Browning Steffan: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3901. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):I rise to speak in the second reading of the Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill. Following on from what the Labour members were saying this shows a sad lack of process. We might be supporting the bill but we think there is a very sad lack of process. We agree that there should have been submissions to a select committee which would have added a much better context.As we heard importers might want to see a little bit of a fairer balance between their fees and the tourism industry the fees on these people who will be coming in. I am wondering which one actually deserves to pay the most. We are hearing that it will be $16 probably—probably but we do not know about the exemptions. It will be $16 out maybe $6 in and possibly $22—we do not know. For every importation an importer pays $13.15 from 1 July or depending on another level $17.37. It is pretty similar money. I am just wondering if we had submissions and we had some very solid depth to this we would understand which one was the riskier which one should pay to get the balance right if we are talking about biosecurity alone. I would like to know that.I would like to know—probably from the Cabinet papers that we have not seen or the other papers that we have not seen yet—in terms of the real costings where the risk lies and what the cost-benefit ratios of each would be. Under what sort of consultation will that happen? Consultation will not be that thorough and it will not have that opportunity from our previous experience.I started on a story before about where the Minister is going with biosecurity. He said that it was his most important area. I believe him actually. I think he is doing quite well in that area but he will never do well enough if he is using 2008 figures when National came into power and did these big cuts. It would appear that the Minister Nathan Guy has got us back in dollar terms to 2008. But 2008 was not good enough either. Before that in the previous Labour Government we had didymo the varroa mite and a lot more. But our risks appear to be increasing. Of course we have more tourists and we have more trade and we need to go a lot lot further.The Minister has done some catching up. I want to know from the Minister what his real numbers are at the moment in terms of staff and in terms of dogs. Some of the time he talks about new staff and new dogs but we are still not up to those 2008 numbers and the question is whether this Budget or this bill will help exceed those numbers and ultimately exceed them significantly. Good on the Minister.It is a real shame about the incursions that we got and are still getting because of the huge knock backs that happened following 2008. There is a whole range of different pests and diseases that have come in in recent times and that have not been managed very well. Theileria is one that possibly came in with cattle; it may have come in with some other animal. Where is the tax for that one? Did Psa come in pollen? Did it come in a matchbox in somebody’s luggage? Was varroa on a bee in a matchbox in someone’s luggage? Didymo was probably on some fisherman tourist’s spongy boots I would expect. Kauri dieback was probably brought in on machinery but we do not know for sure. How did the Hadda beetle come in? We assume that the great white butterfly at Port Nelson came from the port; we assume it did not come with a tourist but we do not know. And what about Psyllid. All these have had massive costs to this economy and to this country.A number of them are still here with significant costs. They have come in because of inadequate biosecurity controls. Not only that will this fund address the next stage—the clean ups the dealing with those incursions? I doubt it.They are finally getting on to the great white butterfly thanks to the Minister possibly listening to the Greens and others. The Department of Conservation was actually the one that really got it moving because the Ministry for Primary Industries did not but ultimately between them it appears they may have got control. But at what huge cost was that and what was the threat to both biodiversity and also the agricultural economy? The Theileria which I mentioned before is here for ever. How did this Government manage that? Absolutely woefully. MAF Biosecurity is underfunded. I do not think MAF Biosecurity staff are bad. I do not think they are incapable. I just think there are far too few of them and they keep getting mucked around and being told to do a new strategy. I think we are on the third new strategy within a decade—the third new strategy.And then some of the pathways work that looks to be actually meaningful in getting there is getting some funding knocked off it. That Theileria is huge: it will be costing us hundreds of millions of dollars in the near years—what it has cost and what it will carry on costing in lost production. There is major lost production: the loss of cows being able to carry embryos to conceive other ones dying ill thrift lack of production—a massive cost. Varroa is still costing us and will continue to cost us. These things also mean we end up using pesticides that we do not need to be using in this country—if we were to stop these things at the border or clean up absolutely immediately.I mentioned the fruit fly earlier and that clean up. I visited the Auckland area several times to see how they were doing this and how they were managing this fruit fly incursion. I believe that they did not have adequate advice. Again the staff are pretty good and I have met with some of them and had a briefing and understand what their logic was. They did not open up to enable further advice to do a better quicker job and as I heard from one of our fellow members over here before the cost was something like 50 percent of turnover for some of the businesses. I watched the changes in that and eventually we got some better systems in and businesses were able to trade a little bit more freely. But there are still impositions on business in that area and no doubt there will be a lot more in spring again until we get the all clear. So the Greens will support this but we want to see a lot more than this going into biosecurity and customs clearance. Thank you.