great value—in things that others didn’t see value in. The reason this has happened is we had good protection, we’ve had a very open and transparent process, there has been certainty for business to come and invest in New Zealand, New Zealanders to invest in others, with the understanding that, actually, a Government supported them, and they could quickly get to the point where, if they found innovation, they could turn that into a return for their company, for New Zealanders, and for others.

So this very piece of legislation continues that work. It does have the opportunity, or can provide an opportunity, for investment from outside of New Zealand in the country, science and innovation, and, more so, for New Zealand companies. That’s why the National Government was very happy for this to be part of the original TPP but, at the same time, recognised that there was a piece of work under way that we had to decide for New Zealand, to provide for us to meet our obligations under the Treaty.

The challenge that we have is that it comes to the interpretation of how the Government decides they want to meet that obligation. If we look at the Wai 262 report, it was very clear, and much of it is set out in the bill. But what Wai 262 said was that Māori, in as far as indigenous plant varieties are concerned, should be consulted on, shouldn’t have a decision-making process. Interpretation of this bill, from others, suggests that the Government has gone further than Wai 262 asked for.

Now, if that is the case, the Government needs to tell us why they have done that and what the implications could be. If we look for much of what has happened in New Zealand around research and innovation of indigenous plant species and species from overseas that have been brought here to be developed, it has been because, actually, the process is open, transparent, and happens very, very quickly.

If we look elsewhere, where previous Governments, including the National Government, have decided that Māori have a role to meet so that we meet the Treaty obligations—the Patents Bill is an example, or the Copyright Bill, both of which there are committees set up where Māori have a view, but it is a consultative view where they offer advice for the commissioner to make a decision.

In the case of this legislation that the Minister’s brought forward, he didn’t mention this—that is not what has happened here. It is the case that the commissioner must refer everything that has indigenous, part-indigenous, or the special list that he mentioned, to a committee, and that committee actually will make the decision—not delegated from the commissioner, but will make the decision themselves. The concern that we have around that is that, actually, it could work very, very well, but elsewhere we’ve seen that it probably won’t and it may not, and that it will be delayed. So the reason the Minister didn’t mention this in his speech that went for a full 10 minutes was because he too would be uncertain about what would happen here, because what he said to the commissioner is “You appoint some people and then get them to decide what the rules will be and how they will engage and what that will mean.”

In as far as innovation is concerned in New Zealand, leaving those questions unanswered is not good for certainty for business and for those that want to invest. It is not good for the next company that wants to take an indigenous plant in New Zealand and spend tens, if not twenties, hundreds of millions of dollars to create the next medicine that is good for New Zealand and the world, because there is too much uncertainty.

So the National Party will be supporting this bill to the select committee, and we will be seeking assurances and answers on the issues that we’ve raised, because they are important. It is our belief and position that, actually, the legislation needs to be aligned with the Patents Act and the Copyright Act. The reason for this is that it would be consultative and give advice to the commissioner, for the commissioner to make decisions not for this committee that will be set up to decide for themselves, because that wouldn’t be fair to all New Zealanders and, equally, it wouldn’t be fair to those who need to invest here. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I always listen very carefully to the previous speaker, Todd McClay. He has a lot of experience in this area. However, he was making some comments about the Minister not going for the full 10, only going for nine minutes, but then the previous speaker only spoke for about five minutes. I did find that a little bit strange. However, look, I appreciate the opportunity to add to the debate tonight—at 9.30 p.m. on a Tuesday night here in Parliament.

Our country is a plant-producing nation. We produce plants well, and we produce a variety of plants, as we’ve heard on various bills tonight, and we’re also a trading nation. And when you combine the two of those together, as a plant-producing nation and a trading nation, that is where we start to hit our sweet spot, as the Minister was talking about.

I’m just going to talk a little bit about what the bill does, and then I’m going to talk about one of our key exports which benefit greatly from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This bill represents a new and uniquely New Zealand approach to plant variety rights that will ensure our responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi are upheld while also aligning with the highest international standards of plant variety protection. And meeting our obligations—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: He’s reading this for the first time.

No, no. Meeting our obligations to the CPTPP opens the door wide to progressive free trade for New Zealand.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Trevor said you can’t read it.

I appreciate the enthusiasm from the members over there, because, as everyone in this House will realise, the CPTPP creates significant opportunities for our country, and the aspect around the intellectual property being protected is a very important part of this.

I’ll get on to the point around one of the key beneficiaries of the CPTPP being kiwifruit. The main planting, as we know, is in the Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Nelson, and actually Auckland—I didn’t realise there was much kiwifruit in Auckland, but there is a little bit up there—

💬 Glen Bennett: And Taranaki’s doing some—

And Taranaki as well. So there we go. We’ve got Kiwifruit all over the country.

I was at the Fieldays recently, and I went into the Zespri tent. I have visited the Zespri head office—they’ve got a fantastic head office over there in Tauranga, but I visited the Zespri tent and some of their green kiwifruit. It was very nice. But I thought, “Well, look, I mean, that’s OK, I have tried that before, but it was good. Don’t get me wrong.” And I tried some gold kiwifruit. That was very nice, actually. It was very sweet. But then I tried some red kiwifruit. I think that maybe the Zespri staff knew I was a member of the Labour Party, but they gave me this red kiwifruit. I’m not sure how many members in the House have tasted red kiwifruit, but it is very, very nice.

That’s just an example of some of the intellectual property that’s happening within our plant-based products here in New Zealand. This red kiwifruit, I’ve only tried it once. I’m not sure actually how to get my hands on some more, and that’s not a pitch to anybody. But just to highlight the opportunities, and that’s just one industry—we’re talking about kiwifruit—and the Minister alluded to other industries as well.

In terms of the CPTPP, our main market there, in terms of the growth aspect, is in Japan. Kiwifruit continues to be New Zealand’s largest single horticultural export by volume and value. Exports exceeded $2.5 billion in 2020, representing a 36 percent increase in value from 2018, and a lot of that was down to the free-trade agreement that the Hon David Parker signed.

So look, I probably don’t need to say much more. The Minister, you know, fairly clearly outlined what the bill does, and I just wanted to highlight that example of the area of kiwifruit in terms of the innovation and the opportunities under the CPTPP—that it’s important that, as a small trading nation, we continue to capitalise on those opportunities. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The National Party will be voting for this bill at the first reading. As my previous speaker from the National Party has asserted, we have some issues, primarily around the role of the Māori advisory group and what role that committee will hold and whether that is consistent with other uses of Māori advisory committees in other legislation. So that is the primary focus, I think, that we as a party would like to see settled at select committee. Also at select committee, we will take an interest in seeing what the submissions are from those in the sector, because it’s all right for everybody in this House to talk about what kiwifruit they may have eaten, but the reality is that there will be some experts in the sector that will want to make submissions, and, as parliamentarians, it’s important that we listen to those submissions and take them into account to make sure this legislation is actually fit for purpose.

So the starting point, I guess, is our arable sector, and it is part of our farming sector that is not often given much focus. You know, the focus always goes on those sectors that export product, whether it’s milk or kiwifruit or such like—our commodity and value-added production that we sell in the rest of the world. But underscoring that is a very solid and successful arable sector in New Zealand that provides a lot of the plant varieties, it provides a lot of the grass seeds, it provides a lot of the feed sources for the cows that produce the milk, and also, as my colleague from Hamilton talked about, some of the fruit varieties that we use in New Zealand, as well, aren’t directly from arable, but they are from that plant and food research - type nature. So the arable sector is one I want to put a bit of a plug in for tonight, because they aren’t often recognised, because they’re not often the end point in the New Zealand export machine, but they provide a very vital role in the New Zealand export machine and enabling those later export industries to actually achieve their goals. So I’m really going to be very interested to see, when that sector comes before the Parliament and the select committee, that they are happy with this legislation, that it covers off any of the issues that they may think need to be sorted out in this area.

Plant variety rights are very important when you consider the scale of some of the sectors in New Zealand. Most people don’t understand how strong our seed businesses are—you know, from carrot seeds, and especially in South Canterbury you can see the clover and the grass seeds that are grown down there, and even the very unique seeds that are looked over in some of our research institutes towards dealing with some of the climate change issues that we will have to deal with as a country going forward. So it has a lot of important repercussions, and we need to make sure that we protect those rights for New Zealand producers and New Zealand scientists and New Zealand farmers. So that is vital, and it has got a protection role there.

But it has also got a very commercial role, as well, because what you’re starting to see in a lot of intellectual property (IP) arrangements now is that there will be a cost per use of that IP, rather than just purchase of the IP in the initial stage. So we want to make sure that this bill is reflective of what the sector sees as the rules that they want to see progress in that part of the equation. So, you know, rather than in the past where, traditionally, IP has been a one-off payment and then you’ve got the use of something, now there is much more of a trend towards clipping the ticket on every use of that IP. So I’d be interested to see how that relates to the rules in this, as well.

I think that we will be at the mercy, I guess, of the experts in the sector when they come in front of Parliament in the select committee to give their views on this legislation. Until we have that, many in this House won’t be able to make too much judgment on the efficacy of this legislation in front of us. We understand what the Government is doing here; we’re taking them at their word, you could say, in the sense of where it’s going and the international obligations that they’re trying to achieve here. We do have serious concerns around their Māori advisory committee. It’s important that we take into account Māori views, but it’s also important that we also have the flexibility in that arrangement so that there is that commercial rigour and desire to grow and that that is not stifled in any way by attempts to take ownership in a different way, when we’re talking about ownership of that intellectual property.

So that’s a crucial issue for us, and we look forward to seeing how that develops through the select committee process and we would encourage the Government to look at having consistency in that approach with other parts of legislation rather than as it first appears in this legislation, which is taking it further from other advisory committees that we’ve seen. So National Party supports this legislation, but tonight it’s a big shout-out to our arable farmers out there. They do a fantastic job, often not recognised, but they provide a lot of the intellectual property and the skills and the seeds that make this country prosper and grow. So I think it’s well worth this Parliament thanking them and recognising their great work and hopefully in this legislation we can add more value to that sector and other primary producing sectors as well. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s quite strange for me to be speaking on this bill, because once upon a time, in 1998, I was flatting at the great University of Otago—that’s been raised a number of times this evening in a very different context—because my flatmate, she was doing her honours dissertation in law on Wai 262. And, of course, that was a claim at the time. It was lodged on 9 October 1991. This was many years later, in 1998, and I remember thinking at the time, “Well, this is brave to be doing your dissertation on something that’s likely to become prominent soon and maybe not last for that much longer.” I was a little bit wrong in that thought! Of course, the final recommendations from Wai 262 came out on 2 July 2011, and there’s been a long response, and it’s an ongoing response, to that very important decision from the Waitangi Tribunal.

Back in 1998, I was a student of ecology doing marine botany physiology—so I appreciate a lot of the substance of this bill—and, of course, my law degree. So I’d also comment just quickly that a part of this legislation, part of the bill that we’re looking at, is a review of legislation that’s now old. It’s 30-plus years old. We need to look at it and make it better. We’ve heard just from David Bennett about the importance of arable farmers and seeds, and we need to have good legislation around those intellectual property rights. A lot of what this bill does does improve that legislation, and, you know, it’s right that bills that are 30 years old are normally ripe for review. There’s a few of them to be doing this term.

So what I would like to concentrate really on is the integration of Wai 262 with this property regime, and that’s because the current legislation hasn’t had a Treaty clause or any other process. We can see in the departmental disclosure statement that there’s been a lot of consultation. You see here there was an issues paper in 2018, an options development hui in 2019, another options paper in 2019, and then an outstanding issues paper in August 2020. So this is work that has been well canvassed, and that’s good, because it’s important.

Now, we can see that the bill is trying to rectify the issue that there’s been no acknowledgment of the Treaty. So at clause 3, the purpose clause, in subclause (b) there’s a reference to the Treaty, and then we have the new Part 5, and that’s the most important part in terms of incorporating those Wai 262 ideas and concepts. So at clause 52 there’s the Treaty clause, and I will go to that. This is a very well-developed Treaty clause that takes people through what is to be done to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibilities to apply the principles of the Treaty.

Then another interesting part of this Part is at section 54, and that has some definitions and interpretation for this Part of the bill. It introduces a concept of sort of three tiers of different types of plants. One of them is native plants—that’s quite simple—and then another is plants that have arrived in New Zealand without human assistance. And then there’s a third, which is non-native plants that have arrived with human assistance, but that’s on a waka before 1769, and are listed in regulations as significant.

Then there are these two key concepts in this Part of the bill. The first one is “kaitiaki relationship”. That’s defined in clause 54 and “in relation to a plant species, means the relationship that any particular person, iwi, hapū, or group has, or Māori in general have, as guardian, [or] trustee, or caretaker of—(a) an indigenous plant species; or (b) a non-indigenous plant species of significance”.

Then there’s another concept in here of what a “taonga species” is. This isn’t defined, and in part I think that comes from the Wai 262 decision. On page 65 of that decision, there’s a discussion at 2.2.2 of taonga species, and it’s saying, “As we have said, taonga species are the species of flora and fauna for which an iwi, hapū, or whānau says it has kaitiaki responsibilities.” Then it goes on, a few paragraphs down: “Most of all, we were told of practical relationships, developed over 40 generations between iwi and taonga species used for food”. It goes on: “Claimants spoke at length on the uses of plants and treatment methodologies, while others spoke of the life cycles and characteristics of these species.” So that hasn’t been defined because it’s related to the relationship, and that’s been a decision of Cabinet.

What Part 5 does is it sets up this scheme with the Māori Plant Varieties Committee, and in clause 55 we have the requirements of the knowledge that those members have to have. That’s knowledge of mātauranga, tikanga, Te Ao Māori, and taonga species, which I was just talking about. The committee can prepare guidelines and then it assesses applications and makes decisions on whether or not there is a kaitiaki relationship. So that assessment is provided in clause 61. Then, if that’s demonstrated, they can consider whether or not there’s agreement between the parties or if there’s a need for conditions. And, yes, it is very explicit in the bill that they make a decision. I refer to Hon Todd McClay’s speech earlier where he was questioning this—it’s very clear in the bill.

This is a very important piece of legislation in terms of New Zealand responding to that document Wai 262, that decision that took such a long time and involved very many people, and for that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak on the Plant Variety Rights Bill, first reading. I want to acknowledge the member to my left, Rachel Brooking, who has given a very extensive report on some of the clauses that the bill covers; so I will try to keep my contributions to just our Green Party position on the bill. But, in summary, this bill will modernise New Zealand’s plant variety rights regime, which is a fixed-term intellectual property right granted to plant breeders over varieties they develop. The Green Party strongly supports the proposed kaitiaki relationship considerations, and we actually do think that the principle of bringing these into legislation has a lot of merit and we’re really excited to debate these and discuss with stakeholders at select committee, but we do think that the appropriate course of action for this change is in wider legislation protecting taonga species from bioprospecting, as Wai 262 may have led us to. This issue can be addressed without also extending intellectual property rights to the detriment of farmers or consumers.

So when we look at moving us closer to actually meeting our Te Tiriti obligations, in relationship to also meeting our obligations to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it’s important to contextualise that the CPTPP contains a Treaty protection clause that the Waitangi Tribunal specifically found to be insufficient to protect Māori rights and our obligations pursuant to Te Tiriti. Despite this, our Government did not change the Treaty protection clause, and so we’re put in a situation where we have this amazing proposal to develop kaitiaki relationship considerations but at the cost of them coming with us swallowing a dead rat in the form of the CPTPP. We believe that the merit of those kaitiaki relationships perhaps could be unpacked at select committee, but we should not accept something that will ultimately create inequities in society, in the nature of the design of the CPTPP. Instead, we should just be looking at upholding our Te Tiriti obligations in a way that genuinely creates trade for all, not just trade for people who already hold a lot of power in our international economies or trade that, ultimately, will continue benefiting Pākehā.

So for those reasons, the Green Party does not support this bill, but we do look forward to really robust conversations at select committee.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of the Plant Variety Rights Bill. I have to say, tonight I’ve heard it all. I heard the Minister speak, saying that this bill was a divider amongst people who would be on the right or the wrong side of history—to support this bill was to be on the right side of history. I sat there and I thought, “Here’s a guy who went mountain biking and moved home in the middle of a global pandemic in contradiction of the rules that he had made, because he was the Minister of Health at the time, talking about being on the right side of history.” I had to laugh. But it does show that politics can be very forgiving. He’s still a Minister under the Jacinda Ardern Government, and still helping pass laws such as this very important Plant Variety Rights Bill.

It’s very important that this bill is passed, because we need a framework for people to do business, and in New Zealand a lot of business is agribusiness. We need to be able to trade what we produce; so it’s absolutely critical that we have an arrangement with other countries, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as it’s now called in the form that the Labour Party finds acceptable—it’s amazing what a difference two letters can make—is one of those frameworks that allows us to trade with our friends around the world. Having a set of rules, say if a person develops a variety of plant and uses a specific variety, that they can keep the rights in that, that they can extract the value for their work. That’s really important. So it’s important that we have plant variety rights (PVR), and it’s important that they’re consistent with the agreements we have, such as the CPTPP, with our partners around the world. That is all well and good, and that is worth supporting. I think it would be a huge mistake not to support it.

But what’s curious about this piece of legislation is that it’s sort of confected or concatenated. It doesn’t only align New Zealand’s plant variety rights legislation with the CPTPP so people can develop new forms of plants and use those rights to make money and trade with our friends around the world; it also says it makes the plant variety rights regime consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi. What it does is it says it does this by incentivising plant breeders to engage early with kaitiaki if the new variety they wish to seek a plant variety right for may involve a taonga species, establishing a Māori Plant Varieties Committee to assess the effect of the grant of a PVR on kaitiaki relationships and make decisions on whether the PVR application should proceed.

Now, let’s just spell out what this actually means. It means if you’re one of those people who’s involved in developing new plant varieties to export and trade with our friends around the world to generate wealth, to provide for your farms and your firms, for you friends and your family, if you’re one of those people engaging in that sort of productive, entrepreneurial activity, then good on you, but first you may have to check in with the Māori Plant Varieties Committee and see if you can get permissions, see if you can proceed. A lot of people might ask, “Why?” Why has the Government chosen to concatenate this very noble piece of legislation that allows New Zealanders to trade with others around the world with this new obligation—this new tax, one might say—on the ability to innovate and create new plant varieties and become wealthier as a country? Why have they done that?

Well, we can only assume that it is due to this world view that we see out of this Government that, as someone put it to me recently, democracy is different in New Zealand. Democracy in New Zealand doesn’t mean that we have elected representative bodies where one person has one vote, where political power is proportionate to the number of people—oh no, no; that’s old fashioned thinking! No, forget the fact that most of this country’s history is a long march towards that kind of democratic institution! Forget that we used to celebrate democracy as the best system of government for protecting people’s rights and allowing people to live their lives—oh, forget all of that! What we now believe, or what this Government now believes, is that, actually, democracy in New Zealand means democracy for most people and special institutions that give people decision-making rights and power and perhaps ownership based on birth—the exact set of ideas that for hundreds of years people have been campaigning against. So much of the long march for a free and liberal society has been demolishing caste and class, expanding the range of liberties that an individual has as a person, and then making sure that they’re universal and people can access those liberties regardless of creed or race.

This legislation says, actually, there are now two sets of rights. If you want to go about developing plant varieties, first you’ve got to check in with the Māori Plant Varieties Committee. I can’t think of something more likely to create division and frustration where people start to see each other for their racial background, not because they themselves prefer to racialise people but because, actually, that’s the official Government policy—that people should be treated differently before the law based on ancestry, the exact thing people have been trying to get rid of, get out of our society, for hundreds of years so that each person could be free and equal.

So it’s going to lead to divisiveness, but it’s also just going to make it harder to get stuff done. Instead of being able to go ahead and succeed with an idea on its merits—does it use resources well, does it satisfy customers, does it lower the environmental footprint; all those sorts of questions that people in modern business around the world might ask, and you have to ask those questions, of course, to be commercially viable—you have to ask the Māori Plant Varieties Committee to assess the effect of the grant of a plant variety on kaitiaki relationships and make decisions on whether the plant variety right application should proceed. It’s that extra hurdle.

And here’s the next thing. People doing business in New Zealand are often globally connected. In fact, remember at the start of this, this whole piece of legislation is about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). So people are going to have to explain to people around the world that, “Yes, New Zealand is a free and democratic society but there’s this special panel we have to ask because, you see, the Government thinks that some people, based on ancestry, have a special connection to the plant rights. So we have to ask them and then, hopefully, they’ll say yes and we’ll be able to develop our business venture and keep our intellectual property, but, you know, you never quite know how it goes.”

It starts to sound like doing business in a country with quite a different set of values and institutions than what we would like to think of New Zealand as—a First World, open, free society that wants to do business with the world. And, unfortunately, increasingly, New Zealanders are becoming very disenfranchised with this kind of thing when this Government is going about business as usual but also changing the constitutional arrangements of this country in such a way that after hundreds of years of progress for everyone to be free and equal—to look at the content of people’s character, not the colour of their skin, to take each person as you find them; that’s something Helen Clark said that I’ll always remember, actually—all of a sudden we are starting to say, “Well, actually, you know, if you have one set of ancestry, you have these rights; if you’ve got another set of ancestry, you have another set of rights.” That is wrong.

So where does that leave us with the Plant Variety Rights Bill? Well, ACT has to support it, at least to first reading, at least to have the discussion at select committee on how this legislation should work. We couldn’t oppose it, because it’s so essential to have a system of property rights compatible with our trading relationships. But we have to be clear that the reservations about the route that this Government is taking us down with these Treaty obligations, as they call them, is very destructive to the future of our country.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.