Sharples Pita: Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Sharples Pita: Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12162] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe. The Maori Party comes to the third reading of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill from a context founded in the knowledge that the land remains a central platform for Maori economic development. We believe that future prosperity for tangata whenua is inextricably tied to the productivity and protection of the whenua. As such we are very keen to address the risks associated with the use of agricultural compounds—those risks being to trade and primary produce animal welfare agricultural security and environmental well-being. Tangata whenua are major stakeholders in the agribusiness sector and some Maori agribusiness operations are performing exceedingly well commercially. For those other businesses that may be underperforming there is obviously considerable value in encouraging the wide uptake of best-practice technology and management practices. 
This bill turns to address and improve the prevention and management of the risks to human health arising from agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines and enables Parliament to address the risks arising from the use of pesticides and chemicals in the farming and forestry industries. It is imperative that chemicals compounds and veterinary medicines are evaluated to ensure that they do not pose any risk to human health animal health the environment or trade. 
The Committee stage of this bill brought up the issue of drench resistance and tied it to the proposals around data protection. The Maori Party is keen to support initiatives that enhance business practice for the agricultural industry so we are pleased that the bill has given consideration to ensuring we have a significant period of data protection available for companies in order to warrant the bringing of new products into our market. A critical issue must be about maintaining our international competitive advantage—something that of course has never been more ingrained in the national psyche than in the aftermath of the tragedy that occurred in Cardiff this weekend gone. 
A key and primary objective of this bill has been to introduce new provisions to protect public health from the adverse effects of agricultural compounds. The timeliness of the legislation could hardly be more relevant as the Business Council for Sustainable Development has only recently released its results of a survey that confirms that 78 percent of New Zealanders believe the public health service has worsened or stayed the same over the last 5 years. Right throughout this bill we have agreed to new provisions framed in the context of reducing the risks to the health of all New Zealanders. The Primary Production Committee report asserts that some veterinary medicines that have been used on animals such as anti-parasite dips and drenches pose significant risks to human health and the environment. We have only to look at the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill that was before the House in the last sitting period to see a classic example of the unpredictable and serious side effects that come about through the ingestion of a cattle worming agent by people. Benzylpiperazine was originally designed as a treatment for internal parasites in cattle—a de-worming treatment that we all know to cause serious risks to public health. 
The other aspect of the timing of this bill relates to a recent announcement from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Although the record of this current Government is hardly positive as far as listening to the United Nations goes it appears that in this one isolated case New Zealand is taking its advice seriously. The Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that global animal food production is undergoing a major transformation that could lead to a higher risk of disease transmission from animals to humans. That is a dire warning indeed which this bill responds to through the strategies that are being put in place to control the use of active ingredients fed to food-producing animals that could pose a threat to human health. We in the Maori Party really welcome the opportunity provided by this bill to invest in the greater ability to regulate and assess the contamination of food for the sake of the benefit to public health. The risk of disease transmission from animals to humans will increase in the future so the work that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority undertook on the bill has been greatly appreciated in making explicit the association between the contamination of food and the risk to public health. 
 When I spoke during the second reading of this bill I raised the issue about regulatory costs. The Maori Party is pleased to see the obligation to avoid redundant regulatory control is clearly articulated in this bill. The bill is quite clear that the controls already imposed under other legislation such as the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act or the Medicines Act should be considered. Effective legislation must be a priority for this House not the creation of undue bureaucracy or additional regulation for the sake of it. We commend the Primary Production Committee for making amendments that will actually make a difference to people’s understanding of the legislation and thereby their ability to comply with it. We also support the proposal for the 3-year review of the compliance costs around this legislation. 
Finally I want to bring the wider aspirations of the Maori Party for an organic and a GE-free Aotearoa to this debate. We believe that we could benefit from further analysis of ways to reduce the reliance on pesticides and fertilisers in our commitment to regulate risk management and reduce toxicity levels. We want to place on record the important contribution that Te Waka Kai Ora an organic produce agent could bring to this policy. One of its ambitions is to develop a significant organic agricultural project based on hua paraumu which would identify a pure product and assure consumers of the product’s integrity. Such a project would form the basis for developing an indigenous organic brand and standard. Te Waka Kai Ora has suggested that the verification of organic produce under an indigenous brand would include the integration of tikanga Maori—Maori custom—into processes and standards. It would help to set the standard and independently check that organic products advertised for sale met the standard and then the labelling would claim compliance with achieving the standard for organic produce. 
As tangata whenua we have an exclusive Treaty right to ensure that our lands forests and fisheries and the subsequent produce from them remain free from being genetically modified or polluted by genetically modified organisms. Te Waka Kai Ora suggests that maintaining or perhaps more accurately re-establishing a GMO-free environment in agriculture would give Aotearoa the competitive marketing edge that I raised earlier today—the push to lift demand in the American and global export market places. At their very essence agricultural compounds—pesticides and fertilisers—impact on the mauri the life force of our foods flora and fauna and it is therefore of great importance that we do all we can to prevent any risks to environmental animal and public health. The impact of cross-pollination from GE crops super weed hybrids and general pollution in the environment are all risks that threaten nga hua Maori—natural produce—and as such cannot be dissociated from Maori cultural social and other economic development. 
The Maori Party is therefore happy to support this bill to prevent and manage the risks associated with the use of agricultural compounds: risks to trade in primary produce risks to animal welfare risks to agricultural security and risks to environmental well-being. We are pleased also to put forward our support to ensure that the use of agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines does not result in breaches of domestic food and residue standards in order to better prevent and manage the risks to public health. The Maori Party will support the third reading of this bill with this riveting delivery. Kia ora.