Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I'd like to start by just addressing Eugenie Sage the Green member who's just sat down. As the Rt Hon David Carter pointed out both the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party voted against the search and surveillance powers in the previous iteration of this legislation. But I'd like to address the principles which were raised by the Rt Hon David Carter around the Greens opposing urgency quite vigorously when it wasn't needed right back in Rod Donald's time—Rt Hon David Carter: We heard it many times. STUART SMITH: —I believe you talked about. But in the last term we heard this time and time again—the principles of it—and I'd like to share a quote which I think is quite appropriate: Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; … If at my … convenience I might break them what would be their worth?" We are in that moment. What about your principles now?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!STUART SMITH: Yes we have a very serious situation. Yes we need to make some changes but going into urgency to fix problems an anomaly—well it's not a drafting anomaly actually. It's actually extending search and surveillance powers which the other side of the House oppose—including your leader Mr Patterson. So you know these people should do some research and don't just rely on your comms unit's—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! STUART SMITH: —notes. Sorry Madam Assistant Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. STUART SMITH: Don't rely on the comms unit's notes that might come out on this particular legislation but do a bit of research yourself. I have seen the Hansard from that debate and as has been pointed out not many of those people are left in this Parliament—certainly not here tonight—that spoke in that debate. But the Rt Hon David Carter remembers it well and it's quite interesting that we end up in this position now.Yes we need to take action—there's no doubt about that. We are going to vote for this but the select committee process is there for a very very good reason because we could end up with unintended consequences out of this. It's not that urgent that we couldn't go through a truncated select committee process which we offered to support. We offered to support that. We're very happy to do that. Let's get this legislation right. Don't fix one issue—which we might not agree fully with—but then create another and I think that's where we're headed with this.Let's not forget M. bovis—yes it came in in July of last year. It's been a serious issue and our sympathies go out to those people who are dealing with it. It's a very difficult situation for many of those that are involved with that but let's not make it worse.In some of the provisions of this system the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system like for example making it clear that when animals are shifted from a NAIT property they still have to record it whether it's going to another NAIT property or not—and I think that's great. That's fantastic—96 percent of those animal movements that go to slaughter at the freezing works are recorded under NAIT and 94 percent of those movements that go to saleyards are actually recorded under NAIT and that's I believe up to 1000 to 2000 transactions per day. So it's a significant number of transactions.However we do have to acknowledge that some in the farming sector have not been playing their part. It is difficult and it will always be impossible I think to have 100 percent compliance because tags come and go. I know from experience in one of my former lives certainly on a stud farm and trying to match up animal tag numbers that the tags come out. They fall out and you can't exactly find out where they are. It's impossible to have 100 percent compliance with that and NAIT will be the same—there's no doubt about that. Getting it to something over 95 percent is I think easily achievable but everybody has to play their part and we do need the regulatory framework for that to work.I think the Primary Production Committee—most of us who will be speaking on this bill have been a part of the Primary Production Committee at some time or other—is a very collegial select committee. It's probably the best select committee that I've sat on for that collegial nature although I have to acknowledge Tutehounuku Korako sitting over there. Yes the Māori Affairs Committee is also quite collegial and I do enjoy that as well when I've had the pleasure to sit on it. But as I'm sure the members opposite will agree that select committee is very collegial. It would have worked through this process very quickly and efficiently and we would have ended up with a far better situation or at least—even if it didn't change even if it remained the same—we'd be much more comfortable in the knowledge that we'd explored all the opportunities and all the permutations of this particular search and surveillance.Kieran McAnulty: Oh but don't play politics—we mustn't play politics.STUART SMITH: We are extending powers. They're quite significant. It might be very easy for Mr McAnulty to play light with this but actually we're talking about people's homes here. We're in homes. We're not talking about going just to a business as would be the case with many other urban businesses where it's a building that's quite separated. This is a home that people are going into quite often.Hon Stuart Nash: There's $800 million of taxpayers' money to get this sorted.STUART SMITH: It is $800 million. It's a serious issue. No one's saying that it isn't a serious issue. What we're saying is that you don't cause other problems just in order to solve another one.We hear today that there's another bill coming. There is another NAIT bill coming. Why couldn't we put them together? And when urgency finishes tomorrow we have another bill coming up before the House—the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill—that's exactly the same as this: rushed not consulted haven't gone out and found out all the issues that might surround the bill. Why haven't you done that? Why hasn't the Government done that?I am very concerned about this Government. There are so many of these examples. We've got the same sort of thing with the Overseas Investment Act the same thing with the waka-jumping bill. It is a very bad trend that's coming through with this Government and the principled support—or lack of—with the Greens supporting this type of legislation and legislative process is very disappointing. As they go into their conference this weekend I wonder if their members will reflect on that and perhaps send a message to the caucus that they are not living up to the legacy of the likes of Rod Donald—a very proud legacy and someone who had principles that were worth something. Mind you he didn't have to have that tested in Government I suppose. But when they are in Government now we see that those principles have a very low price after all.Actually the NAIT system offers us a real opportunity to have traceability in our system. So it's far wider than biosecurity although this is why we're debating this so quickly and in a much shorter process under urgency but traceability is absolutely the way forward for our industries to get a higher price in the market. We produce enough food for about 40 million people and when you take out the 5 million who live in New Zealand that's 35 million people that we can sell our food to and those people want to achieve a higher price. Why would they pay for that? It's because they want to know the provenance of their food and they want to know that that food has been produced in a certain manner.Wander into Tesco's in London or anywhere else in the UK and what will be found there on the more expensive cuts of meat is a photograph of the farmer who produced that meat. Why do they do that? They don't do that just to fill the shelf up; they do that because the consumer is prepared to pay more when they can identify that cut of meat and the provenance of that product. They can also have confidence in the system and the traceability of the production right through the value chain. Blockchain is coming so this sort of legislation under the NAIT will be very important to fit within that blockchain which will dominate our production and value chains very quickly in the near future.So in summary I support as we do the legislation but with very serious misgivings—certainly serious misgivings about the process and serious misgivings about the offer that we gave for a much truncated select committee process so that we could ensure that we're not making another mistake. That it has not been taken up by the Government is something I think they should reflect on. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Rino Tirikatene: It is indeed.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Tēnā koe Rino Tirikatene."