Prosser RichardRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I would like to begin by saying a thankyou to Minister David Bennett and addressing his comments with regard to New Zealand First having connection with the regions. I would like to afford him an invitation in actual fact to be in Whakatāne tomorrow at 1.30 at the Liberty Centre auditorium where Winston Peters will be addressing people from the regions. They will be wall to wall and Mr Bennett is perfectly at liberty to come along and become edified. But that is not really what I wanted to talk about although I do thank the Minister from Hamilton for the opportunity for perhaps some free advertising outside the restricted period.The 1973 historical work on World War II entitled Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad concerned the Battle of Stalingrad. We are fortunate in actual fact in New Zealand that we do not have hordes of rampaging Nazis preparing to invade across our border. In the Battle of Stalingrad of course there was protection given by a very proactive Red Army and a couple of extremely effective snipers and at the end of the day mother Russia was saved through the Battle of Stalingrad and the enemy was driven back from the gates. We are faced by an enemy at our gates that is every bit as potentially destructive and dangerous and I am talking about biosecurity incursions. Despite the assurances despite the protestations by this Government and by the Minister to the contrary these incursions keep happening. The systems keep failing. We have seen it. We have seen it with pea weevil; we have seen it with the Queensland fruit fly. There has been any number of them and the latest one of course is myrtle rust. Hon Member: Yeah Rusty Myrtle".RICHARD PROSSER: Myrtle rust might sound like a slightly humorous name—some of these things do especially when one of the Ministers concerned has come to be known as "Rusty Myrtle" we understand previously known as the "Orange Roughy". I will not name names of course. The official line that is being pushed about the incursion of myrtle rust is that it has arrived on the wind and there is nothing we can do about it. Well that is true—it is a spore that can be carried on the wind. However in all the assessments that have been done all the years of warning that this Government has had about the potential for myrtle rust arriving and the potential for the damage and destruction not only that it could cause but that it will cause if and when it becomes established have been ignored. These warnings go back to 2010 when Scion gave a report saying that yes it was in Australia and it would arrive so the Government needed to be prepared and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as it was in those days needed to have a plan to be prepared for the arrival of myrtle rust. In 2011 another briefing document said that it was going to arrive by one way or another and that we needed to be prepared. Still nothing was done. In 2014 again—again—Scion warned of the imminent arrival of myrtle rust. The serious nature of this particular biosecurity pest is the effect that it can have on some vital aspects of this country both culturally and economically. It will affect pōhutukawa—it has the potential to wipe it out. It will affect mānuka. It has the potential to wipe out the mānuka honey industry and yet for 7 years the Government has sat on its hands doing nothing withholding the funding. In 2016 last year finally the Government grudgingly coughed up $30000—half of the $60000 that was needed—to conduct an initial economic impact assessment. That was 7 years after the fact and then as we understand it the money simply was not spent and got diverted to something else. Taking the attitude that it is going to arrive on the wind anyway and we cannot do anything about it would be a bit like the Red Army folding up at the gates of Stalingrad and simply allowing the Nazis to walk in. That is effectively what New Zealand's totally failed biosecurity system has done. They have not even talked about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The horse has gone and they sit down and have a committee meeting about whether or not it is worth closing the door. I really want to believe the Minister when he says biosecurity is his top priority but it seems that the rest of the Cabinet members simply do not get it. They simply do not understand that pretending that they are spending money that they are not spending and pretending that they are putting measures in place to stop the most likely pathway of inclusion from breaking through—that being that spores are carried in by people on clothing on footwear on machinery or perhaps introduced on plant material. It is very telling that all these incursions have not been found out in the wild as they would have been had it arrived by wind but have been found in nurseries. It has been introduced here through our border systems inadvertently or deliberately through mechanisms by which it could have been stopped. Thank you."