Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's with pleasure that I rise in support of this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). Why am I pleased to rise in support of this bill? Because this bill is going to go a long way to protecting our $46.4 billion primary sector industry which is hugely important to this country and the economy. I just wanted to touch on a couple of things that members opposite have brought up previously. The Hon David Bennett: he's talked about some of these changes that have been made to the initial legislation as being a big win for National. Well I challenge that member because I was once the deputy chair of the Primary Production Committee and actually it is a split committee equal members on either side so nothing necessarily will get through unless both sides agree. So whilst this select committee process has included some extremely robust conversations and discussions I disagree with the fact that one thing or the other has been a big win for the National Party. And actually I find that quite disappointing and I find it very insensitive of that member to politicise something like this when I have come from an area which has been hugely affected by Mycoplasma bovis. So I find the fact that this bill is being politicised very very disappointing as I'm quite sure the farming and rural communities of Rangitata will too. Hon David Bennett: No they're very thankful actually. They just want you gone. JO LUXTON: That's fine Mr Bennett if you want to make fun of it and make light of it go right ahead; so much for the party that is for the farmers and fights for the farmers. Anyway I would just like to move on from that. We had another member talk about the expense involved with National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) tagging. Well actually I say that that's a very small price to pay when it comes to protecting our biosecurity for this country. I also want to mention the fact that I am no longer a member of that select committee but I have sat on it maybe once—Hon David Bennett: And that's a shame. JO LUXTON: —why thank you Mr Bennett—or twice during the process of this piece of legislation going through. Now we know that there are a couple of recent events which have highlighted the deficiencies within our NAIT system and how it's been inadequate actually at best. One was an industry-led review that was held from 2016 to 2018. But the biggest event that we've had that highlights the inadequacies of the NAIT system is the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis the cost of which has been absolutely huge. I think by the time—working towards eradication there'll be close to a billion dollars that will have been spent on eradication. And we know that this would have been a lot less had the NAIT system been working well. Whilst the financial cost has been huge it is nothing in my view compared to the personal cost—the stress that it's caused families the mental health that has suffered in our rural communities when dealing with the issue of having to destroy their animals the impact on our communities the impact on people who were friends neighbours. So no longer can we simply afford financially and on a personal level to sit back and do nothing. I think there's been talk about one person having I guess been punished if you like over the past few years for not doing what they're meant to do as far as this NAIT system goes and I think that's actually appalling. It is appalling when it is something that is so important to our biosecurity. So we can't continue to have a bit of a haphazard attitude towards biosecurity as my colleague Marja Lubeck mentioned earlier. And so there is now going to be an increase in penalties for non-compliance and I think that is long overdue. It has been well-traversed by previous speakers about what the different amounts of non-compliance are going to change to. There was talk before about the change for the transport operators. I think as the piece of legislation was initially introduced they were going to perhaps be held liable for transporting animals that didn't have proper NAIT tags etc. But there have been some great submissions around that one being from Nick Leggett the Road Transport Forum chief executive. He talked about the fact that the freight industry was 100 percent behind protecting New Zealand's biosecurity but as has been mentioned by members opposite it can be difficult for transport operators when collecting animals. We've heard about you know being at night when visibility is low etc. etc. So now the transport operators are no longer going to be captured within this piece of legislation but actually the onus is going to be on the farmer or the person selling the livestock. So I think that's really great for the truck drivers in this instance. Another thing that I wanted to touch on was the fact that there have been changes made so that the PICA or the person in charge of animals cannot use a tag that's been issued for an animal at one location on an animal at another location. I think there's been a bit of an allowance for a bit of a transitional-type period I guess whereby they don't have to—they've got 12 months before that will come into effect so they can continue to use up the tags that they currently have etc. although it is in the best interests of our farmers to start acting in the best way possible and moving forward with this at pace. I don't think the country can afford to sit back and wait for this. There was also the fact that prior to this it was voluntary for declaration of non-NAIT animals but now that's going to be mandatory. I think what this comes down to again is the fact that this is a big deal when it comes to our biosecurity our risks and potential incursions. Prior to this we've had animals that have been onsold moved around the country—we cannot trace where they have come from. We've seen that with the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis—the difficulty in finding out where this animal has come from who sold it to whom and so on and so forth. So this piece of legislation—I'm hugely proud to commend it to the House and I look forward to seeing this go through the third reading and see it become legislation. Thank you Mr Speaker.