O'Connor Damien: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionO'Connor Damien: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2977. Text is subject to correction.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):It is great to see the Minister for Primary Industries in the Chamber here. What the industry is saying is: “We never see him when we need him.” I would like to build off the speech of the last speaker Ian McKelvie. He said that the Primary Growth Partnership was a very ambitious programme for the National Government and indeed it was but now it is very embarrassing—a bit like the Prime Minister I guess. It is very embarrassing because the Office of the Auditor-General said that in spite of programmes being over halfway through their length there has been no economic benefit identified so far from $350 million given by the National Government to its mates for the Primary Growth Partnership. I will not dwell on that.The industry is crying out for leadership from the Minister and the National Government and it is not getting it. We have got fruit flies flying around in west Auckland and an industry asking for one thing and one thing only: bring back 100 percent X-ray baggage screening. When we had that in place we had no fruit flies. Minister step up to the mark get the funding and reimplement 100 percent X-ray screening of baggage. We had a botulism scare because this Government’s oversight and systems did not have testing that could guarantee botulism was not present in the milk powder it tested. That muck-up—that is the politest thing I can say—is costing this Government hundreds of millions of dollars. The Minister did not step up and the Government had not funded a proper system of food testing which we need in this country. The meat industry members have gone out there spoken to farmers come up with a report and said that they need some help to consolidate their industry. Where is the Minister? Or where is the Minister’s assistant the Associate Minister? They are nowhere to be seen. All the industry asked for was some leadership to get in there and show the way forward and assist with that collaboration.One issue that is very rarely spoken of is tuberculosis funding—the funding of pest control in this country to prevent major outbreaks of tuberculosis. That disease is potentially a huge hurdle to our export of primary industry products in this country. The Government has in its last Budget slashed funding from $30 million down to $7 million and then gone out to the industry and said that it is going to have to front up. Well there are no answers to that. I say to the Minister that if he has got some in this upcoming Budget please identify them now because the industry is in disarray trying to work out how it will do this. At a time when we have an overvalued dollar because we have got speculators out there wheeling and dealing in the dollar our primary sectors are being squeezed.The member before me spoke of the forestry industry. Never before have we seen so many logs go out of this country in raw form leaving opportunities for this country at the ports. It is an outrageous indictment on the National Government’s oversight of primary industries that we are letting opportunities flood out of this country. In the meat industry we are cutting carcases into six pieces and sending them to China. The Chinese have been absolutely strategic in their investments into New Zealand and they are getting further and further down the value chain. They will have in a very short time vertical integration through all the sectors because this Government and this Minister refuse to intervene and protect the interests of New Zealand farmers of New Zealand Inc. and of New Zealand companies. We have got speculation under a National Government because the Prime Minister is a wheeler and dealer. The Minister for Primary Industries does not have the courage and the mana to stand up to him and say on behalf of the farmers—Ian McKelvie: Farmers are traders you know.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: That member is a farmer; so is the Minister himself. They know full well what the farmers are thinking about what is happening at the moment and they are increasingly concerned. In the dairy industry there is so much uncertainty. There is so much uncertainty that they do not know which way to jump next. They have been told that prices will lift but indeed the indicators are otherwise. They have been told that we are in charge of that industry and every day we see creep from Chinese investors and overseas investors into our dairy industry that ultimately will see us lose control of Fonterra unless there is leadership from the Government. All I ask is that the Minister takes the opportunity takes the responsibility to stand up and show some leadership so that the sectors have some confidence.