Catchpole Brent: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7039] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill and its intent to rectify some of the difficulties resulting from the discovery of the new and exotic harmful organisms that have arrived in New Zealand since the introduction of the original Biosecurity Act in 1993. This bill goes some of the way towards reducing the possibility of those unwelcome organisms becoming established; it goes some of the way towards reducing the risks. 
Clause 6 inserts new section 44 which requires every person to inform the ministry “of the presence of what appears to be an organism not normally seen or otherwise detected in New Zealand.” The only problem with that is that there is a need for a comprehensive and ongoing education programme to inform the public of the organisms that are normally seen in New Zealand. The lack of informed knowledge in this area may make that clause unworkable. However I understand its intent and it may well provide an early indication of new organisms when they arrive in New Zealand after having already slipped past the border controls that are in place. 
 Many MPs in the House may well have received a letter as I have done from a Bruce Hollamby of Mystic Ferrets which is one of only three private ferret businesses in New Zealand. The business creates close to $1 million in exports of desexed live ferrets to the United States as pets. There is also a small domestic market of similarly desexed animals. Mr Hollenby maintains that he is being unfairly treated under clause 4 of this bill and I understand that he intends to sue the Government for the loss of business. 
In his letter to us Mr Hollamby indicated that he has two main concerns with regard to this bill. Firstly although his business and his company is able to continue as long as he is running the company that effectively makes his business and company valueless. The moment that he tries to sell the company it will no longer exist. Secondly and more important to the New Zealand economy—in particular to New Zealand’s domestic economy—Mr Hollamby maintains that by banning the farming of ferrets amateur breeders will simply go underground and create a huge black market without the safeguards of the animals being desexed. That would certainly be a concern. If amateur breeders start to release pets into the wild that have not been desexed then we will have a major problem. 
I would also like to touch on the issue of aerial spraying. This bill reduces the notification period for that from 2 weeks down to 24 hours. In fact the bill even has a clause in it that reduces the period down to less than 24 hours under certain circumstances. I see that as a very important part of the bill because if an organism is discovered and is one that has the potential to spread rapidly then the minimum period is probably zero hours if we are to make sure it is eradicated immediately. However under the circumstances of the aerial spraying of a large area like west Auckland the concerns there are that a 24-hour minimum period is possibly not even enough for the people who will be affected to become aware of the dangers and the difficulties that they may suffer health-wise. 
Therein lies a problem given that there has not been any extensive research on the people of west Auckland prior to the aerial spraying commencing. When it was discovered that many people were suffering ill effects from the spraying of that area there was no background information on those people that could be used as a basis for identifying or admitting that there was a problem with the spraying. Basically those people were allowed to move out of the area and their expenses were paid but it is not acknowledged that the spraying may well be causing some major health problems for those people. We need to examine that area of this bill in more depth during the Committee stage. We can examine it during the Committee stage and look at some ways of tightening it up to improve that situation. 
Another area that concerns me is to do with the lack of a database of the exotic and unwelcome organisms that are present in our trading partners. If the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the other biosecurity bodies had a comprehensive database of the organisms that are potential dangers to New Zealand and are known to exist in the countries that are our trading partners then we would have a much better idea of the risks and a better chance of identifying those organisms as they arrive on the border. That is one of the difficulties that the authorities ran into when the painted apple moth and some of the other similar organisms were discovered. The organisms did not exist on a database so the authorities had to track them down and find out whether they would be a threat. By the time the painted apple moth was tracked down it had spread beyond an area in which it could be easily contained. Therefore it required a much larger spray programme effectively trying to contain the painted apple moth. In the meantime while a spray programme was going on in the central area the painted apple moth was spreading beyond that area before the authorities had even got to it. It was unfortunately that that organism had already spread outside the initial spray area before spraying began. 
So I think we need to tighten this bill up. The intent of the bill is very good and we will support it.