SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Here's my first grizzle—actually it'll be my second grizzle apart from the terrible puns that are being put out tonight. As a dad I would be proud of those as dad jokes. But I've been in this place nearly 15 years five of them as a Minister so 10 years in that time being eligible to have a bill in the member's bill ballot—haven't had a single one drawn out; not a single one. There are some people in this House that are very greedy—well very lucky I suppose—David Clark Louisa Wall. Annette King I think didn't have a single one in her 33 years—she would be with me. But when we do it's quite something—it's quite something—because it's usually something that the member feels passionately about and certainly Jacqui Dean feels passionately about the conservation and biosecurity of this country. I think it was Rachel Brooking that reminded us that the food and fibre sector is $55 billion.You know we've had incursions. We're never very sure how they come in but painted apple moth fruit fly we've got the stink bug—what was that called? A marmorated stink bug—and Vanushi Walters has just talked about foot-and-mouth disease. The impact of these incursions could be devastating not on human and animal health alone as a direct consequence of those incursions but the ongoing economic and social harms that they cause because the earnings from those exports pay for our hospitals they pay for our schools our social development programmes our law and order. We thrive on primary industries. For Ms Walters to talk about the risk that this bill elevates biosecurity above other matters for determination under the Immigration Act I think is certainly not the way I would describe it. I think what Jacqui Dean was trying to do was to bring biosecurity up to a common level with other grounds for refusal of entry denial of visa and deportation.So I like the idea and I'm sure as Steph Lewis said the Primary Production Committee was diligent in doing its job but the question really seems to have been asked through the lens of: is the bill in perfect shape? The answer to that was clearly no. It was pointed out in the general policy statement that the commentary talked about giving biosecurity officers a stronger ability to refuse entry to New Zealand when in fact that power only vests with the Minister of Immigration or his or her delegated decisionmakers warranted immigration officers. It was just a minor technical error. The bill itself was correct in providing powers to immigration officers not biosecurity officers. Those are things that could be fixed.So my question my suggestion to the committee isn't what was right or wrong with the bill but how could we get the bill into a shape that would make it better and make for better law. It seems like people have talked including officials—I don't want to sound critical but the departmental report is quite revealing I think in the sense that they've taken a technical look at this and said Oh well section 109 of the Immigration Act is probably not the right one to fix." Well the right one to fix was probably section 22 which lists the immigration instructions that can be written because it is true that most of these guidelines aren't set in primary legislation but are set in instruments called immigration instructions. So let's make a change to that. And it wasn't.But I think the most telling part of this kind of ambivalence about the bill despite it being an incredibly important area was this kind of inference that—well it wasn't an inference; it was stated by a couple of speakers—the Immigration Act already provides for the denial of entry for people on biosecurity grounds. OK so why did the select committee not ask officials to say: if that's the case please tell us how many individuals under current law have been denied a visa or refused entry into New Zealand on biosecurity grounds? I looked in the departmental report; it wasn't there and I wonder if the committee asked that question. It would've been an obvious one to ask. If the Immigration Act provides these powers and they are elevated to a point where everybody knows about them has a single person ever been denied entry on those grounds? Maybe Jacqui Dean's attempt is a belts and braces approach a "for the avoidance of doubt" amendment to the Immigration Act but I think it's a pretty good one. It's a good one to the degree that the biosecurity risks to this country are so great—and our biosecurity officials frankly do a great job—that it should be made more prominent; I don't think more prominent than the other aspects other criteria for refusal of entry but just to put them on a par and if we don't support this bill we lose the opportunity to do that.You know I also watch border control shows from time to time and one of the things that really grinds my gears is when I see two types of border stop by biosecurity officials. One is the inadvertent accidental—as Camilla Belich talked about—sandwich in the bag the apple at the bottom of the suitcase you know after a long flight.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Mandarin.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Mandarin?Hon Paul Goldsmith: A friend of mine had a mandarin.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Really? Did it cost him $400?Hon Paul Goldsmith: It did.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It did. Right excellent point Mr Goldsmith. Contrast that with the deliberate offender with suitcases full of produce coming from source countries. They're often fruits they're often animal products bird products feathers traditional medicines that they may think that they can't get here in New Zealand. The suitcase is open and there is a plethora of illegal product in there and biosecurity risk and the fine Mr Goldsmith is how much?Hon Paul Goldsmith: $400.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: $400—$400 for a mandarin; $400 for a deliberately concealed high-risk suitcase full of product. Maybe $1000 per fine was a little high. Maybe the answer is to reduce the fine not raise it but make it clear that the scale of offending needs to be reflected in the infringement that is given because I don't agree that—well I do agree with Vanushi Walters on the point that she said that the fine is about the seventh most important or effective barrier but that's possibly because it's so low. The Ministry for Primary Industries were very interesting in their departmental report where they talked about the last time the fine was raised in April 2010 that compliance meandered along and then significantly improved; the number of infringements and detections dropped. Now they're saying that wasn't due to the fine because it was too far after the change. Well I'm not so sure that's the case. But the point is I think fines as a deterrent and the promotion of that—you go from Singapore to Malaysia and what's the first thing you see a sign at the border that says "death to drug importers". I tell you what that's a pretty big deterrent. You'd have to be pretty I don't know dumber than a bag of nails to ignore that sign. Several thousand dollars of fines at the border at Auckland Airport or Christchurch Airport could well be a significant deterrent to people who wanted to take a risk and then decided it wasn't worth it financially.So I am disappointed that we haven't as a House found a way to say yes to this. I think everybody agrees on the goal: improve our biosecurity reduce the risk to human and animal welfare and to our economy. Let's not forget as I say this is what pays our bills. I commend Jacqui Dean for her passion on this but I think there was a way for us to get to a place where we could have done both and I'm disappointed that we're not going to be able to tonight."