Ewen-Street Ian: Estimates Debate —  
Ewen-Street Ian: Estimates Debate —  
[Volume:610;Page:7205] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am sitting here patiently waiting for the debate on Votes Biosecurity but I have not heard you call that yet. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Votes Biosecurity have been called. They are in this debate. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: I am dismayed that there has not been a substantial increase in the spending on biosecurity in this Budget. We as a country simply cannot afford not to spend substantially more money on biosecurity. Alien species pose a huge threat to the economy of New Zealand. As I have asked the House before how long would it take for the economy of New Zealand to go into free fall if we had foot-and-mouth come into this country? Would it be a week? It would probably be a day. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Two days. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Two days. That is not very long at all. Spending on biosecurity is not a cost to this country; it is an investment. How much would we have saved if we had not had the painted apple moth infestation in Auckland? On the surface we would have saved $90 million but that excludes the externalities of all the costs that individuals have picked up in looking after their own personal health. 
 When we consider that thousands of people in west Auckland were blanket-sprayed with poison in relation to the painted apple moth incursion we must ask how much we would have saved had there been no infestation of New Zealand by the varroa bee mite the southern saltmarsh mosquito the guava moth the gum leaf skeletoniser moth the tropical grass web worm or by many many other species. I will not even mention the glassy-winged sharpshooter. What would happen if we went back further in history and looked at some of the firmly established biosecurity infestations that we have like rabbits gorse broom possums deer and stoats? How much have they cost us? 
We need to spend more on biosecurity and we need to spend it very wisely. I am pleased to note that our border control inspections for aircraft arrivals and international mail arrivals are now very good—and I say well done to the Government for that. The risks associated with tourists coming into this country are worth taking. There is a balance between the risk that we take and the benefit that the country derives. I do not mind taking necessary risk but I do object to taking risks that unnecessarily put our economy at risk. Those risks are stupid because we can avoid them. 
As I have said in this House before the main problem I have with our biosecurity inspections at the moment concerns the inspection of sea containers. That is the most glaring pathway for allowing alien species into our environment. It almost beggars belief that we presently inspect only 24 percent of the 400000 containers that come into this country every year. I know that our biosecurity people in the front corner of the Chamber will be saying they target those containers and I think the officials do a good job given the money they have to spend. But what we really need is to have a 100-percent inspection rate. I know we cannot get 100 percent inspection on the wharves and there is a reasonable argument against that because there is insufficient physical space on the wharves for that. 
But what is to stop us from taking the containers off the ships giving them a six-sided external decontamination putting a seal on their doors and sending them off to the warehouses—the devanning sites? When they are there the seal should be broken only by somebody who is an expert in biosecurity. That is where I come to grief with what the Government is planning. It wants the owners of the warehouses to do the biosecurity inspection of containers. That creates another unnecessary risk because for all their goodwill those people have a perverse motivation.