Turei Metiria: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4) Hazardous Substances and New Organisms  Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Turei Metiria: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4) Hazardous Substances and New Organisms  Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:646;Page:15363] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. This Labour-led minority Government has joined in a grand coalition with the National Party to defeat the biosecurity legislation and as a result put this country’s economy and the environment on which our economy is built at serious risk. The passage of this legislation is irredeemably tainted by the deceptive information made available to the New Zealand public about the Government’s true policy intent. The legislation has had only the most superficial scrutiny and it will result in increased threats to our primary production and tourism sectors which are the two leading economic sectors in New Zealand. 
The Greens fully support those ordinary Kiwi businesses represented by the National Beekeepers’ Association that fought the Government in the courts to prevent the importation of honey that was highly likely to contain the contaminant  
Paenibacillus alvei 
. The Court of Appeal in its judgment said that an unintentionally introduced organism is not necessarily unknown. It can be a known organism and therefore it should require the approval of the Environmental Risk Management Authority prior to its importation as a passenger organism into New Zealand. This approval should be required even if that introduction is unintentional. The court concluded that biosecurity import health standards for honey are contrary to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and that therefore the honey cannot be legally imported. The decision did highlight a gap in the law. It is true that the Environmental Risk Management Authority does not have an absolutely clear set of tools to deal with known passenger organisms. Some changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act would have been both wise and helpful. 
But the Government chose not to make changes to the Act. Instead it is making changes to biosecurity legislation in order to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry—and not the Environmental Risk Management Authority—to make the assessments of known passenger organisms. So why is the Government giving the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry this responsibility and not the authority? The Environmental Risk Management Authority is responsible for the scientific risk assessment of new organisms—that is its job. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act has the precautionary principle that ensures that New Zealand will have the greatest possible level of protection from contamination from new organisms. The Government is giving the ministry this responsibility because the ministry through the Biosecurity Act does not have the same high standards or the same rigorous process. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will let more passenger organisms through. It will do less to protect New Zealand’s economy and the environment. 
The Government is giving the ministry the responsibility because—as was highlighted by my colleague Tariana Turia from the Maori Party—the ministry’s concern and the Minister for Biosecurity’s concern is the promotion and protection of trade in terms of the World Trade Organization and other agreements and not the protection of New Zealand businesses. Mr Anderton admitted this on Tuesday during the Committee stage. He is primarily concerned about trade not the protection of our environment and the economy from new organisms that could have devastating effects. In part as I have mentioned this is because the Government has signed international trade agreements that prevent New Zealand from having the law that will provide a rigorous system to protect us. And partly the other reason is that this Government wants eventually to allow genetically modified organisms into New Zealand through the back door. 
It is true that this legislation has a definition in it that excludes GMOs—absolutely that is the case at least for the moment. But the policy behind the legislation clearly shows that the intention of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was to enable GMOs to be imported as passenger organisms. So why has it not done that now that it has the opportunity of passing the legislation? Well it is an election year and this Labour-led minority Government knows that it cannot pass a bill in an election year that will let GMOs into this country. Where is the proof of this policy? Where is the proof of my argument? It is in a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry document from 2006 called  
Fixing problems in new organisms including genetically modified organisms unintentionally introduced into New Zealand 
. It is clear from this document that the ministry’s intention is to exclude GMOs from the provisions of the legislation after the election—that is to enable GMOs to be brought in as known passenger organisms. 
The Minister has used the Court of Appeal decision in the honey import case as an opportunity to bring this legislation before the House. We should not forget that this legislation was prepared as early as 2006 when the policy was developed. We have been waiting a long time to be able to do this. We have heard all the excuses and accusations from the Minister against the Greens and our opposition to this legislation but they cannot hide his culpability in deceiving the public about the real intentions of this legislation—that is to enable the introduction of GMOs as a passenger organism. This legislation puts our economy at risk and to see that one needs only to look at who opposed it at the Primary Production Committee: Meat and Wool New Zealand the deer industry the pork industry the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand Fonterra the National Beekeepers’ Association the Pig Veterinary Society Retail Meat New Zealand and even our mates Federated Farmers. They oppose this bill because of the risk it poses to them and to our economy. 
One of the organisations that has a responsibility for the protection of our environment is of course the Department of Conservation. That department had very serious reservations about this bill. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reported in January of last year that the Department of Conservation did not support the proposal that it believed there were significant gaps in the analysis and that the document failed to meet the criteria identified by the working-group for an effective system. In an email from the Department of Conservation to the Ministry for the Environment—which was released under the Official Information Act; officials did not make it available in any other way—the Department of Conservation makes it clear that it has serious concerns; that the proposal is likely to reduce the quality of risk assessment; that it would therefore expose New Zealand to greater risks from new organisms; that it would create an inconsistent system; and that it is unwarranted in relation to the scale of the problem. 
Then again we had another email from the Department of Conservation a few weeks ago stating: “DOC also expressed the view in 2006 that the Biosecurity Act should have the minimum standards and a precautionary principle applied within it as does HSNO Act. The Biosecurity Act currently lacks the transparency and certainty that the principles and such criteria provide in HSNO and this poses risks. DOC still holds this view as of a few weeks ago and wishes to see it addressed.” 
The fact is that this Government in collusion with National is putting this country’s economy and the environment at risk. This legislation has been passed through the process with extraordinary speed avoiding as much public scrutiny as possible. There is even some suggestion in the documents that the Government would have preferred to have no select committee consideration of this legislation. In the meantime our economy and our primary production and tourism sectors are being put at risk. 
The concern for the Green Party relates to New Zealand’s own ordinary Kiwi businesses. Ordinary New Zealand Kiwi businesses will now have to deal with a regime that will allow the importation of known risky passenger organisms that could cause them significant economic cost. How are they expected to manage the cost of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s accepted level of contamination? The cost to Kiwi businesses simply to manage those contaminations to deal with any publicity issues and to manage the environmental and business impacts on their work is unknown. What the economic impacts will be is simply unknown. What the economic damage could be to these Kiwi businesses is unquantifiable. This Government along with National is allowing that to happen. It is allowing that risk to proceed. 
We were very pleased to vote with the Maori Party and to work with it on its Supplementary Order Papers to make changes to the bill. We were pleased to force the Minister to expose his primary problem which is that he wanted to protect the World Trade Organization agreements not New Zealand businesses and to allow for the unintentional but known introduction of passenger organisms. I feel proud that the Green Party has protected as far as it could the primary production sector the tourism sector our economy and our environment. Along with our colleagues from the Maori Party we have been the only ones standing up for the key economic sectors in this country while National and Labour jointly make efforts to destroy them. It is a disgrace. We will be opposing this legislation and supporting organisations that continue to oppose this legislation in the future.