Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) Link to this
I am pleased to be able to take the first call in the Committee stage of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. This is a bill that Labour will support. We realise that biosecurity is perhaps the No. 1 issue shared by both rural and urban New Zealanders, given the concern that without proper biosecurity this country would come to a grinding halt. We are a biologically based economy. We produce a lot, we sell a lot, and it is on the basis that we have integrity of our systems protecting our natural flora and fauna that we protect the process of growing grass, growing trees, protecting bees—
Paul QuinnHon DAMIEN O’CONNOR Link to this
I thank the member very much. It is good that something is noticed by members from that side of the Chamber; there is not much that they notice otherwise.
Hon John CarterHon DAMIEN O’CONNOR Link to this
Mr Carter is awake, too. I note the flippancy with which the Government approaches this bill. This is a very serious bill; it is a serious issue. Effectively, the bill lifts the level of penalty for infringements against the biosecurity legislation. We do not mind that, if it gives a clear indication that we are serious about biosecurity—as I said, our country and our economy depend upon proper biosecurity—but if legislation just penalises people who do not know how important that is, then it begs the question of whether we have this right.
Anyone who has come into the country—and I know that quite a few members on that side of the Chamber have recently come into the country after the adjournment we have just had—will have a passenger arrival card that people are required to fill out. It is full of fine print, with a few really serious questions on it. The questions are well hidden, I have to say, but anyone who fills out this form erroneously, does not understand it, and is apprehended for something that they had no intention of ever doing or that they did not know that they were carrying, or did not know that whatever they were carrying was illegal, will now be subject to a fine of up to $1,000. The Primary Production Committee recommended an increase from $800 to $1,000. The bill originally shifted the penalty from $400 to $800, and now it has gone up to $1,000.
That is still a small fine if there is a serious risk to our economy, but there is a point of principle that I and my colleagues raise; that is, if people cannot understand the information they receive on the plane, up in lights at the airport when they arrive, or before they get on to a plane, then we have to try harder to inform them. Reducing the biosecurity risk to this country is not about simply increasing the penalties. This is a Government that chopped $2 million off the biosecurity budget, and chopped over 50 front-line positions from MAF Biosecurity New Zealand. That is what this Government thinks about biosecurity. It thinks that passing this bill and increasing the penalties will create a big enough disincentive to more than compensate for the loss of front-line staff. I say that those members are kidding themselves. It is just a joke. It is typical of this Government. It wants to be tough and rough on law and order and then hands the responsibility to the private sector, as we have just seen in the previous bill, the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. It does not want the responsibility; its members want to ride around on their high horse, saying they are tough and mighty, but then hand ultimate responsibility to the private sector. Those people who are penalised may not pay the penalty; they may not be able to afford to pay the $1,000 fine. They may end up in a private prison because the National Government thought, in its wisdom, that we should chop the biosecurity budget, increase the penalties, and hand over responsibility to the private sector for ensuring that that penalty is carried through.
It is a bizarre situation, but it is typical of the philosophy that drives the current National Government. Labour members will follow through with these things and I look forward to the Minister for Biosecurity answering some of the points that I have raised here.
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) Link to this
The Biosecurity Amendment Bill came to the Primary Production Committee for consideration, and we called for submissions on 22 September this year. We were all surprised that we did not receive any submissions at all. But that demonstrates, I think, that the general thrust of the bill was well accepted and well expected by the public, given the amount of time that National members, when in Opposition, had spent talking about biosecurity. So there were no great surprises when we came into Government and introduced these changes.
It was interesting to listen to the Hon Damien O’Connor, who, I think, may have briefly been the Associate Minister for Biosecurity, take a swipe at the Government on these changes, because after 9 years of a Labour Government we saw no substantial increases in fines, no substantial amendments to the Biosecurity Act, and no steps forward. It has taken the National Government a very short time to introduce these changes, which increase the instant fine from $200 to, potentially, $400, but that is not set in legislation as it was before. The fine is now able to be adjusted by regulation.
The Primary Production Committee also considered the view of the Regulations Review Committee when it raised some issues about shifting what is now enshrined in legislation to a regulatory regime. Those issues were valid, but these matters are more difficult to lock into legislation when we do not really know what level a fine should be at until we try it, and, of course, we would have to come back to Parliament for further legislative changes if we had not allowed that to happen.
The second thing that the select committee did was allow for those who go on to a prosecution—those who choose not to pay the instant fine or who are found to have breached biosecurity in a deliberate or intentional way—to face a fine that has been increased from $800, as it was before, to $1,000, as the previous speaker said. So all in all this is a great move that was necessary given the increase in traffic coming in and out of New Zealand, in terms of both tourism and trade, but obviously this affects people, as opposed to goods.
There are some unresolved issues in relation to digital imagery that has been sent from Australia in a photographic form. Those issues will have to be resolved before the bill receives its Royal assent, so, to that end, the bill was given an extended period. Normally the Governor-General will have a timely look at when the Royal assent should be given, but in this case the period was extended so that the unresolved issues around the property rights involved in the imagery of baggage that will be X-rayed in Australia, which will help to speed up the process of passengers coming in and out of New Zealand, can be resolved.
I give members this example. A businessman going to Sydney in the morning with his briefcase and coming back in the afternoon could, unintentionally, be carrying an apple in his bag with painted apple moth or something like that. That businessman’s briefcase will be X-rayed in Australia and the images will be digitally transferred to New Zealand, but the ownership of the digital image is still unresolved. Those things need to be resolved.
Apart from that, this is an excellent bill. The select committee considered it thoroughly and made recommendations to the House that have been accepted. I look forward to the passage of the bill.
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) Link to this
I also rise to support this Biosecurity Amendment Bill. It is non-controversial legislation, and that can be seen by the fact that no submissions were made on it when it came to the Primary Production Committee.
I must say that the Primary Production Committee does a good job on the bills that come before it, but I do have a concern about an issue that has just been raised by Shane Ardern, and it is in relation to SmartGate vis-à-vis travel to Australia. It is a real concern to some of us, because people who are travelling can have very good intentions but, as we know, mistakes can be made. In the past people have unintentionally brought in stuff they should not have brought in. When I recently came back from travelling overseas, I was horrified to see two passengers bringing in such stuff, one of whom was caught by the dog, This couple said that they did not know that they had the stuff, which was flowers, actually, in their suitcase. It was a dangerous thing to do, and they were caught by the dog. Another passenger, who had been sitting beside me, said when she came into the airport that she had some biscuits. She had been eating those biscuits on the journey, and she was going to bring in the half-packet she had left. I said: “Look, you can’t do that. It is food that you are bringing in.”, but she did not even declare it. I had to ask her about it and seriously pose the question as to why she had not declared it if she wanted to bring it in. In the end, I made her throw it away in the bin. These are the kinds of things that can happen in our airports, and people can unintentionally bring in stuff—in particular, fruit of all sorts that could bring in fruit fly.
This bill is a very important step towards good biosecurity. It is not the end-all for biosecurity but it increases the fines—in particular, fines for erroneous declaration, and also fines in relation to infringement fees, which are increased to $1,000. I think that sends an important signal, a message, to travellers that breaches are not acceptable. This country is a small island, we are very much dependent on agriculture, and we want to keep New Zealand’s clean, green image.
Sometimes I wonder, though, with all this stuff coming in, intentionally and unintentionally, why we have cut the number of front-line biosecurity staff. It is a real shame that 56 staff have been cut. Whenever we come into the country we see huge queues at our border, which shows that there are not enough people doing the job at our border. I know that those people do a great job, but there are not enough of them. I noticed this myself when there was a 45 to 50-minute queue waiting to get through the X-ray machine. It is clearly an issue. I think that cutting the number of staff in the biosecurity area by 56 is a real nonsense. Clearly, it has been done in the name of balancing the budget over 3 years. The passenger clearance director, Theresa Morrissey, actually mentioned that this had been done in the name of balancing the budget, and I do not think that that is good enough.
Overall, we support the bill, as I believe everybody in the House does. I think it is important to give a signal to the travelling public that it is not acceptable to bring unwanted organisms, pests, or weeds, etc., into our country, which depends on agriculture. We cannot afford to have those organisms.
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this
I also rise to speak in support of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. New Zealand’s future—the future of its economy, and the future of its agricultural products, which make up two-thirds of our economy—depends on a secure and pest-free environment. I recall, not so long ago, being in Auckland and facing the threat of the painted apple moth and the enormous amount of aerial spraying that was required to eradicate that pest. It had the ability to threaten—and was doing so in Australia—not only our horticulture but also our farming, and, more important, our forestry assets. It took an enormous effort, and an extraordinary amount of money, to bring that pest under control. It was a lesson, I think, in seeing what happens when our border security is not able to prevent those sorts of pests from entering New Zealand. The Reserve Bank recently provided some estimates of what it would cost New Zealand should foot-and-mouth disease break out, and it came up with a figure of $10 billion. That would be an extraordinary cost to the New Zealand economy should something like that be able to sneak in across our borders. It has not, but the threat is always there. The varroa bee mite, another imported parasite, caused extraordinary damage to bees—
The important thing is that when the Labour Government was in power it increased the funding to biosecurity efforts, because it recognised the need to make sure that the borders of New Zealand were secure. That varroa bee mite is a hugely important pest, and as one-third of all our plants are pollinated by bees just that one pest presented an enormous risk. We currently have a risk in the form of the imports that we are undertaking of palm kernel, which is being brought in for animal feed when there are existing forms of animal feed available. We do not need to do this. Palm kernel comes in with at least 50 potential pests associated with it. All we are doing is increasing our risk, for very little in the way of advantage. What is the point of bringing in a product that could carry 50 potential pests, when they can do that sort of damage?
My colleague Damien O’Connor mentioned the need to make the biosecurity regulations simple and straightforward, and Ashraf Choudhary talked about his experience when coming into Auckland International Airport. We live in a hugely multicultural and diverse society; Auckland has 182 different ethnic groups, many with their own language. Many of those regulations or instructions need to be very clearly communicated to those people—perhaps in their own language. I fear that although this legislation quite rightly raises the amount of money in terms of fines as a deterrent to people bringing illegal goods into New Zealand, it may hit those people who do not understand our biosecurity regulations very well. There is a real need to increase the understanding of biosecurity regulations in the areas in which we source both migrants and our visitors, and to make sure that those people are given every opportunity to be able to understand and to comprehend just exactly how New Zealand feels about people who bring in illegal products that could cause enormous damage.
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this
As a member of the Primary Production Committee, which considered the Biosecurity Amendment Bill, I am very pleased to make it clear that Labour is in support of the bill. Obviously, it is about the front line for our biosecurity. We are a trading nation, and our world would be entirely at risk should any species take hold here that could damage our farming-led economy. In my past life I used to keep bees, and I was one of those who suffered under the incursion of the varroa mite. I offered to put a hive into Wellington from my then home in Blenheim, and when the varroa mite arrived over that summer I was unable to take either the hive or the honey back to Blenheim at that time. So that is a very relevant example to me, small though it might have been, of how rapidly a species, or a pest, can impact upon our productive economy.
I want to comment a little further around the issue of the job losses in MAF Biosecurity New Zealand, and I suppose that the Labour Party finds itself in an unusual alliance with Federated Farmers on this issue. They have expressed deep concerns about those job losses, because they know what the cost of a single pest incursion can be for this nation—for instance, to our $10-billion export dairy industry. I also note the comments made over the weekend by the Guardian science writer about New Zealand’s reputation for environmental management. A fellow called Fred Pearce commented that our “100% Pure New Zealand” advertising campaign is rather thinly based; something of a “green mirage”, I think, was the comment that he made. That presents a vulnerability for this nation. We are a trading nation, and everything that we export contributes to our livelihoods, but, at the same time, we need to maintain a reputation for food integrity and product integrity.
I have a real fear around the issue of reducing our border control now that 50-odd staff have gone. In my city of Christchurch, I think half a dozen staff have lost their jobs. Yes, we acknowledge and accept there has been some downturn in the imported car industry, but we are told by no one less than the Minister of Finance that the green shoots of recovery are emerging again, and obviously that would mean a bounce back in that car trade, which had diminished over the last year. So what short-sightedness it is for the Government to take out 50 staff who could well have been used to improve our record, to make sure that we actually do have a rather thicker green line of biosecurity staff to stop our risk of incursion, because the costs of such incursions are absolutely horrendous.
I want to quote from the latest edition of the Federated Farmers magazine, in which Don Nicolson says that sustainability is the competitive advantage of New Zealand farmers, and that we must put up, and stand by, standards that go beyond the minimum. I think that comment could well be applied to biosecurity. We have a very, very long border. We have a very small number of staff, whose job it is to make sure we are able to protect our product integrity against incursion by pests, and here we are in an environment where, for the saving of a couple of million dollars, the Government has taken the axe to that thin green line. I think that is an absolutely reprehensible move.
The other comment I would like to make is that there is an opportunity in situations like this. I am thinking of our friends in the South Pacific who have been devastated by the tsunami quite recently. I was in Samoa at the time of the Prime Minister - led delegation, and it was put to me that Samoa cannot export bananas to this country. We import them from Costa Rica and from other nations in South America. We should be importing bananas from Samoa—from our friends and neighbours. Samoans are a huge and proud component of our population in New Zealand, as I am sure our colleague from Maungakiekie would agree. Yet the Samoans are unable to meet the biosecurity standards that we have, because of the operations of the single facility that they operate to try to meet food standards in New Zealand. They simply are unable to get the facility into production in a way that meets our requirements.
If we had 50 surplus staff, surely it would make some sense, if only in terms of the foreign aid budget, to use some of those staff in places like Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and the Cook Islands to help to grow their economies, because, in the final result, that would be good for New Zealand. It would be good if we are able to import food more sustainably from a closer neighbour, not from an international corporation like Dole or Chiquita. That has to be good for us, and that has to be good for our Pacific neighbours. Here was an opportunity—and, in fact, it was rehearsed with the Minister of Agriculture in the select committee. He did not seem to take hold of the issue, probably because the decision had already been made and it had been taken from a cost accountant’s kind of mentality. It did not take into account that we have opportunities as well as costs when it comes to well-trained biosecurity staff. I suspect we will have to recruit people back if, indeed, the economy is back into a growth phase. So that move was very short-sighted, and it is a disappointment in the background to this bill. Thank you.
COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this
I will deal with a couple of points with regard to the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. The first is the process around the accelerated procedure. A lot of people come into this country and fail to declare foodstuffs, in violation of our biosecurity laws. This bill enacts a process whereby, within 14 days, action can be taken to take back money through the courts. That is very important, because when we look at the set-up of things, we see that the instant fine procedure has been very successful. It has not been changed for a decade, and, therefore, we think that is very necessary.
All in all, once this bill receives the Royal assent—and I believe it will—in 12 months’ time we will have the regulations sorted and we will be looking at moving forward in such a way that the infringement scheme will be successful. I think that is a very appropriate action. This bill is a very good bill, and I certainly commend it to the House.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) Link to this
I will take this opportunity to have another call on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill, to raise just a couple of other issues As I said, Labour members consider this bill to be very important, but we consider that the basic philosophy behind it is a little flawed.
I will quote Federated Farmers, which do not seem to agree with Labour on many things lately. But there are a couple of things on which they do agree with Labour, and one is biosecurity. I quote Don Nicolson of Federated Farmers, who occasionally has a moment of brilliance. He said that biosecurity is: “the one area of Government that needs to increase staff and not make cuts.” He goes on to say: “Last year almost 600,000 sea containers passed through our ports with no physical inspection.”
I raise that issue because the Government believes that passing this bill will improve the situation of biosecurity in New Zealand, but that is a flawed philosophy. If we applied that philosophy we would say: “Why do we not just go around and increase the penalties for each and every crime in this country?”. But, no, the Government in the area of personal and property security has decided that it is more important to have more people on the ground.
The Government has made a song and dance about appointing and recruiting more police. We understand the logic of where the Government is going, even though we are not sure that it will get there. The Government is saying that more police on the ground will mean better personal and property security. But in the area of biosecurity the Governments says that fewer people on the ground will mean better biosecurity. That does not compute. It almost gets to the “h” word we are not allowed to use, does it not? The Government is saying “Hold on. We have cut staff, but we will increase the fines from $400 to $1,000, and we will have better biosecurity.”
I tell National members that they should not keep their heads in the sand for too long. If they are going to rest on this piece of legislation and let it ease their conscience—[Interruption] Mr Ardern, who is taking no notice at the moment, made a song and dance about biosecurity when he was in Opposition. The previous Labour Government increased funding and increased the fines only a little. What the National Government is doing here is cutting the funding for biosecurity and increasing the fines a lot. I tell members that it will not work unless we improve the way we communicate with people coming into and out of this country.
My colleague Dr Ashraf Choudhary just told members of a firsthand experience where people coming into the country did not understand that they should not bring food past the border or bring fruit in. The communication methods we have are insufficient. It is about time that the Minister got off his chuff and instructed the officials to review the passenger arrival card. It is time that was done so that people who will possibly be fined under this new bill are given fair warning and know full well that bringing into this country unwanted food or hazardous organisms or material is a threat to our economy, and that if they are caught, they will face a substantive fine.
The fine of $1,000 is quite an amount for many people coming through our borders, particularly those from Pacific countries; countries that we are assisting in most ways. We are trying to facilitate trade and tourism, but we still have not got our communication methods right, let alone in relation to all those other people, particularly from China and Asia, where we are promoting tourism and the opportunities to travel into the country. We are not backing that up with clear messages to those people when they get on the plane—in fact, before they get on the plane. We need to say: “This is ‘100% Pure New Zealand’, and we really appreciate the environment—the natural environment and the economic environment in which we work—and we want to keep it that way.”
This bill is basically flawed, and, as Don Nicolson said, it is about time that the Government put more people on the ground, not cut their numbers. The threat will not necessarily come from a few thousand containers inspected each year; it will come from the hundreds of thousands of containers that are not inspected because there are not sufficient people on the ground to do those inspections.
I will finish by saying that it is the Minister’s responsibility to instruct his colleagues—and I hope the Minister takes a call to reassure us on this matter—that with the increase in fines there should be better communication with people, and that the Government will in fact commit to putting more biosecurity staff on the ground, moving forward. That is the only way that we will protect our borders.
Mr Ardern is shaking his head because he knows that that is the only way we will protect our agricultural, horticultural, and biological economy. He is a smart man; it is a shame that he is suppressed and held back by his colleagues. He should be the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for Biosecurity. If he were, then I would know that this bill would not be a token measure for biosecurity improvement from the National Government. I know that he would have fought harder. He would have known that this was a token measure, and he would not have allowed cuts on the ground. I say: “Bad luck.”, to Mr Ardern. I am sure that some day his Government will appreciate his commitment to, and understanding of, biosecurity. In the meantime we will leave it to Mr David Carter, who, again, will just cut, slash, and ignore biosecurity.
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) Link to this
It is a pleasure to take a call on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill. The Green Party will support the bill, as it did at the bill’s first and second readings, through the Committee stage. We believe that the increases in fines that the bill proposes are overdue, and are a sensible measure to be taken. In fact, the Green Party would go so far as to say that we would have supported a bigger increase in fines.
But the problem we have with the bill is the trade-off that the Government is effectively proposing with this bill. The reason that the Government is setting out to increase fines is to provide a disincentive for travellers coming to New Zealand to include material in their baggage that could pose biosecurity threats. The Government’s thinking is that because the fines are larger, travellers will take greater care to check that their luggage does not contain items that might pose a biosecurity risk, and our borders will therefore be more secure. It is certainly true that for some travellers that will be the case. There will be some gains as a result of these increased fines, and that is why we support them. But the problem is that the Government is proposing to set off against that increased disincentive, a lower standard of scrutiny at the border. The Government is intending, in order that it can achieve an 8-minute improvement in travel time between Australia and New Zealand, to set aside the universal screening we currently employ, and replace it with risk profiling.
Risk profiling, as I think all members of this House are aware, means that we do not now approach all travellers and consider whether they have any material on their persons or in their luggage that might pose a biosecurity risk. Instead, we use characteristics—which perhaps the Customs Service has derived from past records, or from its experience in dealing with travellers—about those travellers who are most likely to be carrying material that poses a biosecurity risk, and those travellers are the only travellers we will actually screen. Of course, that means there are travellers who pose a risk but who do not fit the profile, who will not be subject to screening. Inevitably, that means we will face increased biosecurity incursions.
I again praise Shane Ardern and the members of the Primary Production Committee for their diligence in examining this matter. The committee is not convinced by that change of policy, and I praise it for that. The committee is right not to be convinced. In the trial of the risk-profiling approach that was undertaken by MAF Biosecurity New Zealand, of the 1,186 items of biosecurity risk that were seized at the border, 51 of them—certainly a minority, but still a significant minority—were seized from travellers who were in the queue of people who would have been classified as low-risk and not subject to screening had this risk-profiling approach been used.
Of those 51 items, 17 consisted of fruit fly host material. I have spoken in the House a couple of times now about some of the risks of fruit fly incursions. If a fruit fly incursion, which could occur from just a single piece of fruit in a traveller’s luggage, were to arrive in the Bay of Plenty—and Rotorua is now receiving international flights—the cost to our primary industries of such an incursion could be astronomical. In the first year alone we are talking of a financial impact of some $800 million—nearly a billion dollars—and 5,000 jobs. That is in the first year alone, and in the Bay of Plenty alone. We are talking about a massive impact on industries that are of incredible importance to this country. It is an inevitable consequence.
The risk we are taking is as a consequence of the profiling approach that the Government advocates. The explanation that the select committee received for the risk-profiling approach said that by not putting resources into those passengers who were deemed to be low-risk, we would have more resource to dedicate to screening those passengers who were deemed to be of a higher risk. But if we are in the situation where we do not have enough resource, enough money, to stretch as far as we want it to stretch—to screen all passengers and do a thorough job of that—then maybe it makes sense to say “OK, we don’t have enough to do the job we really need to do. What we will do is abandon our screening of passengers who are low-risk, and dedicate that resource into passengers who are a higher risk, because we believe that that will result in our detecting more of the high-risk incursions.”
Well, that would be all right, except it really depends on where we are on the curve of diminishing returns. Are we at a point on that curve that says that if we put a bit more resource into these higher-risk passengers, we will detect a lot more risks? Or are we at a point where we are already detecting most of the risks from that group of passengers, so putting in a bit more resource will really not net us a lot extra? For the approach that has been advocated by the Government to be correct, we would need to be further down that curve. We would need to get a decent return from our investment. If we are on a place on that curve where the investment of a small amount of extra resource will net a lot of extra risks, then surely that indicates that the decisions—to reduce jobs, and to actually respond to the situation we are in by cutting the resource available for screening at the border—that have been made within MAF Biosecurity New Zealand, are completely inappropriate.
I will also talk about the risk from footwear, because out of the 51 seizures—I have talked about the 17 that were related to a fruit fly host material—another 18 were around footwear, or footwear contaminated by soil. I have previously talked in this House about some of the risks associated with soil. For one, we face some risks to our native bush, to our native flora and fauna. Kauri dieback disease is a singular threat that our nation’s national and natural heritage faces from soil. If we are going to be in a situation where we will not be screening those passengers, not picking up that soil-contaminated footwear, and therefore potentially allowing into this country more and more soil-based pathogens, then we are actually putting our unique natural heritage at completely unnecessary risk.
I am trying to build here a picture of the kind of risk profile that we as a nation face, in terms of a trade off for this 8-minutes-faster, trans-Tasman travel. That is the bargain that the Government is trying to sell us. In exchange for these higher fines, we will have to accept these increased risks. It is a bargain that the Green Party, at least, is not prepared to take. I notice that the Minister is shaking his head at that. I invite him to take a call to explain how New Zealand—
Hon Gerry Brownlee—will not be facing these risks. Well, it is interesting that the Government is struggling to stay awake in the face of discussion of some of these increased biosecurity risks because, certainly for me and for my party, these biosecurity risks are of fundamental importance to our nation.
One of the other risks that our country faces as a result of soil contamination of footwear is around foot-and-mouth disease. I have spoken in this House, and I have spoken in the media, about the risks that we are unnecessarily taking around foot-and-mouth disease. Once again, in relation to this approach of risk profiling—of taking only a tiny sample of goods and passengers coming into this country—we are hoping that by the use of this sampling approach we will detect enough of the risk to obviate the incursions, the outbreaks, of these pests in New Zealand. But I say that that is not adequate to protect our natural heritage, it is not adequate to protect our primary industries, and it is not adequate to protect our tourism industry that also trades on that clean, green, “100% Pure New Zealand” image—which, I have to say, in the last week has been exposed in the international media for the “greenwash” that it is.
I have heard the Minister say that I am scaremongering by raising in the Chamber the risk around foot-and-mouth disease, but with our importation of palm kernel to this country, we are importing a product from a part of the world where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic. We are importing palm kernel after the use of a treatment process in the source country that will not be adequate to eliminate the risk of foot-and-mouth disease. We know that the product is being contaminated with soil, because farmers are reporting that when they feed the product out to their stock, there is soil contamination in it. The only way that that contamination can be there is through exposure in the source country. I am saying, with regard to foot-and-mouth disease, that once again it is evidence of an unnecessary risk that this country is taking, because of our selective and inadequate approach to risk management at the border and with biosecurity.
Biosecurity is fundamental to the way that we protect not only our natural heritage but also the way in which we make our living in the world. It is not an area where we should be making cuts; it is not an area where we should be making trade-offs. We support this bill, but we do not support, and we do not accept, the trade-off that comes with it.
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) Link to this
I will take just a brief call, because I feel that we do not yet have some important information. As members know, my colleague suggested earlier that a lot of nationalities and ethnic people are living in New Zealand, and a lot of people are travelling to New Zealand from many other parts of the world. But we also have a bit of an issue in relation particularly to the source countries that some of these predators come from, be they insects, pests, or diseases. I invite the Minister in the chair, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, to perhaps take a brief call to let us know whether he has a list of the regions or countries that are the main source of some of these potential hazards and biosecurity issues. I would be very keen for the Minister to take a brief call to let us know particularly which main regions and countries of the world are the sources from whence we have these potential problems coming into this country.