O'Connor Damien: National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Damien: National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:382. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I welcome the third reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill back into the House. It is about time I have to say. It started in 2004. My colleague the Hon Jim Sutton was actually in charge of the original development of this concept but it is right that the Hon Jim Anderton actually found the $10 million that the Government was going to contribute to the implementation of this scheme and then it was rejected by Federated Farmers. I have to say that was an outrageous abuse of a position by someone who ended up being an ACT candidate—that is Don Nicolson—who just campaigned against this for cheap political reasons in my view.  
Although there were some issues around the radio frequency and some of the technology the bottom line was that in 2004 we knew full well that we needed to have in place very quickly a proper system of traceability. We had been alerted to the inadequacies of our traceability systems through the foot-and-mouth scare on Waiheke Island. That gave us a hell of a fright and we thought we had better do something. We pride ourselves on being a very smart First World producer of food but the reality is that the countries that have these systems in place include Brazil Argentina Uruguay South Korea and Canada and we are just catching up. So it is about time it was passed through the House. As I said we welcome that.  
Can I just say that I would like to thank my colleague Grant Robertson for his speech. As acknowledged it was a very good speech from the member for Auckland Central— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Wellington. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Wellington Central sorry. I challenge National to put up their member from Auckland Central to see whether she knows as much about it. We hear lots of gibes and accusations from National about the depth of knowledge of rural issues in the Labour Party. Well that speech just goes to show that we do have widespread understanding of the dependence of both urban and rural New Zealand on one another. It was an excellent speech and I will be calling on his knowledge and support as we move forward in Government to put in place some wonderful policies.  
I think many of the points have been covered. This has been a long process. We do claim to be a producer of high quality safe and—now—traceable food. That is we will know where the food comes from. There are some examples of excellence within industries in this country be they meat or dairy where we know which cow basically contributed to which bit of butter or cheese. In meat there are fewer examples but none the less some of excellence in that area. Most of those exporters get a premium for their product and we want more and more of that as this country moves forward.  
I had a discussion tonight with some colleagues on whether we are still the producers of commodity products or whether we are moving up the value chain. Well we do want to move up the value chain and each step requires a huge amount of investment. This is a relatively small investment to move us quite a way up and compete with at least the countries that I named before because if we do not we simply will not be able to sell to them.  
One of the big issues and it is still one of the contentious things going on at the moment is the management of the database. I must mention this. There was some fear in the minds of some farmers driven by misinformation from Federated Farmers for the most part that this database was going to be used to calculate methane emissions and charge farmers etc. etc. It was just outrageous quite frankly and as I say was driven by a person who ultimately became an ACT candidate. That speaks for itself. But the database is important. We currently have two good databases—the Animal Health Board has one and the Livestock Improvement Corporation has another for dairy—and they operate pretty well. The question was whether we should merge those databases or create a new one and I think that there was concern from officials and from farmers that a new database would cost a whole lot of money and maybe was unnecessary. In the end that is what was decided and as long as people in NAIT Ltd and developing this do a good job hopefully we will end up with one good database that can be used by other sectors.  
Hopefully we can add in sheep and although sheep farmers might get spooked about that at the value of their ewes now getting up close to between $150 and $200— 
John Hayes 
: $300 in the Wairarapa. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Three hundred dollars? Any more? More on three three three—going four four no? I would suggest that in fact good quality sheep good quality livestock—cows deer—will be worth a lot of money. If we put our protein in the higher value brackets in the supermarkets around the world then we will want to know where those animals are their genetics whom they are traded to and whom they are sold to. It will become part and parcel of normal livestock and farm management in this country—that is full traceability of all our animals. We might even end up with all the dogs being microchipped but anyway that is another debate. My colleague in front of me will chuckle on that one but I am sure we will get to the point where every animal on a farm will have to be microchipped. We will have to know exactly where they are so we can prove that any disease or any possible infection can be signed off and we can tell our customers what they are getting when they buy that protein and they pay more for it.  
I am not going to speak for too long. I was disappointed when farmers turned their backs on the $10 million offered by the Labour Government at that time. The cost of implementation now has been estimated by officials going forward but the benefit has been calculated at close to $40 million—I think $38 million—per year. I think that would be a fair estimate. The rough annual cost is $6 million; it will cost $15.7 million to set up. Labour in power offered $10 million. I am not sure that that is the amount that the current National Government is going to give but none the less it is committed to implementing it and that is great.  
Before I sign off I say that the Primary Production Committee had a look at the issue of high and low frequency. We wanted to ensure that we were futureproofing whatever system was put in place and that we were not imposing an unnecessary cost or duplication of costs on either the farmers the saleyards the meat processors or anyone. The jury is still out I have to say so we have left the door open. I think it will be a low frequency system implemented first moving to a high frequency one; we are told the high frequency tag can hold more data and can be read at a greater distance.  
In terms of the things that Mr Ardern was talking about—knowing how many animals are in your herd where they are going and to what part of your farm—many farmers in fact now expect to know that. It is part of normal management systems. They are the most efficient farmers. They are at the forefront of technology and this will enable all farmers to potentially reach that high level of management. I must say and put on the record that with such technology I am sure we will be able through satellite management to have fenceless farming systems where animals will be encouraged to graze one part of a farm today and then another part tomorrow. There will be proactive management and stimulation through satellites. It all seems rather far-fetched but I would suggest that within 10 years we will be looking at those kinds of systems. If we are not then we will be falling behind other countries.  
In conclusion Labour supports this legislation. We initiated it in 2004 we offered to pay for it in 2008 and we welcome its passage through the House. This is a big step for New Zealand agriculture and it will give assurance to the customers who buy our food in the future—initially beef and venison but moving forward hopefully and taking in the others—that we know where the animals came from we know what they ate and that consumption will be absolutely safe.