Guy NathanClauses 1 to 3Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thanks very much for the call on this. This is quite an important part—not as important as Part 1 or Part 2 but certainly the title and the commencement and the principal Act are still important. In terms of the title—well it could be the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Wide-ranging Powers) Amendment Bill"; it could be the "National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT Officers on Every Farm All of the Time) Bill"; and the list goes on. But indeed I'm not going to spend a lot of time debating the titles.In particular I want to talk about the commencement. It would be useful to hear from the Minister in the chair Damien O'Connor: is the Governor-General ready and supportive of this bill to sign it off? Indeed what about the principal Act that we are changing? Are we all comfortable with that on page 2? So let's have a little bit of a discussion about that. We know that it commences and comes into force the day after the date on which it receives Royal assent. We know the principal Act amends the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act.What's also come into my mind in the last few moments is that I was just having a look through the media clippings on this particular bill and I thought it was—because we're still in urgency and we're going to debate that as we say until the cows come home because we are concerned that this bill should have gone to a select committee. When I had a look at the clippings on this I saw in—I think it's the Wairarapa Times-Age; is the member for Wairarapa in the House? No. I'm pretty sure that's what the paper's called. And I saw that the Minister had—whether he's put out a press release or talked to a journalist up there I'm not sure but certainly there's some comments about the need for this amendment bill.The reason I raise it is not so much about the comments that the Minister raised in this particular article but there was a very telling point from the president of Federated Farmers Katie Milne. What she said was that she had been in to see Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) officials to talk about the concerns that Federated Farmers have about this particular bill. I thought well wouldn't it have been appropriate to have pushed out the commencement date on this and had it go to a select committee? Because instead of Federated Farmers and others—Dairy New Zealand Fonterra Beef and Lamb and there'll be others: it could be the stock and station agents; it could be the International Transport Federation—coming along and submitting to a select committee they haven't been given the opportunity. Instead like the Minister did putting up his officials to us during the week—and I want to thank him for that—but there was Federated Farmers who had to trundle off and meet MPI officials.Now what about others that are just waking up to the fact that we're in urgency and this bill potentially is going to pass into law today? Why weren't they given the opportunity to sit down with MPI officials? Why couldn't this commencement date have been pushed out to allow a select committee process? I mean these are all pretty fair questions because there's the Federated Farmers president that obviously got a copy of the bill when it was introduced read it and thought—and she actually knows quite a bit about TBfree and how all of that works. She knows quite a bit about the National Animal Identification and Tracing system. She had enough concerns to pick up the phone—whether she rang the Minister texted the Minister—and say "Look I need time with your officials to understand it." I think actually they've still got concerns with it. So if Federated Farmers have concerns what about those other organisations that've potentially got concerns? Why weren't they given the opportunity for a sit-down and a cup of tea with MPI officials? That's what we don't know and I'd like the Minister to explain that. What about farmers? What about those that've been on the end of this process—and in all this debate over several hours now we haven't had any real examples that the Minister has been able to give us. So I would like clarity on that please."