McClay Todd; Clark DavidHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Chair thank you. More broadly and it's Minister this is merely to better understand the processes so that it's clear. In the case of—we could take any product we seem to be focusing on kūmara alone but there are many I suppose.Take in Australia they have a tree that in New Zealand we would identify as mānuka or kānuka. It has the same properties. It is hardly distinct from that in New Zealand. It's cultivated now as we do in New Zealand for honey production. It has great great value. Or in the case of kūmara in other parts of the world they do exist. There are links. They're genetically very very similar. The origins may well have been the same. They call them sweet potatoes" and other things in South America.What happens in the case of somebody develops new intellectual property a new plant variety from the equivalent of mānuka or kānuka say in Australia or the equivalent of a kūmara or sweet potato in South America? They have the rights to that they've registered it elsewhere they bring it to New Zealand and they seek to register that plant variety in New Zealand. It is identical—or so similar that under the law could be treated identically as something that already exists in New Zealand. How is that dealt with number one?Number two there will be a kaitiaki interest in it although it's overseas and they have their own rights and their own abilities. Does that mean that that plant variety before registered would have to go through the kaitiaki process and has the Minister given any thought to what this means—i.e. if there is an advantage in developing the mānuka tree but using its scientific name not its local name further to great advantage would an investor a developer or a laboratory not therefore do it overseas to avoid rules in New Zealand and is he concerned about that?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I think one of the things that I wanted to focus on here is the difference between indigenous and endemic. The committee changed some of the language in the bill to say "endemic". That would have excluded plants like mānuka because it is found overseas and so the language will be changed back to "indigenous" to recognise the kaitiaki relationships that exist there.Now would there be an incentive for folks to do their research offshore? They would still have to go through a regime there around intellectual property if they did that. As I indicated to members a short while ago generally actually our process is quicker and cheaper than many other countries so I think currently the incentives will fall for them to land here. There's an expectation the Māori Plant Varieties Committee will expeditiously process those claims and it's a focus on whether there is any damage to the kaitiaki relationship rather than anything else. So I would expect there wouldn't be a big incentive for anybody to go elsewhere if they had the work under way here and this was where they had the relationships and the crops that they were looking at propagating or growing and the right growing conditions; that would not be something I would expect.We haven't seen a great influx as best I'm aware of overseas developers coming here because our process is currently cheaper to access. It's about doing the stuff in the right place making it easy for people to do and rewarding appropriately our intellectual property developers with a regime that's as predictable as it can be that protects their rights in a modern way and meets the obligations under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. So I think that answers the member's question.Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you. I've almost finished this part and then I have no further.Minister thank you but that's not the point that I was making. It's not whether we have advantage and people will come here or not because all over the world people are developing plant varieties and they're investing in these in many ways.I guess in the case of we have a plant that is native to New Zealand you would say can also be native elsewhere. If that plant is as native elsewhere that is equivalent scientifically in New Zealand—let's just pick a kūmara as an example—and a variety is developed and they wish to bring that variety to New Zealand to sell it commercially it must gain a plant variety licence here unless we recognise the variety right from a third-party jurisdiction. If it does arrive in New Zealand and it has to go through a process here to be licensed will it have to go through the kaitiaki process if it is identical to something that is in New Zealand?"