Prosser RichardRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise and take a call in this annual review debate. I pick up on a couple of things that my colleague Meka Whaitiri has touched on and perhaps go a bit further with some of them. I am glad that Minister Nathan Guy is here in the chair because he may be able to shed some light on one or two queries. I want to echo a couple of things that the chairman of the Primary Production Committee Ian McKelvie has said. We are probably the most collegial committee in Parliament. We agree on most things and most of what we do in fact does not have a lot of controversy about it. But when we get down into the nitty-gritty of the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) what its purpose is and what it does—my colleague Meka Whaitiri echoed the call that we have to have a ministry that is absolutely fit for purpose.When we look at for example—fish stocks is one thing—the Primary Growth Partnership we did not have an issue with that. We do have an issue with the fact that the taxpayer who puts a lot of the funding into the Primary Growth Partnership does not get the share of the intellectual property that comes out of it. So those are things that can be looked at in the future.What I want to touch on in possibly a little more detail is the recent incursion of myrtle rust. It is another one in the long seemingly endless chain of biosecurity upsets—incursions disasters you can call them—all of course leading up to the big one. If we do not get biosecurity right the day will come when we have to face foot-and-mouth disease. That is why it is vital that MPI and its systems are properly resourced and are properly focused on preventing these sorts of things from happening. I say resourced to prevent them happening" because myrtle rust was something that was always going to happen and in fact the Government was warned as long ago as 2010 that it was a risk that was coming. In this report from Scion Briefing document on myrtle rust a member of the guava rust complex and the risk to New Zealand there are a number of poignant comments made to do with the pathways by which this particular infestation could arrive here. Back in 2010 the risk was outlined as being a probability that related to several steps on an incursion pathway. It was already present in Australia at that time and the warning was made that if the Australian authorities were not able to eradicate this particular rust it was doubtful they would be able to contain it because the spores are transportable by wind as well as on footwear and clothing and so forth.Actually this paper from 2010 makes a point that apart from being windborne—long-distance dispersal—there are other means by which this disease could have arrived in New Zealand. Obviously we knew that it had arrived in the Kermadecs and that there was a possibility it could arrive by wind from Australia or by other means. The paper from 2010 says that the importation of infected plant material could be one pathway. It also says that deliberate introduction of spores or "infected material by persons of questionable character" could possibly be a pathway. It is interesting because when we look at the Kerikeri infestation had the spores arrived by wind from Australia the most likely pathway is that they would have made landfall first in Taranaki because that is the first part of the country to intercept those prevailing winds. But for them to have arrived in Northland a long way away from that and on the wrong coast and to have turned up in two nurseries tends to point in the direction of a human-introduced pathway as opposed to a natural one. So the indication there is that there is a strong possibility it could have been brought in on infected plant material that was not detected or in fact that it could have been deliberately introduced. It is all very well and good saying—and I know the Minister has said on a number of occasions that biosecurity is his No. 1 priority and I do believe him when he says that. I really feel for the Minister in that he cannot seem to persuade his Cabinet colleagues that this aspect of the nation's defence is utterly critical—that adequate resourcing really does have to go into biosecurity and into border control in all shapes and forms because the immediate most pressing urgency about myrtle rust is that it can infect mānuka. That means that the entire mānuka honey industry is at risk and I think we cannot discount the possibility that international competitors in what is an extremely lucrative and growing mānuka honey industry might possibly be looking at ways in which New Zealand could be compromised in terms of its production and its competitiveness simply through the mechanism of introducing pathogens that could put us on the back foot.So in the few seconds I have left I would just like to ask the Minister in the chair to respond to some of those and hopefully put our minds at rest. I hope you can do that."