Carter David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Carter David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22145] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 It will certainly be my hope that a vote that is so critical to the New Zealand economy is a vote on which all parties in the Chamber will work constructively to achieve the best outcomes. I take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the Primary Production Committee for the way that we conducted a debriefing this morning into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s biosecurity exercises. I am referring to Operation Taurus which was a simulated exercise that took place a couple of months ago in the Manawatu and also to the hoax scare on Waiheke Island immediately following that. During that select committee process all members of the committee worked diligently with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to make sure that we did our best to help to identify the inadequacies that had been shown to exist in our response to what was a hoax scare. 
I want to talk specifically about two issues. One is a concern that the Primary Production Committee has expressed on numerous occasions over the time I have been involved with it which is over the availability of a standing army to respond to a major disease incursion particularly of foot-and-mouth disease. In the past though we have been unsure of the availability of that standing army the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has taken the opportunity to assure us that it did exist. The debrief this morning showed clearly to the committee that there are inadequacies in the availability of that standing army. I am pleased that the ministry acknowledged that and will be looking at ways and means to make sure that we achieve far better cooperation with sectors such as the stock and station industry the meat-processing industry and the dairy processing industry—people who obviously have the skills and the manpower resources to be muscled into any genuine response. 
The second issue the committee was certainly concerned about was the accuracy or more correctly the inaccuracy of the initial database as to where farms existed and where livestock existed and as to the numbers of livestock on particular properties. Again the ministry has acknowledged that more work needs to be done. To be fair to AgriQuality which has over a long period of time supplied the agri-base data it has a reasonable system of accounting for those who are genuine farmers. But the incident on Waiheke Island showed a glaring inadequacy in the boundary between genuine farmers and lifestyle farmers who held a few livestock. They have as much ability to assist with the spread of foot-and-mouth disease as has any genuine farming operation located adjacent to an outbreak. 
 In my opening comments I said that I hoped biosecurity would be treated seriously and in a more apolitical way. Already we have had an interjection from Clayton Cosgrove that Don Brash had suggested the original response to the scare on Waiheke Island should not have been carried out in the way it was. That is absolutely not right. For the record I confirm that on the day when Mr Brash was interviewed by Television One his first comment was that the incident was very serious for New Zealand. His second comment was that if it were a hoax he was surprised that the Government was responding to that extent and his third comment—the most important comment—was that however he wholeheartedly endorsed the Government’s response. Although Government members enjoy playing cheap incorrect politics I remind them that biosecurity is of far greater importance than that. 
While I am on that point I also ask the Minister to start being more honest in his press releases. I remind him of his press release immediately after the Budget with the headline “Government boosts biosecurity again’’ which stated ‘“Biosecurity funding has been boosted again’ Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton said today”. Yet when Audit New Zealand came before the select committee in preparation for our examination into this vote it was able to tell us that the total appropriations of $157 million were less than those in the 2004 Budget which were $164 million. I want to make sure that Mr Sutton will take the opportunity to assure this Committee that he and his spin merchants will start to tell the truth.