Allan KiritapuANNUAL REVIEW DEBATEIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 11 April on the Appropriation (2016/17 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.Primary Sector (continued)KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It's an absolute delight to take a call with regard to the annual review on the primary sector ma'am and particularly being from the mighty East Coast as we both are I'm sure we've both got a lot to say on this on this particular matter.Before I commence my remarks I want to acknowledge first and foremost the many hard-working women and men throughout New Zealand that grind and toil away in a wide range of the primary industries within our regions. Right now there are so many women men and families that are being impacted across a broad range of fronts with regards to insurmountable—it may seem for many folk—biosecurity threats and risk to our core industries. So I guess as I was reflecting on the remarks I wanted to make with regard to this annual review my thoughts went to those that are enduring extensive cattle culls those that are suffering from Mycoplasma bovis throughout New Zealand right now. So first I did want to acknowledge them.When we look back at the work of the previous Government and we look at the way in which they prioritised the primary industry for me it wasn't so much what they did but actually what they didn't do that I wish to focus my emphasis on—for example in the dairy industry. We all know that the dairy industry is the largest economic contributor to our export market. It's absolutely critical to our regions' growth and survival. However when it comes to the previous Government having to make critical decisions for our dairy industry for our largest exporter those decisions were consistently and repeatedly delayed.There's no better example than the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Act (DIRA). As you'll be well aware in 2015 the Minister was required to undertake a statutory review. The outcome of that from the Commerce Commission was that the DIRA provisions the competitive provisions within that—[Madam Chair signals for member to return to bill] It all comes back exactly to the annual review Madam Chair. There was a consequential series of decisions—a failure to bring in critical decisions across key components of our dairy industry. So for example—I'm straying too far aren't I? It's referenced in there. I'll pull it up. Look yeah for me it was what the previous Government didn't do and it didn't introduce fundamental legislation to protect our dairy industry. It had it up on the Order Paper for an immeasurable amount of time but this new Government under the leadership of Minister O'Connor had to tackle straight off the bat fundamental legislation because the DIRA provisions were about to expire in May 2018—this year. So we had to introduce under expediency the dairy industry—and what was frustrating was listening to the Opposition wax lyrical and I guess scaremonger our rural communities saying that we were trying to introduce things that just absolutely weren't right because of their failure to act and bring in fundamental legislation.I want to turn to—well that's actually almost my time so I'd better not get too much into it. But another failure on that dairy front is the National Animal Identification Tracing scheme.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'd ask the member to talk about the appropriations if she could—KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yeah the appropriations and the fact that those things weren't done.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): —just for a little bit.KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yeah thank you Madam Chair. The fact that there was insufficient funding provided to measures such as the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme has as we have seen led to—well potentially lead to—the flow of Mycoplasma bovis throughout our country right now which is a critical issue that this Government is having to tackle.