O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — First Reading 
O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16204] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 Well if that is how important biosecurity is to the National Government it is pretty pathetic—a bit like the Minister for Biosecurity’s speech. If the Minister really thought that biosecurity was important he would have made a substantive speech on the introduction of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill which is quite substantive in its size. But we have yet to see how substantive it might be in its implementation. 
Labour will support this bill’s referral to the Primary Production Committee because we believe that some improvements can be made to biosecurity and that there is a need to update the Biosecurity Act to bring it into line with new technology. However if one reads the general policy statement in this bill one will learn that it effectively says that we will do—we the National Government—more with less. I will go through the bill. If we read the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill carefully we see that it rightly states—and again the Minister for Biosecurity David Carter made no attempt to say this—that more than any other developed country New Zealand depends upon the success of its primary industries and the biological systems that support them. Mr King knows that but Mr Carter does not seem to. 
There is more complex biosecurity risk facing this country every single day. We have increased trade and we have increased flows of visitors into New Zealand. Both are things we welcome but with that increase comes heightened risk. So we need to increase and improve the systems that secure our biological systems in this country. The general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill states of course that there will be “clearer roles and responsibilities and improved collaboration and partnerships”—a worthy objective indeed. How could we ever criticise that? But the bill effectively shifts the focus back on to industries to take a greater share of the cost and the responsibility. That is where Labour will have some questions in the select committee. The explanatory note of the bill states that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will “focus its resources at the border on the passengers baggage cargo and mail that pose the greatest risk”. That is code for targeting or in other words cuts. What the Government is attempting to do is to identify areas of high risk—it is a great theory—where resources will be targeted but it will cut back in other areas of general risk. The question I have for the Government is whether the cuts will be worth it. 
Labour goes on record quite proudly as saying that when we came into power in 1999 $94 million was being spent on biosecurity but we left office in 2008 $187 million was being spent on biosecurity but we doubled the amount going into biosecurity because we understood its importance and the growing risk. What did the National Government do? In its first Budget it cut $2 million off the biosecurity budget and it cut 54 front-line positions from Biosecurity New Zealand. It cut 54 front-line positions from the people who look for assess and astutely identify risk and potential pathways for unwanted pests diseases and organisms. Biosecurity New Zealand identifies literally tens of tonnes of goods every single year. There are 54 fewer people doing that across the country and that is increasing the risk. We have not yet seen an increased commitment—that fact was displayed quite clearly by the Minister’s pathetic speech—by the National - ACT Government to biosecurity and its heightened risk. 
The bill does do a couple of good things. It shifts responsibility for oversight and management—without actually saying how it will do it of course—in our exclusive economic zone. So we move our jurisdiction from 12 miles to 200 miles and rightfully say that we should be assessing the vessels and the risk posed to New Zealand by economic activity in that area. We do have drilling rigs coming into the country from time to time—less so now the National Government has destroyed economic opportunity I have to say. But one drilling rig in particular was identified as having serious unwanted organisms attached to it and it was a real dilemma. We rightfully said that we need a better system of notification early warning and assessment and then the ability to deal with those craft coming into this country. We will have a mandate and a legal responsibility to go out to 200 miles. 
The next important step forward that I acknowledge in this bill is recognising ballast water and the potential risk and harm that poses to this country. It has been there for a long long time as a risk. There has been an international convention on it. There is no law but there is a convention on and a general practice for the transfer of ballast water in craft as they travel from one country to the other. So for example a craft might pick up goods in the harbour at Singapore—and we can just imagine what might be in the water there as craft come from all around the world to trade in Singapore—and it might pick up ballast water come on its merry way down to New Zealand to park up in Nelson or Tauranga or Auckland and discharge its water with all the risk that goes with that. We need a tighter regime to ensure that those risks are not transferred to New Zealand’s biosystems. We have as this Government has said huge potential in aquaculture and the risks posed by ballast water are huge so we need to improve our systems. 
The bill also deals with the “good neighbour” rules in terms of regional pest-management regimes. At the moment regional councils are responsible for having pest-management regimes—regional pest-management plans to be precise. Regional councils deal with all the private land and any pests and weeds in that area. They have no ability to provide direction to the Department of Conservation over Crown land for example. For the most part in regions like the West Coast and the Tasman where there is a large amount of Crown-owned land in the Department of Conservation estate there has been a good working relationship. This bill will change the law to ensure that there must be coordination between the regional pest-management plans and the oversight of that Crown land to ensure that we do not have unwanted pests transferring from Crown land on to private land and effectively undermining all the good work of the regional councils in that planning. 
The other issue I must raise is cost sharing. The bill will mandate a shared-costs arrangement of the control of pests and organisms and incursions in this country. We have seen it most recently with  
Pseuodomonas syringae 
 pv.  
Actinidiae 
 (Psa) in the kiwifruit industry where the industry will pick up 50 percent of the costs of control of that and the Crown will pick up the other 50 percent. That is not bad in principle but I today I picked up a report in a horticultural magazine that said there are small horticultural niche groups that have no funds to do fifty-fifty arrangements with the Crown. So what happens if a visitor brings into the country an unwanted pest or organism that affects asparagus for example and the asparagus industry is expected to pick up 50 percent of the cost? It sounds like a fine theory. There will be many issues that the Labour Opposition members of the select committee will be teasing out testing and challenging the Government on. It is important that we do not end up with a dysfunctional and ineffective system to control pests and diseases if they come into the country. 
Labour will support this bill’s referral to the Primary Production Committee. There are many issues we will be challenging the Government on. Biosecurity is a vital area for the New Zealand economy and we do not believe that the Government has the commitment the funding or the determination to do it properly.