Hague Kevin: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hague Kevin: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7752. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. The Green Party will support the bill as it did at the bill’s first and second readings through the Committee stage. We believe that the increases in fines that the bill proposes are overdue and are a sensible measure to be taken. In fact the Green Party would go so far as to say that we would have supported a bigger increase in fines. 
But the problem we have with the bill is the trade-off that the Government is effectively proposing with this bill. The reason that the Government is setting out to increase fines is to provide a disincentive for travellers coming to New Zealand to include material in their baggage that could pose biosecurity threats. The Government’s thinking is that because the fines are larger travellers will take greater care to check that their luggage does not contain items that might pose a biosecurity risk and our borders will therefore be more secure. It is certainly true that for some travellers that will be the case. There will be some gains as a result of these increased fines and that is why we support them. But the problem is that the Government is proposing to set off against that increased disincentive a lower standard of scrutiny at the border. The Government is intending in order that it can achieve an 8-minute improvement in travel time between Australia and New Zealand to set aside the universal screening we currently employ and replace it with risk profiling. 
Risk profiling as I think all members of this House are aware means that we do not now approach all travellers and consider whether they have any material on their persons or in their luggage that might pose a biosecurity risk. Instead we use characteristics—which perhaps the Customs Service has derived from past records or from its experience in dealing with travellers—about those travellers who are most likely to be carrying material that poses a biosecurity risk and those travellers are the only travellers we will actually screen. Of course that means there are travellers who pose a risk but who do not fit the profile who will not be subject to screening. Inevitably that means we will face increased biosecurity incursions. 
I again praise Shane Ardern and the members of the Primary Production Committee for their diligence in examining this matter. The committee is not convinced by that change of policy and I praise it for that. The committee is right not to be convinced. In the trial of the risk-profiling approach that was undertaken by MAF Biosecurity New Zealand of the 1186 items of biosecurity risk that were seized at the border 51 of them—certainly a minority but still a significant minority—were seized from travellers who were in the queue of people who would have been classified as low-risk and not subject to screening had this risk-profiling approach been used. 
Of those 51 items 17 consisted of fruit fly host material. I have spoken in the House a couple of times now about some of the risks of fruit fly incursions. If a fruit fly incursion which could occur from just a single piece of fruit in a traveller’s luggage were to arrive in the Bay of Plenty—and Rotorua is now receiving international flights—the cost to our primary industries of such an incursion could be astronomical. In the first year alone we are talking of a financial impact of some $800 million—nearly a billion dollars—and 5000 jobs. That is in the first year alone and in the Bay of Plenty alone. We are talking about a massive impact on industries that are of incredible importance to this country. It is an inevitable consequence. 
The risk we are taking is as a consequence of the profiling approach that the Government advocates. The explanation that the select committee received for the risk-profiling approach said that by not putting resources into those passengers who were deemed to be low-risk we would have more resource to dedicate to screening those passengers who were deemed to be of a higher risk. But if we are in the situation where we do not have enough resource enough money to stretch as far as we want it to stretch—to screen all passengers and do a thorough job of that—then maybe it makes sense to say “OK we don’t have enough to do the job we really need to do. What we will do is abandon our screening of passengers who are low-risk and dedicate that resource into passengers who are a higher risk because we believe that that will result in our detecting more of the high-risk incursions.” 
Well that would be all right except it really depends on where we are on the curve of diminishing returns. Are we at a point on that curve that says that if we put a bit more resource into these higher-risk passengers we will detect a lot more risks? Or are we at a point where we are already detecting most of the risks from that group of passengers so putting in a bit more resource will really not net us a lot extra? For the approach that has been advocated by the Government to be correct we would need to be further down that curve. We would need to get a decent return from our investment. If we are on a place on that curve where the investment of a small amount of extra resource will net a lot of extra risks then surely that indicates that the decisions—to reduce jobs and to actually respond to the situation we are in by cutting the resource available for screening at the border—that have been made within MAF Biosecurity New Zealand are completely inappropriate. 
I will also talk about the risk from footwear because out of the 51 seizures—I have talked about the 17 that were related to a fruit fly host material—another 18 were around footwear or footwear contaminated by soil. I have previously talked in this House about some of the risks associated with soil. For one we face some risks to our native bush to our native flora and fauna. Kauri dieback disease is a singular threat that our nation’s national and natural heritage faces from soil. If we are going to be in a situation where we will not be screening those passengers not picking up that soil-contaminated footwear and therefore potentially allowing into this country more and more soil-based pathogens then we are actually putting our unique natural heritage at completely unnecessary risk. 
I am trying to build here a picture of the kind of risk profile that we as a nation face in terms of a trade off for this 8-minutes-faster trans-Tasman travel. That is the bargain that the Government is trying to sell us. In exchange for these higher fines we will have to accept these increased risks. It is a bargain that the Green Party at least is not prepared to take. I notice that the Minister is shaking his head at that. I invite him to take a call to explain how New Zealand— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I am just trying to stay awake. 
KEVIN HAGUE 
: —will not be facing these risks. Well it is interesting that the Government is struggling to stay awake in the face of discussion of some of these increased biosecurity risks because certainly for me and for my party these biosecurity risks are of fundamental importance to our nation. 
One of the other risks that our country faces as a result of soil contamination of footwear is around foot-and-mouth disease. I have spoken in this House and I have spoken in the media about the risks that we are unnecessarily taking around foot-and-mouth disease. Once again in relation to this approach of risk profiling—of taking only a tiny sample of goods and passengers coming into this country—we are hoping that by the use of this sampling approach we will detect enough of the risk to obviate the incursions the outbreaks of these pests in New Zealand. But I say that that is not adequate to protect our natural heritage it is not adequate to protect our primary industries and it is not adequate to protect our tourism industry that also trades on that clean green “100% Pure New Zealand” image—which I have to say in the last week has been exposed in the international media for the “greenwash” that it is. 
I have heard the Minister say that I am scaremongering by raising in the Chamber the risk around foot-and-mouth disease but with our importation of palm kernel to this country we are importing a product from a part of the world where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic. We are importing palm kernel after the use of a treatment process in the source country that will not be adequate to eliminate the risk of foot-and-mouth disease. We know that the product is being contaminated with soil because farmers are reporting that when they feed the product out to their stock there is soil contamination in it. The only way that that contamination can be there is through exposure in the source country. I am saying with regard to foot-and-mouth disease that once again it is evidence of an unnecessary risk that this country is taking because of our selective and inadequate approach to risk management at the border and with biosecurity. 
Biosecurity is fundamental to the way that we protect not only our natural heritage but also the way in which we make our living in the world. It is not an area where we should be making cuts; it is not an area where we should be making trade-offs. We support this bill but we do not support and we do not accept the trade-off that comes with it.