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:7057] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: I want to take a call on Part 1 because there are a number of areas that concern us and I think the provisions should be a little tighter. First of all under clause 6 which inserts new section 44 we find the general duty of people to report the discovery of new organisms. It is great that people are required to report those discoveries but there should be some additional support for those people because I would hate to see someone fail to report an organism or resist reporting it out of the fear that it would cost them money to have it eradicated. As Gerry Eckhoff mentioned earlier on there was an incident where a farmer failed to report what he thought was an incursion of a weed that was listed as noxious and dangerous. He kept that quiet for 15 years and attempted to eradicate it himself but it turned out to be nothing more than an Australian cousin of a noxious weed and it was quite welcome here. The failure to report an incident is something that this bill tries to overcome but the mechanism to support people so they do not fear that they will have to bear the full costs of the eradication is absent. 
Another clause is to do with the regional pest management strategies. Pest management is something that needs to have an overall strategy. I would hate to see one region come up with a strategy to develop its programmes and another neighbouring region come up with a strategy that conflicts with or is not compatible with it. Ultimately an incursion in one area could slip across to a neighbouring region and there could be a conflict regarding whose responsibility it is to deal with it. That is another area that we feel should be examined. 
We are also concerned about the levy. This Government is basically setting up another tax. It calls it a levy but this Government will call a tax by any name other than a tax. It calls a tax everything but a tax. So here is another tax coming in to make sure that this Government continues. It calls the tax a levy so that it can say it has not introduced any more taxes but this is another tax. 
Clause 19 provides for the power to examine an organism when that organism is assumed to be an incursion. Without a database to match that power against and without the knowledge and the background that a database would provide in support of those examinations some of those organisms have spread very quickly—and have done so for a long time. When an organism was found not to be on the list of dangerous organisms for this country it had to be put on that list before we could do anything about it. That mechanism just does not work because inspectors do not have the time to mess around waiting for an organism to appear on a list before they can go and examine it and decide that it is dangerous and should be eradicated. That list needs to be updated regularly and a database needs to be put together of the organisms present in our overseas trading partners that are a potential danger to us. If we do not have knowledge about an organism before it arrives how are we to handle it quickly? Without that knowledge we will hang around and leave the organism to spread before we do something about it.