Kedgley Sue: Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I rise to give the Green Party’s support to the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. I missed the number the previous speaker gave of how many chemicals we have in existence. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: It is 1000 pesticides and 2000 other medicines. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: We have 1000 pesticides and 2000 others. It is worth remembering perhaps as we consider this bill that human civilisation has existed for millennia for thousands of years without the use of any agricultural compounds or veterinary medicines. In fact it is only in the last 50-odd years that we have started to become reliant and dependent on agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines. Of course we have a thriving organics industry around the world—and to a small extent here in New Zealand—and that industry manages without reliance on these agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. That is worth remembering because the way the bill is set out implies—and indeed some previous speakers such as Mr Roy have suggested—that the agricultural sector would collapse if we did not have access to these thousands of pesticides and agricultural compounds. [ 
Interruption 
] I have just reminded Mr Roy—I think he may have been talking to someone else at the time—that we did manage for millennia without agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines and that we managed until the last 50 or 100 years. 
Nevertheless the Green Party would like to make a couple of points about this bill. One of them is to say thank heavens for the Regulations Review Committee. I think that the Regulations Review Committee is rather overlooked in this Parliament. I know that it toils hard and meets several times a week at some early hour of the morning. Thank heavens for that committee because it—along with the Legislation Advisory Committee—pointed out that powers and standards in the original bill would not be subject to any form of parliamentary scrutiny. There were a number of things that the Regulations Review Committee recommended needed to be changed and that is a concern. I have noticed that an increasing amount of legislation coming before this House gives through regulation extensive delegated powers that are not subject to any form of parliamentary scrutiny. This bill was yet another example of that. I express my gratitude to the Legislation Advisory Committee and in particular to the Regulations Review Committee for bringing this to the attention of the select committee—for pointing it out and for recommending changes that mean there is at least some degree a very small degree of parliamentary scrutiny by the Regulations Review Committee. That as we know is a reasonably limited scrutiny and does not involve debate in this House but at least it is something that was not there before. 
The other thing we are particularly pleased about is that finally we will require that we need to look at protecting public health and considering public health issues when we examine agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. Previously there was no requirement even to consider the impact on public health of the numerous pesticides and agricultural compounds that were administered to animals in New Zealand. 
I am also absolutely delighted that finally in the commentary on this bill there is an acknowledgment that antibiotics when they are administered in feed to food-producing animals “pose a threat to human health”. I did not really believe that I would see the day when officials in New Zealand acknowledged that continuously feeding antibiotics to animals in New Zealand could produce adverse effects in humans. Every day for breakfast lunch and dinner we feed our chickens—and to a lesser extent our pigs—antibiotics basically to make them grow more quickly but also to reduce the widespread risk of disease. Until now officials have been in denial that this could produce adverse effects in humans. Microbiologists have warned that continuously feeding antibiotics to animals—in particular antibiotics that are administered to humans as the commentary points out—will inevitably result in the spread of antibiotic resistance. 
Microbiologists warn that antibiotic resistance will be one of the major threats posed to humanity in the 21st century and we are already starting to see that. Some countries such as Sweden have prohibited the continuous feeding of antibiotics to animals. Other countries in Europe are saying that if an antibiotic is used in human medicine it should not be permitted to be fed continuously to animals in their feed. We have not even got a restriction much less a prohibition on feeding to animals the antibiotics used in humans. So at least it is good to see that there is an acknowledgment that these antibiotics could pose a threat to human health and that we should in the future require that these and other medicines undergo human health and environmental scrutiny and assessment for residues and resistance. 
This really is a big step forward; we are moving from a state of denial of these risks to a state of acknowledgment. Hopefully we will eventually catch up with the rest of the world and we will prohibit the feeding of antibiotics that are used in human medicine to animals we will prohibit the continuous feeding of antibiotics to animals like chickens we will acknowledge the huge threat that the spread of antibiotic resistance poses to humans and we will acknowledge what is being discovered in Europe for example and in America and Canada—the spread of the multiple-resistant methicillin-resistant  
Staphylococcus aureus 
 in animals. Arguably we have exactly the same problem here in New Zealand but of course nobody is actually testing our animals to see whether they may be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria as they are overseas and what the implications of that might be for human health. When methicillin-resistant  
Staphylococcus aureus 
 spreads we get vancomycin-resistant  
Staphylococcus aureus 
; and eventually antibiotics the modern miracle of human medicine will become ineffective and we will find ourselves without those drugs to combat human diseases because we have indiscriminately fed them to animals resulting in widespread antibiotic resistance in humans. 
The bill also acknowledges that other veterinary medicines used on whole herds of animals such as anti-parasite dips and drenches pose significant risks to human health and the environment. It is good to know that we are finally acknowledging this. There are other examples of substances such as genetically-engineered commodities that have also been fed to animals until recently—until now probably with the passage of this legislation. There has been no requirement to assess the potential impact of genetically-engineered commodities fed to animals and whether they may have some impact on human health through residues etc. Now as a result of this bill there will at least be a requirement—we hope—to assess the risks to human health and of course to the environment. When we are looking at dips and drenches the effect on the environment is significant so the Greens are pleased that this bill is finally acknowledging the potential impact on human health and the environment. 
We are a bit worried about some of the fast-tracking provisions of this bill. We are pleased that the regulations review has removed some of its worst aspects—its most undemocratic aspects—that would have allowed entire standards to be fast-tracked without any form of parliamentary scrutiny. Therefore we will be supporting the bill and we hope that finally New Zealand will start to catch up with countries such as those in Europe in acknowledging that we need far greater scrutiny of some of the agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines we feed to animals and consideration of the impact that these will inevitably have on our health and well-being.