Tirikatene RinoParts 1 and 2 schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 to 3RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): It is a pleasure to speak on the Committee stage of this Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Although the subject matter may sound quite complicated to people—Hon Member: To some.RINO TIRIKATENE: —to some—but actually when you strip it back this legislation is an essential part of our primary industries.When folks think of pest eradication our horticultural industries definitely our agricultural industries and all those substances that are used by farmers to increase their production in whatever form that those substances may take they are very important. It is a massive industry obviously because it supports our food production industries primarily and our horticultural and forestry industries. So agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines are vital and it was a pleasure considering this bill. Essentially when you break it all down this bill is about increasing data-protection periods. It is about increasing the data protection for those companies that go through the significant investment in R & D to come up with these solutions for for instance our pipfruit industries or our farming industries. Whether it is dairy sheep or beef we want to encourage those industries to do further innovation. As a result of that the Primary Production Committee unanimously agreed after considering quite a number of submissions—I think there were nine in total and then about five submitters came in to see us—that we extend the data-protection period for the different range of applications that are made to the Ministry for Primary Industries by these particular companies for the use of their agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. Just by way of example for innovative trade products the data-protection period has been extended from 5 years to 10 years. In the initial bill it was 8 years but 10 years was considered a fair period to allow the companies to recoup their investment but also to not unduly penalise the consumer for an extended period beyond 10 years. So that was a fair protected period. Then we have also got periods for new uses for innovative trade products. That might for instance be the case where a particular product is used on say pipfruit and it might then be extended to some other different variety another use or another fruit. For going through that application the period of data protection has been extended to 10 years as well. That goes through for not only innovative products but also non-innovative products. For new uses of non-innovative trade products again there is an extended period for data protection. I guess the rationale behind the extended periods is to promote innovation. It is to encourage those companies to look for a solution whether it might be a drench or an application that is made for goat dairy. For instance there is no intestinal veterinary compound for dairy goats. So to encourage companies to actually provide that solution rather than rely on the farmer to play around with trying to create their own home-made remedy—the extra data-protection period encourages those companies to invest and to provide wider application new uses for their compounds and their products. We do want to encourage that. We listened in the select committee. We did hear loud and clear that extending the period of protection will not create monopolies but it will encourage more innovation and investment from those companies to provide a wider range of solutions and new uses which is what we want. We want to broaden our base. We want to broaden our productive sectors our primary industries and if we can come up with these innovative products that can help increase productivity and the like then that is good for New Zealand Inc.". We do support this bill and I do commend it at this Committee stage. Thank you."