Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): The National Party stands and supports the Government's plan to eradicate this terrible cattle disease here in New Zealand. Finally farmers have some certainty. As I move around the country I hear from a lot of farmers and not all of them agree with this plan. We should take this opportunity to see if we can as a country eradicate this disease. We have a proven track record: three Queensland fruit fly responses meant that we could eradicate that from New Zealand and I'm heartened to hear from officials that it's likely that pea weevil will be eradicated in Wairarapa which will be a first around the world.No Minister can stop any incursions from occurring in New Zealand. There are 175000 items that cross our border a day; 5 million people choose to come to New Zealand a year. I hear often that people say maybe from time to time when they're under pressure or under the pump Oh well just close the border down. Just stop people coming. Just stop trading." Well the reality is if we did that it would collapse the New Zealand economy. And of course if we did that there's no guarantee that something could not indeed blow into New Zealand like myrtle rust did or indeed swim into New Zealand.If we have a look at our record in Government in Budget 2017 biosecurity spending got to the highest ever—an all-time high of about $250 million: more people on the front line boosting the dog detector team up from 40 to 60 making sure we've got modern X-ray equipment investing $90 million in the biocontainment facility in Wallaceville which is near completion that will be focused on these exotic animal diseases. Also moving forward looking out to Biosecurity 2025 ensuring that we have a huge amount of awareness happening with New Zealanders—4.7 million New Zealanders should be more aware of biosecurity then what they are currently. We've heard from the Minister of Agriculture and there's been a lot of discussion about the cause of M. bovis. It is within the farm gate. It is a productivity issue that causes lameness pneumonia flu-like symptoms and abortion. We don't want it in New Zealand. Unfortunately it is here and now we have an opportunity to eradicate it.I remember when the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) rang me over the weekend of 21 July and said it was likely that it was here. Then I briefed Cabinet to make sure that MPI had resources to stand up to the response. Those farms in particular were locked down. We made sure that the testing and the tracing was done. We reached out to international scientists. Public meetings were held. When we left office there were seven infected farms in Ōāmaru and since then it has spread to other parts of New Zealand.There's been quite a bit of discussion and debate about Cook Strait—whether the inter-island stock transportation should be closed down. It was interesting to hear from officials saying "There are no clear benefits. It would be incredibly disruptive and costly and there's about 85000 cattle that move from the South to the North each year."It's also going to be timely for MPI to update New Zealanders and in particular farmers and rural communities—where are they up to with their ongoing investigation? That is one thing that farmers want to know and at some point soon I'm looking forward to hearing from MPI where they are up to with their investigation.We heard also from the Minister about the problems with the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) scheme. It came in in a phased roll-out in 2012 to 2015. The review was kicked off by this Government in 2016. I think it's fair to say that the Operational Solutions for Primary Industries New Zealand board need to take some responsibility for not doing the compliance of NAIT and not handing that over to MPI to follow through on those farmers that indeed may have been neglectful in their responsibilities.Now that the decision has been made to eradicate it's going to be very important to support these farmers who are taking one for the team. Rural support trust do a great job but we need to be very mindful of the toll that this will have on farming families up and down the country. It's great to hear that the Government has stepped up and responded to our concerns about fast and fair compensation and now that is going to occur within a few days so well done."