O'Connor Damien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 03 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13151. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]8.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) to theMinister for Primary Industries: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Yes.Hon Damien O’Connor: Does he stand by his statement on Television New Zealand’sQ+A on Sunday that “the budget is up this year by $35 million for MPI. At the end of the day the merger has helped the MPI to respond in this particular situation because you’ve got a lot more technical resources there available whether it’s scientists whether it’s compliance officers whether it’s policy guys.”?Hon NATHAN GUY: Yes.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table a paper from the Parliamentary Library that outlines departmental output expenses from 2008-09 to 2013-14. It identifies a $26 million cut to the budget.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that table prepared by the library. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague Dr Nick Smith said that the member was misrepresenting the Parliamentary Library. He is not allowed to accuse a member of the House of misrepresenting anyone.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order.Hon Damien O’Connor: Point of order—sorry. Supplementary question Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question the Hon Damien O’Connor.Hon Damien O’Connor: Thank you Mr Speaker. I apologise. I sometimes cannot hear the member over there. Thank God. Why did the Minister choose to caution me last week when he must have known full well that his ministry had failed to certify meat from the Alliance Group meatworks inPukeuri for export to China?Hon NATHAN GUY: To put the record straight the Alliance Group plant inPukeuri had two separate problems. The first in early July related to it incorrectly exporting a small part of consignment to China from facilities that were not listed by the Chinese authorities. That is the first point. The second later problem arose due to Alliance Group not labelling product in accordance with Chinese requirements. In both cases the Ministry for Primary Industries had to suspend certification. The plant has now been processed through an audit and the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Chinese authorities are now working on lifting the export listing suspension. I fully appreciate the difficult situation the workers have found themselves in.Hon Damien O’Connor: Will workers from Alliance Group’sPukeuri plant be able to claim compensation for lost wages from his ministry stuff-up and the 3½ weeks it took the company and his ministry to sort it out?Hon NATHAN GUY: If the member was listening I have just told him that this was an error as a result of the Alliance Group plant.Hon Damien O’Connor: Has the merger at the Ministry for Primary Industries led to confusion as to what is fish and what is livestock or might it in fact be that either the samples provided toEcoGene were incorrect or that the technology available to it to correctly differentiate sheep DNA from fish DNA was simply not adequate?Hon NATHAN GUY: The DNA testing was conclusive: three out of four samples conclusively indicated that the material was from a sheep leg. The fourth test was done using poor quality material and came up with a false result. If the member wants to walk outside and tell everyone that fish have legs I welcome him doing that.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table two reports. The first fromEcoGene identified that five—not four—samples were actually provided to it and that it identified four of them—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table theEcoGene report. Is there any objection? There is none.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table another report from the Ministry for Primary Industries that is an assessment of the limb found in palm kernel expeller—Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that Ministry for Primary Industries report. Is there any objection? [Interruption] Order! I am putting the leave as to whether people want that document tabled. It is a Ministry for Primary Industries analysis. Is there any objection to that being tabled? No there is not.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Damien O’Connor: Has the failure of his ministry to differentiate between—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! A bit of silence from both sides of the House would be helpful to the Hon Damien O’Connor to—[Interruption] Order!Hon Damien O’Connor: Has the failure—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have just cautioned members to be quiet and that includes the Hon Clayton Cosgrove who continues to interject. If he does that again I will be asking him to leave the Chamber for the rest of the day.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague responded to Anne Tolley and you did not admonish her.Mr SPEAKER: I did not hear that but I heard Clayton Cosgrove and—[Interruption] Well I can tell the member now that his interjecting while I am on my feet will get the same sort of reaction that the Hon Clayton Cosgrove has lined himself up for.Hon Damien O’Connor: Has the failure of his ministry to differentiate between a sheep and a fish led to his new-found oversight by the Hon Steven Joyce MP BSc in zoology or is this oversight in fact a result of his incompetence in growing and protecting New Zealand’s primary industries?Hon NATHAN GUY: If the member wants to argue with independent science fromEcoGene—DNA science—well I welcome him to step out there and do that because he is wrong.