Sio Su'a William: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Sio Su'a William: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman for the opportunity to speak and make a contribution on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. When I listened to the speech of the chairman of the Primary Production Committee Shane Ardern I got a sense that this bill does not convey what he was trying to convey in his speech. He was trying to convey the sense that the Government was doing something but the reality is that I do not get that sense at all. There was a lack of ambition in the rhetoric that we just heard. When we look at the bill we see that it only talks about increasing the penalty from $400 to $1000 for the poor soul who comes through our borders who perhaps may speak a different language and not be able to fully understand English. That is what this bill is about. It is a shame that although he talked about what we could have done as a country that is not what the bill does. 
As the member for Mangere where Auckland Airport is located—we call that place the gateway to New Zealand the gateway where New Zealand touches the rest of the world—I know that biosecurity is important to the constituents there. It is about protecting our borders and being able to ensure that our economy our environment and human health get the best resources in order to ensure that they are protected. I follow my colleague the Hon Damien O’Conner in saying that Labour supports this bill. It is not the kind of work we ought to be doing in order to secure our borders. The sad thing is— 
Shane Ardern 
: There’s more to come. 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO 
: Let us just wait and see. Biosecurity is important in order to protect our border and our interests. It is particularly important in this day and age because of the growing international relationships we now have as we sign up—first under Labour and now under this Government—to a lot of trading agreements with our major trading partners. It is also important because we are seeing a lot of interaction between New Zealand and other countries around this world and of course more recently continual climate change. 
The sad thing about this whole bill is that we are tinkering around the edges but at the same time the Government has cut $2 million from the biosecurity budget and 56 people have lost their jobs. The kind of work we are talking about in biosecurity is labour-intensive. We need people on the ground. We need people to be monitoring our systems. We need people to engage with similar countries and to share intelligence before biosecurity risks arrive at our borders. Then we need people to conduct the work that needs to be done after these things have come through our borders. That will be particularly important as we get closer to 2011 when we expect about 60000-plus people to come through our borders. 
The other sad thing is that we are spending a lot of time talking about this when the more important thing we should be talking about is job security. Obviously the sacking of 56 people means that that is not a priority for this Government. We need to talk about why this Government will be raising accident compensation levies for motorcyclists. I do not know whether other members have received emails from a range of people across this country who are very very unhappy about that. We need to be talking about why this Government has cut 80 percent of the funding that goes into adult and community education and in particular education that is needed as we build the skills base of our population as we head into the future. When we come out of this recession it will be important that we have a skilled workforce that is prepared to take up future opportunities. 
I do not want to prolong this debate because as Labour members have said it is a shame that this bill has been introduced at this time. It is minor tinkering. We support the bill but we should be doing a lot more than what this bill entails.