Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'd just like to first of all thank the Minister of Agriculture. I think that he's done a pretty good job on M. bovis so far and I think that the farming community recognise that. I do appreciate what he's done in this space up to now so I just want to record our thanks to the Minister.I also want to put out a big thanks to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). As somebody that had been a Minister in a junior role with them I have a lot of faith in that organisation and I think that they do a very good job in difficult circumstances. So to all those MPI staff out there and those that've been contracted to work with MPI I'd like to pay our respects to them and say thank you very much for your good work because their heart is—like everybody in the farming sector—to see that New Zealand prospers and succeeds on the international stage. So I think it's important that we register our thanks to both the Minister and to MPI in what they've been doing in this area.The National Party will support the bill at this stage of the debate. We do recognise that this is something that needs to happen and is really based on the issue of M. bovis that we've seen come through our communities in the last nine to 12 months. It is an issue of recent occurrence that we need to act on in this Parliament. Whether we need to act through urgency is a question that raises more doubt because typically urgency is for a circumstance that needs to be done with some immediacy and there doesn't appear to be the immediacy in this case as in some way you could say the horse has bolted. But the fact of the matter is that we have this in front of us in this Parliament here tonight and the fact of the matter is that the Government has the numbers to pass it through this Parliament and they won't listen to rational and reasonable debate so we know that they're going to do it. I would implore that the Minister actually take some time and look at some of the options around what could be done in the next five or six hours to try and make sure that we actually have a result that does achieve all the purposes.So on one side you've got a Government that has a responsibility to look for rules and requirements to provide safety to our primary sector. On the other side you have farmers that want to comply with the law but that also have got some personal property rights that they wish to retain as well. They could justifiably feel that this could be an intrusion on some of those personal property rights.Now this is not the most extensive bill you will see. To those that are listening it is a matter of pages this bill. In fact you can have a look at it. It's only about four or five pages and the substantive clauses are really only clauses—they're not in any major detail.I would like the Minister to take some time to actually look at possibly an option around this bill. I know he's busy at the moment but the Minister may want to consider the option of an amendment to this bill. If I was the Minister I would be looking at—when we go to clause 8—possibly having an amendment in clause 8 where he added an extra test. Now it would not be very much difficulty for him to do that; in fact it would only be a one-line test. He could add in something to the effect that where the Minister deems in the national interest these powers would apply" rather than having the overall application of these powers in any National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) inquiry.For example if you're a lifestyle block owner and you may have five cattle on your lifestyle block and you didn't understand the NAIT rules you hadn't been aware of them and you made a genuine mistake potentially the search and surveillance rules could come in and be very Draconian in that case. Now there must be cases where the Minister needs to have that authority and foot-and-mouth would be the ultimate case where you would expect that to be the case. Nobody in this House would deny the Government of the day to have full rules and security and strength in that case. M. bovis is getting pretty close to that position as well.So I ask the Minister to consider in clause 8 maybe just putting a slight amendment in there so that farmers have that security of their private property rights and the Government can still achieve its purpose and that if there was an area of national interest and there was something that was very difficult that the Government needed to deal with with some urgency they actually have the power to do that. So I'd ask the Minister to genuinely consider that.If we went through a select committee process that's what would've come out of the select committee process. There would be a request from the committee that there would be an amendment to clause 8 to reflect a national interest test and it would only be one line that the Minister would need to put in there. It does not take away from his powers in the M. bovis situation or the foot-and-mouth situation but it does give farmers some comfort that they actually don't have these huge and Draconian rules that would apply to them that don't apply in normal situations in any other case.So I think that this Parliament can come to a balance within the next four or five hours and I would hope that the members of Parliament here look at that constructively because we know that the Government of the day will push this through but there is an option where we could actually do something within one line that would enable farmers to feel that there is security in their private property rights but also would give the Government the power to act in real cases when they needed to. M. bovis has shown there is deficiency in the system. Now nobody's denying that. Nobody's denying that we need to do something to tighten those rules up and farmers need to acknowledge that and they need to act in a better way as well. Now we've all been guilty of that as farmers. The rules have been a little bit lax and this was a big wake-up call for New Zealand and it could've been worse. You can see the reason why the Minister is trying to do this but in doing it the way they have done it they have taken it to a wider degree. It is very simple to take that back a little bit so that the Government does not lose the power to be able to act when it really needs to but that also enables private property owners to feel that they've been listened to in this Parliament—which would be a really big thing and would gain them a lot of credit out there—and also to feel that they are not being walked over.I do acknowledge the Minister and I do think he's done a good job. I think he can do a better job if he just actually looks at the heart of what he's trying to achieve here tonight. The heart is to be able to intervene when he needs to to prevent a problem for the New Zealand industry. I don't disregard that at all. But I do think that he can also retain those private property rights ownership and personal privacy issues by making a very simple one-line change by bringing in a national test that if in the Minister's view it is in the national interest that those Draconian powers come into play then he can say to do that. If it's an M. bovis or foot-and-mouth you would not disagree with that. In other cases of just genuine NAIT non-compliance or not understanding we've got to probably have a little bit more leeway for the ordinary person out there. So there is a solution here tonight. I think the Minister knows he can do that and it wouldn't be hard for him to do that. It would be I think in the interests of this Parliament that has shown a united approach around M. Bovis to look at maybe having a united approach around something like that to essentially enable all the main participants to actually achieve the interest that they are seeking and to show to the New Zealand public that this Parliament can work constructively and provide real solutions even in the short time frame that may be put forward. Thank you."