Prosser Richard: Urgent Debates — Biosecurity Incursions—Report of Auditor-General into Ministry of Primary Industry’s Preparedness and Responsiveness 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prosser Richard: Urgent Debates — Biosecurity Incursions—Report of Auditor-General into Ministry of Primary Industry’s Preparedness and Responsiveness 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8404. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) 
: 
 I thank the Hon Damien O’Connor for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. It is obvious that all parties in this House do accept that biosecurity is of enormous importance to New Zealand and to our economy. In this day and age where advanced technologies in manufacturing information technology and so forth are touted as being the way of the future it is still a fact that 75 percent of New Zealand’s economy one way or another directly or indirectly is dependent on agriculture and for that reason biosecurity is probably the single most important line of defence that New Zealand can have for our economy and for everything else. 
We have heard a lot about reinvestment in biosecurity from this administration. We have not heard a lot about the cuts that preceded that. We have had cuts to front-line services over the last few years. We have had a reduction in boots on the ground. We have seen a diminishing of morale amongst front-line biosecurity officers—people who work for the Customs Service and people who work for the Ministry for Primary Industries. They are disillusioned by the lack of resourcing and by the redirection of resourcing in biosecurity which is moving away from the traditional established methods of inspection—methods that they as professionals on the ground have had confidence in over the years. They are seeing those methods being replaced by a reliance on technology a reliance on intelligence and a reliance to some degree on untested theory. 
The fact of the matter is that we now have fewer boots on the ground than we did a decade ago. We have seen the results of a relaxation of the strenuous efforts made previously around biosecurity. We have seen it with the introduction of the Psa virus and its devastating effects on our kiwifruit industry. We have seen what happens when a fruit fly gets in and we have no way of knowing how that fruit fly got in. 
I remember back in 1997 when I was a sales rep on the road in Central Otago and the rabbit calicivirus was introduced to the South Island. Calicivirus was something that many in the farming industry had been calling for as a method of controlling rabbits. It was investigated and eventually the Government said that the farmers could not have the calicivirus. By that stage of course it was out and spreading—it was about 4 months before the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry told the farmers that they could not have calicivirus—on the farms of Central Otago and South Canterbury. I remember calling at a farm—mind you I will not reveal the location—where the farmer’s wife was out the back of the house with a blender. She was blending the internal organs of some rabbits that had died of the virus and they were creating biocide and painting carrots with it and spreading them on the farms. So back in those days when there was a great deal more investment made in adequate biosecurity it was still possible for a virus an organism like the calicivirus to be introduced deliberately by people who had an agenda to do so. 
We are told that the calicivirus came in via two methods—one possibly through a diplomatic bag and the other in a pilot’s bag—but the fact of the matter remains that at that time when the ministry was better resourced and was better focused on controlling those sorts of threats that virus still managed to make its way in and still managed to spread and become established. I was told quite proudly by a staff member from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry days that they had a plan whereby they could put 90 people on the ground anywhere in New Zealand within an hour and a half of an incursion being announced. We could not do that today. We simply do not have the resources. 
Today the door is wide open. The door is wide open through SmartGate which allows passengers carrying Australian and New Zealand passports to enter without being stopped without being inspected. The door is wide open to containers and machinery arriving in this country without being inspected properly and without being clean. There is dirty machinery arriving off ships in this country. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse 
: They go through just passport control not customs. 
RICHARD PROSSER 
: Well the Minister says that it is passport control and not customs. It is all front line. It is all people on the front line. It is all ways of stopping and inspecting goods and passengers as they come across the border. We have to take a holistic approach to this because we are an island nation. The only two ways that we can be reached and approached are by sea and by air so everything—people freight—arrives by sea and by air. It is all crossing the border. We are wide open through fast-track visa arrangements for carriers such as the one that has just been announced with China Southern Airlines for their frequent flyers. We have no way of knowing who these people are what they may or may not be bringing in and now we are going to start letting them in the same as we are letting in Australian and New Zealand passport holders without inspecting them. 
So as the Hon Damien O’Connor says we are now wide open to a foot-and-mouth incursion. Claims of increased spending and increasing resourcing around biosecurity even if they are true are irrelevant if they are not targeted to the right areas. As I say we did not take account of previous cuts and we place too much reliance on intelligence. We have a reduction in boots on the ground. 
I put questions to the select committee earlier in the year about the sorts of resources the Ministry for Primary Industries had to counter an incursion. The ministry said it had its own resources obviously and the resources of other Government agencies including the army to call on. Well we all know that the army itself is undergoing cuts and reductions. It is losing people it is losing vehicles and it is losing the ability to help in situations like this. 
Of course we also face the possibility that there could be deliberate incursions and other nations companies perhaps wanting to make a competitive advantage over New Zealand where we have advantages where they could seek to destroy those advantages by bringing in any kind of virus that could diminish New Zealand’s ability to have a competitive edge. We have seen it work the other way round. We have seen legitimate New Zealand intellectual property being removed from this country through illegitimate means. For example a few years ago some Chinese officials were stopped taking New Zealand apple budwood out of the country. So if it can work one way it can work the other. 
No system is 100 percent effective—this we know. But even with all the protocols in place something can get through. Without protocols in place something will get through. Without protocols in place and without proper effective inspections and controls it is not a case at all of if—it is a case of when. We will get foot-and-mouth through this system. 
I recall again a number of years ago when I was working in the wine industry receiving a crate off a carrier of cast-iron pipeline fittings. We were putting in an irrigation system and this crate of pipeline fittings had come in from China. We put the crate on the ground—this was on a vineyard near Wanaka so we were out in the middle of nowhere. We were nowhere near a port of entry we were nowhere near an inspection facility and we were nowhere near anywhere where we could get fumigation. As we opened the crate a spider ran out. I happened to notice the spider and I happened to know that the crate had come from China. I did not know what sort of spider it was but I did know that it could be something dangerous. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to see that spider. I got on the phone to my boss got hold of some information on the kind of chemical and the kind of application that we should use to control it went into town got the chemical applied it to the area and hopefully fortunately we prevented something more dramatic from taking hold in that part of New Zealand. But that was a matter of a fortunate accident of me being in the right place at the right time. Without inspections and without proper fumigations and facilities in place at our ports we cannot guarantee that we will always be lucky. 
The Auditor-General’s report summarises that the Ministry for Primary Industries is unprepared for potential incursions from some high-risk organisms. It emphasises that not enough priority is being given to planning. It emphasises that the plan for dealing with foot-and-mouth is inadequate staff are not using the new response system to its full potential some information systems do not yet link together information is not used as effectively and as efficiently as it could be and performance reporting also needs to improve. It is a damning report. 
New Zealand First has been calling for action on this for over a year. I have a copy of a press release put out by myself at almost this time last year saying that New Zealand First is calling for an independent inquiry into inadequate biosecurity procedures and staffing levels. We are going over the same ground over and over again. We could stand here on this side of the House and berate the Government—and deservedly so—for its direction or lack of direction on biosecurity for the fact that it is not prioritising the spending that it is making in the correct direction. 
I think a more constructive approach would be for us to ask to plead please for the Government to listen to read the Auditor-General’s report properly and to take on board the messages that are contained within that report. Please listen to calls from across this side of the House. Please listen to Federated Farmers. Please spend the money spend it in the right place put the boots back on the ground and safeguard New Zealand’s agriculture and the three-quarters of our economy that depends on it. Thank you.