Goodhew Jo: Urgent Debates — Biosecurity Incursions—Report of Auditor-General into Ministry of Primary Industry’s Preparedness and Responsiveness 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goodhew Jo: Urgent Debates — Biosecurity Incursions—Report of Auditor-General into Ministry of Primary Industry’s Preparedness and Responsiveness 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8399. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries) 
: 
 I wish to begin by laying out for the House my belief regarding the words of the previous speaker Damien O’Connor. The previous speaker has set out today to undermine the work of biosecurity to lay down very clearly—I absolutely acknowledge this—his concerns for biosecurity but in doing so he has in fact damaged our reputation for biosecurity. Today I am going to outline the very balanced response— 
Hon Member 
: Read the report. 
Hon JO GOODHEW 
: —the very balanced response that this Government is taking to that report. 
The previous speaker said that if the Government does not act—well I can assure this House that the Government has already acted on some of the recommendations and will in fact act on all of them. The Government welcomes the Auditor-General’s report. We will carefully consider any advice and recommendations made that could improve our biosecurity system because we as a Government understand how important biosecurity is to this nation. 
The Ministry for Primary Industries has accepted the report and all seven recommendations though it may not have sounded like that a little while ago and they are already being worked on. Biosecurity is our top priority and the Government is delivering long-lasting solutions for our biosecurity and the primary sector to boost productivity. Three-quarters of a billion dollars is spent annually on biosecurity by central government regional councils industry and private landowners. Government spending on biosecurity is almost double what it was in 2000 under the previous Government and last year saw record numbers of biosecurity staff recruited. 
I too am going to quote from the report and I do so now: “MPI and its predecessor organisations responsible for biosecurity have been by and large successful at responding to incursions dealing with between 30 and 40 incursions a year.”—again overinflated by the previous speaker; he had it up to 50. “They have developed generally high-trust relationships with partners by working together on responses and have improved biosecurity by sharing knowledge and fostering innovative practice.” This is from the Auditor-General’s report. “No border control”—I continue to quote from the report—“is 100% effective so it is important that New Zealand is prepared to deal with incursions effectively.” And this report is very helpful in that respect. 
Overall I maintain that New Zealand does have a world-class biosecurity system. As a Government we are extremely conscious of how important it is to protect our borders and continuing to improve that system is a major priority. We are always looking to review how we do things and improve systems. This report is part of that and I contend that the improvements are ongoing by all Governments and therefore I also contend that the system is now far better than it was some 4 or more years ago because it is continually improving. 
We do not accept that our planning for foot-and-mouth is inadequate. This is an area of major work for the Ministry for Primary Industries as seen with Exercise Taurus last year which was as those who read the report will know observed by the Auditor-General. This was a planning exercise to model an outbreak and follow-up actions are to be completed by June this year. 
It is worth noting that this report looks at only one part of the biosecurity system—that is responding to pests and diseases within New Zealand. Although we need to be prepared to respond quickly and efficiently to incursions we also have strong systems in place to prevent incursions from occurring in the first place. The report also shows that the Ministry for Primary Industries has been successful at responding to incursions. 
As I have already mentioned significant changes to the biosecurity system had already occurred before this report was released and I want to assure the previous speaker because in fact he was concerned about that. Improvements already in progress include updating plans for dealing with specific pests better surveillance targeting and more regular exercises and simulations. For example work is under way to identify the highest priority gaps in high-risk organism preparedness so that these can be addressed in plans. This work will be completed by September this year and will then be simulated and tested in the biosecurity exercise programme. 
The report notes that preparedness for foot-and-mouth disease is improving. The Ministry for Primary Industries and industry are working together on action plans covering areas such as refining scenarios for foot-and-mouth disease incursions developing a vaccination policy establishing guidelines for disposal of carcasses and developing on-farm biosecurity plans. This work will result in shared ministry and industry plans that will be completed by September this year and will include planning on the areas specifically mentioned by the Auditor-General such as carcass disposal vaccine plans and deployments. 
The Ministry for Primary Industries is developing a programme to deliver foot-and-mouth disease testing and simulation exercises over the next 5 years and our preparedness will be tested on an ongoing basis. In 2013 eight exercises will be completed. The next whole-of-Government biosecurity exercise will be held within the next 2 years. 
The Auditor-General’s report notes that the Ministry for Primary Industries recognises the need for more planned reviews and testing of systems work is under way to identify the highest priority gaps in high-risk organism preparedness and the ministry is developing a business case to replace its existing bio-containment laboratory with a replacement laboratory up and running in 2018 if the business case is approved. 
The Ministry for Primary Industries statement of intent 2012-15 commits to improving capability including creating a strategy for people capability and leadership training to be supported by new information systems. The ministry also supports making contracting simpler faster and more efficient for response partners and this is under review. 
A review of the biosecurity response services contract began in early February 2013. The project team looking into this contract is due to make its first report back to the ministry’s senior management in mid-March this year after taking advice from legal and policy staff. The Ministry for Primary Industries is developing its management of the three major systems in biosecurity food safety and primary production following our mergers and will continue to develop its current governance arrangements business planning and strategy setting in a way that supports management of the three systems. 
The Ministry for Primary Industries Strategy 2030 and the recent Performance Improvement Framework or PIF review identify the importance of setting results-based performance expectations and building our people capability. The ministry will set clear and results-based performance expectations and provide an accelerated focus on building our people capability. In fact last year the ministry employed 45 new quarantine inspectors and 11 more were recruited in January this year. Last year seven detector dog handlers were recruited and this year a further four. Last year 11 new detector dogs graduated from the Ministry for Primary Industries detector dog programmes. 
It is completely incorrect for the Opposition to claim that biosecurity funding has been reduced. Vote Biosecurity has gone from $181 million in 2007-08 to a forecast $196 million for 2012-13. In that period— 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: No no. 
Hon JO GOODHEW 
: Well Mr O’Connor it certainly sounds like an increase to anyone listening to those figures. In that period annual spending on surveillance and investigation increased by around 35 percent spending on core response capability increased by around 13 percent and spending on preparedness and pest management increased by around 5 percent. Retaining a world-class biosecurity system is critical to delivering New Zealand’s economic success. Pests and diseases pose serious threats to our primary producers who rely on a good biosecurity status to support their businesses. Our access to export markets is heavily dependent on our biosecurity status. 
None of this is news to this Government. We know that trade and travel patterns are changing rapidly. As New Zealand interacts with more international partners tourism is increasing and pressure is building for more streamlined travel. Around 175000 items a day come across our borders. Therefore it is very very important that we take a risk-based approach not a blind-regulation approach to assessing the risks to New Zealand. As a result the Government’s three border agencies the New Zealand Customs Service the New Zealand Immigration Service and the Ministry for Primary Industries are now working more closely together to better coordinate border services. 
Members need to be assured that the Ministry for Primary Industries is constantly developing its response including after the suspected foot-and-mouth disease outbreak on Waiheke Island. Let me just outline the changes since then: policy for the ministry’s response to risk organisms and biosecurity response knowledge base the Biosecurity Law Reform Act progress towards implementing Government-industry agreements a whole-of-Government biosecurity response guide a biosecurity science strategy FarmsOnLine and National Animal Identification and Tracing or NAIT. 
Building the national biosecurity capability network does not sound like a Government sitting on its hands to me. We now have a much stronger and more effective border system than we did when we took over in 2008. The previous Government was slow to react. Page 67 of the Auditor-General’s report notes that “Evidence shows that many recommendations from the 2005 foot and mouth disease simulation were not put into effect fully.” So it is empty words indeed to hear the Opposition criticising this Government when it has already undertaken to progress many of the recommendations and in fact accepted all of them and will put progress into place as soon as is practicable. In fact this is a Government that is taking action on this serious issue.