Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. I first wanted to mention this evening the loss of life on the Gulf Livestock 1 ship particularly the human life but obviously an awful maritime accident happened which saw a whole shipload of animals go down.But having said that and going through this process I would have to say that this is probably one of the worst select committee experiences that I've had and it is definitely the worst select committee experience I've had on the Primary Production Committee. I want to say that this is not a reflection on our chair Jo Luxton—Jo is a very good chair of the committee. But what actually happened on this committee is that the members of the Government were sent to the committee without the ability to change anything. So last night we were sitting in the House talking on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill and the Minister actually made a comment to the people on this side of the House and said Why are you putting up Supplementary Order Papers? Why did you not make an effort at the committee to change this piece of legislation?" Well I can tell you that—that wasn't the Primary Production Committee that was the Environment Committee but I can tell you the opposite effect has actually happened on this committee. This [Holds up a stack of papers] is a pile of absolutely wasted submissions. And it was very embarrassing sitting there as a select committee member watching good people coming in and making submissions knowing that those submissions were going to make no progress because nobody was listening at the other end. Now we as a committee also heard some submissions from examples of welfare on some ships that needed to be improved and none of us would disagree with that. There were some of those ships that shouldn't be sailing with animals on it and there were some of those ships that should not be allowed to continue. However we saw some exemplar examples and we heard from the industry about ships that were built for purpose—for animals less than 25 years old that could be used. They were talking about the amount of feed on the ship; the extension of five days extra feed in case there was a hold-up to make sure the animals weren't going hungry. We heard from vets and we heard people working on those ships and we know that this process can be done extremely well.But of course this Government decides that they want to ban it. Actually this is despite advice from the Ministry for Primary Industries in the first instance and maybe the two Ministers sitting over the other side of the House—Damien O'Connor and Megan Woods—should learn a lesson one from the other. Minister Woods actually decided that she was going to ban offshore oil and gas permits and that resulted in a whole heap of Indonesian coal. Banning things is not the answer. So if I look at the regulatory impact statement here "Any move to prohibit the export of livestock would cause an economic loss to these groups and make recovery from COVID-19 more difficult in the rural communities where livestock exports provide an additional source of income. For some individual businesses that impact is likely to be significant." And it wasn't just the businesses we heard about; we had submitters come in from rural communities. I specifically remember Mark Cameron a man from one of the communities up in Northland that talked about the ripple effect of what would happen to those people in his rural community if these livestock exports were to be banned. Unfortunately the Minister for Rural Communities who is also the Minister of Agriculture took no notice of that and it didn't make any difference.So it said likewise—and we hear all the time about "this is going to ruin our reputation". Now we teased that out with various people in the committee including the Minister and all anyone could tell us—we asked for evidence we asked the Ministry for Primary Industries for evidence for somebody to quantify that this was going to ruin our reputation. The only thing we heard from people was "Well the Minister said." Even I think the Minister himself told us that it was his opinion and he'd been talking to people. He had no facts he had no statistics and he had no quantifiable evidence. It was the Minister's opinion that this was going to happen. So the Minister made a case that it was going to affect our trade. But on page 2 here when I look at the regulatory impact statement it said "Likewise if the trade was to be banned we could damage our reputation with trading partners especially in the countries where trade is used to help the importing country meet its poverty reduction or rural economic growth policy objectives."So I want to say what a shocking process this was. I do feel for those people who came in and made very very very genuine submissions coming into that room to make a submission thinking that they were adding value to the parliamentary process only to be ignored.What I'm also disappointed about tonight is: where are the members of the Primary Production Committee? The Government's put other speakers up on this bill today. I will note that Dr Duncan Webb said that he had in part sat on the committee occasionally. But it almost seems like—are people actually not wanting to get up and speak about their decision because they were actually put there to carry out the Minister's instructions?Livestock exports form part of a network of trading activities that create and foster relationships and a customer base that support New Zealand's broader international trade objectives. We hear a lot over the other side of the House about how we can't guarantee what happens to those animals when they get to the other side. People are paying mega-money for these animals. They are paying a fortune. For those animals by the time they leave the country they need to be travelled they need to be in tip-top condition. Who in their right mind would take a ship of animals that the buyer at the other end was going to refuse to take? It just doesn't happen. They actually pay very good money and when they get to the other end why would they not want to look after the animals why would they want to abuse them why would they waste money? We asked a lot of questions actually about food security in the countries where those animals are being exported to and particularly in this time now even since we did this the world has ended up in a different place around food security. We've got some awful things going on where Russia's having a full-on attack with Ukraine. Ukraine actually has 30 percent of our wheat. We hear about canola but also not all of that food that's produced in those countries up there is going to humans; some of it is going to animals. There's going to be quite a dire need in the Northern Hemisphere. If the Minister really thinks that we can ban this trade just like Minister Woods thought we could ban the exports and now we're importing coal from Indonesia if the Minister thinks that he can shut his eyes and think that if we ban this in New Zealand where we have some top-class exporters who work in with exporters in Australia that other people are not going to do it then he can think again. I remember clearly the Minister basing this on trade. Well Minister Australia still do this. Australia got trade agreements before we did. So where on earth did that argument come from? This is absolutely based on the Minister's opinion. I honestly say that if the Minister in future is going to run a select committee where the submitters are going to come in and not be heard then why have a select committee process at all? It's absolutely appalling that the public and the farmers of New Zealand and the cattle traders would be treated in this way. It was the most appalling select committee that I've been part of in my whole eight years in Parliament. Thank you Madam Speaker."