Prosser RichardRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I agree with the chair of the Primary Production Committee Ian McKelvie that we are a very collegial committee probably the most so of the House. But I want to address the subject of biosecurity funding. The chair did mention that—as we know from his many mentions of it—the Minster claims that biosecurity is his No. 1 priority. It is unfortunate that it is not the Government's No. 1 priority and that funding for the biosecurity is manifestly inadequate in this vote as it has been in other votes.The visitor levy when that was brought in was touted as being a great thing for biosecurity. And after much wrestling with the Government benches we finally levered out of them the fact that it was actually just a replacement revenue stream for central government funding and not actually an increase. And that is a shame because just only in the last week the biosecurity doomsday clock ticked another minute closer to midnight with the arrival of Mycoplasma bovis in dairy cows in the South Island. We do not know how this disease got in. The suspicion is that it came in with either imported semen or embryos which begs the question: was that a failure of the import health standard or was it the failure of inspection at the border? We know that this Government's approach to biosecurity is pretty much Look Mum no hands!"—relying on intelligence relying on profiling relying on computer modelling and relying on too few boots on the ground too few inspections too few actual physical inspections and too little in the way of actual testing. This is unacceptable in a country where three-quarters of our foreign exchange comes from the primary sector. Prior to that we had the incursion of myrtle rust. Myrtle rust poses an enormous danger to our mānuka honey industry amongst other things yet the Government sat on its hands for 7 years doing nothing about the warnings it was given that myrtle rust was likely to arrive the means by which it was likely to arrive and the damage that it could do when it got here. In 7 years nothing was done in terms of forming a management plan—until last year when a small amount of money was finally put forward for an initial study into what might be needed for a management plan. Again with myrtle rust we have to ask: was this a failure of the processes at the border? It is telling that all of the incursions that have been discovered so far have been discovered in nurseries which points very strongly to the incursion coming in on infected plant material and being spread from there from one nursery to the next. Our border is simply too porous and we do not put enough effort or enough resourcing into actually stopping and checking and testing and inspecting the things that come across our border. The next major problem—well we will talk about the doomsday itself at the end—that we are going to have to face is the brown marmorated stink bug. Now the brown marmorated stink bug is a horrible pest. It is according to the Ministry for Primary Industries report which I have here the kiwifruit industry's second most unwanted biosecurity threat after fruit fly and the risk of it entering New Zealand is now considered extreme. It would have no problem establishing itself in New Zealand due to the highly conducive environment—the abundance of food and the abundance of host material. It could cause anything up to 30 percent loss of crop in kiwifruit orchards. The methods by which it can arrive—will arrive because of the lax approach that this Government takes to biosecurity and the lack of funding and the lack of resourcing that it applies to it. The advisory statement from the ministry says the stink bug could find its way into loaded containers for import into New Zealand. It is also spread through the transport of personal effects and housewares and could find its way into luggage and mail and yet we do not inspect 100 percent of goods of mail of passengers or of luggage crossing the border. We inspect at most one out of four shipping containers. At some ports on some days it is as few as one in 100. It is totally irresponsible and it is partly down to the fact that this Government simply does not resource biosecurity sufficiently and the money that it does spend is not directed in the right way. Of course doomsday—this is kind of like Groundhog Day at the moment—when it comes upon us will be in the form of foot-and-mouth. Because of this Government's approach to biosecurity—because of its lack of proper resourcing and funding for biosecurity—this means that foot-and-mouth is a matter of when and not if. When that happens it will decimate our livestock industries and it will probably cost this country somewhere in the order of $20 billion. To my way of thinking that warrants a little more genuine spending on biosecurity than what this Government appears to be prepared to do. Thank you."