Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:7877] 
Biosecurity Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Biosecurity 
: I move  
That the Biosecurity Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I was pleased that when the bill passed through the Committee of the whole House on Tuesday 17 November it received a wide measure of cross-party support and indeed it has received such support through all of its stages. The bill seemed to have a wide measure of support from the public too; we can judge that by the fact that no public submissions were submitted to the Primary Production Committee for consideration in early September. I want to thank the members of the committee who made a thorough examination of the bill and recommended it should be passed with some amendments to improve its overall effectiveness. 
It might be useful for the House if I provide a summing up of the bill and its context. New Zealand is unique among many developed countries in that it relies heavily on primary production for its export earnings. We have been fortunate to remain free of many pests and diseases that affect agricultural productivity and export markets in other countries. It is widely understood and widely supported that we must maintain the security of our agriculture horticulture and forestry sectors. 
But biosecurity means more than protecting agricultural productivity. Other countries less fortunate or less rigorous than us have had the health of their citizens and their natural environments affected by disease and pest species. Countries such as the USA have recently had to deal with mosquito-borne viral infections and the invasive and very painful stinging red fire ant. 
Another very important source of export earnings for New Zealand is tourism. The improvements to the biosecurity system proposed in the bill are a key part of the joint agreement between the New Zealand and Australian Governments to make it easier for their citizens to travel across the Tasman Sea. The National Party’s pre-election biosecurity policy made a commitment to improve cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the New Zealand Customs Service ensuring that passenger processing times are acceptable and increasing the infringement fee for incorrect biosecurity declarations at the border. Streamlining border processes will allow passengers who comply with biosecurity requirements to pass through with minimal intervention while passengers who breach requirements will face higher penalties. The bill will allow the instant fine for incorrect biosecurity declarations to be increased from $200 to $400. The maximum penalty for conviction in court for the same offence will be more than doubled from $400 to $1000. 
I note that speakers in previous debates from Labour and the Green Party although supporting the bill were not unqualified in their praise. The Government shares their concern about maintaining high levels of biosecurity protection but many of the issues they raised extend beyond the scope of this bill. In biosecurity as in so many other areas it makes sense to focus effort on areas of the highest risk. In the future more attention will be directed at arriving passengers who are considered high-risk. Low-risk passengers will be allowed to pass through with less security but they will still receive attention and will still be subject to the higher penalties this bill enables. We will put our efforts into areas where we can get the best results. 
The select committee heard a good deal from officials about the whole package of measures that will be adopted to improve our handling of international travellers and the variety of biosecurity risks they may pose. Closer attention to serious risk includes better-targeted and translated publicity material for people who speak languages other than English and closer cooperation between border agencies in both New Zealand and Australia including information sharing. 
Let me assure everyone in the House today in the plainest possible terms that this bill and the range of improvements to targeting biosecurity risks that lie behind it are about improving our biosecurity not weakening it. This Government has committed itself to making improvements and I thank members across the House for their support to get this bill through. Indeed I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I will take just a brief moment to thank Minister Nathan Guy for his wonderful words on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill but to remind him that they are just words. He and his Government cut $2 million from biosecurity in the Budget. They also removed over 50 experienced front-line border protection people who check that we do not have unwanted organisms and pests coming in. If this Government was genuinely concerned about biosecurity and if it really did care it would have increased the number of people on the ground as it did with police in the case of property and personal security. This Government has made a mockery of its so-called commitment to biosecurity and this bill is a token gesture— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: That’s rubbish! 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: —and that Minister knows it. All this bill does is increase the penalties for those people who consciously or unconsciously bring into this country high-risk things that could be anything from fruit or meat to shoes with soil on them. There are many many avenues and pathways for unwanted organisms to come into this country. The good front-line people in MAF Biosecurity New Zealand check them every day in order to protect us and what did this Government do? It cut over 50 of those people from front-line services and it cut $2 million from biosecurity’s core budget this year. That Minister cannot get up in this House and say that his Government is committed to biosecurity. 
Debate interrupted.