Ewen-Street Ian: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Biosecurity Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7076] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 It did not seem to make much impact on members of this House but this week has been a very significant week for biosecurity in New Zealand. The incident I am referring to occurred on Wednesday when it was announced that Dr John Clearwater had found a pheromone for the painted apple moth. For members who are not into pheromones they are the sexual attractants exuded by insects. Dr Clearwater has been working on pheromone analysis for 22 months and has finally got to the point where he has a synthetic pheromone that can be used to attract male— 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Artificial. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: No it is not genetically engineered. It can be used to attract male moths away from the females. They get attracted to the pheromone and get trapped and the females do not get fertilised. It is a very good way of cleaning up the hot spots we have with the painted apple moth spraying in Auckland. I applaud Dr Clearwater. It is a very complex issue he has worked diligently at it and perhaps most significantly of all he has paid his own way. Dr Clearwater has taken 22 months to do it and it is an outstanding success but the absolute tragedy of what has happened this week is that it should have happened 2 years ago. 
In May 1999 when the painted apple moth was first discovered Dr Clearwater and his team who found the pheromone for the white spotted tussock moth in east Auckland were denied access to viable painted apple moth females. The work went to Forest Research Institute and HortResearch who were the people who failed to find the pheromone for the white spotted tussock moth. They similarly failed to find a pheromone for the painted apple moth. Dr Clearwater then offered his services for free in the hope that we would be able to eradicate the painted apple moth. Had he been able to get access to the painted apple moth females when he first asked for them—and when I was calling for it in this House—22 months would have elapsed and we would not have had the widespread incursion of the painted apple moth into west Auckland. We would not have needed to have blanket aerial spraying with all its concomitant health impacts on the residents of west Auckland. 
This Government needs to hold an inquiry into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s behaviour and its handling of the painted apple moth incursion. It has been absolutely outrageous. When we think back to what the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry did and did not do in those early days it beggars belief. It took the ministry 2½ years—not months not weeks not days but years—from the first discovery of the painted apple moth until it did some basic things like trapping to find out the extent of the infestation and feeding trials to see what the painted apple moth would eat. It took the ministry 2½ years to put photos in the paper so that the residents of west Auckland knew what they were being sprayed for. It took 2½ years to put limitations on the removal of garden rubbish around west Auckland so that people would not unwittingly spread it from place to place. 
That is absolutely outrageous. It is one of the least competent exhibitions of containment by a Government department that I am aware of. It is just scandalous but have heads rolled in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry? No they have not. The ministry failed to contain the painted apple moth. In the early days the then Minister for Biosecurity said in this House: “Don’t worry about the painted apple moth. The female can’t fly therefore it can only spread 500 metres a year. Trust us we know what we’re doing.” She did not actually say “trust us”—that is my embellishment but what the Minister overlooked did not know or did not take the time to find out was that in the pupal phase the painted apple moth can fly. The pupae do not have wings but they balloon and fly in the wind. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have given the member a pretty wide range. He will now come to the bill and whether he is in favour of the third reading. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: You have been very generous Mr Speaker and I will do exactly that. 
This bill fills some important holes in our Biosecurity Act. I suppose one of the more important things is the notice that chief technical officers have to give before they can spray for incursions. As it stands at the moment if there is an infestation of say foot-and-mouth disease in a remote rural area the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has to give 14 days’ notice before it can try to eradicate the infestation. In a situation like foot-and-mouth disease 2 weeks could be the difference between containment and eradication and an economic disaster for this country so it is very sensible to reduce that limit. However I do have concerns about completely taking away any limit at all. I can accept that if there is a foot-and-mouth disease infestation in a remote rural area the ministry should get in there and spray. It should do whatever has to be done to contain and eradicate but what happens if the infestation is found in a farm homestead? We cannot just go in there without any notice at all and spray children domestic pets and animals such as horses. We simply do need to give people notice. 
With the passage of this bill I hope that the power we are giving the chief technical officers will not be abused. They need to be flexible and they need to learn lessons from the way the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry behaved in west Auckland. There it was simply “We have $90 million; we’re going to get rid of the painted apple moth come what may.” The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has a duty to be responsive to the community. It has a duty to communicate and consult with the community. I think the lessons of the painted apple moth are actually being learned. The way the ministry behaved with the Asian gypsy moth outbreak when a single male was discovered in the Waikato was very good. 
I am pleased this bill is going through. It fills some holes in our biosecurity but many things still have to be done. The most important thing we have to do now is address the sea container problem. As I have said in this House many times before over 400000 sea containers come into this country every year and only 24 percent of them are inspected and decontaminated. It is incumbent on the Government to raise that to 100 percent so that we are putting a fence around the top of the cliff and not an ambulance at the bottom.