O'Connor DamienThird ReadingHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): If ever there was a piece of legislation that the National Party—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Would the honourable Minister please put the motion to the House.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: I move the third reading of the National Animal—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Just a moment—we'll get the words to you.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: I move That the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill be now read a third time. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Fantastic.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: I appreciate process in the House here but I guess the reaction from the Opposition identifies what we are challenged with here. If ever there was a bill that the National Party should support it is this bill. We are trying to fix up an absolute mess left to us through a National Party piece of legislation that was never enforced by a Government that didn't want to offend its mates—there was one infringement notice in five years from a system that was absolutely flawed and failing. Their mate chaired Operational Solutions for Primary Industries New Zealand (OSPRI) and he's long gone and they refused to take any action that might offend any one of the National Party's mates. It is outrageous. We have worked through what is a real crisis. M. bovis—I'm not going into the reasons why it might have come into the country. I think they will be exposed as we move down the track. The challenge we had is that we had had a Government that had taken little action early on and we came in with a growing number of infected herds and animals and we had to take quick action.We indeed have done as much as we can as quickly as we can but we have been hampered by some technical issues. In fact there was a review of the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) Act that one of the speakers had said he'd initiated but then sat on for 12 months—12 months of refusing to release the 38 recommendations that would have allowed us to have a better system in place now and save the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. The fact that the National Party were wanting to procrastinate on the bill here and filibuster and drag it out is costing taxpayers and every one of them should be infuriated.We have committed as a Government $886 million to clean up M. bovis and if the NAIT system had been operating as it should have it'd probably cost half that. We didn't know where animals had been moved to and the previous National Government had refused to implement the legislation that should have identified those movements. And we're making changes here to try and tidy it up. There will be more to come because there are many clauses in the NAIT legislation as the 38 recommendations point out from the top at governance all the way through to the NAIT tags and we will work through those systematically.The reason we brought this in under urgency is that it is just a few technical amendments to what is a huge challenge to improve the NAIT system and biosecurity management through New Zealand. We've been left a big big challenge not just with Mycoplasma bovis but with a system that is arguably under-resourced. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is an organisation with too many responsibilities. We created a business unit Biosecurity New Zealand we've said to the individuals Get on with the job." and now we're working through the changes in legislation which this piece of legislation is part of to ensure that we can protect our country into the future. It's not just the farmers; it's about our whole way of life.In terms of the technical amendments here what they are doing is aligning the powers under the NAIT Act with the Search and Surveillance Act—no more no less. They are necessary for people to investigate where non-compliance is suspected. That's all. We have then ensured that when movements take place around this country farmers are obliged to notify and register those movements and because of the technical deficiencies in the NAIT Act that the previous National Government passed these things weren't occurring. We had between 30 to 50 percent compliance when farmers were moving animals from farm to farm around this country. If we'd had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease—God help us—we'd be finished because the system would have completely failed. The fact that M. bovis is an animal-to-animal disease means we had been able to try to catch up to and make up for a failing NAIT system.The National Government not only implemented a flawed Act and Federated Farmers resisted the implementation and the passage of that all the way through—and I spoke to Katie Milne yesterday who had concerns about this piece of legislation and it was fair enough to raise those—but actually I have zero tolerance for organisations that are expecting Government to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars and who are resisting the improvements needed to ensure we have a robust NAIT system in place. We need to make the changes and I have zero tolerance for anyone who resists on the basis of some flippant political response or filibustering in the House. We want this in as quickly as possible.The flaws in the NAIT system were suppressed leading up to the last election. No one knew how bad it was because the review report identifying the 38 recommendations was buried. Why hadn't the previous Minister ensured that that was out in the public arena so we knew what to do? We had to dig that out and I had to almost threaten OSPRI and NAIT with legal action to try and get that report released—literally. The National Government's approach to animal tracing has been abysmal and I was disappointed with their filibustering in the House because I want to get on and do this as quickly as possible. We need to and unfortunately they once again displayed the reaction the resistance the reluctance and in my view the Neanderthal thinking that is looking backwards and not realising that unless we have robust traceability we won't be able to trade products into the future. This is about the future of New Zealand agribusiness and I call on leaders from top to bottom across the agricultural sector to understand that reality and to ensure that we put in place a very very good system and it's not and we need the changes and we need them quickly.We'll have great debate on the policy changes and there will be some of them we accept that we're going to have to shift some of the direction and policy issues around NAIT but in terms of the technical ones if we can't get on and do those quickly then clearly we're failing not only the farmers but the taxpayers who in terms of Mycoplasma bovis are picking up and footing the bill for the failure of a system that they thought was working. And the members on that side of the House knew it wasn't working and they refused to take action. And when we take action to be resisted by that party over there is somewhat disappointing. I still hope that they can vote this through on the basis that they see the wisdom of this but getting it through as quickly as possible would have been a sign of good faith and a sign that they realise how important the NAIT system is and making it effective and functional and efficient is really really important.Can I say that as a Government we are committed to supporting the rural sector from top to bottom—from top to bottom. And can I say that all I hear from the National Opposition is resistance to change. They're backward-looking unfortunately and I have to say that instead of supporting the people who are showing some vision and the officials—and I heard criticism of MPI officials in terms of their M. bovis presentations. That is outrageous because all the farmers I spoke to who went to those presentations were very grateful. While they didn't like everything they heard they appreciated that MPI officials were tabling—as I did whenever I could—all the information that we had in front of those farmers. I've been upfront with farming leaders upfront with the banks upfront with everyone across agribusiness because honesty's the best policy. But can I say that the system that we have around NAIT is still not good enough.And yes if farmers aren't going to comply we will prosecute. We're not going to prosecute some farmer who can't access the system or who's confronted with a technical glitch. We will help them through those issues. But where we have blatant misreporting where we have people who refuse to engage in the NAIT system then they should be prosecuted. And do you know what? The farmers up and down this country are asking us to do that and we will. And we've got investigations under way unlike the previous Government which prosecuted one person for non-compliance with the NAIT system when at best 40 to 50 percent of them were complying with the system. I don't blame the farmers—the signals that went through from the previous National Government to the farmers was "Don't worry about it. It's not really important. It doesn't matter whether you register your movement or not." Well I'll be upfront: you must register movements. The Act is clear what movements are. We're clarifying some of the technical deficiencies in the NAIT Act to assist farmers but the message is very very clear. And members over there who are trying to rewrite history when they should be admitting that they got it wrong right up front and that they were too soft in their implementation—that would be something that I would appreciate and so would the farming sector across the country.Can I acknowledge the support of our coalition partners the Greens and New Zealand First. They do understand the importance of moving this through as quickly as possible. I can acknowledge mistakes made in legislation—I think any one of us here knows that there's hardly a law that is perfect—but when we identify the flaws then we do have to move on accept them and make the changes as quickly as possible to enable the system to work.I welcome the passage of this legislation in the hope that it will bring a better NAIT system and help the farmers of this country. Kia ora."