Biosecurity Amendment Bill

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) Link to this

We will educate visitors to this country—

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this

I am very pleased to take a short call on the Biosecurity Amendment Bill, and, yes, Labour supports this bill going to the Primary Production Committee, of which I am a member. We welcome the proposal to increase the fines available for those who breach our biosecurity regulations.

As has been mentioned, however, there are some very real fears in that the Government is giving, if you like, some stiffening to the biosecurity regulations, but it is taking with the other arm, in the sense that we are losing 54 biosecurity staff. Those staff are the thin green line that protects and preserves our $20 billion - plus agricultural production export base. It is a very thin line. I have spoken to Christchurch biosecurity staff; they tell me it is already very hard to do their job properly, and this is before we see the loss of staff that is currently taking place. If those staff are not able to do their job properly, then goodness help this nation, because everything we have and hold dear is reliant upon their being able to do their best to protect and preserve our borders.

The MP for Kaikōura talked about balance and tension between the 3 million tourists we as a nation want to encourage and foster, and the huge debt we have to our agricultural exports. Education is a wonderful thing, but it will not bring about the eternal vigilance that our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry biosecurity staff put in place. The Primary Production Committee was actually in Australia in the days preceding the Prime Minister’s visit there recently. One gets the sense that this bill is just to implement the photo opportunity that arose there to start discussions around faster movement across borders. That is welcome, but I note in the bill’s commentary that “Streamlined border processes, including refinements to the targeting of biosecurity risks at the border, will allow passengers who comply with the requirements to pass through with minimal intervention, while passengers who breach biosecurity requirements will face higher penalties.” One has to ask how we will know. How will we determine that passengers are breaching biosecurity requirements if we have fewer biosecurity staff there to make those checks? That is not just a view the Labour Party is holding and expressing tonight; we are in very good company. The Federated Farmers president, Don Nicholson, made the point very strongly that biosecurity staffing is one area of government where there needs to be increases in staff and not cuts. He is looking at the risks to the industry he represents, and he is not alone in that view. I have an article from yesterday’s Grower magazine that says that Tim Knox, a top official in Biosecurity New Zealand, ran into a volley of hostile statements from growers who were worried about past and future biosecurity threats. Those growers are concerned that their livelihoods could be put at risk by what the Government has in place at the moment.

I was lucky enough recently to visit Samoa, partly to join, in a de facto way, the Prime Minister’s delegation for a day, and then to have a short holiday. Samoa, as a nation, is not able to export fruit to New Zealand, because of ongoing problems with fruit flies. If we have a surplus of biosecurity staff, as the Government maintains, surely it would make sense to consider sending some of those staff to Samoa, in order to get that nation’s biosecurity and phytosanitary arrangements up to a standard where it can export fruit to New Zealand, enabling us to support it in a better way, and to stop importing bananas from further afield, from Costa Rica and so on.

Of course, as of last night, Samoa will be in the market to import cars from New Zealand, because it shifted, in rather dramatic fashion, the side of the road on which its people drive. The supposed reason for the cuts in staff at Biosecurity New Zealand is that the volume of car imports has fallen to half. If we were to be a little more proactive and consider sending some of those staff to island nations such as Samoa, we might be able to deploy those staff in a better sense, instead of cutting the thin green line that exists.

I will make a final comment about the risks that are posed if we start cutting the number of Biosecurity New Zealand staff. One incursion by the varroa mite is estimated to have cost this nation between $273 million and $486 million in lost production, jobs, and exports. We are talking at the moment of making cuts to Biosecurity New Zealand staff—54 staff—to save $2 million. We could beggar ourselves as a nation for that small amount. This is one of the issues that need to be considered as this bill progresses through the Primary Production Committee.

Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister for Biosecurity) Link to this

I move, That the Biosecurity Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee , that the committee report finally to the House on or before 12 October 2009, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), and during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c).