Hoggard AndrewHon ANDREW HOGGARD (Minister for Biosecurity): I am pleased to take a call on this bill today. This bill is going to improve the quality of regulation in biosecurity food safety and animal welfare portfolios. These small amendments will reduce regulatory burden and cut red tape across the primary sector ensuring that our legislation does what it needs to do without unnecessary cost duplication or effort—and that is essential.There are a lot of amendments to a wide range of Acts in this bill so I'd just like to touch on how they affect my portfolios and what effect they're going to have. Firstly in the biosecurity space the amendments relating to biosecurity are about clarity efficiency and making sure that our people on the ground have the tools that they need to manage biosecurity risks. For example at the border biosecurity officers can often seize goods that people are trying to bring into New Zealand but that's all they can seize. If the risk goods are hidden in a suitcase for example biosecurity staff can't seize the suitcase. That creates problems with evidence in the case of prosecution and it obviously also creates biosecurity risks if the suitcase or whatever it might be is contaminated by contact with risk goods.Some parts of the Biosecurity Act and other Acts require particular consultation methods. And when I say particular I mean the Act says in section 114A that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has to use a specific local or specific metropolitan newspaper to inform the public about a whole range of things. This bill will update the way MPI informs the public so that consultation methods become a list to choose the most appropriate action from; rather than use a specific regional newspaper MPI could use all the major newspapers or publish the information on their website or in the New Zealand Gazette.I'd like to turn my attention to products that fall under my food safety portfolio and echo the Minister of Agriculture's comments around inhibitors. Inhibitors are agricultural products that claim to reduce nitrate or methane emissions. Obviously this makes them a very important practical tool to ensure that our farmers and producers can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on farm. Currently they aren't included in the Act but this bill will capture inhibitors under the definition of an agricultural compound as part of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act.This bill also sets the rules and registration requirements for a whole range of products but it doesn't allow for someone to renew their registration. When it expires a person or company has to do a whole new application; even if nothing's changed they still have to start from scratch. So this bill will create two new sections that set a pathway to renew agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines registration reducing the amount of paperwork that's needed.Also in the area of food safety and as members are well aware New Zealand has a joint food standards system with Australia. This system was established by a treaty back in 1995. A key objective of the food treaty is ensuring that the same food standards apply in both Australia and New Zealand. However the treaty does not acknowledge that there will occasionally be exceptional circumstances that mean jurisdictions need to take their own individual steps. Temporary food standards are an example of these and can be used to address issues affecting public health or safety or environmental concerns. These have never found their way into New Zealand law until now. This bill will create provisions relating to temporary food standards.Finally let me come to animal welfare. This bill makes a tweak to the matters that must be taken into account when considering an application for an animal welfare export certificate. This bill amends section 43 of the Animal Welfare Act to require any history of breaches of previous conditions to be taken into account when considering an application for a new certificate helping to protect our reputation for high animal welfare standards.I look forward to further opportunities to improve the quality of regulation. This is a start there is more to go and I commend this bill to the House.