Jones Shane: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Jones Shane: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5181. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. I want everyone to know that the contribution just given by Dr Nick Smith demonstrates that the only knowledge he has about biosecurity is a knowledge of the clever root weevil an experience the man can no doubt elaborate upon at a given point in time. Perhaps he might be a bit more at home however talking about the sea squirt or anything because no one on this side of the House is playing petty politics. He is such a senior parliamentarian and I accept that there has been a bit of peevishness in the House today and I accept that he has been through somewhat of a torrid time which I can relate to myself. But I say do not bring into the House in a debate the names or the fact that we have suffered those fatalities. You are better than that Dr Smith. This is about the quality of our systems to ensure that the primary produce owners can continue to invest into the future. Do not allow your rhetoric to cause you to fail to live up to your own standards as a senior parliamentarian which you are more than capable of maintaining. 
So we will support this bill the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. We are of the view however that the Government for reasons that it understands better than perhaps we do did cut into the available budget and we feel as we have said on numerous occasions that that weakens the ability of those who are guardians at the edges of the State to actually maintain our standards. About two-thirds of the general primary produce merchandise sector etc. actually is at stake here. I accept that that member does come from a part of New Zealand where there is the vestiges of a pipfruit industry. Without a doubt if we continue to allow and observe and even respond to Dr Smith’s contributions we will be not only worsening his reputation but lessening the tone of the debate. 
The guts of the debate is this: although we will support the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill there are sections we remain mightily concerned about. It is the right of every parliamentarian to continue to point out that you cannot cut indiscriminately. Every time that we point out that indiscriminate cuts are at stake here the Government hopes to cause us to have to defend our preference for spending money. In actual fact it is an investment in the largest single contributing sector to our exports. Without exports to borrow their own narrative there is no growth in GDP because the Government has shrivelled and shrunk the size of the domestic economy as it pursues excessive levels of austerity etc.—freeze the regions forget about the regions. Whether it is in transport whether it is in the ports sector whether it is in the manufacturing sector what are we left to fall back upon? We fall back upon those very types of produce that need very good sector protection. 
It could be said that it sounds slightly trivialising to talk about sniffer dogs but without a doubt those of us who travel frequently are often very happy to see the sniffer dogs going about their business. The fact that only one new sniffer dog has been produced suggests that there are no pest dangers coming back or that it has become too expensive. Often the public need to see a symbol or something that epitomises the miserly foolish approach taken by the current Government. If you looked at the money that has been wasted in putting together the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment those funds would be better dedicated to the men and women who work inordinately long hours etc. doing a difficult job because you are dealing with people who are often offended and who are often frightened or confused as they come into our country. Those biosecurity staff need to be rewarded. They need to be talked up. They do not need to be sold out. 
On this side of the House we are very conscious of not only the work they do but the inordinate amount of investment at stake. Sure that side of the House is arguing that we live in austere times. We are suffering the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis. But you will have no economy unless you continually remain alert and send a constant message as the changing nature of our own population grows that when you come to our country not only are these the rules but your wrongdoing your foolishness or your ignorance will not go undetected. Those are welcome and obvious contributions that should be coming into this debate—not these very shallow and loud remarks coming from the member as he watches my good friend Sam Lotu-Iiga beat him back into Cabinet. But that is another matter. We do not want to stir up the prospect that we might suffer God forbid a foot-and-mouth scare—a foot-and-mouth experience—but I remind the members on the other side of the House as one of my colleagues said earlier that there was a certain moth. Just look at the tragedy that befalls unfortunately a lot of our whanau. There is a disproportionately large element of Maori investment in the kiwifruit industry so we know personally even in that part which is often not thought of as a key contributor to the pastoral sector or the horticultural sector of the dangers and the downsides. 
How can the current administration genuinely believe that it is going to grow—whatever flash name it uses partnership engagements etc.—by throwing money at the meat industry the wool industry and various other elements of the pastoral sector if they are going to cut the most valuable thin line of resistance? It cannot escape the mathematics. It may seek to justify that but all we have got to do is remind it of that unwanted Australian otherwise known as the Queensland fruit fly. I am disappointed that Dr Nick Smith did not focus on the fruit fly. No doubt the man could expand at length—[ 
Interruption 
] Well I have got to tell you once you stand and you make the silly mistake of invoking the names or the fact that fatalities have been suffered and you try to sheet that home to a member on this side of the House then shame on Nick Smith for diminishing the quality of this debate and being so foolhardy as to do that as a senior parliamentarian. I do not in the short term intend to allow him to forget that. 
But on to the other elements of the bill. I have an orientation towards supporting a lot of self-regulation but in this case we cannot allow those who are advocates of self-regulation to enjoy all of the responsibility without any clear direction and in addition to that with the right balance between who will pay because they will bear the costs if they get it wrong. I think it is a legitimate political debate and it is a legitimate philosophical debate as to what extent the State can hand out. I happen to think that Judith Collins on the matter of alcohol has probably got it wrong because there will be no adequate self-regulation in the alcohol industry but we will sort that into the future. There is a case for self-regulation here in the meat industry but as my colleague said we cannot back it indiscriminately in the event that there is no overarching direction or there is not an adequacy of resources. But that is not to say that they should not be able to come and advocate—not so much only on the basis of historical experience overseas but with genuine data and science. 
I actually have a great deal of sympathy for what the pork industry is currently saying. Unfortunately I doubt whether it will make much impact on this particular administration. That is not to say that the current Minister for Primary Industries is pigheaded or anything like that. But once they set their sight on a course of action we have here in many cases amongst the senior Cabinet Ministers a level of intransigence that they will not turn. They seem to seek to ape the excesses of Margaret Thatcher or something like that. Unfortunately I have very little confidence that the pork industry is going to not so much get its way but be able to make an impact. As my colleague has said it is providing genuine data. It is providing genuine scientific information. Perhaps it has been lost in the swirl that passes for—well not even the swirl but the torpor of the bureaucracy etc. 
But in that lies an exact example as to why yes you can support self-regulation to a certain level but in the absence of an overarching direction and in the absence of adequate resources not only are we putting our key contributors to our export sector at risk but we are actually diminishing the underlying worth of the principle—i.e. that the State does not need to do everything but the State cannot yield unless there is an adequate level of resource and a clear overarching direction. Despite these misgivings we will continue to support the bill. Kia ora tatou.