SpeechHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Mr Chair. In the last answer from the Minister he talked about there being a compensation I guess for not having the live trade in that you can use sperm and embryos and suchlike to enable New Zealand to have access to genetics and suchlike and this hasn't been discussed in this House before. But at the same time as this bill the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has effectively cut the trade in embryos and sperm from overseas. So the new rules and regulations around it basically mean it is impossible to bring in a lot of those products to New Zealand. That's a relationship back to the M. bovis days and MPI have tightened up the rules. So effectively for those that aren't here they basically have to put radioactive—give a good whack to those products which basically knocks them out and a very small proportion will actually ever survive.So if the Minister's using as an excuse that we don't need to trade in animals that are live but at the same time his excuse for that is We can still get embryos; we can still get sperm" but at the same time his officials have effectively killed that market how does he reconcile that? How does he explain it? The Minister knows what I'm talking about. He's had the correspondence that I've had from people in that sector who say they can't do it any more. It would have been on his desk and he's seen it. He has seen that; his officials have seen it. They can't in this House ignore it; they can't in this House say that's not true. There are officials here that have seen those letters. They actually made the policies that do it.So the Minister needs to explain why five minutes ago he said "Don't worry about the live trade; you've always got the embryos and sperm." We don't actually because he's killed that market. His officials need to explain to the Minister how he's going to reconcile all that and then he needs to reconcile to the farmers in New Zealand how they keep getting the best genetics in the world. If you're the racing industry you don't rely just on New Zealand genetics. You get some of the best horses around the world and bring them in. He's called Sir Tristram for a reason—you know he came from Ireland. What are we going to do with our beef our sheep? How are we going to have a sheep milking industry if we don't get—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Bennett you were vaguely on the bill before. You've now stretched quite a way away. So can we come back to the bill that's actually in front of you and the provisions of it? It's been wide ranging but we are now at this stage of the debate—Hon DAVID BENNETT: This bill bans the import of livestock and the Minister has said in his answer "Don't worry about that; you can do semen and embryos." Well you can't. Theoretically you can but by the time you nuke them they're basically dead. So you know they're not coming through. The Minister knows—he's looking very sheepish at the moment—but maybe he needs to explain it. What are New Zealand farmers going to do around genetics going forward? They can't have a live trade and they can't have the genetics come in through those other forms. That is new material that hasn't been discussed but it's a direct implication of this bill and the Minister raised it in his answer as an excuse for this bill. He says "Don't worry about this; you don't need live trade. You can have the others." Well you can't because the rules are so difficult now that it makes a lot of that impossible.So can the Minister please explain his rationale please explain what's happening there and to actually identify what's going on and acknowledge that there is a problem there around semen and embryos and say what he is going to do about it. Because is this "Fortress New Zealand" coming back again in the primary sector where we're not allowed to have genetics from around the world? Is that what the Minister truly wants for New Zealand? I ask the Minister to answer those questions."