Fitzsimons Jeanette: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15149] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party voted for the introduction of the Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill on the basis of a briefing from the Minister’s officials because we thought it needed some debate. We did however very strongly oppose the truncated select committee process that followed because we believed the bill needed proper consultation. However even that very truncated select committee process has been enough to convince us that we should oppose this bill vigorously at its remaining readings and we do so today at its second reading. 
I am amazed that the National Party which puts itself forward as the protector and promoter of our primary industry is prepared to put it all at risk for some free-trade ideology promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and for some fear of international obligations under the World Trade Organization. Mr Ardern actually put his finger on it. I could not even contain myself; I asked audibly: “Then why are you voting for it?”. The arguments he put forward are quite correct. But once again this shows that there is little if any difference between National and Labour when it comes to selling out our biosecurity for the sake of free trade. 
This bill amounts to a serious weakening of our biosecurity controls at the border. The import health standards were described by one submitter as being a fig leaf of protection and that is true. 
Shane Ardern 
: I think that might have been a select committee member. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: That is possibly so. The process under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is at least rigorous evidence-based and open to public scrutiny. The process under the Biosecurity Act is much more sloppy and slapdash. 
We now have the very inconsistent position being put forward that the deliberate introduction of a new organism requires an approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act but the known hitchhiker of that same organism attached to another organism gets through with only the scrutiny of the Biosecurity Act. 
It has already been stated that however an organism comes in it does the same damage to the environment and to the economy. Why would we have two different standards for assessing it depending on whether the virus is brought in deliberately or comes in as a known hitchhiker on some other organism? 
There were 51 submissions on this bill and most were opposing it or raising serious concerns. The bill was opposed or seriously questioned by Meat and Wool New Zealand; the deer industry; the pork industry; the Abattoirs Association of New Zealand; the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand; Fonterra; the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand particularly; the Pig Veterinary Society; Retail Meat New Zealand; and even our friends Federated Farmers generally for not providing adequate standards of protection for new organisms under the Biosecurity Act compared with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. 
It is bizarre that both the Government and the National Party are completely ignoring those concerns and are rushing this bill through. The bill makes it easier to import new organisms and this creates a greater risk for the biosecurity of our export industries and for our native flora and fauna. In particular I have to refer to the honey industry. The honey industry is very vulnerable to imported organisms. I know—I lost my bees to the varroa mite. In the North Island honey cannot now be produced to organic standards because people have to use chemicals to control the varroa mite that are banned by those standards. That was a serious fault and failing of MAF Biosecurity and it knows it. Is it any better now? I have yet to see the evidence. 
There is a news report that the honey producers won a concession. Well if granting a man on death row a haircut before he goes to the gallows is a concession then maybe we can call this a concession too. The review process that is being proposed here means that honey producers have to take on trust that such a process will exist before the 90 days expires. It will not. There will not be a review process for them to use before that time expires. 
There was no public consultation on this bill before the truncated select committee process. We know that the Department of Conservation although its view was well known was deliberately not consulted. The Department of Conservation was sent a draft early on and its response was a resounding “No don’t go there.” Department representatives said in January 2007 that the Department of Conservation does not support the proposal that it believes there are significant gaps in the analysis and that the document fails to meet the criteria identified by the working group. Department representatives said in December 2006 that the bill is likely to reduce the quality of risk assessments and would therefore expose New Zealand to greater risks from new organisms that it would create an inconsistent system and that it is unwarranted relative to the scale of the problem. 
It is very disturbing that after those damning comments from the Department of Conservation had been made known Cabinet was advised in a Cabinet paper in December last year that: “Attempts were made to brief the Department of Conservation but it was not possible to properly consult it.” I will be tabling the email that states that at the end of this speech. 
The department has a statutory responsibility for involvement in biosecurity issues as part of protecting New Zealand’s natural heritage and our precious indigenous flora and fauna. It should be noted that the Department of Conservation did not make a submission to the select committee. This is not the first time I have become aware of the department holding strong views on Government policy and not being allowed to state them publicly. The department is not represented in papers to Cabinet and it is not allowed to make submissions to select committees. So once again we are not simply playing Russian roulette with our primary industries but also with our natural heritage which we rely on so much to sell our trade and tourism image of being clean and green and 100 percent pure. 
Finally the bill currently makes an exemption for genetically engineered organisms which incidentally or intentionally all have to go through a Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act approval process. Although we are glad that genetically engineered organisms are not to have the bar lowered disastrously by this legislation we know that that will not last very long. One of the arguments for the necessity of the bill is that the Act does not have the processes to evaluate passenger organisms; therefore it must be done by biosecurity. Well if that is true of ordinary organisms then it is true of GE organisms. 
So why would the Government make an exemption for GE organisms? I will tell members why the Government is making an exemption for them. It is making an exemption because it knows that 70 percent of New Zealand as expressed many times in polls will be up in arms if they know that this is an attempt to get genetically engineered organisms into the country without any proper assessment by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. 
We know there is an agenda here. The draft discussion documents in February and November 2006 were entitled  
Fixing Problems in New Organisms Including Genetically Modified Organisms Unintentionally Introduced into New Zealand 
. It is quite clear from the papers that the intention was always that GE organisms should be included but they have been excluded now because it is election year and the Government does not want to upset the voters. Once the election is over the intention is that they will be put back in with the rest of the organisms. 
That would be reason enough for the Green Party to oppose this bill but it is certainly not the only reason. In fact the Government’s intention was inadvertently clarified by the Minister this afternoon when he used the example of horses with equine flu and mentioned that they cannot be brought into this country because they have an organism that might hitchhike in with them. Was he talking about the flu organism? I do not think he was because one would not allow a horse into the country if it was infectious. That would be controlled by normal health standards anyway. He meant that some of those horses will have been vaccinated in Australia by a living genetically modified virus which is not permitted to enter this country. To bring it into the country and use it to vaccinate horses here one would have to go through an Environmental Risk Management Authority process. It will be the first release of a living genetically modified organism at large into the New Zealand environment. It will attract considerable submissions. It will involve long hearings. But if we can sneak it in on the horses with only an import health standard and no proper examination under the Environmental Risk Management Authority then we have got it here it has been released and one does not even have to apply. The Green Party strongly opposes this bill.