Browning Steffan: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5183. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party unfortunately is opposing the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. This bill does not go nearly far enough and even if it did this bill is not being resourced well enough. We would need some significant changes which have not come through the select committee process at all. There are parts of the bill that we can see could have benefits. Extending our reach to the exclusive economic zone is consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and would ratify the international conventions for ship ballast water and there are some immediate benefits there. Establishing a national policy direction would make the Crown be bound to regional pest plans—and we may speak to that a bit more because that is flawed as well—but the theory behind it is all good. 
I turn to distributed responsibility for biosecurity management. Biosecurity management would be less centralised with new duties placed on the importers to proactively manage the risks. But that leaves a huge hole as well particularly when our inspections are under-resourced. Industry groups can become management agencies with significant powers to make decisions and raise levies. There is a benefit here. The new agencies would be subject to the Official Information Act and we may actually get some real inside stuff on whether or not they are working. But I would suspect that some of the sectors will be reluctant to be open to that level of scrutiny and may be reluctant to join in to some of those agreements that the Government is trying to put on to them. The new biosecurity information database will mean that personal land and biosecurity data will be collected and shared enabling better risk management in the future. So there are some positive things. 
However there are a number of other parts of the bill that are very concerning to us and we cannot support the bill. Targeted risk management seems like a good idea at first glance and yes we do need to target our limited resources in the best way. Recognising the huge size of the biosecurity task this bill attempts to prioritise scarce resources—and they are becoming scarcer all the time as this Government keeps shrinking back on biosecurity. All of the Government’s current activity leads to these resources being targeted at the cash cows of the economy while ignoring other vulnerable industries. The big economic cash cows of the moment may not be the big cash cows in the future and the shortcomings in this bill and the huge shortcomings in the resourcing of biosecurity by this Government stand to leave a legacy for ongoing generations. We can think of the pests that have come in in recent years that are here that are not going away and that future generations have to factor in for their management in primary industries. I can point out a few. 
In the marine area  
Undaria 
 costs the marine aquaculture industry significantly and it hooked into it and did something about it. But  
Undaria 
 is here to stay and it is spreading as we speak. Yep we may take an opportunity out of that and grow  
Undaria 
for some markets—probably markets in the countries where it came from—but at the same time it is a massive cost. Pacific oyster—the way that was spread around supported by a previous Minister of Fisheries Sir Doug Kidd who helped with that one. The South African brown mussel was brought on a ship into Tasman Bay. Some of the sea squirts and there are more by the year in our marine environment. Kiwifruit—well we know all about kiwifruit and the Psa the pollen imports that came in so recklessly and were allowed by this Government. The kiwifruit industry of course is subject to huge risk by fruit fly and other potential pests as well. 
The import health standard for capsicum eggplant tomatoes cucumbers and all of those things was just mentioned before by Labour. The risk of fruit fly getting into that industry—and a number of the other fruit industries—is immense. To be actually allowing the possibility and accepting a certain number of eggs coming in as a measure as a baseline for biosecurity is appalling. We have already got the psyllid which has come in and has thrashed that industry and is causing huge amounts of pesticide to be used that was not being used before. It is the same with the potato industry—$250 million already down the tubes because of biosecurity shortfalls by this Government. We could have used that $250 million in biosecurity to prevent other things getting in. We know that if the fruit fly gets into the Bay of Plenty they anticipate $820 million will be lost with 3500 jobs down the tubes because of it. But maybe that is already halfway down because of the slackness around the pollen and the Psa. In Hawke’s Bay roughly $390 million will be down the tubes if fruit fly gets in with 3000 jobs gone. In Nelson it will be $265 million and almost 2000 jobs are anticipated to be lost as well. 
And then there is the honey. We anticipate because of the free-trade agreements allowing honey imports from Australia with known risk with known disease factors that we do not have in New Zealand already. That means a lot more chemicals being used around our hives and a reduction in the quality of the produce that we want to send overseas. I will just mention by the way with capsicum eggplant tomatoes cucumber potatoes—things affected by the psyllid particularly the  
Solanums 
—there is a huge amount of pesticide being used. Those industries were getting better and better particularly the glasshouse industry at not using dangerous pesticides on our kai on our food. But what has happened now? They were using biological controls and they were very good managers very efficient managers bringing in insects that would deal with the pests that they had at the time which were the other form of white fly aphis mites and things. They were all under control through using biological means. We have got the psyllid. It is costing us as a community and in health because if we test that produce—if we dare to test that produce at the moment—we will always find significant chemical residues and not just one but a multiplicity of residues in that produce because they have not got a solution for psyllid. 
We have to get on top of biosecurity better than this bill is setting up. It is setting up purely to alleviate the Government some money in looking after biosecurity. It is looking after the cash cows. It is forgetting about the other industries out there the flower industry the pork industry and the honey industry—those other ones that the Government seems to think are too small to worry about—which may be the Zespris and the Fonterras in the future if things go wrong in those industries. Our trees our forest industry are also at significant risk and the huge cost to the community when we spray them when there is a gypsy moth outbreak is not acceptable. 
The other thing with this bill is it does not really deal with the risks of genetic engineering and the risks of contamination that are inevitable if we have GE getting in in the wrong way in this country. There are people who do not understand the depth of the cost of that to New Zealand and to Brand New Zealand if we get it wrong in terms of imports and contamination through seed whether it be canola corn or something else that has not appeared here as yet. 
Lastly this bill specifically makes biosecurity law subject to the limitation of international trade agreements. That is terrible. We lose our sovereignty on how we can look after biosecurity in this country for future generations. Thank you. Unfortunately the Green Party will not be able to support this bill.