Worth Richard: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Worth Richard: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:867] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 This is a continuation of the Committee stage of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill which National supports. We see in Part 2 a listing of a number of statutes including the Animal Products Act and the Biosecurity Act and I understand that Mr Tisch will speak on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act. Under those Acts subordinate legislation is made that is required to be in some cases confirmed and in three cases validated and confirmed. Those three validation and confirmation orders relate to orders made under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act and the Social Security Act; the Tariff Act; and the War Pensions Act. 
 In what I hope will be the first of many calls on this important Part 2 I would just like to take as an example the Biosecurity Act 1993. It is an interesting illustration because Parliament is asked to confirm two orders. The first is the Biosecurity (Gypsy Moth Levy) Order and the second is the Biosecurity (Varroa (South Island) Beekeeper Levy) Order. I will deal first with the issue of the gypsy moth. 
Members who were on the select committee will know that that is one of the world’s most destructive forestry pests. So it was that Minister Sutton said that it took 2 years from the trapping of the final moth to declare a pest eradicated and the last and only Asian gypsy moth in the city of Hamilton was trapped on 26 March 2003. In looking at the issue of gypsy moth around the world it is quite clear it is a hugely destructive forest pest. Particularly in North America forests have been savaged by the emergence of the gypsy moth from the egg-larva cycle. 
I note that in April 2004 the then representative of the Green Party on issues of biosecurity noted that we needed on an ongoing basis to be extraordinarily vigilant in a setting where Asian gypsy moth egg masses were discovered on an imported vehicle. 
I have said that the legislation is made under the Biosecurity Act. I think what is interesting in connection with those two levies is that two quite separate sections of the Biosecurity Act are involved. The first is section 137 which relates to the gypsy moth provision and that particular statutory provision states that the Governor-General on the recommendation of the responsible Minister may by Order in Council impose a levy for the purposes of funding a service or function performed by the department for the purposes of the Act. 
If we look at the orders themselves we see they are cast in a very similar way but I note one striking difference between the two of them—that is in connection with the varroa mite conscientious objection provisions are built into the order itself. So under clause 18 headed “Conscientious objection” a beekeeper who objects on conscientious or religious grounds to paying the levy in the manner provided for by that order may pay the amount concerned to the Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
We are privileged to have in the House the Minister of Finance who has special expertise concerning the varroa mite and I invite him to make some explanation as to why it was appropriate in that particular levy order to include that conscientious objection provision. Why is it appropriate to provide as a ground for objection to payment of the levy the provision that in fact exists in this legislation? So a number of orders are referred to in Part 2 and those are two of the more interesting.