Sutton Jim: Financial Review Debate — Procedure In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Sutton Jim: Financial Review Debate — Procedure In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:616;Page:11881] 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 I thank the member for his contribution. He should have asked that question a moment ago. He now asks where the National Party is. It is a question we have all been asking and I am prepared to give him an answer. 
Richard Worth 
: We are here. 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: There is one National member here. He has just woken up so perhaps he will take the next call. Perhaps he may not do so either. All the National Party has had to say about agriculture policy during the last year amounts to its official spokesperson criticising me for going off to the Cairns group meeting when he presumably thought I should have been picking up drowned sheep in the lower North Island. I would like to know how many drowned sheep that member picked up. If he has picked up one it would have been the most useful thing he has done all year. Even Federated Farmers bitterly criticised him for the foolish statement that we should not have been represented at the Cairns group meeting this year because there had been a flood in the lower North Island. That flood had been over for a week—or at least the rain had largely stopped for a week. But the National Party was more interested in scoring cheap little political points than it was in the interests of New Zealand agriculture. 
I thank the member for his kind remarks in respect of the biosecurity strategy. They are well-deserved remarks. His kind words regarding MAF Biosecurity which does a great job frequently under very trying conditions are well-deserved praise and I have to applaud his wisdom in endorsing the move to 100 percent sea-container inspection. The member criticised the fact that a Forest and Bird Protection Society member’s cat was registered over the Internet as a final inspector of low-risk containers. He should not blame the cat; the cat did nothing wrong. But an idiot fraudulently misrepresented the cat and filled the questionnaire out as being from someone worthy of becoming an inspector. It took only 24 hours to catch out that stupid subterfuge. If that had been done by a real recipient of sea-freight containers that recipient would have had to spend the next year getting its containers opened at someone else’s facility and enduring the extra cost and extra delay arising from that. The system is largely self policing and when people do not play the game and fraudulently misrepresent the situation there is a price to pay. The price is that they cannot be inspectors any more. Their approved facility is no longer approved their word will not be taken again and any containers they import will be automatically judged to be high-risk containers which have to be unpacked by expensive qualified Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry quarantine personnel. So the member in pointing out that foolish fraud by someone from the Forest and Bird Protection Society has given me an opportunity to point out what happens to people who cheat with regard to the importation of sea-freight containers. I am grateful to the member for giving me that opportunity. 
Finally I do appreciate that the people who have been frequently sprayed and whose suburbs and homes have been sprayed with  
Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki 
 spray to ensure that we can see off the threat to the New Zealand environment and economy posed by first the painted apple moth and second the Asian gypsy moth have done their country a service by putting up with that. I know that it is trying and that their patience has been tested but hopefully we are near the end and we will not have to spray any more in Hamilton for the Asian gypsy moth. Hopefully beyond May we will not have to spray any more in Auckland for the painted apple moth. But we will keep monitoring the situation for some time to come and if we have to we will spray again because New Zealand needs to be kept free of those threats. 
Report noted.