Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Speaker. We get now to the third reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) and as we've heard the bill enjoys wide support across the House. It was interesting actually to sit in on the Primary Production Committee for this legislation. There's no doubt as we've heard in the debate tonight that there are some very genuine concerns with the operation of the scheme that have been coming to the fore since my colleague Nathan Guy commissioned a review as we've already heard this evening but certainly it became much more topical and urgent with the M. bovis outbreak which has been devastating actually in a number of communities and farming areas and certainly around where I live and in other parts of the country. Going through the process was very interesting. I haven't known a lot about National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) through my farming background because we're predominantly sheep farmers and sheep of course are not in the NAIT scheme. So I found it a very interesting process to understand more about the system and certainly the deficiencies in it. While it's absolutely true that there hasn't been the level of compliance that there needs to be what is equally true is that the workability of the system and the responsiveness of the NAIT organisation and Operational Solutions for Primary Industries in running it has been far from acceptable. One of the things I wanted to put on record in this contribution is that as part of the consideration of the bill the select committee asked for and received from NAIT a very detailed work plan as to how they were going to improve the operation of the system because before you start coming in with the big stick on farmers actually we need a system that works well and that can be easily looked after and that certainly wasn't the case. Now we were given a work programme on how the system will be improved but I want to put on record that this Parliament should absolutely hold the organisation's feet to the fire to ensure that those improvements to the system are made. We're happy to change the obligations on farmers and change the regulatory burdens as required—and we're doing that—but that is not a let-off for making the NAIT system itself work better for farmers and making those running it more responsive to the needs of their stakeholders. So that's the first point I wanted to put on record. The second really relates to the involvement of transport operators in the scheme. This is something that members from the National Party fought very hard on in select committee to make sure that we weren't trying to make every poor truck driver who turns up on a long dusty road after dark and has to load hundreds of cattle beasts—and potentially sheep in a future system—and is responsible for ensuring the compliance of the scheme that the Government and the organisation has failed to do. Yes we expect them to turn their minds to it but we cannot expect the trucking operators to be the NAIT police officers around the district.What we've come up with through the select committee process I think is a very practical workable balancing of those obligations and it really does show the practical on-farm knowledge that members on this side of the House particularly can bring to select committee from their experience on farm.Finally the last point I wanted to make in this contribution is around this interesting issue of the data ownership. I've got to say it was quite an incredible process to see the officials insist time and time again that what started off in their advice as being a tidy-up of the current position changed to Well it might be a change but it's the right change." and the more we pushed back and pointed out to them that this was commercially a completely inappropriate provision they finally turned around having got Crown Law advice after the chair's insistence and agreed that the change in the bill wasn't sustainable couldn't be supported and so that was removed. The right outcome was reached but it was disappointing to me that committee members had to push so hard and really force the issue to get to that point whereas if the right advice had been sought from the outset that issue could've been avoided.So I do commend the bill to the House but I want to again come back to the point that this bill alone is not going to address NAIT. The officials that run the system have to step up and improve the workability the practicality and the responsiveness of the system not simply continue to wave the stick at farmers. Both sides need to improve. This bill will focus on the farmers but this Parliament the Minister for Biosecurity and his officials have to ensure that the organisation continues to fulfil their obligations in improving the system. Thank you."