Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It falls on me to summarise the New Zealand First support for this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (NAIT). These are essentially technical amendments to the NAIT Act and they are designed to assist in our response to the M. bovis biosecurity incursion and what a significant event that has been for our primary sector.This does bring the NAIT Act into line with the Search and Surveillance Act. This is the irony of what we hear from the other side of the House: it was their bill—the bill that they are now railing against—the provisions in that were brought in by the previous National Government. It was clear through the select committee reports from the time of the NAIT legislation of 2012 that it was always envisaged that the intent of that was that the Search and Surveillance Act and the NAIT Act should be aligned. So there are no surprises in this. This is a tidy-up to make sure that those provisions are actually fit for purpose as they were intended. Unfortunately we've had to test these out in real time in the real world.Now I would just pull back a little bit from this because I do take the speech from the earlier reading from Barbara Kuriger who did mention that we have gone to some lengths to take the politics out of this particular event because it is so serious not only for the country but particularly for the farmers involved. We recognised I think across the House that squabbling in this Parliament was doing no favours to our farmers on the ground. They wanted to see united government behind a serious eradication campaign and this is what we have had up to this point. I think it's done us some credit in recent times but we have seen a retreat from that position through some of this debate and I think that's a little bit unfortunate.As the previous speaker the Hon Nathan Guy has mentioned and the Hon Damien O'Connor alluded to there will be a further root-and-branch review of this Act over time. This is the time that we can go back through a select committee process. Also the Biosecurity Act is up for review and improvement. There will be quite a lot of opportunity for us to go through that process but we do not have time at the moment. I think the reason for that is because we're at the stage of the spring milk testing. Now for those of you who may be at home listening or watching or in the House that may not be aware of the significance of that this is the period of time when this particular disease is going to be at its most identifiable. It's when stock are under pressure—they're either heavily pregnant or have just calved. This is a very difficult disease to detect. The testing mechanisms that we have are only up to about 60 percent effective. So we have to take this period the spring milk test period to take that opportunity when it is going to be at its most visible. There is a nationwide testing programme. So we need the NAIT officials to have every tool in the toolbox that they require and we can provide for them at this point.So this is a matter of urgency and this is why we're in this position today. There are the checks and balances to go back and have a look at this a bit later on. I do actually respect the Opposition. It is their role to hold the Government to account in this and I do respect that they have done that but certainly from a New Zealand First perspective we are totally confident in the Minister of Agriculture and the provisions that he has put up. And why is this? I mean this is an incredibly important issue for New Zealand. We've got the teachers out there yesterday striking looking for more pay and with good reason. The sector that we're trying to protect here is—and it's not only the dairy cattle; it's beef cattle and deer through these NAIT provisions—circa $20 billion worth of revenue for this country. This is a big deal. We must get this right. We must have all the tools at our disposal to respond.I will commend the Minister for his leadership because even though we have sought to take the politics out of this if we did peel that back a little bit just for a second it has been a pretty shambolic set-up that he has inherited. We saw this morning before the select committee the Operational Solutions for Primary Industries and NAIT Ltd representatives particularly CEO Michelle Edge give us an exercise in denial. That select committee did attempt to hold her to account and did ask some hard questions but the question I would ask as a new member is: this is now a six-year-old piece of legislation; why have those questions not been asked earlier? There has been a review started. It took for ever to come out as the Minister alluded to so why have those questions not been asked earlier?The other thing that I do need to put on record and I've done so before but the response from the Government—even though we know that our on-the-ground response hasn't been where it's needed to be and this has caused some distress for many farmers involved at no point—at no point—have we been lacking in resources from the Government. The $886 million pulled together both by Government funding and by industry aligned with that funding as well and contributing as it should—we have not hesitated. We have not pulled back from resourcing this to the absolute maximum that we have been asked. The reason we have done this was because the option of doing nothing was not there. The option of doing nothing was going to cost us far more than doing something. So we have had firm leadership from the Minister and I think he has been commended from across the House in that and New Zealand First certainly are totally behind his leadership in this.The other side of that is—and we heard this morning in the select committee—Michelle Edge tried to tell us that you know maybe it wasn't so bad; other countries had brought similar sorts of programmes in and it had taken them a while to bed down. Well that is not good enough for us. We pride ourselves in leading the world in agriculture and pastoral agriculture and horticulture and we do not accept that on this side of the House that that is a good enough answer. That is why we have to take measures like we are doing today. So it is restoring our leadership position restoring the confidence actually of our farmers.I know as a farmer I am more confident as a result of these changes. I think there has been some scaremongering going on that there's going to be Storm Troopers driving about and coming on to farms willy-nilly. Well that is just not going to be the case and I think as a farmer who—touch wood—has not been affected directly by this particular outbreak to this point I'm pleased that we're getting our response lined up so that we can protect those of us that have not yet had the misfortune and hopefully never have the misfortune of being in contact with this disease.So this is a measure that we've needed to take and we have taken. I once again commend the Minister. I hope that the National Party will come on board and support this because they have come in behind the phased eradication and I don't think we want to see too much more scaremongering from that side of the House in this particular issue. So with that I will confirm New Zealand First's support for this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.