Turia Tariana: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4) Hazardous Substances and New Organisms  Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Turia Tariana: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4) Hazardous Substances and New Organisms  Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:646;Page:15361] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. At the start of this week passengers on Air New Zealand flight 21 from Fiji were treated to a surprise—a surprise manual spraying when it was discovered that the aircraft’s biosecurity clearance had expired. Upon touchdown at Auckland two Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officers boarded the plane and fumigated everything in sight leaving one adult with a sore throat and causing a baby to gag and vomit. As the passengers were quarantined cooped up in a thick blanket of fog no explanation was given for the unusual drenching. Passengers were left with no answers as to whether Air New Zealand should be held to account or the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
In many ways there are similarities between this one incident and the purpose of the legislation before the House today which is to amend the Biosecurity Act 1993 and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 in order to clarify the relationship between these two Acts. As it transpired Air New Zealand was responsible for the biosecurity clearance of the aircraft having expired and for emergency procedures being suddenly required at border control. The central connection between the Fiji flight fumigation and these two bills is all to do with the level of information and clarity of roles between two separate organisations. 
The Maori Party has taken a keen interest in the progress of this legislation as we have been concerned that the gap in the current statutory framework which the court case brought by the National Beekeepers’ Association highlights has created potential for confusion and conflict. This is a bill that turns that old adage “One standard for all.” on its head. The two older parties—Labour and National—appear to be very happy to oppose this principle opting instead to give preference to perceived trade benefits over and above the long-term biosecurity of the nation. 
The deliberate introduction of a new organism requires an approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act but when that known new organism is a hitchhiker organism it is now able to slip in with only the scrutiny of the Biosecurity Act. The Maori Party is very clear that the essence of the Court of Appeal decision in the  
National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand v the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 
 case should be upheld. That decision determined that the gazetted new organism  
Paenibacillus alvei 
 is to first gain approval for import into New Zealand under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act before bee products from Australia can be imported. The House is well aware that the Minister has always maintained that this decision created an unworkable legal framework for the management of biosecurity risks at the border. Yet as my questions to the House earlier this week revealed this so-called unworkable regime has actually been working perfectly well for many years. 
The 2005 briefing to the incoming Minister advised the new Minister that all new organisms entering New Zealand whether entering deliberately or unintentionally were receiving one standard of scrutiny under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Accordingly once an organism has been identified as being new the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is legally prevented from giving it biosecurity clearance until it has been approved under the Act. This approval can be given only by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. There is very little difference between this departmental briefing and what the Court of Appeal said in its judgment. Yet 3 years down the track the nation is suddenly in a spin to amend the law. 
The Maori Party has been extremely concerned at the seriously shortened period of time that has been allocated to this issue. We were alarmed that submitters had little more than a week to prepare their submissions and that the select committee effectively had only a fortnight to consider the bill. I congratulate the select committee on the hard work it put in to this particular legislation. 
We have however been very appreciative that the changes that have been made throughout this process related to the suspension of powers to give biosecurity clearance. We were concerned that under the bill as it stood it would have been lawful for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to give clearances to shipments of Australian honey within 90 days of the bills’ getting the Royal Assent even if the independent review panel set up under the bill had not yet been set up and even if the import health standard allowing honey imports had not been reviewed. It is a Clayton’s example of policy making. 
We submitted a Supplementary Order Paper to this effect at the Committee of the whole House stage and were pleased to see the issue clarified so that there will be a 90-day period for a review to take place and the review will be held before any importation of Australian honey is possible. Our proposal in Supplementary Order Paper 189 was to ensure that the 90-day suspension period can come into effect only after the independent review panel has become operational and not before. In effect we believe that this amendment clarified the intentions of the Primary Production Committee to allow the import health standard for Australian honey to be looked at afresh. Although we are pleased that the changes around clause 7A have been supported we still remain of the view that this bill amounts to the serious weakening of our biosecurity controls at the border. 
The importance of protecting our New Zealand bees from potentially harmful organisms must be understood right across this House as an issue of national importance. Bee pollination is essential for grass crops trees and flowers. The entire infrastructure of our primary industry is dependent upon it. The effect of this legislation on our native flora and fauna has been minimised the march towards free trade dominating over our biosecurity rights. The irony is of course that if our honey bees are indeed compromised the damage to our future trade might well be unimaginable. Our colleague Jeanette Fitzsimons raised the issue during the second reading debate and the Department of Conservation official advice had been muzzled following its identifying that there were significant gaps in the analysis leading up to this bill. How rich is it that the agency charged with key responsibility for protecting our natural heritage and our precious indigenous flora and fauna was not consulted on the further iterations of the bill? 
Yet again this bill represents the practice of this Government to listen to those whom it wants to listen to—which in this case is Crown Law and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry—while ignoring the bulk of submitters who fronted up with their concerns. Those submitters included the pork industry with its Maori pig farmers; the National Beekeepers’ Association with its Maori bee-keepers especially those in Ngati Porou and Te Whanau-a-Apanui who specialise in the production of manuka honey; Federated Farmers with its Maori farmers; and Meat and Wool New Zealand with its Maori meat and wool producers. The Government’s selective hearing has been deemed necessary in its shameless pursuit of free trade. The whole point about allowing Australian honey into the country is nothing to do with having robust biosecurity at the borders. It is all about free trade—apples for honey. 
As I noted during the second reading debate the decision to import honey is a consequence of this Government’s penchant for trade agreements with Australia particularly the desire to export our apples there. So once again a divide-and-rule tactic is being applied playing off the bee-keepers’ interests against those of the apple producers. Maori people and the Maori Party know these tactics only too well. Biosecurity protection has just become another commodity like human rights and slave labour which the Government has been prepared to sacrifice for trade and the fear of breaching New Zealand’s World Trade Organization obligations. However the sad upshot of this decision is that by giving priority to the World Trade Organization obligations we open ourselves up to a very real risk of not properly protecting our own flora and fauna and in the process putting at risk of contamination a whole range of primary industries. 
We have consistently put before the House our understanding that free-trade agreements compromise our sovereignty by overriding domestic law. We have always argued for fair trade—not free trade—which does not compromise our sovereignty threaten the status of the Treaty impact on work standards and wage rates or make us complicit in other nations’ shameless lack of respect for human rights indigenous rights and the environment. Those are arguments that of course are uppermost in our minds as all eyes are fixed on China. There is simply too much at stake here and the Maori Party will not support this bill.