Woods MeganDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my absolute pleasure to be given the opportunity by the whips to take a call on this piece of legislation.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): It was me who gave you the call.Dr MEGAN WOODS: No no but to be asked Mr Chairman—the honour. But in all seriousness this is an important piece of legislation and it does allow me to think back to my former life before I entered this Chamber and became an MP when questions around the protections within our agricultural sector were absolutely vital. The ability for the New Zealand agricultural and horticultural sector to innovate does require the ability to protect some of the knowledge and some of the science that sits behind the innovations that occur. Through the course of this legislation my colleagues have talked about the fact that this has been a long time brewing. This was a report that was produced in 2008 so you could say there has been ample time for the considerations that were contained in the report. What it comes down to is whether there was enough time given for companies to have intellectual property protections over what they have created in order to give the incentives to innovate. But one of the most interesting aspects of this legislation for me is around the new use reformulations and an example that has been worked through by some of the media during the passage of this bill is around fodder beet and fodder brassica. To many people this will sound like a very technical split but in order to use some of the agrichemicals on fodder beet crops rather than fodder brassica crops there would have to be a new use reformulation which would cost the company a huge amount of money. It is important that we have the ability to nimbly experiment with different forms and ways of feeding cattle as we look to combat climate change. As we look beyond pasture as a way of dairying we look to some of the fodder beets and fodder brassicas in the respect that it could be a way in which we decrease methane within our farming systems. There are also the high-value nutraceutical companies which in many ways will just go through and do a screening of many different cultivars and the germplasm of particular varietals to have a look at what has the highest nutritional content. It is absolutely critical for New Zealand's nutraceutical industry to be able to move in this way. What we often think of when we think about the protection of intellectual property is our patents. The reality in New Zealand however where so much of our intellectual property is not protected by patent law is that it is protected by plant varietal rights or it is protected under measures such as this for agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines because that is where so much of New Zealand's innovation rests. We invest so much in that sector and we have so many scientists who do perform at a very high level and who create a huge amount of value for our economy and it is vital that we put the right incentives in place for that innovation to be able to occur. But like with everything there has to be limits. We have to make sure that the knowledge can get out there and that it does not get locked up for ever because research is something that is meant to be a collaborative process. It is meant to be about a college of individuals working together for the betterment of knowledge and what we know as a society. So this bill seeks to strike that balance between allowing companies the incentives they need to be able to innovate and also allowing a very strong agricultural science base in this country to flourish. It has been a great honour to be able to take a call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill and I am thankful for my opportunity to contribute to this debate.