Browning Steffan: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10737. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak on the Appropriation (2013/14 Estimates) Bill in terms of biosecurity in particular. On the surface in this Budget it appeared that there was a $5 million to $7 million drop in biosecurity funding and we certainly commented on that. The Minister said: “No no no. That was a reshuffling of figures between 2011-12 and this current Budget and that is all that is.” But what is actually very very clear is that despite the increasing risks to biosecurity because of staff cuts and increased trade this Government has not given an appropriate increase to biosecurity funding. There has been some talk of increased staff but that is actually just a drop in the bucket compared with the staff drops and cuts since 2008. This Government is not addressing biosecurity adequately at all.This week as we speak there is a conference on bees in Queenstown. Federated Farmers are talking on bees down there and very soon there is another conference for the National Beekeepers’ Association. I know that that industry has come to the Minister it certainly has come to the rest of us and it is wanting assistance around biosecurity. It has been under continued threats under continued impacts from the lack of biosecurity controls in this country. We all know about the varroa bee mite and that varroa got away and that now all beekeepers effectively are having to deal with varroa. They are having to go through some quite significant control methods to keep varroa from taking out their hives because if they do not the hive perishes. New Zealand is already all the worse for the feral hives being totally decimated. We now rely totally on kept hives and the controls in them.So that is just one example. Another bee diseaseNosema ceranae a small unicellular fungal parasite of bees came in and showed up when Psa showed up in kiwifruit. Although it does not seem to decimate the hives to the same degree if we get a particular virus in which would be very easy with this open border approach by the Government the combination will decimate hives. We need to not allow that. The fact is that that bee disease is here. We will deal with it or it is being dealt with through hive management as best as possible.There are other factors potentially impacting on our bee health including neonicotinoids or neonics for short. These are synthetic pesticides that have been shown to affect bee numbers. They are used as a systemic poison in seeds that expresses out through the pollen in things like corn and other flowering plants like brassicas. That needs to be pulled in immediately. We need the Environmental Protection Authority to reassess them but it actually should be stopping the use of them immediately until it does reassess them just as the EU is doing. Neonics as I say need to be reassessed. The only reassessment of pesticides as such at the moment is of the organophosphates. The Government is not putting enough into reassessments of either those or new chemicals. We get tons of new chemicals being allowed in each year and yet reassessments of existing ones are woefully slow.Just back into the biosecurity issue and the open border approach the Government intends to allow honey imports from Australia too and yet we have this lack of an increase in biosecurity funding to actually control the potential diseases that will come from the open border approach. Another aspect of the open border approach is the raw pork imports but that can be for another speech. Thank you.