Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on second reading of the Increased Penalties for Breach of Biosecurity Bill and I want to commend the honourable member Jacqui Dean for bringing this member's bill before the House on a very important issue that has been important for a long time and will continue to be important for a long time to come. I do want to acknowledge and thank the members of the Primary Production Committee who have considered this and the Clerk and the staff members who have done a lot of hard work on this and the officials who have provided helpful advice on this member's bill. We've been trying to get to the right place on it and we haven't quite got there but I just wanted to step through a little bit about what this intends to do.So the purpose of the bill is to better protect our border by deterring people from bringing in illegal biosecurity risk items such as fruits or other food by increasing the immediate fine and giving officers at the border stronger authority to refuse entry. In some cases pre-COVID-19 there was and certainly will be again in the future once international travel increases more—and we've certainly seen tourism coming back in a strong way this summer though still nowhere near the level it was pre-pandemic but it still has been a strong season in parts of the country. Prior to the pandemic there had been a 35 percent increase in arrivals of people entering New Zealand every year and this bill aimed to try to strike a balance in terms of just increasing the penalty for bringing in fruit or other food that could place our primary sector at risk. I just want to note the importance of both of those sectors because prior to the pandemic tourism had a total annual expenditure of $41.9 billion so a very very significant and important contribution to the New Zealand economy. Obviously that's come back a very long way due to the last almost three years that we've had since the borders closed in 2020. But it has come back in a strong way particularly in parts of New Zealand that haven't been affected by the bad weather that unfortunately particularly the North Island has experienced. Bad weather is probably an understatement as it's been the Cyclone Hale and then Cyclone Gabrielle which have had a huge impact on local communities and certainly on the tourism industry. Though I would note that Tourism Hawke's Bay is getting out the message that they are open for business that there's a lot of great opportunities there. It's a place that people should be visiting and I just want to note that because there have been a lot of stories about Hawke's Bay being very badly damaged and certainly parts of it have but there's a lot of Hawke's Bay that's open for business and want to see tourists and have a lot of great opportunities. So I'll make that note there. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well speaking of opportunities it's an opportunity to speak to the bill now.JOSEPH MOONEY: Thank you Mr Speaker which brings me back to this bill and the primary industry exports. We're forecast to hit a record high of $55 billion in this year and so this bill is trying to protect those exports by ensuring that people who come to New Zealand declare their fruits or other food which could place those industries and those exports at risk which are hugely important for New Zealand. In particular the National Party was of the view that the infringement fees for failing to clear a biosecurity risk item upon entry to New Zealand be increased from $400 to $1000 and conviction fines for the same offence increased from $1000 to $2000—just trying to get that message across that there can be risks in fruit. Look I'll just maybe share a little anecdote from my childhood and risks you don't even know you have in your fruit. I remember eating an apple and a wasp being on it and getting stung in the mouth as a kid—maybe an example towards the extreme end of the scale but there can be risks in fruit and something that we want people to be aware of and to think about when they're coming into the country. So we want people to be very very aware that it's hugely important for our economy that our economy is not stung by an organism coming into the country. [Interruption] Thank you Mr Woodhouse. We don't want our economy being stung and being badly impacted. So that's the point of this bill and I'd like to commend the Hon Jacqui Dean for bringing this very important issue to the forefront of all our minds and the opportunity to have a debate on it tonight in the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.