Dyson Ruth: National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 07 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It has not been that long Mr Chairman! It was only in November that you— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I was just taking my time. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I know I know. Mr Chairman can I begin by congratulating you on your re-election as an officer of this Parliament and say that it is good to have you in the Chair. I am sure that over the coming term you will continue to be fair and reasonable and allow robust debate whether the Minister in the chair has moved that it be wide-ranging or not as you are regarded highly for your tolerance in ensuring that the debates go smoothly but that everyone gets a fair opportunity to contribute. 
Can I also acknowledge the Minister for Primary Industries David Carter and say that at the end of last year we had the opportunity to contest against each other in the Port Hills electorate this time for the sixth time. We think we are now due to be put in the  
Guinness Book of Records 
 for being the two New Zealand MPs who have stood against each other the most number of times—and both been elected one as the electorate MP and one as a list MP. I am sure that is a record but I would quite like to hear from anyone who can be bothered researching it who has more interest in that bit of research than I do because frankly I have not put it as a priority. If somebody else would like to do it please contact me in my office because I would be really keen to know. 
I also want to acknowledge David Carter and say how pleased I was that he in his turn to take a call acknowledged the work of previous Labour Ministers. It is not always the case that members of one party acknowledge the work of other parties. I think it is important that we do that. We should try to keep the record straight. On an issue like this which is to the benefit of the health and well-being of New Zealanders—literally as well as in terms of our economy—I think it is important that we acknowledge that representatives of many parties have those interests at the heart of their thinking. 
It is also good to be supporting this National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill. I note the huge amount of work that the Primary Production Committee has done to it including I think replacing the entire schedule 1A of the bill which looks to me to be a brand new insertion by the select committee. So the third acknowledgment I want to make is of the work of the select committee. Shane Ardern is I know well regarded in the House for his chairing of select committees but I also want to acknowledge all the members particularly those who are no longer in Parliament whether by their own choice or by the choice of our democratic process through the voting system.  
The Hon Jim Anderton was a member of this select committee along with my friend and colleague from Christchurch Central Brendon Burns Dr Ashraf Choudhary and the National member of Parliament Sandra Goudie. Those four were all members of the select committee that produced this amazing bit of work to go back to the House and are no longer with us to share in the debate. I am sure that every one of them will be sitting beside their wireless this evening hanging on every word that is being said and ensuring that we have captured the essence of the good work they have done. I am sure they were well supported by the officials who I know are very keen for this debate to progress. 
We have heard a lot of discussion about the reasons that this bill is so important for the well-being of our international reputation and for the well-being of our livestock in ensuring that if there is a potential or real outbreak of any disease we do have that robust traceability. I think the point that my colleague Grant Robertson made in his contribution is one of the more important points that we should also focus on and that is the changing nature of consumer interest and the change in power that many consumers feel. For those who eat meat—and I am not one of those people who does— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Oh! 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I am well balanced by my colleague from Palmerston North Iain Lees-Galloway who eats more meat than one individual needs to eat in their entire lifetime. He certainly balances up the fact that I do not share in that eating. 
But people who do eat meat are more and more interested in knowing where the meat came from and the condition of the herd it was raised in and as we in New Zealand know—it is more important to us than perhaps those from any other country—are more and more interested in the environmental degradation that may have been caused by the farming of the animal they eventually eat. The opportunity for better marketing of our product I think is one of the by-products of this legislation. 
Grant Robertson also mentioned the sale of Sirtrack. Sirtrack was a subsidiary under Landcare Research. It is one of the companies that would have benefited from this development. We have others in New Zealand that will benefit from the development of this legislation. But it raises for me and for Labour members of this Committee a very important concern. Even though the Crown research institutes should be able to divest themselves of a subsidiary when they are no longer able to carry that subsidiary through—or interested in doing that or see it as a priority—to the next stage of the research that it is undertaking the fact is that New Zealand has lost all the money that taxpayers put into Sirtrack to develop it as a subsidiary of Landcare Research. The fact that that information and potential economic benefit have now gone to Canada is something about which we should not say “Well that’s the way it is because the legislation allows it.” I agree with the point that the Crown research institutes should be able to move on from whatever subsidiaries they may have developed but there has to be a better way than what happened with Sirtrack which was a subsidiary of Landcare Research and is now totally owned by a Canadian company. We have lost the benefit even though it was our money—New Zealanders’ money—that went into developing that expertise in the first place. So this debate is really an opportunity for Parliament as a whole to debate how we might better progress the role of subsidiaries of our Crown research institutes. 
The final point that I would like to make is in relation to the opposition from Federated Farmers. I was very interested in the points that David Carter made. He said really that when Don Nicolson was running the show they were an ACT empire.  
Hon David Carter 
: Never mentioned his name. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: He did so very delicately; he did not mention his name. I cannot be bothered with that sort of game. We all know whom he was talking about. When Don Nicolson was running the show at Federated Farmers they were a little ACT empire and their opposition to this legislation came primarily because it was introduced in discussion by a Labour-led Government and also of course because it had some compulsion attached to it. I am pleased that Don has moved on in his life but I do think it causes another area of consideration and concern and that is that an organisation that has been very well regarded as being a genuine and independent voice for the farming community—a critical part of our economy—was for a short period of time taken over by one political party and no longer represented the best interests of the farming community or of the New Zealand economy as a whole. I think that is of concern and that sort of outing—for want of a better term—might well have been better raised at the time of Federated Farmers’ opposition to this legislation rather than later. 
This is a good bill. I want to acknowledge the Labour Ministers who introduced this debate in the first place and to support the fact that the National Government has carried it on. The work that the select committee has done has been extraordinarily robust and very detailed. It not only had submissions from the general public—obviously people who were interested; I think 15 or 16 organisations actually made a submission according to the select committee’s report back—but also sought independent and expert advice. That is a very good process. It should be commended to other select committees as a way of ensuring that when we get legislation back to the House like this we can have some confidence that the best eyes and ears in the country have had their say and had their input and that we are looking at robust legislation. 
It will give us more international credibility—that is the primary point of it—but it does offer us an opportunity to say what consumers of our products in the future will be looking for and also most important not only how we track the animal back to the herd the condition and the environment but how we as a nation make sure that what they learn when they track that product back to the source is good news. We do not want them hearing that the animal they are proposing to eat has come from a herd that destroys our environment. That is the next big challenge for this Government.