Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to rise and do a short call in support of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) or the NAIT bill (No. 2) as we call it. It is a pleasure to take over from the previous two speakers who I think have summed up how we have approached this as a select committee. Clearly biosecurity is absolutely critical for this country. It's one of those issues that unite all the members of the Primary Production Committee. We have a whole lot of pressure in that space from brown marmorated stink bugs to swine flu to the chicken avian disease. Of course we've got M. bovis which is being worked on by the Ministry for Primary Industries as we speak. In the context of the latter challenge certainly issues were identified that needed to be improved with the NAIT system and this bill gives effect to that. We have had a couple of speakers already highlighting the sort of key components of it. There are two areas that I'd like to specifically reinforce. Firstly in Part 1 there are new powers for the Minister to appoint a person to attend meetings of the board. Obviously that ultimately is the prerogative of the Minister and we are supporting this bill. But I do hope that that actually adds to the performance of the NAIT board as opposed to being a distraction. I'm sure the Minister would understand that sometimes appointments that are not formally fiduciary but are there as sort of to inspire the Minister—others have used that word not me—can actually be a bit distracting. So I'll be interested in the sorts of perspectives that the Minister will be expecting from that individual should he appoint one when this legislation passes. I'd like also the Minister to reflect on new section 9B in clause 7 Minister may notify Government priorities and expectations". We had quite a lot of debate to ensure that they were specific to NAIT functions and not something random which is a potential. One feedback that we had from submitters was the fact that the changes that we have outlined in this legislation don't deal with the operational interface challenges that exist within the NAIT system. These are beyond the realm if you like of the framework that this legislation is establishing. I would be interested to know from the Minister: is that the sort of direction that he would be expecting to give the NAIT organisation—to look at the clunkiness of their system interface with farmers and opportunities for improvement? Because however well we think we collectively have designed this bill if it is not simple and easy and effective and efficient for farmers to interface with it we still have problems in terms of it not having the appropriate coverage of all the animals that we need it to cover. So I'd be interested specifically—a fair question I think to the Minister—around what are the sorts of priorities and expectations he would consider giving effect to with that new section 9B. Moving to new section 23A in clause 10 the chair Mr Bennett spoke I think very powerfully about the challenges that the original legislation posed for us as a committee with the ownership of core data. I think where we have landed makes sense where of course the Minister can have access to it if it is critical but the ownership issues remain as they are today and not further confused by a specific outline of it being Crown owned.I think in my final minute that I just want to highlight the importance of where we landed again—I think Mr Bennett summed this up well—with respect to clarifying the obligations that sit on transport operators. The National Party pushed very strongly to get this in the wording—that it would make sense and would be practical. In fact the chair was particularly robust in his contribution in this space and did it well.New section 31A in clause 12 "Obligation on person who moves NAIT animals": essentially of course the obligation sits with the natural person in day-to-day charge of a NAIT animal (PICA). The transporter is a critical part of that. But essentially as long as the transporter can see the declaration that has been filled out by the PICA then that would suffice in terms of transport operator obligation. We think that's a sensible landing as we do this bill in total and are happy to support it through to third reading tonight."