Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. That Minister Damien O'Connor has devalued his role within the New Zealand agricultural sector. He has shown that he has no respect for the agricultural sector and he has taken advantage of this House in the last 24 hours to put the boot into the agricultural sector in New Zealand and he is smirking in this House because he knows it's the truth.He's smirking in this House as I say those words and the reason is—Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I'm looking at the Minister and he is not.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's a debatable point; that's not a point of order. Sit down [Interruption] Sit down.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well look that was the Hon David Parker and we all know his influence in this House.Rt Hon David Carter: He's lemon sucking and he hates farmers. Sour. Sour.Hon DAVID BENNETT: He is—he is. People don't have to necessarily exactly see it Mr Parker. They will see this legislation and they will see the effect of what has happened in this House today and how the Minister has gone around in this debate and been so cute about this debate in saying Oh this is only a technical issue."Now he's smirking again—a technical issue. He is smirking though. Ha ha!Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order the Hon David Parker. I hope it's not going be the same as last time because that is not a point of order.Hon David Parker: Madam Deputy Speaker it is your duty to protect members in this House from inappropriate insult. That is incorrect. You can see that the Minister is not smirking—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry. Sit—Hon David Parker: I think the member should be called to order.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. If accusing someone of smirking becomes unparliamentary this House will go into mourning. I call the Hon David Bennett and let's not have any more interruption.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you. That Minister has gone around saying it's a technical issue. This is not a technical issue. This is the greatest intrusion that you can make into somebody's personal and property rights. The search and surveillance legislation was put there for a reason. It is the most intrusive tool that the Government has for its agencies and now farmers are subject to that.We repeatedly asked the Minister to explain other legislation that has the same ability to go in there with that search and surveillance legislation and he referred to these other laws but he could never confirm that they had these unwarranted abilities to go in. That will now be on New Zealand farmers and agricultural producers.They are now subject to a threshold that is higher than any other law in New Zealand apart from that search and surveillance one which was there for a different reason. The Minister has used the guise of M. bovis to attack New Zealand farmers. That is what is happening in this House.Why would you go into urgency if it was not to do that? The whole purpose of going into urgency is not because this is an immediate problem that needed to be dealt with today. That Minister has been there for 10 months. In all those months of dealing with M. bovis have we heard him come to this House and say "I need to pass legislation this week to control National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT)."? No.But suddenly it becomes part of the legislative programme of this Government and within 24 hours they seek to pass it. That is because they are hiding behind urgency because they are bringing in search and surveillance laws that no other New Zealander has to face because they don't like farmers. That is the right of it—Hon David Parker: You're voting for it.Hon DAVID BENNETT: David Parker don't come into this House and tell me how you love farmers. Don't tell me how you love agriculture and trade.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't bring me into it.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Mr Parker was railing against trade for his whole time in Opposition.Hon Ruth Dyson: Great rage! Get wound up! Get wound up! Come on! Come on! Wind up! Come on!Hon DAVID BENNETT: Oh Ruth Dyson as well—the great friend of the farmer she always has been!And the New Zealand First Party there—sitting there meekly. Well New Zealand First listen and learn what's going to happen to your party in the next six to 12 months as your members go around and meet farmers. Farmers will say to you that these rules are intrusive. They're intrusive they are extreme and they've been put on to us in our point of weakness. They've been put on to us in our point of weakness and that's what happened in this House here today.The Minister has said that there's more to come. Well we wait to see that. Hopefully he reflects on the pitiful process that they've gone through here today and take a real process which is engaged with those people that are affected by it. That is the same Minister that voted against the search and surveillance legislation when it came into this House and the other Opposition parties especially the Green Party at that time were very much against that legislation and saying that it was an intrusive and Draconian part of New Zealand legislation. Yet today they use urgency when there is a crisis within the agricultural sector to pass it in there. Where is the fairness in that? Where is the commitment to the rural sector if they can't even talk to them? They can't even be bothered to give them a chance to have a say on this.This bill is something that has been used by the Government of the day to put extra requirements on New Zealand farmers. Now I think there's something else that they're doing that for. I don't think it's just for M. bovis. I think they've got some other plan and I'd love to see the next stage of the NAIT regulations because once the search and surveillance has been passed in this bill as it is and then the extension of NAIT goes beyond what we currently have in NAIT there could be the potential there for farmers to be subject to very strict rules which they have no comeback in this House and no way of discussing and going through to deliberate with the Minister on.The Minister says the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has too many responsibilities. This is the very Minister that split MPI up—that's taken away their ability to deal with many issues. This Minister's hidden behind things like M. bovis and biosecurity issues to take apart one of the great institutions that we need in our agricultural sector. MPI needed to be as strong as it could be. It didn't need to be divided and we don't need to continue to divide them and take advantage of cases like this with M. bovis to enable that Minister to just put through his political rhetoric.We put up amendments that would've challenged the timing of this bill; that would've enabled a fairer process to be had. We committed to doing a select committee process that would've been fair and open and truncated and would have met any time frame that had been set by the Government and yet none of those opportunities were taken up.That is because the Government didn't believe in actually having consultation around this. I can't go past the fact that there is no urgency at this point in time. The urgency around M. bovis has been there for eight to 10 months and this time suddenly in 24 hours we have to deal with this. The peak of M. bovis may have been or it maybe yet still to come but at this point in time there is no urgency out there apart from the urgency of one Minister wanting to put extra powers into that industry so those people in the agriculture sector are subject to a much higher threshold than any other sector in New Zealand. That is unfair on farmers and it will not work.The reason it will not work is because farmers will react the other way now. Instead of being alongside MPI and working with them there is a real prospect that rogue farmers will actually do the opposite because they know that these rules are out there and instead of engaging with MPI and other Government officials to make sure we have the best biosecurity system in New Zealand they will hide their tracks and take advantage of it.A Draconian piece of legislation like this never works because if you take that approach then that only incentivises people to do the opposite. When people do the opposite the programme doesn't achieve its full potential.So in this House we all understand what M. bovis means to the New Zealand economy and the Minister is not correct in saying that this Government is spending $800 million on it. In fact the New Zealand farmers are paying a great deal of the proportion of that money. So be honest in this House and tell New Zealanders—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the Government has indicated that it no longer wishes to continue with urgency. Therefore the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Thursday)"