Mooney Joseph; O'Connor DamienJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Oh thank you very much Mr Chair. Minister it's a good day to rise and ask questions on this because we have seen the Government is capable of doing backflips on dumb policy. So earlier today in less than 24 hours the Government did a backflip on the KiwiSaver tax. And I see Minister Michael Wood is also in the Chamber and he'll be very familiar with the backflip on the fantasy cycle bridge in Auckland. So this Government is developing a bit of trajectory.But why doesn't the Minister do the same thing because the Minister knows surely that this is a dumb bill? It's going to cost New Zealand about $475 million a year. How is the Government planning to pay for the things that we need—like our schooling system our health system—if they're increasing taxes making it harder for businesses to do business? This is exactly what this bill does: it makes it harder to do business it reduces the amount of income by $475 million a year for our economy. This is an industry that the Minister will be well aware of brought in $52 billion to New Zealand last fiscal year. So I'd like the Minister to answer us: why did they decide to proceed with this bill without consulting the primary sector? Because this is again unfortunately another habit that this Government is developing which is pushing ahead with legislation that affects businesses and affects New Zealanders quite significantly without consulting with them.Look I'd also like the Minister to tell the Chamber and tell New Zealanders and tell farmers why the Minister decided to go ahead with this because the regulatory impact statement stated that there are two approaches to respond to the problem from the 2019 review of the post Gulf Livestock 1. The first was to allow for trade to continue but with stronger regulations through maintaining strong animal welfare standards and enhancing New Zealand's long-term trade relationships. Now that's something that Australia has proven is possible. Australia has got gold standard for their live export. They got a fantastic deal with the United Kingdom. Why can't New Zealand do the same? Why can't the Minister give our farmers that confidence that we're going to back them just like Australia has done?So the second option which the regulatory impact statement said was a ban to the export of livestock with a transition period something that we're seeing here today. Why ban when the Government has the option to make the industry better weed out the cowboys trade with the world and make sure we get that $475 million coming in? The Government's going to get some of that in tax but we want all that money—our communities need that money. We need it so we can pay for our schools which are under financial pressure. We need it to pay for our hospitals which are under financial pressure. We need it to pay for our nurses our doctors our teachers. How do we do that? We do it by trading with the world. This is what we're doing here.The other thing is this bill the Minister will be aware of will increase the number of bobby calves. So we're creating two problems. We're reducing the amount of trade. We're increasing the number of bobby calves. What's going to happen with the bobby calves? We can't send them to happy homes where they're needed like for example Indonesia which is going to need more livestock. We can't send them to the Ukraine which needs a whole lot more livestock. So Minister I would appreciate some answers to these questions.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Look Mr Chair thank you very much and I'll take the opportunity to answer some of the questions; I'll work through them. Let's start at the top. Just because this trade will stop does not mean that we lose that income it means that those animals remain in New Zealand and for the most part will probably end up being higher-value exports by way of meat products. So we're not losing the income to our country at all; it just will come in a different form. I accept that there will be possibly lower income directly to the farmers who are selling these animals directly in—and they are getting a premium.But I did ask around a number of people across the country at early stages of this proposition. On balance it's probably 50:50 or more. Most of the farmers were uncomfortable with this trade and opted to take what is our position—not the leadership; the leadership endorses my position that on balance my job as the Minister of Agriculture is to ensure that the incredible work that has been done through generations upholding high standards of animal welfare is not lost through what we see as an increasing trade and increasing incidence of live exports across the globe. Whether it be in sheep or in livestock because over half of the boats used in international trade are refurbished boats that are old that would otherwise be scrapped but they're then refitted—yes they are refitted—but in all sorts of ways. Some are OK many are not.So the basis of this was not any drive from leadership and in fact I have to say it is an honour and a pleasure to work in a Government that does have open debate about many many issues. And yes there are some changes from time to time. But I have to tell you that in my international experience and discussions all the countries around the world where there is live export from are reconsidering their position. So I have to say this is about maintaining our reputation because unlike most countries we have a high dependency upon animal protein production through milk and meat.Joseph Mooney: Why can Australia do it?Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Higher than just about—a lot higher than Australia. A lot higher than Australia. It's only a small portion of their total exports. Of ours it's a very high portion. So our reputation is absolutely paramount—done a lot of good work to get there.So what we had is a claim that we've had gold standards. The reality is that we're also exporting a long way further than most other countries around the globe. The animals go from temperate climate through the tropics and then we're not quite sure. So as a submitter said in spite of the best efforts of the people on the boat and the best intentions effectively there was no way of significantly reducing either factor—that was heat stress and lameness—that the cows were experiencing on this journey. Cattle didn't have enough time to adapt to the warmer weather so it really was a brutal period of survival of the fittest. That's not the kind of reputation that we want as a country that depends on animal protein production.Mr Bennett raised the issue of compensation. Yes he answered it himself. There has been two years' lead-in to this. We have clearly had discussions with—and of course there'll be people who have interests who will object all the way to the end but actually I've again spoken to many people who said we've got plenty of time to transition out of that thank you very much and we'll move on. In terms of bobby calves we now have—it's a whole different issue around bobby calf management and we have sexed semen. So there won't be excess animals coming into our system—not the ones that people might have sold and in fact are not one and the same thing as most of the members know that. These have often been bred for purpose; they'll just be bred for meat or for dairy production.Mark Cameron says you know there's a low level of confidence across the—what I would say is that it's hard to maintain the returns that we're getting for our commodities and for our primary production at this point because they are really strong. Commodity prices across the globe are strong. And we are facing some headwinds with geopolitical instability. We've had COVID. And yes there are some inflationary pressures. So in a situation like that where it's unlikely that prices will continue to rise—and indeed Fonterra have just announced that you know pay out might come back 25c—of course there's some uncertainty and I understand that from the farming sector. This is not the solution to that I can promise you.Can I just say that that the other credit—oh that's right I went—CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! Time is up.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Thank you sorry. I missed the clock. Mr Chairman if I can continue Nicola Grigg asked if we'd seen Supplementary Order Paper 204 or 205. Yes we have looked at them and we appreciate the intent but on balance we think that ending this and giving clarity is a better way forward than continuing with the uncertainty that we are exposed to by this trade. Indeed we've had just had an incident where farmers haven't been paid or traders haven't been paid for stock that was supposed to go on—those stock were returned back to farm. It's a bit of a commercial mess. And I'm not saying that that was all the industry but I'm saying it's been a little messy across a number of the areas of live export. Let's move on with confidence utilising the animals that we do breed and raise here in the best way possible.Mr Mooney says you know we could do backflips. The problem is I'm a better forward than I am a gymnast. And so it's more likely that we will continue with this. In fact we will continue with this because this is the best piece of legislation to protect the reputation of not just the farmers now but those into the future who want to commit to livestock farming and know that we are the best managers of animal welfare and animal protein in the world and for the world. That's why this trade should end.