Turia Tariana: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14337] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker; tena tatou katoa. It is somewhat ironic that the issue at the top of the Order Paper today in the Beehive features what has become known as the New Zealand icon the bee. We know that every gift shop hosts the legendary Buzzy Bee or Te Pingipingi Pi as our kohanga reo know it and Diabetes New Zealand’s mascot is the soft toy Barnaby Bee. So it is probably little wonder that it has become an issue of national significance to put in place measures to manage the risks posed to the bee-keeping industry. It is an industry that has been established in New Zealand for well over a century even if it was originally resisted as yet another fad for the new colony. And it is an industry in which tangata whenua are playing an increasingly significant role with new directions and trends establishing our unique role in international markets. 
A classic example is Whakaari Beekeepers Ltd established in late 2002 and based in the isolated coastal community of Whangaparaoa. Up until that point although bee-keepers had routinely placed their hives on tribal lands tangata whenua had not exactly been amassing untold fortunes from the industry. It was common for bee-keepers to leave pots of honey as a rental payment for using the land which was not exactly making anyone a millionaire. So in 2000 Eddie Matchitt figured that local landowners should be able to benefit from the bees. Matchitt and his mates were also keen to support a district that suffered from high unemployment where most of the income was from benefit payments. 
I want to share the experience of Whakaari Beekeepers as it is a good example of a new enterprise that can create wealth and employment develop self-reliance amongst the people support the Maori bee-keeping sector and maximise returns from a local abundantly available resource. In short the enterprise was all looking good until  
Varroa jacobsoni 
 came along. The risk of the varroa mite to bee-keepers and the industries they provide pollination services to has been a prominent issue in the agricultural sector for close on a decade. 
But as this bill demonstrates there was to be another obstacle fly in the path of the bee—the bacterium  
Paenibacillus alvei 
 which is often found in association with the virus European foulbrood a known and dangerous pest to bee larvae. The National Beekeepers’ Association believed that given that risk Environmental Risk Management Authority approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act was needed prior to honey and bee products being imported from Australia under the import health standard issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry back in 2006. As is now well established the Court of Appeal decision in the  
National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand v the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 
 upheld this point and as such the ban on the import of honey and bee products from Australia has remained. 
This bill is being debated today to respond to the unique set of issues that came out of that case about the way in which such risks are managed and about the protections in place to care responsibly for our flora and fauna. As the last 200 years have demonstrated hordes of seemingly innocuous organisms have been introduced only for us to find dangers at a latter stage. We can think about possums gorse rabbits ferrets the household cat and so on. In fact in the last 5 years around 230 new pests have infiltrated our borders. 
The current regulatory system is not working well. The legislation will bring together the current mechanisms under the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation and the processes in the Biosecurity Act. In doing so it responds to the risks that emerge when organisms are deliberately imported as well as those that may arise incidentally in association with traded goods. 
I posed the question earlier as to this discussion being one on the national agenda and I consider it so for two key reasons. The first is the economic and commercial imperative not only for the honey industry but for continued crop pollination and more broadly across other sectors of the agricultural and horticultural industries. The National Beekeepers’ Association has contended that in the face of insufficient information on the risk of any organism importation should be denied until such information is obtained. In assessing the level of risk posed by Australian honey the association relied on research suggesting that  
Paenibacillus alvei 
 can be linked to human respiratory disorders and that it has also been suggested as a biological control of insects indicating its impacts on the wider environment. 
The common association with European foulbrood also cannot be discounted. European foulbrood causes bee larvae to rot and die or results in the birth of a weakened bee that weakens the hive as a whole. Treatment for European foulbrood is with antibiotics which would have a huge impact on the antibacterial properties of honey and particularly of manuka honey. We have specialist international markets for our manuka honey specifically because it is free of European foulbrood and has not been compromised by antibiotics. 
The second reason why the management of biosecurity risks at our border should be an issue of national importance is the importance of active environmental protection to keep our natural resources and environment healthy safe and intact for everybody. This bill will have the effect of setting in place import health standards to ensure that any risky goods are cleared before entering Aotearoa effectively overturning the Court of Appeal decision that is currently keeping Australian honey and bee products out of this country. 
Risks from all organisms imported incidentally in association with imported goods will be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry under the Biosecurity Act. Any organisms introduced through the approval process of the Environmental Risk Management Authority will be dealt with through the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. But there remains a significant gap in the current statutory scheme that needs to be addressed and that is not raised in the current version of this bill—that is there needs to be a clear process that will allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to refer risk issues from known incidental new organisms to the Environmental Risk Management Authority for investigation and approval. If the authority does not have enough information to make that call such information should be sought or research should be commissioned instead of dealing with a gap via a bill to push concerns under the table. 
Rather than an either/or system there need to be workable connections between the Biosecurity Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Given the issues we have seen recently with asbestos painted apple moth spray dioxin poisoning and other intrusions in the environment we need to ensure we are putting in place proactive measures to prevent such risks from impacting on the sector before any other problematic organisms arrive. The 4-year investigation by the Ombudsmen into the impact and effects of aerial spraying of pesticide should have given sufficient warning to the Government of the need for ensuring future protection of crops people and land and for investing in the safety of affected populations. 
We in the Maori Party will support this bill to go to the select committee in order for a wider resolution to border security to be discussed and found but we cannot complete our analysis without reminding the House of our desire that the biosecurity statutory framework should include a total prohibition on genetically modified organisms in the interests of a GE-free New Zealand. Only then can we be really proud of our environmental clean green image. Kia ora.