Rich Katherine: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Rich Katherine: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7052] 
KATHERINE RICH (NZ National) 
: That is not a very novel title for the bill. I do not know whether God will be very interested in this bill once He reads it. I think that He will be a bit concerned rather about it being about biosecurity when really what is contained in this bill is more about bio-risk. I think that the name of the bill should be the “Bio-risk Amendment Bill” because if we look at the long list of incursions we have had since the 1930s such as the Avondale spider—and we have listed a number of others—there have been about 10 just before— 
Brent Catchpole 
: They are from my home town. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: That is the home town of the member from New Zealand First. Before about 1999 there were only 10 incursions but what is really upsetting is that there have been seven during the term of this Government. So getting back to the title if we are looking at being secure or incorporating some sort of feeling of security into the name of the bill I think that is quite misleading. Certainly during the time of the previous Minister it was a case of “Let’s all head for the New Zealand borders.” with the yellow flower wasp and the kentia palm seed borer not to mention the southern saltmarsh mosquito and once again the avian pox virus—my personal favourite—the lettuce aphid and the eastern flower thrips. Now rather than having a secure border it has been very insecure because a lot of things have come in and threatened the agricultural and horticultural industries. 
If we are looking in particular at the incursion of the varroa bee mite which was one of the first issues the Minister had to deal with I think we could incorporate some reference to that in the title and one of my suggestions is that we call the bill the “Christmas Came Early and Marian Gave Us Varroa Bee Mite Bill”. I can see a lot of nodding heads from around the Chamber of people thinking that that is quite an improvement to the name of the bill. Another option is that we could call this bill the “Spray People with Chemicals Because I Couldn’t be Bothered Spending It at the Border Bill” because that is certainly the way a lot of people from west Auckland whom I have spoken to feel. They were quite happy to play along with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry first of all but after successive sprays I think that their tolerance has worn thin. 
I also think that it has become quite an important issue for this country because if we look at the number of incursions just in the last few years we see that they are coming thick and fast. Rather than getting better at managing biosecurity I think that things are not very secure and the present title we have has become somewhat misleading. This bill really should be more aptly titled the “Luck of the Draw and Catch a Few Greeblies if You Are Lucky Bill” because at the moment we have seen the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry rely very heavily on the general public to do its job for it. We have already heard in previous speeches that very few of the containers at ports actually get checked—somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. So it is very much the luck of the draw in terms of getting a number of these incursions when they should be discovered—that is when they first come in. A pest or insect would probably have to be very unlucky to be caught by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry because if we look at those other invaders I think all of them have been identified by the general public. 
It is important that we have a bill that is correctly titled and that reflects the important nature of the legislation so I have put forward some suggestions and look forward to hearing others from my colleagues on this side of the Chamber about how the bill could be more appropriately titled. It is important that we have a bill with a name that people can identify with and look at and immediately know what it is about. Quite simply to imply that this bill is about security after such a staggeringly poor track record of letting so many pests and greeblies into New Zealand we say that the bill has nothing about security at all. It has everything to do with bio-risk so that is why I have made some suggestions for the title.