O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5177. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I was very pleased to hear the Minister for Primary Industries commit once again to the biosecurity system and the importance of it for our economy. Indeed I have just come from a Young Farmers gathering with the Minister here in Wellington. It was a great event hosted by the Young Farmers where the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries said that biosecurity as he has said before is the single most important consideration and the single biggest threat to primary industries in this country. I absolutely agree. 
Can I quote something: “I told you so. It had to happen and it did. On 8 May the export of produce from New Zealand worth $2.5 billion per year was put in doubt when one male Queensland fruit fly was found in a pheromone trap in Avondale.” These are not my words; these are from Andrew Fenton President of Horticulture New Zealand. He said it was only a matter of time not a matter of if. He said that Horticulture New Zealand has been going on about this for years that cost cutting kicked in with restructuring for greater efficiency and effectiveness and that “we lost 100 percent X-ray of baggage entering our borders.” The number of front-line staff and detector dogs has been reduced in favour of passenger profiling. 
We think biosecurity is the single biggest threat to this country—to our whole economy. We supported most of the provisions in the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill—in fact we initiated them—but we were concerned that the Government in pushing ahead with this bill at the same time cut funding to front-line biosecurity in its first Budget and has now slashed front-line staff and staff at Biosecurity New Zealand by about 90 staff. The Minister just got up in the House and said that the Government thinks that it is the most important thing for primary production. Well if one fruit fly can put $2.5 billion worth of exports at risk think of what one bit of dirt with foot and mouth on it on the soles of the shoes of any used or unused footwear coming into this country would cost this economy. It is in the billions and billions of dollars. 
We have agreed to support this bill because it does bring in some new provisions that allow better information-sharing across Government agencies. It however also puts in place basically a system of self-regulation. The National Party has been known for self-regulation. In fact it did it in the mining industry it did it in the building industry and it did it in electricity. In fact everywhere it has done it there has been a disaster. It is doing it also in the area of the meat industry where companies will now self-regulate on meat inspection. There are real dangers when industries under pressure cut corners. The component of self-regulation here—where in the Minister’s words exporters have to share the responsibility—places the whole economy of our country in the hands of what might be some desperate importers with their backs to the wall trying to make a buck to survive. Well that is simply not good enough. We need a robust secure front-line system analysing risk offshore analysing risk as the people and all the imported goods come to this country and having robust very secure front-line checking systems in place—never mind what might happen should an outbreak occur. 
That is another component of the bill—Government-industry agreements. Industries have been very concerned because in fact the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries—as it was and then it was the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and now it is the Ministry for Primary Industries—was dictating to industries what they were likely to incur by way of costs should there be an incursion of the Queensland fruit fly the painted apple moth varroa or the numbers of experiences that we have unfortunately had to face and heaven forbid if we were ever to face a foot-and-mouth outbreak. Costs now would be shared by industry and by the Government. Some may say that that is fine because they are the beneficiaries. The problem is that when importers bring products into the country or people travel they actually are the ones providing the risk. They are the ones—they are the exacerbators—who are threatening the industries here. Industry without the ability to have some say on how that is managed thought that very unfair. 
The Minister has introduced a Supplementary Order Paper that does go some way to addressing industry concerns—that is it commits to consultation around how incursions would be managed here but also some discussion into how front-line biosecurity systems are run. With that Supplementary Order Paper on balance the Labour Party is prepared to support the bill on the basis of improvements made around technology and upgrading the systems of information gathering and sharing. But we do not support this bill on the basis that we are endorsing the current biosecurity systems in this country. This is one component. It is a modernisation as the Minister said in some ways. 
I received today  
NZ Grower 
 a magazine. It says that the officials and the Government are determined to impose on the growers of capsicums cucumbers zucchinis and tomatoes a new import health standard. In spite of our ability to grow all those things supermarkets and others want to import those products into this country and the Government wants to dumb down the import health standards for the importation of those things. The growers think that places us at greater risk of a biosecurity incursion. The new import health standards allow—Mr Nick Smith probably does not know this—a certain number of fruit fly eggs and larvae to enter New Zealand because that is an acceptable level of risk under the proposed import health standards. That is not good enough. That is an outrageous dumbing down of the biosecurity protection of this country to all the growers in that horticultural area. The growers have an opportunity to submit. I hope the Minister is listening. He has not been listening on many things. I hope he listens to them because in no way are we supporting the Government in the dumbing down of import health standards as I said for these horticultural products. 
There is currently a legal battle in the courts because pork producers in this country have had to go to court to uphold and protect their industry and to uphold the standards that will keep out porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome—basically the AIDS of the pork industry. We do not have it. Australia does not have it. Virtually every other country in the world has it and this Government wants to dumb down the import health standards to allow the importation of pork that places far greater risk of the transfer of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome from Canada or any European country—or anywhere else in the world effectively because they have got it—into our country. Why would we do that? It is dumb it is cost cutting and it is ideology by the Government over there which says we should let the market forces determine where we should lie. The members over there are shaking their heads. Read this. It is saying that the import health standards for capsicums and tomatoes are proposed to be dumbed down. We know it is in the area of pork. We are concerned about importing honey and we know that the Government cut front-line biosecurity border protection services—fact. No debate—that is a fact.  
The Government and the next speaker might say “Oh we have good systems and we have all these things in place.” but the fact is that we got a Queensland fruit fly through the border and through the systems. We picked it up thankfully. I am acknowledging that the systems here can pick that up hopefully every time. But I guess the more border breaches that occur the less likely we are to pick up each and every one of them.  
In supporting this bill which allows the modernisation of parts of the biosecurity system in no way does Labour support the dumbing down of biosecurity across the board in this country. It is the one single thing that keeps the Director-General awake at night he said. It is the single biggest threat to this economy because we still rely on biological production we still rely on primary production and this Government has not been prepared to put the resources in to ensure the level of risk is appropriate.