Prosser Richard: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11488. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): Here we go again. Another year has gone by and another Budget—another one of Bill English’s “you beaut” Budgets. It has been foisted upon us—another burnt offering you might say. He says it all very nicely. Mr English speaks with a very velvety voice. I actually find it quite soporific and I am wondering whether that might be a tactic on Bill English’s part. If you cannot convince your audience with the weight of your logic and the force of your argument then just put them to sleep instead.It is appropriate that he try that tactic now because it almost worked but I found myself waking from the dream that he put me into to find that I was in a nightmare because here we are yet again another year gone by talking about biosecurity and talking about this Government’s lack of a proper approach to biosecurity—yet again. It is almost like Groundhog Day. Budget time comes around and I find myself thinking “Ooh what can I have a go at this year?” and again it is biosecurity because again the Government still has not done anything about it. It still has not addressed the fundamental shortcomings in its approach to biosecurity. So Mr English’s velvety voice is actually the perfect illustration for velvetleaf. Velvetleaf is appropriate because it is the latest in this quite shameful litany of biosecurity failures that have happened under this Government’s watch. We have had Psa we have fruit fly black grass Noogoora bur guava moth—the list just goes on and on and on and velvetleaf is the latest incursion.The Minister for Primary Industries will tell us that more money is being spent and through the smoke and mirrors of the appropriations it does look at first glance as if there is more money being spent but as always that turns out to be a wee bit of a mirage when you drill down through the numbers. The total appropriation here we see has gone up by $9 million. That is great. Border biosecurity monitoring and clearance has gone up by $7 million. But then when we look at funding for departmental output expenses the revenue from the Crown is actually down by $16 million and when we look closer at border biosecurity monitoring and clearance we see that is down by 50 percent. It has fallen by $18 million—$18 million.Minister Guy claims that biosecurity is his No. 1 priority and I believe him. I believe he is genuine when he makes that claim. But there are two things that are working against him. One is the fact that his Cabinet colleagues just simply do not appear to grasp the importance of biosecurity to our primary sector. They do not seem to understand how vitally important having good biosecurity is to the sector that provides three-quarters of the economy. Maybe that is because the National Party is a shadow of its former self in terms of its roots. There are just not enough farmers on the Government benches at the moment and certainly not enough in Cabinet.But help is at hand. When New Zealand First is in charge in 1½ years’ time we will bring quite a few farmers with us. They are flocking to us even now from the ranks of people who traditionally being National supporters are coming across to New Zealand First because they realise that we are the light and we have stayed true to the original vision that National started but has now thrown away. The second thing working against National is that the methodology that it is following is just plainly and simply wrong. It is focused in the wrong way it is applied in the wrong way it is based on theories that are incorrect and there is just not enough of it. The slice of the pie that is allocated to biosecurity is simply too small.We have seen the introduction of the new biosecurity passenger levy. The proceeds from that will begin to filter through and I imagine that is where the difference comes in—the difference between what the total appropriation is and what the Crown revenue is—but we know that it is a replacement revenue stream; it is not new money. When the bill went through last year the Government insisted for a long time that it was going to be additional money. We finally got it out of them that actually no it is just a simple replacement stream. So that system has failed. The approach the Government takes using risk-based assessment and basically pegging back what it does in terms of looking at potential ramifications of organisms coming in has not worked. The danger in that is that every incursion that happens under this Government’s biosecurity regime that is not foot-and-mouth disease brings the incursion that is foot-and-mouth disease one incursion closer. When that happens—when that happens—that will cost us $20 billion. When that happens it will be too late to say: “Oops I told you so.”When it has cost us $20 billion and put our primary sector on the back foot for months if not years a few more dollars on some quarantine sheds and a few more dollars on some extra lab tests will seem like chicken feed indeed. Chicken feed is important because actually the velvetleaf may well have got into the system through chicken feed because we have been using this risk-based assessment that assesses that imported maize—and this is where we suspect one of the pathways that has come in is in this case—is destined for a process that will de-nature it and render any potential contaminants unviable. I have spoken to the people from the poultry feed industry and I believe them when they say that they have gone through the processes that they think they have to go through. It is not they who are at fault; it is the Government it is the system—