Walker HamishHAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I stand on behalf of the National Party to talk about this bill. We only need to look at the recent incursions with Mycoplasma bovis costing the country about a billion bucks; the Queensland fruit fly which costs around about a million dollars per fly to get rid of; myrtle rust; infectious bursal disease (IBD)—the list goes on and on. I just want to take the opportunity to thank the Minister for Biosecurity for allowing his officials to come and brief me and fellow members of the National Party rural caucus on IBD. It's affecting two mainland farms just north of Dunedin and it's actually halted our chicken exports to Australia so it's a pretty serious concern. So I'm very interested to see what the Minister's doing about it. But I just want to say thank you to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to hear from his officials. I just want to acknowledge a very pivotal person involved in this process. He got a few good wins for the National Party. That is the chair of the Primary Production Committee David Bennett. Well done in your leadership David. You did a good job and you got several wins for the National Party. I just want to raise five points. The first is the non-compliance with National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT). It's still of concern. The 0800 number is still a bit slow. Our farmers have been frustrated and it's still clunky to use. To be fair it has been swamped with queries and hasn't quite coped with changes made. But I understand NAIT the industry and Government are working hard to ensure the system has improved. The second point I'd like to touch on is the unsafe tagging. Through the select committee there was previously it was called—farmers could use an exemption to tagging if there was concerns. That's been changed to unsafe to tag". You might have a large breeding bull or a particularly stroppy stag. Like David Bennett it's unsafe to tag. So there is a five-year time limit which will I believe be reviewed after five years. Our third concern was privacy. We were concerned with privacy issues around who actually owns the information. You've got the system which the Government owns—the IT system which holds the information—but there were concerns with who actually owns the information within that system. You've got obviously M. bovis throughout the country. Down in Southland we did have a deal—actually two deals that I know of were cancelled because the buyer buying the stock couldn't be assured that these stock were free of Mycoplasma bovis and I believe the cost was around about $400000 or $500000. The buyer pulled out went to court and the seller of those stock eventually got compensation. The privacy concerns—the good leadership of David Bennett the chair of the Primary Production Committee hardworking MP for Hamilton got the change there. The penalty is lifted from $10000 up to $100000 and for a body corporate from $20000 up to $200000. This just shows how serious this is. And another provision which I believe is a good one is for transport operators. These guys and girls work incredibly hard to move stock. As the previous agriculture Minister Nathan Guy mentioned often stock are moved in the dark. It could be 10 or 11 midnight or 1 a.m. It's basically impractical to identify every animal that has a tag. Lastly just the improving access to NAIT data I do believe the Minister has bulked up resource for that Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) 24-hour 0800 number. This is a good move. That's about it for me. Hopefully I'm better behaved than in my last speech. And it would be rude not to mention just lastly if I may my member's bill which increases the biosecurity fines for people bringing high-risk biosecurity items into New Zealand from $400 to $1000. And more importantly it backs the MPI officials the immigration officials at the border who work tirelessly 24 hours a day plus all the other initiatives introduced by the member to my right the Hon Nathan Guy such as the improved X-ray machines the doggies at the border who do a great job smelling out unwanted items like fruit and beef coming into New Zealand. So it also gives them the powers to deport people out in New Zealand who put our $46 billion sector at risk. I commend this bill. Part 1 agreed to."