O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7750. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I will take this opportunity to have another call on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill to raise just a couple of other issues As I said Labour members consider this bill to be very important but we consider that the basic philosophy behind it is a little flawed. 
I will quote Federated Farmers which do not seem to agree with Labour on many things lately. But there are a couple of things on which they do agree with Labour and one is biosecurity. I quote Don Nicolson of Federated Farmers who occasionally has a moment of brilliance. He said that biosecurity is: “the one area of Government that needs to increase staff and not make cuts.” He goes on to say: “Last year almost 600000 sea containers passed through our ports with no physical inspection.” 
I raise that issue because the Government believes that passing this bill will improve the situation of biosecurity in New Zealand but that is a flawed philosophy. If we applied that philosophy we would say: “Why do we not just go around and increase the penalties for each and every crime in this country?”. But no the Government in the area of personal and property security has decided that it is more important to have more people on the ground. 
The Government has made a song and dance about appointing and recruiting more police. We understand the logic of where the Government is going even though we are not sure that it will get there. The Government is saying that more police on the ground will mean better personal and property security. But in the area of biosecurity the Governments says that fewer people on the ground will mean better biosecurity. That does not compute. It almost gets to the “h” word we are not allowed to use does it not? The Government is saying “Hold on. We have cut staff but we will increase the fines from $400 to $1000 and we will have better biosecurity.” 
I tell National members that they should not keep their heads in the sand for too long. If they are going to rest on this piece of legislation and let it ease their conscience—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Ardern who is taking no notice at the moment made a song and dance about biosecurity when he was in Opposition. The previous Labour Government increased funding and increased the fines only a little. What the National Government is doing here is cutting the funding for biosecurity and increasing the fines a lot. I tell members that it will not work unless we improve the way we communicate with people coming into and out of this country. 
My colleague Dr Ashraf Choudhary just told members of a firsthand experience where people coming into the country did not understand that they should not bring food past the border or bring fruit in. The communication methods we have are insufficient. It is about time that the Minister got off his chuff and instructed the officials to review the passenger arrival card. It is time that was done so that people who will possibly be fined under this new bill are given fair warning and know full well that bringing into this country unwanted food or hazardous organisms or material is a threat to our economy and that if they are caught they will face a substantive fine. 
The fine of $1000 is quite an amount for many people coming through our borders particularly those from Pacific countries; countries that we are assisting in most ways. We are trying to facilitate trade and tourism but we still have not got our communication methods right let alone in relation to all those other people particularly from China and Asia where we are promoting tourism and the opportunities to travel into the country. We are not backing that up with clear messages to those people when they get on the plane—in fact before they get on the plane. We need to say: “This is ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ and we really appreciate the environment—the natural environment and the economic environment in which we work—and we want to keep it that way.” 
This bill is basically flawed and as Don Nicolson said it is about time that the Government put more people on the ground not cut their numbers. The threat will not necessarily come from a few thousand containers inspected each year; it will come from the hundreds of thousands of containers that are not inspected because there are not sufficient people on the ground to do those inspections. 
I will finish by saying that it is the Minister’s responsibility to instruct his colleagues—and I hope the Minister takes a call to reassure us on this matter—that with the increase in fines there should be better communication with people and that the Government will in fact commit to putting more biosecurity staff on the ground moving forward. That is the only way that we will protect our borders. 
Mr Ardern is shaking his head because he knows that that is the only way we will protect our agricultural horticultural and biological economy. He is a smart man; it is a shame that he is suppressed and held back by his colleagues. He should be the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for Biosecurity. If he were then I would know that this bill would not be a token measure for biosecurity improvement from the National Government. I know that he would have fought harder. He would have known that this was a token measure and he would not have allowed cuts on the ground. I say: “Bad luck.” to Mr Ardern. I am sure that some day his Government will appreciate his commitment to and understanding of biosecurity. In the meantime we will leave it to Mr David Carter who again will just cut slash and ignore biosecurity.