Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and take a call on this Biosecurity (Information for Incoming Passengers) Amendment Bill. Can I acknowledge the member of Parliament for Whanganui Steph Lewis for having this bill drawn from the ballot. It would be very remiss of me not to acknowledge my friend and colleague the Hon Kiritapu Allan who first brought this bill to the ballot. I can recall being in Kiritapu's office having a meeting with Mike Chapman from Horticulture New Zealand and a kiwifruit-growing group when this issue was raised and Kiritapu's ears pricked up. She's been such a strong advocate in particular for the horticultural sector and she went straight to work on putting this bill together. I have to say it is shameful and disappointing to say the least that we saw the agriculture spokesperson for the National Party stand up and bag this Government when he's supposed to be standing up for the farmers and being the champion for the farmers. Around this bill that will protect our primary sector all he can do is bag this side of the House and not even discuss the benefits that this will bring to our primary sector. This bill amends the Biosecurity Act from 1993 and it is going to require all incoming aircraft ships etc. that are bringing passengers and tourists to New Zealand to display an audiovisual video for them to watch explaining the things that they cannot do or that they must get rid of when they land upon our shores. There'll also be written material and we actually owe it to these people who are coming into our country as tourists who are going to spend their money on our shores keeping our economy going to ensure that they have the best information available at hand so that they don't create biosecurity incursions into this country. I've seen particularly in my area—in my electorate of Rangitata—the devastation that can be caused by things such as the M. bovis outbreak that we have seen there. There is the huge extent of financial aid that has to go into trying to rid our country of these incursions the cost to the primary producers—and actually our agricultural sector our primary producers bring in over $49 billion worth of money into our economy every year. That is the backbone of our economy and so we owe it to them. We owe it to our country and our economy and our environment to ensure that we keep it as safe as we possibly can because we know people want to come to our country and visit our shores and participate in our amazing tourist activities that we have and that will be happening I'm sure when our borders open. But coming back to the M. bovis incursion that we have had in my electorate it has had a devastating impact where more than 130000 animals have had to be culled across the country. It has cost the dairy and cattle industries $222 million and the Government has paid out $198 million in support and claims to our farmers. So this is just one example of what we see happening when we have a biosecurity incursion. The other thing I want to point out is in response to what Mr David Bennett one of the previous speakers mentioned which was that this side of the House—the Labour Party—does not support farmers. Well the question I would have is: who cut funding to biosecurity when they were in Government and what happened during that time? What happened during that time? What did we see? The incursion of Psa on our kiwifruit industry. Our kiwifruit industry was devastated by that. So in closing I want to acknowledge again Steph Lewis and the Hon Kiritapu Allan—and I know she'll be watching and smiling as she does watching this debate continue through the House. I look forward to having this come to our select committee and to continuing the good work on something that is going to protect our country our shores and our primary producers.