Mackey Moana: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4086. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I hope the Minister for Primary Industries is not going to just sit there like a dried arrangement for the entire Committee stage and not answer these very pertinent questions that have been put to him by members of the Opposition on what is undoubtedly one of the most important pieces of legislation that we have in New Zealand—our biosecurity law which underpins the very basis of our economy. I certainly hope that the Minister in the chair is scribbling away some notes there so that he can get on his pins and answer some of these questions. 
I want to pick up the amendments to the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and come back to a theme that I think has been running throughout this Committee stage debate which is the danger where you have overlying pieces of legislation all with different intents all with different purposes but essentially governing the same thing. Perhaps nowhere is that more stark than in the area of wild animal control because there is a natural tension between seeing a particular species as a resource in terms of hunting the recreational and tourism value that adds and the downstream benefits of that in terms of using the fur etc. etc. and seeing that same species as a pest under Department of Conservation legislation or under wild animal control legislation. It is not a tension that is particularly easy to manage as we are finding out at the Local Government and Environment Committee at the moment where we are passing another piece of legislation to overlay all of this which is the Game Animal Council Bill which was something that the Government agreed to do to get Peter Dunne’s support for asset sales and other such things that the Government is trying to push through with its one-vote majority. 
So we have this Game Animal Council Bill which is currently at the Local Government and Environment Committee. We see the submissions and see that tension between the conservationists who are very concerned that some species will no longer be governed under the Wild Animal Control Act as pests but will now be seen as a resource that those species like tahr as my colleague Damien O’Connor mentioned and some species like wild pigs will not be as properly managed as they should be because of these conflicting pieces of legislation and that perhaps pest control strategies are going to be undermined. For example if you look at wallabies and possums which are mentioned in clause 80(2) they are not under the Game Animal Council Bill that is currently going through the select committee but in respect of the pest management strategy that controls a lot of those—in particular possums and 1080—there are already concerns coming through from people who are in support of the Game Animal Council  saying: “Well you know 1080 can also be life-threatening to some of the very species that we now want to use as a resource then there are natural concerns.” The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was one who said she wanted to see something there that specifically stated that pest management strategies were not going to be undermined because of the secondary impact they might have on a species that is now going from being considered purely as a pest to being considered as a resource and as something that should be managed rather than eradicated. 
So when we talk about amendments to the Wild Animal Control Act we also see the amendment in clause 79 to the Ombudsmen Act 1975 which inserts: “Management agencies under Biosecurity Act 1993 if they are corporate bodies in their role under pest management plans or pathway management plans”. My concern would be that we do not want to see a lot of farming out away from the Government away from the Department of Conservation away from the Director-General of Conservation who has the responsibility of protecting this valuable conservation land on behalf of all New Zealanders. We do not want to see a lot of that being contracted out being privatised and not having the same levels of transparency in terms of the ability of parliamentarians or members of the public to find out what is being spent on those strategies who is carrying them out how effective they are being when they are happening which is always a big issue in local communities that want to know when a 1080 drop is going to happen and what protections are being put in place for other wildlife that might be affected by it. 
When we look at that clause 79 where it is talking about other corporate bodies who may have a role in pest management strategies I just want to make sure that the very same stringent controls are in place—the very same stringent standards and expectations that are put on Government agencies. Certainly the Department of Conservation comes under fire a lot when people are not happy with its performance in this area where people feel that perhaps the department has been remiss has not been transparent enough has not consulted enough with the local community or has not taken on board the concerns of key stakeholders including recreational hunters and iwi. All of those things come on to the Department of Conservation because of its role as a public body whereas I worry that talking about putting these out to corporate bodies—and maybe the Minister might want to just clarify what that means and allay concerns—means that we are not going to see exactly those same levels of transparency those same standards and in particular the ability for the public to get this information around how this is being carried out through the Official Information Act and the ability for MPs to be able to get it through parliamentary select committee hearings through written questions and that none of that is going to be blocked because now it is with an outside body arm’s length from the Government. It can be done well. The Animal Health Board is an example of where possum control has been very very well managed but the Animal Health Board comes before the select committee and it answers to a lot of those questions. So that is one of my first questions. 
The next one again going back to what I said is around that layering around how you manage that tension between what is a pest and what is a resource and in particular in terms of the Biosecurity Act that is protected because under the Biosecurity Act we need to make sure that that pest element or whatever species it is that we are talking about needs to be taken seriously and is not going to be undermined. I would like the Minister to make a personal undertaking that he will not allow legislation such as the Game Animal Council Bill which is currently at the select committee to undermine the pest management strategies and the pest control strategies that the Department of Conservation carries out or undermine its ability to do that without being constantly questioned because of the impact it might have on other species that are now being seen as manageable and as a resource rather than a pest. 
 Now I want to raise one more issue which is in the schedules. I am sure this is just a technical thing but I am really struck by this constant changing of words to put in the word “plan”. So we have all these laws and regulations that are being amended here and in every single one—and there are hundreds here—it says to omit “strategy” and substitute the word “plan”. I am wondering whether the National Government has become so sensitive about accusations from the public from commentators and from the Opposition that it does not have a plan on anything that its answer is to now just go through all the legislation it can and get rid of any word that is a vague synonym for the word “plan” and put in the word “plan” so that when the Opposition members say “Where is your plan?” it can say: “Well we just changed that word 400 times in the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. So do not tell us we do not have a plan because we just added another 400 of them here in this one piece of legislation.” So maybe that is what it is for; I do not know. Maybe it is technical in nature but if you have learnt anything it is to always be wary of those “minor technical amendments” because they are always the ones that come back to bite you. I would like to know why it is that the word “strategy” was not reasonable and why it is that 400 times in this piece of legislation we need to change it to the word “plan”. Please allay my perhaps cynical but I think somewhat well-founded concerns that this is in response to claims and accusations—quite rightly—that the Government has no plan.