Carter David: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Carter David: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14328] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 The National Party will support the Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill to the Primary Production Committee. At the outset I thank the Minister for Biosecurity and his officials for involving the National Party at an early stage with briefings as to the complexity of this legislation following a Court of Appeal decision that came out late last year. It is pleasing that an issue as important as a biosecurity issue is on this occasion discussed quite freely particularly between the two major parties because too often over recent years we have seen biosecurity made an issue of politics when in fact all of us here acknowledge the risks to New Zealand of any biosecurity breach. 
When the position was put to the National Party caucus we said we would support it to select committee provided it was legislation that went before the select committee and gave an opportunity for the industry to be heard. At one stage there was a suggestion that because of the urgency of the matter—and I wish to discuss that shortly—maybe there was not time for the select committee to have the luxury of hearing from submitters. That position was unacceptable to the National Party particularly in view of the fact that the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand has incurred considerable costs to have a victory in the Court of Appeal and because of this legislation it will now I think be a hollow victory. 
I accept there is some urgency and I am surprised to hear the Minister today giving us a report-back date of 17 March; that was not what was discussed between myself and the Minister’s office but I am conscious of the need for a tight timeframe and we will certainly do our best within the select committee process to cover that off. 
There are two types of importations into this country. There are the deliberate importations and there are those that are inadvertent or not deliberate. The hazardous substances and new organisms legislation which was of course passed under the previous National Government was groundbreaking legislation. In fact I think I could say it was the first of its type anywhere in the world. That legislation was designed to cover off deliberate importation whereby an importer wanted to bring something into this country that was recognised as a new organism. There have been criticisms around the complexity of that particular piece of legislation. In fact the Primary Production Committee over some months did an investigation into the effect of the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation in slowing up some importation particularly in regard to seed varieties coming into this country. 
There are then the other types of importations that come in without us knowing about them—the particular nasties that could put the very economy of this country at risk. They of course are covered by the Biosecurity Act. What we saw through this particular court case brought by the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand was a challenge to a decision of Biosecurity New Zealand regarding the importation of honey from countries outside New Zealand. It took the opportunity of finding what clearly is a technical difficulty between the two pieces of legislation whereby it was able to argue that a particular new organism not previously known in this country could accompany—in fact in the Court of Appeal case it said it will inevitably at some stage accompany—the importation of honey into this country. The beekeepers said that that particular organism had not gone through the hazardous substances and new organisms process and therefore on that basis the association won through the Court of Appeal. 
That was in my mind a very innovative and clever argument advanced by the Beekeepers’ Association but it did not in actual fact take a challenge as the Minister alluded to to the original decision of Biosecurity New Zealand around the import health standard which is perhaps the way one would have expected it to be argued and that is the way many others have argued it in the past. 
We as National Party members were not prepared then to see the industry not have a chance to come and explain its situation and the fact that this legislation in effect overturns its win in the Court of Appeal. I have been speaking to the association today and I know that it intends to come before the select committee when the committee meets in a couple of weeks’ time. 
The development of import health standards has been a real issue that the select committee has brought to the attention of the Minister Biosecurity New Zealand and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry because the progress involved in the development of import health standards has been too slow. A report that the select committee tabled before this House last year pointed out that as of 2006-2007 over 200 import health standards were in the pipeline. As a result of the select committee report to Parliament I note that the Government did advance some additional resources in the last Budget to tackle that backlog in the development of import health standards. 
The select committee also took the opportunity in the examination of the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation to ask that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry take stock of the competency of the people employed within the ministry as to whether they had the ability to develop and progress these import health standards. The Government did come back and agree with that comment from the select committee but I am not sure that the recommendations have gone any further than the Government’s telling the select committee that it had it right. 
What we now have and I referred earlier to the urgency around this legislation is a situation where the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has stopped issuing all import health standards or amending those that are in existence. That is a serious issue for those in this country who want to import product into New Zealand. I had one case today of a fisheries factory calling me saying it wanted to bring something in that was essential to its business. It has been held up completely following the court case of 4 December last year so I accept there is an urgency. But to be fair to the Minister he could have worked with his officials and had this into the House prior to Christmas. But be that as it may we now have it before the House tonight and it is our job now to progress it through the select committee process with alacrity and we will do that. 
The issue I will be teasing out in the select committee is around the decisions made by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the development of import health standards. It does seem to me—perhaps not so much in the bee case but particularly in the pork case which I am aware of and I suspect we will have the Pork Industry Board making a submission to the select committee—that in some of the development of these import health standards the decision by the ministry to allow importation of more and more product into New Zealand tends to be coming more and more risky. That may well be a perception and I am prepared to accept that at this stage until we have a chance to talk more to the officials. They have the full scientific information before them and these decisions should not be made on a motion should not be made on perception and certainly should not be made on the basis of one industry trying to protect itself from fair and reasonable competition from other imports and exports and I acknowledge that the full scientific information is sometimes not available to me as a member of Parliament when it is available to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
But having said that from watching the issue over a number of years I do not think we want to become so pure around the issue of free trade that we actually risk bringing into this country diseases and organisms that are not here now and that will have a financial implication on the producers of this country. That will be something I will certainly be wanting to tease out through the select committee process. 
I acknowledge the report-back date of 17 March put on the select committee tonight by the Minister. It is our intention therefore to work on this both with officials and with industry on one day and one day only but it will of course depend on how many submissions we actually get. There is no point in the Government holding a gun to the head of the select committee allowing us to call for submissions from industry and then not giving us the chance to adequately hear the concerns of industry if we get a number of submissions. We will then of course try to meet the deadline that has been imposed on us but I say to the Labour Government and particularly to the Minister that having got it back before the House from the select committee we do not want to see what has happened in the past with other legislation whereby the select committee has been asked to rush its job and then we find that the legislation sits on the Order Paper and does not progress through the further stages that must be completed in this House. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: You can always go for urgency now and then. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Well the Minister is now saying we are going into urgency—that is one he did not mention earlier. But no I tell the Minister that the legislation can be done quite logically and quite level-headedly and there is no need for reaction around urgency. But once the legislation gets back from the select committee it must not then sit on an Order Paper and there obviously must be far more cooperation between the Minister of Agriculture Mr Anderton and the Leader of the House Mr Cullen than has perhaps occurred in the past. I wish him well in those negotiations.