Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill

We now come to the debate on Part 2, which is the debate on clauses 26 to 60, “Amendments to Animal Products Act 1999 and secondary legislation made under that Act”, and Schedule 1 and Part 2 of Schedule 4. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

For the most part, Labour supports the legislation across the board, but there are some questions that need to be asked, particularly in this area. It’s not about the Animal Products Act or the products. It’s actually the sales, distribution, and application of these things.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister, tied up with the compounds, but actually it comes through the Animal Products Act, and that is that veterinarians, traditionally, were always the sole distributors and outlet for most of these animal products. Of course, that changed and the doors were opened to other companies. Livestock companies are able to sell many of these products.

The question I have for the Minister is: in making these changes here, did he consider whether we should take a slightly more precautionary approach and introduce some other guidelines? We have some products that actually can be distributed in bulk to farmers. There are some requirements; however, the monitoring of those application requirements is sometimes a bit loose and a bit vague, and so there are some risks with that. The question to the Minister is: what consideration took place alongside, I guess, the streamlining of these animal products regulations?

Well, to be honest, I didn’t look to the same degree of detail at this as the member who’s just asked, Damien O’Connor, although I did seek assurances that it would achieve the things he has asked about and that actually, in the case of where veterinary medicines are provided, maybe in larger form, there isn’t additional risk.

But, actually, I think I found a note somewhere—from the time that the legislation was worked up and introduced to the House—where the Minister had absolute assurance that this part of the legislation would work well. It was signed by the Hon Damien O’Connor, who brought the legislation to the House.

Thank you. We’re talking here—the conversation that has just been had—in part about Schedule 1 of this bill. The clause is clause 49, about categorisation as a primary producer, and then Schedule 1 of this bill introduces new Schedule 1A, “Operations that characterise person as primary processor”.

It’s a very interesting schedule for a bill. It talks about “Avian eggs”; “Deer velvet”—you get words like “slicing” and “drying” in there; “Fish: on-shore processing”, and again, it talks about the “tubing of squid”; and “Fish: processing at sea”. If the Minister can comment on why it is that these four different sets of operations are now categorised as “primary processor” and how that will be helpful for those regulations, it would be useful. Thank you.

Just to follow through on—I may have slightly misled in early discussions around animal products, indeed, not just being products for farmers, but actually products that we’re exporting. I guess that my colleague has pointed to areas of finfish, and I guess if you were to go through the kind of oversight that this piece of legislation is looking to improve—and we accept that, that the objective is to improve—there are a lot of things in there: compounds, devices, documents, equipment, identification. These are quite complex systems, and they govern our exports. So ensuring that the director-general’s oversight, whose export and official assurance is required in terms of export—these are right at the leading edge of the protection of our reputation internationally.

Again, just seeking an assurance, because I think it’s an opportunity for the Minister to promote the objectives of this piece of legislation. But as we’ve seen with amendments brought to the Primary Production Committee—two different lots of amendments from the Minister—the question of, you know, “Is this sufficient?” or “What else are you going to change?” or “What would you like to change?”, it is an evolutionary process. Not you, Madam Chair. No, no, you wouldn’t change anything, no. But for the Minister: beware, in a rapidly changing world, the trade agreements that we have negotiated require ever-ongoing improvements. Are we satisfied—is the House, as a committee, satisfied—that the changes here are going to, indeed, uphold those protections?

The answer is yes, I am, and they will. In essence, this is a regulatory settings bill. As broad as this one is, it’s an opportunity for us to look to update, to take account of these changes—some of the things that are now required as far as giving certainty, particularly when it comes to trade.

I think the Hon Damien O’Connor’s point is a valid one, that actually the work that has been done here by the House at the moment doesn’t finish with this piece of legislation. It is actually ongoing. From a regulatory point of view, we should always be looking for ways to make things more efficient and more effective but also to achieve the outcome that we need. As a food-producing nation, it is very important we have a regulatory system that keeps up with evolution and changes and advancements but also with the protections that we need when it comes to how we produce food and the assurances that we give, and so the changes that he is alluding to do achieve that. But no, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that this fixes it and therefore the work should not continue.

As far as the questions around Schedule 1 are concerned, the only change is that rather than these three or four areas being dealt with through Order in Council, we now will have the ability to do it in regulation, and so it’s making it uniform. All other processors are dealt with through regulation. For some anomalies, these are Order in Council, so we’re just actually lining up to making it the same. That doesn’t, again, change the nature of what we want to achieve. It is making it the same for all processors. It’s just a simplification of regulation so it’s done in one way and it becomes uniform and standard, as opposed to having to deal with different processors who have the same obligations or requirements upon them in different regulatory ways.

Just one more short question on this, and that is around the amendments. I have got the principal legislation, the Animal Products Act, in front of me as well. I just can’t see why there’s a change here around the definition of “animal”, which means any member of the animal kingdom and includes any mammal, bird, finfish, shellfish, reptile, amphibian, insect, or invertebrate—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. Can you just say which part or which clause you’re referring to?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, sorry. I’m on clause 56, which is “Section 4 amended (Interpretation)”. It relates back to the principal Act and the definition of “animal”, which has this phrase that you can “declare a creature or an entity to be an animal for the purposes of this Act.”, which I think is fascinating in terms of what that creature might be. I do acknowledge that that is already in the principal legislation, so I’m just wondering why these changes are in the bill.

It is not changing the definition of what an animal is. It’s just clarifying what a declaration is. So this is a declaration—I think, from memory or advice, it takes it from one Act and brings it over to this to say “This is what a declaration is.” The definition of what an animal is hasn’t changed since the Bible.

Part 2 agreed to.

Part 3 Repeal of Animal Products (Ancillary and Transitional Provisions) Act 1999