7. Agriculture Minister—Cabinet Applications for Biosecurity FundingHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) to the Minister of AgricultureAgriculture Minister—Cabinet Applications for Biosecurity Funding7. Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) to the Minister of Agriculture: Does he stand by all of his statements?Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Associate Minister of Agriculture) on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture: Yes in the context in which they were given.Barbara Kuriger: When he stated yesterday at question time that at each occasion I've been to Cabinet to request funding for biosecurity … my colleagues have looked very positively towards that." on how many occasions has he been to Cabinet asking for biosecurity funding?Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: I'd like to remind the member that in December 2017 $9.3 million was approved for the ongoing Mycoplasma bovis response to address this issue. That's the result of his approach to Cabinet.Barbara Kuriger: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was not my question. My question was on how many occasions he has been to Cabinet.SPEAKER: I think the member got more than she asked for.Hon Member: For once.SPEAKER: Well the member has been informed of one and how much was got. If there'd been other approaches the answer would be incomplete wouldn't it?Barbara Kuriger: When he stated "I have confidence in my colleagues to fund this system properly" what funding if any other than that quoted by the Associate Minister then had his colleagues agreed to fund to tackle the stink bug issue?Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: As I said in the previous response $9.3 million was secured. Can I remind the member that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is under pressure and people are working hard due to several large biosecurity responses. The Government has committed as part of the coalition agreement to ensure the biosecurity net is working well and we thank our hard-working team for that.Barbara Kuriger: Can he explain what his colleague the Rt Hon Winston Peters meant by "the confidence of the funding and the firepower to get on top of these biosecurity incursions"?Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Unfortunately I have no ministerial responsibility for the Deputy Prime Minister's statements.Barbara Kuriger: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked if the colleague could explain what was meant.SPEAKER: Well—[Interruption] One of us stands up at a time. The member certainly got that question addressed. The answer could have easily been yes or no and it was certainly addressed in more detail than that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The whole issue of this latest incursion the stink bug is quite a problem potentially a very big problem for the New Zealand economy. So when we got the answer first up that there's only been one application to Cabinet for money that was about the current problem in the dairy industry unrelated to the stink bug and then no answers really about what might have been discussed by Cabinet around the prevention or the spread of the stink bug I think it would be unreasonable to say that that question was addressed.And a further point would be that when you've got the Deputy Prime Minister saying "Look there's no problem with funding—plenty of money for all this sort of stuff." and we note that there is no money because it would have been mentioned here today in the answers to the questions it is not unreasonable to say "Well what do you mean when you say that there's plenty of resource?" while we note that there is actually none being applied particularly to this problem.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In an endeavour to sort this matter out I seek leave to be able to answer that question put by that member because I was the one she was quoting. [Interruption] SPEAKER: No the member is effectively seeking leave for another member to ask the question again. It's already been answered. The member might want to—if the National Party would like to re-ask the supplementary question and have the Rt Hon Mr Peters answer it then I'm happy for that to be put to the House. Is there any—Hon Gerry Brownlee: There's a difficulty here—I shouldn't be speaking now obviously because we're in the middle of a point of order but I'm trying to be helpful because I know that the Deputy Prime Minister's eager to answer this. But the problem here of course is that we are in short supply of supplementaries today because—[Interruption] SPEAKER: All right. OK. First of all I'll deal with the member's point of order. The first is that if members expect to have detailed responses in very specific areas then general primary questions don't help that. I think it's fair to say that it is pretty hard for an Associate Minister outside Cabinet to be across all of the details of a particular Minister's responsibility without notice. So in this case—does Nathan Guy feel all right?Hon Nathan Guy: Yep.SPEAKER: Good. The next point that I would make is that people need to be very careful when they ask supplementary questions with regard to other Minister's statements asking whether they could explain or whatever because it's a very general question and as I indicated earlier it could have been answered by the member saying yes or no. It wasn't asking the Minister to give the explanation; it was just a request as to whether they could or not so it's a matter of getting the wording for that right as well.Now having said that what I'm going to do is I'm going to put leave to the House for Barbara Kuriger to be granted an extra supplementary in order to ask a supplementary to the primary question along the lines she did earlier to be answered by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order is this: this was a question set down for the Minister of Agriculture. There are two major incursions into New Zealand at the moment that it would be reasonable for the public to expect the Minister of Agriculture knew a great deal about. One of them has been well discussed in the House in days prior to yesterday and the other one was brought up yesterday. I don't think it needs to be further expanded when it comes to a question that you have made very clear when those questions are asked about Ministers standing by their statements—they must relate to statements made as a Minister. So it is not unreasonable for us to expect that the Minister of Agriculture would be all over the virus affecting the dairy herd and the stink bug which could have a huge detrimental effect on the New Zealand economy and to have got the sorts of answers that we've got today is unacceptable. To turn round and say now we have one extra supplementary for the Deputy Prime Minister to explain why he said there'd be lots of money available when there isn't I think is a little unreasonable.SPEAKER: OK well that's very good of the member but I think to characterise the statements of the Minister of Agriculture since he's been Minister as only being on two subjects is unreasonable. I have heard him make lots of comments some of them right at the margin of his responsibility.Barbara Kuriger: To the Deputy Prime Minister: yesterday in question time when he said "the confidence of the funding and the firepower to get on top of these biosecurity incursions" when he asked his supplementary question to the Minister I want to know: how many times has he been made aware of papers that have been brought to Cabinet on this issue?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Since my colleague has become responsible for biosecurity issues he has thought of nothing else knowing full well that we inherited a regime of 171 biosecurity incursions. As a consequence I can ensure that member that all my Cabinet colleagues and myself are witness to the level of commitment that he is making to ensure he has the funding come the next Budget.Barbara Kuriger: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was: how many times has the Deputy Prime Minister had Cabinet—SPEAKER: I sought leave on the member's behalf to ask a question similar and that one was "could the Minister explain the attitude or the statements of the Deputy Prime Minister?" and that has certainly been addressed."