Mackey Moana: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3696. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I think it is always a shame to see the very good member Shane Ardern silenced by his Government colleagues. Here is a member who has more farming experience in his little finger than the rest of the National caucus has in total yet he cannot even take his full call because Government members and his whips want him to sit down. I want to reiterate the comment made by my colleague Damien O’Connor about what a shame it is that this member is not a Minister. As chair of the Primary Production Committee he has always been very good to deal with. For those members who have not served on the Primary Production Committee it really has a completely different culture from a lot of other select committees. It is very enjoyable it is very collegial. The Minister for Primary Industries himself was also a very good chair of the Primary Production Committee and as a member of the committee that considered this legislation I say that it is indeed a pleasure to be able to take a call.  
Of course Labour will be supporting this legislation but I do reiterate some of the concerns that my colleagues have made and that were made in the second reading of this bill which are that all the legislation in the world is fantastic but if you do not have the people on the ground to ensure that it is carried out and that the objectives are met then it does not really mean much at all. There is no point having great legislation to deal with an incursion once it has happened if we are not putting as much effort as possible into ensuring that these incursions never occur in the first place.  
New Zealand is an island nation and I guess has a number of advantages in that it is less likely that these incursions are going to take place. But since the original Biosecurity Act which is being amended was drafted in 1993 obviously the world has changed dramatically. We are now dealing with far more international passenger traffic and international freight than we were dealing with at that time and it is right that the legislation be brought up to date and with the times. But as we have seen with the varroa mite as we have seen with  
Pseudomonas syringae 
pv 
Actinidiae 
 (Psa) we are not immune from these incursions and to see the kinds of cuts that have happened in the biosecurity budget is very very disappointing.  
What we have seen in biosecurity is kind of a pattern that we have seen with the National Government across a number of portfolios which is that in the initial years of its Government it makes major cuts and then slowly dribbles some of that support back and expects everybody to be grateful for it and it expects the public to believe that that is actually an increase. But as the public know and certainly as the sector which deals in this area knows it is not an increase. We have seen a decrease in bodies at the border dealing with biosecurity and ensuring that the very basis of our economy is protected. I completely agree with the member Shane Ardern when he says that in terms of the legislation we pass in this House a lot of it is very important but this legislation around biosecurity comes to the very fundamental protection of our economy. That is why cross-party support is important but is also why we need to ensure that we have the capability as a public service in New Zealand to actually give force to legislation that we pass in this House and that is where Labour does have some concerns.  
I am very pleased with the provision that the Crown is duty-bound to abide by regional pest management strategies. You know I work in the Bay of Plenty and have been dealing with the local authorities there. I was very pleased to take the Labour leader David Shearer to the Bay of Plenty to talk to orchardists about the Psa outbreak. I think it is really important that parliamentarians talk to those people on the ground about where they see the failings in the system as they have happened. That is no criticism necessarily of any Government; every Government when something goes wrong should be prepared to stand up and take stock of what happened where the gaps were and learn from that. And certainly in the Bay of Plenty there has been a lot of frustration around how the Psa outbreak could have been handled differently about whether some of the cuts in biosecurity might have led to the Psa incursion.  
It is a bit of a cautionary tale I think because if I look at my own portfolio of climate change we have a very monocultural forestry industry in this country around  
Pinus radiata 
. There are a number of pests that would be devastating to our forestry industry. Some of those pests are already in New Zealand. They have been benign so far and let us hope absolutely touch wood—no pun intended—that they remain benign. But there are also a number of pests internationally that could very very easily—as was the case with Psa—enter New Zealand. When you look at how monocultural our forestry industry is that is a real concern. That is why this legislation and why support and funding for biosecurity are so crucial because if you simply want to look narrowly at our international obligations under Kyoto under this Government our greenhouse gas gross emissions are continuing to rise. The Government says it is focusing on net emissions—well that relies on mitigation. The only mitigation we have in New Zealand is forestry. So if we were to lose a significant proportion of our forestry because of pest incursion it would mean a massive liability for the Government. We literally have all of our eggs in that one basket; not just in terms of forestry but in terms of  
Pinus radiata 
. So although sometimes it may feel we are debating ethereally about some of this stuff in reality this is just about as crucial as it gets in terms of the New Zealand economy.  
I want to make some comments on Part 1 because it amends a number of principal Acts. One of the Acts that it amends is the scope of the Wild Animal Control Act 1977. One of my concerns across a number of areas with this National Government is all these changes being made to different Acts where the left hand and the right hand really do not seem to know what each other is doing. We have a piece of legislation at select committee at the moment the Game Animal Council legislation and when I read the changes that we are making here in the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill to that piece of legislation they seem to run right up against the changes that the Government has made to the Game Animal Council legislation because of its confidence and supply agreement with Peter Dunne. I hope that the Minister is taking into consideration the very worthy reasons that he has given around possums and wallabies and that the need to control those species is not undermined by some of the changes that are being made at select committee at the moment. And we have heard a number of submitters including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who submitted specifically on this issue and who is concerned about the loss of sovereignty from the Department of Conservation in terms of animal pest control particularly with possums and the 1080 strategy by handing that over to some kind of independent separate-from-Government body and that there may be a loss of the ability for the Government to ensure that pest management is adequately controlled. So I sincerely hope that the Minister has taken into account the effect of that piece of legislation on the ability of this particular legislation to deliver what it is promising. 
 The other thing that I found particularly interesting especially given the previous bill that we have just been debating is that this bill extends the application of the Biosecurity Act into the exclusive economic zone. I find this particularly interesting because we have had a long-running debate at the Local Government and Environment Committee and indeed during the second reading of the exclusive economic zone legislation in this House about whether or not legislation that governs New Zealand’s sovereign territory can be extended out into our exclusive economic zone where we do not have the same level of sovereignty and where we are guided by international conventions. We keep being told by the Government that when it comes to the Resource Management Act we just cannot do that—we just cannot do that because that is not our sovereign territory. This is our sovereign territory. Here we are the very next bill we are debating and apparently the Biosecurity Act can operate quite comfortably in the exclusive economic zone. We also know that the Health and Safety in Employment Act can operate quite comfortably in the exclusive economic zone. We also know that the Maritime Transport Act can operate quite comfortably in the exclusive economic zone so the question has to be asked why the Resource Management Act is apparently the only piece of legislation in New Zealand that cannot operate in the exclusive economic zone. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Bad timing. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is very bad timing because it shows up the deficiencies of the Government’s argument in the previous legislation which is “You can’t possibly do that because of the issues around sovereignty.” That is not true. It is simply that the Government did not want to have those kinds of well-known well-understood well-tested legal tests in the exclusive economic zone. But I would welcome the Biosecurity Act being extended into the exclusive economic zone. Labour wishes that the Government would show a little bit more consistency on this. I know that the Minister of Energy and Resources is in the Chamber. He is squinting a little bit. I know it is tough; it is 20 to 10 Minister and it is well past your bedtime but you might want to take note of this—because this is the Minister who is in charge of ramping up this activity in the exclusive economic zone without protections and who argues that this legislation cannot be extended into the exclusive economic zone. He is now sitting in the Chamber listening to his Cabinet colleague David Carter and to his parliamentary colleagues talking about the fact that it is so important that the Biosecurity Act be extended into the exclusive economic zone. All we would ask Minister is for some consistency from this National Government. But Labour is happy to support this piece of legislation.