Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2)—let's call it NAIT"—here for the second reading reporting back from a very robust select committee process.I would like to start if I may with just some reflections on the comments made by the previous speaker Kiri Allan who does some good work in the committee. But I think her summary of our critique of what has been put on the table misses the mark. She tried to frame it up as if somehow Mr Bennett who's a very superb chair and I'm sure we'd all agree on this side around the contribution—Kiritapu Allan: Well now we know you're lying!TODD MULLER: Well see here we go. It's all very well to talk about humility and to try and anchor yourself with the tone of caring and then the moment the Opposition holds a view you just guffaw and try and tear the person down. I mean they need to look in the mirror. But I'd like to specifically reference the comments that were made by Kiri Allan when she talked about the importance of her approach in terms of approaching this issue from a position of humility and wondered why she thought there were aspects of Mr Bennett's very strong contribution this afternoon that were not anchored in the same.Well dare I say that she obviously wasn't listening to the contribution from the Minister because this is what we have come to expect—the way he framed up this bill even though for a number of months in the context of our response to M. bovis we have sought at all times to be appropriate bipartisan putting the farmers' interests first. You'd expect that from the National Party. He immediately starts his contribution on the attack framing us up in terms of the critiques that we had round the select committee as paranoia—and I quote directly. And then of course the Government side wonders why we react. All I say directly to the Minister is that instead of succumbing to the red mist that appears every day he appears in this place he might want to focus on the food safety issues and the biosecurity issues which are front of mind. We're dealing of course with M. bovis. We have essentially an avian disease which is already impacting a number of South Island chicken farms in particular. We have swine flu on our doorstep. We have brown marmorated stink bugs on our doorstep. Mr O'Connor could we respectfully ask you to focus on doing your job as opposed to coming here and spending most of your speech trying to frame up how we are somehow culpable? It does him no credit and that is why David Bennett's contribution was so robust and pointed and accurate.I would like to specifically raise comments and issues that came up through our select committee process. Firstly as mentioned we had a number of submissions. Our total was 70 submissions that we considered. We had 10 oral submitters who brought a significant industry experience and perspective to the table which certainly the National Party found particularly interesting. We have already traversed a number of the issues that were front of mind as we reflected on this bill. The first of course was the issue around clarifying ownership of core data. I think the previous Government speaker has skipped over this somewhat. I accept that at the end of our deliberations we landed in a place that makes sense in terms of the bill being silent around ownership. But she omitted to make it very clear to the House that the bill as introduced had a very different view as to where ownership sat and that was the specific intent of the bill. And as we listened both to officials and of course to industry submitters it became very clear that this was a relatively last-minute—in fact was a last-minute—insertion into the bill by the Minister.So the issues that this has raised and the sort of nervousness in the sector over what was the true intent of actually putting that clause in which made it clear that that ownership of that data would lie with the Crown—that all sits with the Minister because he chose to put it in. It caught the industry by surprise. It's all very well standing here and talking about the importance of the industry working together to identify the failings of the NAIT system and where we can collectively improve it only to put in at the eleventh hour a piece of legislative intent which essentially as Mr Bennett I think quite aptly put it sought to nationalise the data and then wonder why there was such a reaction from the industry. It was poor process. He was caught by it.The area that I'd like to move on to next is the obligations that sat in the original bill for transporters in particular to be accountable should there be any stock on their truck that wasn't appropriately tagged and in the NAIT system. We in particular—the National Party side—right from the start signalled that we had major concerns with this as again Mr Bennett earlier articulated. It gives us the sense—and we see it pretty much every day in terms of our Primary Production Committee deliberations—that the Government's side are devoid I think of very many members who are anchored in the reality of farming and anchored in the reality of the implications of the legislation they put forward.Jo Luxton: That's not fair—that's not fair.TODD MULLER: It became very clear to us right from the first submission that this was a flaw in the proposed bill. And I hear them saying "Well it's not fair." Look ultimately Government you have to take accountability for the legislation you frame up and put into the select committee. If it is identified as deficient in thinking if it's identified as deficient in intent then you'd expect us as the Opposition to critique it to identify your failings and ensure that it's changed. That's what's happened here and it was a very strong pushback from the National Party that identified the issue. We listened to the transporters. We understood the fact that putting with them the obligation the ultimate legal obligation to ensure that animals are tagged when they are simply a transporter from A to B was clearly not the right outcome. We have sought changes and we have seen changes to clause 12 particularly new section 31A which gives transporters some comfort that now the obligation sits with the persons in charge of an animal to have certified for the transporter that all those animals are indeed appropriately tagged.One issue that I would like to touch on in conclusion really relates to an area that hasn't come up yet in our conversations. It came up during the course of our deliberations and I think it's an important message to get out there and that is that for all the changes that sit in this legislation today that we're reflecting on it still doesn't deal with what I would call the operational clunkiness that farmers have to experience in terms of the day-to-day engagement with the NAIT system. Now we were given very strong feedback and commitment by NAIT themselves and the officials that support this Government that that would be an area of focus and outcome.Well certainly from the National Party side we have a very strong expectation that that's going to be followed through because as all of us know when we strip our particular partisan perspectives away from this debate part of the success of compliance is actually the rules—and that side have particularly focused on that—but the other is the culture that exists in a sector and in particular the ease of the operational interface. If they have been designed in a way that makes it easy for farmers to update and it's intuitive and it reflects the day-to-day reality of farming then you'll find that the compliance will lift. That ultimately is not a function of rules and regulations and legislation that we are debating here today; it is in my opinion a function of the capability of the management of the NAIT team to be able to identify and put in place a system that can be incrementally improved year on year that works for our farmers' day-to-day realities. I do hope—and this side of the House very much expects—that that is a priority for the organisation and is appropriately supported by this Government over the next few months and years.Look in conclusion this is a solid bill. It is a bill that is needed and we have collectively through our unique Primary Production Committee style landed on a bill that we think will make the system better will make it more effective but ultimately as I've mentioned before the test of that will be the commitment that the farmers have to the system and the ease that the farmers have in terms of using the system for their own business benefit. Thank you very much and I certainly support this bill this afternoon."