McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Hang on Mr Speaker—it's costing me a lot of money this one. [Removes face mask] Ha! I've got it. Thank you Mr Speaker. I was a bit intrigued listening to the Minister—hang on I can't hear. I was a bit intrigued listening to the Minister because I'd set out with a view as to what I was going to say and I was really quite interested in some of the things the Minister said in her introduction to this bill. As Barbara Kuriger has said we're opposed to the bill for a number of reasons and I'm going to outline some of those as I go along.I think we've got to remember—and the previous speaker Jo Luxton talked about it—that just because we've always done it doesn't mean we should always do it. I quite agree with that but of course we wouldn't be in the position we're in in New Zealand today if it hadn't been for the live import of stock into New Zealand via the very same method that we're now banning the export of them for.One of the funny things about this place of course is that you get to speak third or fourth or fifth on a bill. Almost everything that needs to be said has been said. So I'm going to take a slightly different tack on this issue because I think there's some issues that haven't been considered in the course of us getting to a point of banning the issue. I think it's quite clear for me that it was always the intention of this Government to ban the live shipment of livestock as they call it. In fact there's four different types of livestock involved in this: cattle sheep goats and deer I think it is. So those are banned from effectively live shipment. I take it it doesn't mean they can't be shipped by plane if necessary because there are numerous other livestock types that are shipped by plane the most notable of course being horses to Australia to try and win the Melbourne Cup which is not far away. Of course in the last couple of weeks we won some pretty big races in Australia including a $12 million race last Saturday.So the export of livestock and import of livestock into New Zealand has always been a very important part of New Zealand's way and how we go about things. Sometimes the good intentions of legislation have unforeseen negative impacts on society and the animals concerned and that's almost certainly the case with this bill because if you think about our place in agriculture in the world—and the Minister did appease me to some extent by talking about genomic export and stuff like that which is all very well for big highly technological competent industries but many parts of the world that farm livestock in this form are not in that position. Therefore the acquisition of a real cow for example is much more important to them or much more useful to them than in fact other types of technology and science.So I think that one of the real issues of this bill is the fact that we were able to benefit other food-producing nations by exporting a better class of livestock to them and enabling them to either milk them or breed—whatever they want to do with them—in a manner they couldn't have otherwise done. I know the argument that the Minister put up and I think so did Barbara Kuriger to some extent: that there are farmers who are opposed to this bill and opposed to it for the reason basically that they see those animals going to another country and competing with our exports of milk or of any other product for that matter. But when you think about it we in New Zealand are capable of producing enough food to feed about 40 million people. There are bigger cities than that in China by far and of course they've got to then feed themselves those countries. So I think that's one aspect of this bill that I think will undoubtedly lessen the world's ability to produce food.The other issue I want to raise with respect to the live shipments of breeding cattle is that the dairy industry inevitably will always have surplus heifers. Those heifers have over the last few years and in increasing numbers been exported creating advantage to other countries in the world and creating advantage to those people involved in the business in New Zealand whether they're vets transport companies feedlots—whatever they are. Those cattle or those heifers born in that dairy industry are now going to end up as four-day-old bobbies. I don't think that's a great livestock or animal welfare benefit to the country or to the world actually. So it has a negative effect and the reason that that's going to happen is because they have no value to the New Zealand beef herd because effectively people aren't going to take on something that's half as efficient to deal with an issue that otherwise could have—so it's no good us thinking that they're going to end up in the beef herd because they won't. So there's always some negative impacts I think that come about as a result of good intention.Now the other thing that's been raised tonight is the issue of I guess acclimatising those cattle and how we can't get them acclimatised to going on ships and things like that. But a considerable effort is put into acclimatising those cattle that are then shipped across the world on a ship. So when us humans go on a cruise we don't go and spend a couple or three weeks in a hotel on our way just to get acclimatised to being locked in a hotel while we're locked on the cruise ship. But they do. So the heifers do actually exactly get that treatment in New Zealand so they're slowly educated into getting on those ships.So I think the issue that raises for me is that if we'd wanted to we could have put measures in place to very effectively and efficiently export livestock to other parts of the world for breeding purposes. The other thing we could have done—and I know that people think this is too hard but we most certainly could have had a significant influence on the treatment of those animals when they got to their destination. In fact it would have done probably a great service to some of those countries to have been involved in the acclimatisation of those heifers and the assimilation of them into their new environment because it would have got them treated better it would have got a better result for the people who took those animals at the other end and I think it would have made quite a bit of difference too. So we could have if we wished to in my view turned this industry into a showcase and enabled a whole lot of benefits to food production around the world that we now will not be able to achieve.So there's some interesting issues for us to discuss at select committee and I look forward to that discussion because I think the Minister in her opening remarks raised a few interesting issues that could be teased out further. But I guess the thing about this bill is that whilst Barbara Kuriger was optimistic that we might create change at the select committee in fact the bill says very clearly that it's going to prohibit the export of cattle because it effectively bans completely people making applications to export animals. So it's not going to happen. So in respect of the discussion we have in the select committee unless that clause is removed from the bill nothing's going to change. So that's a pretty clear signal that the Government has no intention of either listening to submissions or changing any part of the bill for the better in the long term.So on balance I think it's a shame we've gone down this path. I think we could have done better with it. I think we could have done better for world food production I think we could have done better for animal welfare and I think we could have done better for our farming community in New Zealand. Finally I think that all these issues all these matters that make up things like live export of animals export of anything we choose to do as a country—because at the end of the day we are very good as a trading nation. We are very good as a farming nation. We're the best there is actually and I think we should maintain that. The crux of this bill is that the Government are of the opinion that we can't maintain that unless we pass a bill banning the shipment of livestock. I don't accept that. So I think the National Party—we don't agree with it and we'll look forward to whatever discussion does take place at select committee. I'm not optimistic we'll change it though. Thank you Madam Speaker.