Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4), Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill (No 2)

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health) Link to this

I move, That the Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 4) and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. The Biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill was introduced in response to a December 2007 Court of Appeal judgment concerning an import health standard under the Biosecurity Act that had been issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The court’s judgment was confined to the particular import health standard before it, which was for Australian honey, but the court’s reasoning applied very broadly to most kinds of imported goods. In short, the court stated that all new organisms that might be imported incidentally with imported goods require approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. That created an unworkable legal framework for the management of biosecurity risks at the border. The court’s judgment resulted in legal vulnerability for most, if not all, existing health standards and it made it necessary to suspend issuing any new import health standards or amending any existing ones. This was clearly an untenable state of affairs and made it necessary to respond rapidly with amending legislation. I am pleased that most of the parties represented in this House and those on the Primary Production Committee, which considered the bill, have recognised the need for prompt legislative amendment and support this legislation.

The key change the legislation makes is to confirm that the Biosecurity Act, rather than the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, is the correct statute for making decisions on incidentally imported new organisms. This is the way we understand Parliament intended the two Acts would operate, and this is how we had been operating until the Court of Appeal decision. It is also the way that officials from the relevant agencies agree that the Acts should work. Suggestions have been made from some quarters that this legislation is the result of some kind of turf war between agencies. I can assure members that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry for the Environment, and the Environmental Risk Management Authority have worked closely in developing the legislation, and are in full support of it.

Some concerns have also been expressed about the involvement of the Department of Conservation in the development of the legislation. Following the Committee stage of the legislation earlier this week, it should now be clear to all members that the department was closely consulted on the development of the legislation and on the key Cabinet paper. The Biosecurity Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act were designed to work in partnership to protect New Zealand from the risks associated with the importation of organisms with risk goods, with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act covering the deliberate importation of new organisms. The amendments will ensure that the Acts can work in partnership more effectively without compromising the level of protection needed for New Zealand.

The legislation was introduced into the House on 12 February this year. It was read for the first time on 19 February, and was referred to the Primary Production Committee for consideration. The committee heard 15 of a total of 53 submissions that were received on the legislation. On behalf of the Minister for Biosecurity I would like to again thank the members of the Primary Production Committee for their valuable work on the bill. They had to tackle an issue arising from the interface between two quite complex Acts in a very tight time frame. The committee worked hard to quickly gain an understanding of the problems created by the Court of Appeal judgment while reviewing the concerns raised by a number of submitters. The select committee did not agree with the proposals from some submitters that substantial amendments should be made to the importation provisions of the Biosecurity Act. This, I believe, was the correct approach to take with legislation that had been developed to do no more and no less than to resolve the problems created by the Court of Appeal judgment and that was being progressed quickly for that purpose.

However, the select committee did amend the legislation to provide for an independent review process that can be used in cases where significant concerns have arisen during consideration or consultation over an import health standard. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry develops its import health standards by following a process that includes peer review and consultation. The ministry engages with its various stakeholders in developing import health standards, and most import health standards are developed without substantial disagreements. On some occasions, however, the process for developing an import health standard becomes affected by a protracted dispute over some aspect of the ministry’s risk management decisions. I would like to see the new provision for independent review used as a means of moving forward in those few cases where the import health standard development process has become contentious.

The select committee also grappled with how best to deal with the import health standard for Australian honey. On the one hand, the National Beekeepers’ Association had obtained a court declaration that no honey containing Paenibacillus alvei, a micro-organism, could be imported without an approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. On the other hand, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act was not suited to assessing the risks from passenger new organisms, and the select committee had legal advice confirming that there are no constitutional reasons not to validate the import health standard for Australian honey. I understand that a number of members considered it was essential that there should be no imports of Australian honey until an independent review is completed. The Supplementary Order Paper to make sure that the legislation has this effect has been tabled by the Minister for Biosecurity during the Committee stage and it has been agreed to by the Committee of the whole House.

I endorse the common-sense approach of ensuring that no imports of Australian honey should be permitted until the review is completed. Notwithstanding this, it is important that the review is completed in a timely manner and that it focuses on only the key issues that have previously been disputed by the National Beekeepers’ Association. The process for developing the import health standard for Australian honey goes back a period of some years and has already included extensive consultation and peer review. I would hope that the review can be completed within a period that is close to the 90-day period initially recommended by the select committee, so that final decisions can be made and all parties to the issue can then move on.

In closing, I thank the members of the Primary Production Committee again for their work on the legislation, and I commend the legislation to the House.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) Link to this

I thank the Minister David Cunliffe for his comments about the Primary Production Committee, and he was right. The select committee did go about its work in a studious fashion, within a very short time frame. I was one who spoke in the second reading debate on this legislation about the very short time the select committee was given, and at that point my view was that it was an unnecessarily tight time frame. But once we were made aware of the Crown Law Office opinion, which was that all the import health standards that were before officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Biosecurity New Zealand had to cease being developed further from the time of the Court of Appeal case, it became obvious to us fairly quickly that there was a need to move on as sensibly as possible.

This has been an interesting exercise in the sense that one of our country’s smaller export industries has demonstrated overwhelmingly, I think, that if it raises its concerns strongly enough and with enough sensible scientific evidence to back up the issue, then Parliament will take notice, particularly once the industry has won a Court of Appeal case. This legislation came about simply because the Court of Appeal case highlighted the overlap that existed between the Biosecurity Act 1993 and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996. Therefore, the moves today are supported by the National Party because it was necessary to tidy that uncertainty up.

It has also been demonstrated that when a group of New Zealanders who believe in the democratic process come to Parliament to protest and find that their protest is not accepted or not believed, there is a final point of appeal in this land where they can take their case. I congratulate those within the National Beekeepers’ Association on doing that. It demonstrates overwhelmingly that if we are determined enough we can still have success against what seems to be an insurmountable bureaucratic process, so I congratulate the association.

At the end of this process we now have an amended piece of legislation, or two Acts that have been amended, and we also have this independent review panel that the Minister spoke of. It is my sincere hope that this independent review panel will be allowed to carry out its work in the way that was intended by this Parliament. It should be independent, it should be able to attract the international or national—if that is the case—expertise that it can bring together, and at the end the scientific evidence that is brought to the argument, whichever way that may be, is compelling and is accepted. The bee-keeper industry itself said right at the outset that all it ever wanted was to have the opportunity for the science around this import health standard to be tested. This Parliament is today granting it that right. I thank the Minister for his involvement, particularly in clearing up, through the Supplementary Order Paper that was introduced in the Committee stage, the overlap that existed in the process.

I also say that this will not be the last time these issues are debated in this Parliament. I may be in a minority, I am not sure, but I believe there are some unfinished amendments to the Biosecurity Act and potentially the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I think over time further development will take place in the way that we not only introduce import health standards but in the way that we administer those import health standards, and in the role of the director-general and the new structure of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. We should bear in mind that the structure we have in our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry at the moment, in regard to this stuff, is relatively new, after the ministry itself went through a major reform not that long ago. As that reform beds in and we are better able to see, in a more transparent way, where there may or may not be weaknesses in the Act, further legislative change will happen.

The debate that is still unresolved I guess to some extent—and it was highlighted in the case of the Paenibacillus alvei importation—is what we do when there is a known passenger organism coming in with a known import that is deliberately being imported. What do we do if the scientific evidence, or the process that we place that organism in or through, is not as robust or not seen to be as robust as that of a deliberate import? What do we do in those circumstances? I think to some extent the independent science-based panel hopefully will answer some of those questions.

Further, I think the argument about our trading partners internationally saying that we are placing legislative roadblocks in the way of further trade will be overcome substantially by the creation of this independent science body. Once the scientists have considered it—and they must be transparent in the way they do that—and their work is peer reviewed internationally and domestically, then I think those who would put up a case at World Trade Organization meetings, or other such, on a sanitary or phytosanitary argument will have their arguments substantially weakened. To that end I think we have achieved not only an outlet for those who feel aggrieved about the process but some transparency in terms of the way we have arrived at whatever decision we arrive at, at the time.

To those in the ministry who have concerns about this process, I say that I think it will be a case of just toughing it out for a while. Certainly, at the end of the day, our cousins across the Tasman, the Australians, whom I know the ministry is in delicate discussions with presently, will have this science body to come back to and discuss these issues with.

I also say that, at the end of the day, if the case of those who are in industries is strong enough, regardless of where those industries are—and I know that we will go through probably a long and serious debate in the meat and wool industries at the moment—they can rest assured that if they come to the Parliament with sensible and substantial legislation, then this Parliament will respond, and that is one of the good things about New Zealand. With those words it is my privilege to stand in the House today in support of the passage of this legislation.

Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) Link to this

Aleikum salaam. I will take this brief call in support of this legislation, because I believe that the amendments to the Biosecurity Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act are very important to make sure of and clarify the role of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act as well as the Biosecurity Act. In saying so, I also add that this Labour-led Government is very proud of taking strong leadership in our biosecurity challenge. This country, and the agriculture in this country, depend on exports. Our economy is based on exports, so we take very seriously any issues to do with biosecurity. Our biosecurity people at our airports and other ports are always alert to any of these potentially harmful organisms arriving in New Zealand, whether intentionally imported or entering as passenger organisms. So in this bill we have clarified the role of the Biosecurity Act, as well as the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

This matter arose from the pathogen Paenibacillus alvei, which comes in honey. As has previously been said by a speaker on the other side, there are a number of issues here. One of the key issues has been the scientific evidence around whether this organism is a potential problem to honey and honey bees. In Australia, scientists have found no problem with this particular organism or its having an adverse effect on honey or honey bees. I understand that a New Zealand scientist made a submission that suggested there are potential problems. We have to be very careful, in scientific terms, about whether something has a clear, defined impact on something else. In this case, the scientist has been suggesting there is a potential problem with this organism. It is very important for us to make sure this organism does not have any problems, so that is why we have this bill and the amendment suggested through the Primary Production Committee that an independent scientific review panel has to be set up. After the bill has been enacted, this panel can look at this issue, if the bee industry wants it to, and hopefully clarify any problems. In the meantime, we have agreed that the honey should not be imported from Australia for 90 days. I think that that is important, to give some confidence to the bee industry. Since it won the case in the Court of Appeal the industry has had some fruits from its victory, if you like, and it will now have the opportunity to present its case and its views about this honey to the panel.

This bill also validates the import health standards relating to honey and honey bee products during this period. I think that that is a very good amendment, and a clarification. Our biosecurity people—the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Environmental Risk Management Authority, and other agencies—were in a bit of a quandary as to what to do next. But clearly there was advice from the Crown Law Office that this bill had to be put in place to make sure that the issues were clarified, for both the honey bee issue as well as for any other potential problems that could occur—for example, problems in the pork industry, as well. With those few words, I commend this bill to the House.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) Link to this

A lot has been said about this legislation. We dealt with most of its stages in the House this week, so I do not intend to take a very long call. National is happy to support the decisions we have got to through the process thus far. I am quite happy about the discussion the other night in the Committee of the whole House when we went through the legislation. The Minister tabled a further amendment on a Supplementary Order Paper that gave greater clarity around a couple of issues, and I am quite happy with the Minister’s response in relation to the process on the import health standard for honey coming from Australia. That process had already commenced in terms of the review, even though technically the review panel will not be set up until after the legislation is enacted. But the day in the sun—the 90 days that was requested—is already under way. I am very comfortable about this process.

This legislation essentially clarifies a demarcation issue as to how the process with regard to passenger organisms is handled at the border. This legislation not only puts us back to the process that has been followed since the enactment of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act in 1996 but also puts in a layer of protection, which is the review panel. I know that we absolutely do not want to have any passenger organisms that propose any kind of risk to New Zealand coming here, at all. I think that that is the desire, the expectation, and the wish of every single person I know. Nevertheless, we live in a world where we import and we trade, so there are risks. It is a matter of minimising those risks to the extent that we have little or no risk.

The only basis upon which we can make decisions about risk is science, because, as an exporting nation, we expect other countries purchasing our goods to be able to believe in a robust system that ensures the security of the product we are selling. Science can be the only basis for that. Therefore, in terms of the review panel, a few elements need to be considered. First, the umbrella organisation of any group makes the application to have the review panel do its work. Secondly, the basis is science. Thirdly, the expectation is that the best possible people who can be sought or gained for that work—and that includes people with international experience—can peer review it. I think that makes the whole process as robust as it can be made.

This legislation, which is now in two bills, does three things. It clears up that demarcation issue, and it puts in place the review panel—the process—for where there are concerns now. Import health standards for honey coming out of Australia are one example. For people in the pig industry, with regard to the porcine endogenous retrovirus issue, we have acknowledged that they have made presentations to the Primary Production Committee and we say that their issue can be handled. There will be further issues down the line. We can expect that to happen, so we have the process in place to deal with them. The other element is retrospectivity. The bee-keeping industry, having won the Court of Appeal situation, deserves to undergo that process of having the review.

All in all, I think this is as fair, just, and robust a resolution to an issue that we could manage in the time frame. As my colleague Shane Ardern said, there will be times in the future when we need to deal to biosecurity issues. It is a matter of utmost importance to New Zealand. We must continue to address and refine rules around anything at all that impacts the security of New Zealand.

I have some sympathy for the bee-keepers. They are pretty bruised at the moment and are suffering probably more under the drought than any other industry in the agricultural sector. They are still getting used to living with varroa mite, and just at this time the issue of tutin poisoning has come up. Even though it is in a very small part of the industry, it has cast something of a slur over it, so bee-keepers are very bruised. I say to them again that we listened to what they had to say to the select committee, and we have ensured that they will be the first case—the test case—in terms of the review process. So with those few words I say that I am happy to support the legislation.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. At the start of this week, passengers on Air New Zealand flight 21 from Fiji were treated to a surprise—a surprise manual spraying when it was discovered that the aircraft’s biosecurity clearance had expired. Upon touchdown at Auckland, two Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officers boarded the plane and fumigated everything in sight, leaving one adult with a sore throat and causing a baby to gag and vomit. As the passengers were quarantined, cooped up in a thick blanket of fog, no explanation was given for the unusual drenching. Passengers were left with no answers as to whether Air New Zealand should be held to account or the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

In many ways, there are similarities between this one incident and the purpose of the legislation before the House today, which is to amend the Biosecurity Act 1993 and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 in order to clarify the relationship between these two Acts. As it transpired, Air New Zealand was responsible for the biosecurity clearance of the aircraft having expired, and for emergency procedures being suddenly required at border control. The central connection between the Fiji flight fumigation and these two bills is all to do with the level of information and clarity of roles between two separate organisations.

The Māori Party has taken a keen interest in the progress of this legislation, as we have been concerned that the gap in the current statutory framework, which the court case brought by the National Beekeepers’ Association highlights, has created potential for confusion and conflict. This is a bill that turns that old adage “One standard for all.” on its head. The two older parties—Labour and National—appear to be very happy to oppose this principle, opting instead to give preference to perceived trade benefits over and above the long-term biosecurity of the nation.

The deliberate introduction of a new organism requires an approval under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, but when that known new organism is a hitchhiker organism it is now able to slip in with only the scrutiny of the Biosecurity Act. The Māori Party is very clear that the essence of the Court of Appeal decision in the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand v the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry case should be upheld. That decision determined that the gazetted new organism Paenibacillus alvei is to first gain approval for import into New Zealand under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act before bee products from Australia can be imported. The House is well aware that the Minister has always maintained that this decision created an unworkable legal framework for the management of biosecurity risks at the border. Yet, as my questions to the House earlier this week revealed, this so-called unworkable regime has actually been working perfectly well for many years.

The 2005 briefing to the incoming Minister advised the new Minister that all new organisms entering New Zealand, whether entering deliberately or unintentionally, were receiving one standard of scrutiny under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Accordingly, once an organism has been identified as being new, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is legally prevented from giving it biosecurity clearance until it has been approved under the Act. This approval can be given only by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. There is very little difference between this departmental briefing and what the Court of Appeal said in its judgment. Yet 3 years down the track the nation is suddenly in a spin to amend the law.

The Māori Party has been extremely concerned at the seriously shortened period of time that has been allocated to this issue. We were alarmed that submitters had little more than a week to prepare their submissions, and that the select committee effectively had only a fortnight to consider the bill. I congratulate the select committee on the hard work it put in to this particular legislation.

We have, however, been very appreciative that the changes that have been made throughout this process related to the suspension of powers to give biosecurity clearance. We were concerned that under the bill as it stood, it would have been lawful for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to give clearances to shipments of Australian honey within 90 days of the bills’ getting the Royal Assent, even if the independent review panel set up under the bill had not yet been set up, and even if the import health standard allowing honey imports had not been reviewed. It is a Clayton’s example of policy making.

We submitted a Supplementary Order Paper to this effect at the Committee of the whole House stage, and were pleased to see the issue clarified so that there will be a 90-day period for a review to take place, and the review will be held before any importation of Australian honey is possible. Our proposal in Supplementary Order Paper 189 was to ensure that the 90-day suspension period can come into effect only after the independent review panel has become operational and not before. In effect, we believe that this amendment clarified the intentions of the Primary Production Committee to allow the import health standard for Australian honey to be looked at afresh. Although we are pleased that the changes around clause 7A have been supported, we still remain of the view that this bill amounts to the serious weakening of our biosecurity controls at the border.

The importance of protecting our New Zealand bees from potentially harmful organisms must be understood right across this House as an issue of national importance. Bee pollination is essential for grass, crops, trees, and flowers. The entire infrastructure of our primary industry is dependent upon it. The effect of this legislation on our native flora and fauna has been minimised, the march towards free trade dominating over our biosecurity rights. The irony is, of course, that if our honey bees are indeed compromised, the damage to our future trade might well be unimaginable. Our colleague Jeanette Fitzsimons raised the issue during the second reading debate, and the Department of Conservation official advice had been muzzled following its identifying that there were significant gaps in the analysis leading up to this bill. How rich is it that the agency charged with key responsibility for protecting our natural heritage and our precious indigenous flora and fauna was not consulted on the further iterations of the bill?

Yet again, this bill represents the practice of this Government to listen to those whom it wants to listen to—which, in this case, is Crown Law and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry—while ignoring the bulk of submitters who fronted up with their concerns. Those submitters included the pork industry, with its Māori pig farmers; the National Beekeepers’ Association, with its Māori bee-keepers, especially those in Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau-a-Apanui, who specialise in the production of mānuka honey; Federated Farmers, with its Māori farmers; and Meat and Wool New Zealand, with its Māori meat and wool producers. The Government’s selective hearing has been deemed necessary in its shameless pursuit of free trade. The whole point about allowing Australian honey into the country is nothing to do with having robust biosecurity at the borders. It is all about free trade—apples for honey.

As I noted during the second reading debate, the decision to import honey is a consequence of this Government’s penchant for trade agreements with Australia, particularly the desire to export our apples there. So, once again, a divide-and-rule tactic is being applied, playing off the bee-keepers’ interests against those of the apple producers. Māori people and the Māori Party know these tactics only too well. Biosecurity protection has just become another commodity like human rights and slave labour, which the Government has been prepared to sacrifice for trade and the fear of breaching New Zealand’s World Trade Organization obligations. However, the sad upshot of this decision is that by giving priority to the World Trade Organization obligations we open ourselves up to a very real risk of not properly protecting our own flora and fauna, and, in the process, putting at risk of contamination a whole range of primary industries.

We have consistently put before the House our understanding that free-trade agreements compromise our sovereignty by overriding domestic law. We have always argued for fair trade—not free trade—which does not compromise our sovereignty, threaten the status of the Treaty, impact on work standards and wage rates, or make us complicit in other nations’ shameless lack of respect for human rights, indigenous rights, and the environment. Those are arguments that, of course, are uppermost in our minds as all eyes are fixed on China. There is simply too much at stake here, and the Māori Party will not support this bill.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. This Labour-led minority Government has joined in a grand coalition with the National Party to defeat the biosecurity legislation and, as a result, put this country’s economy and the environment on which our economy is built at serious risk. The passage of this legislation is irredeemably tainted by the deceptive information made available to the New Zealand public about the Government’s true policy intent. The legislation has had only the most superficial scrutiny, and it will result in increased threats to our primary production and tourism sectors, which are the two leading economic sectors in New Zealand.

The Greens fully support those ordinary Kiwi businesses, represented by the National Beekeepers’ Association, that fought the Government in the courts to prevent the importation of honey that was highly likely to contain the contaminant Paenibacillus alvei. The Court of Appeal in its judgment said that an unintentionally introduced organism is not necessarily unknown. It can be a known organism, and therefore it should require the approval of the Environmental Risk Management Authority prior to its importation as a passenger organism into New Zealand. This approval should be required even if that introduction is unintentional. The court concluded that biosecurity import health standards for honey are contrary to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and that therefore the honey cannot be legally imported. The decision did highlight a gap in the law. It is true that the Environmental Risk Management Authority does not have an absolutely clear set of tools to deal with known passenger organisms. Some changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act would have been both wise and helpful.

But the Government chose not to make changes to the Act. Instead, it is making changes to biosecurity legislation in order to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry—and not the Environmental Risk Management Authority—to make the assessments of known passenger organisms. So why is the Government giving the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry this responsibility, and not the authority? The Environmental Risk Management Authority is responsible for the scientific risk assessment of new organisms—that is its job. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act has the precautionary principle that ensures that New Zealand will have the greatest possible level of protection from contamination from new organisms. The Government is giving the ministry this responsibility because the ministry, through the Biosecurity Act, does not have the same high standards or the same rigorous process. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will let more passenger organisms through. It will do less to protect New Zealand’s economy and the environment.

The Government is giving the ministry the responsibility because—as was highlighted by my colleague Tariana Turia from the Māori Party—the ministry’s concern and the Minister for Biosecurity’s concern is the promotion and protection of trade, in terms of the World Trade Organization and other agreements, and not the protection of New Zealand businesses. Mr Anderton admitted this on Tuesday during the Committee stage. He is primarily concerned about trade, not the protection of our environment and the economy from new organisms that could have devastating effects. In part, as I have mentioned, this is because the Government has signed international trade agreements that prevent New Zealand from having the law that will provide a rigorous system to protect us. And, partly, the other reason is that this Government wants, eventually, to allow genetically modified organisms into New Zealand through the back door.

It is true that this legislation has a definition in it that excludes GMOs—absolutely, that is the case at least for the moment. But the policy behind the legislation clearly shows that the intention of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was to enable GMOs to be imported as passenger organisms. So why has it not done that, now that it has the opportunity of passing the legislation? Well, it is an election year, and this Labour-led minority Government knows that it cannot pass a bill in an election year that will let GMOs into this country. Where is the proof of this policy? Where is the proof of my argument? It is in a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry document from 2006, called Fixing problems in new organisms, including genetically modified organisms, unintentionally introduced into New Zealand. It is clear from this document that the ministry’s intention is to exclude GMOs from the provisions of the legislation after the election—that is, to enable GMOs to be brought in as known passenger organisms.

The Minister has used the Court of Appeal decision in the honey import case as an opportunity to bring this legislation before the House. We should not forget that this legislation was prepared as early as 2006, when the policy was developed. We have been waiting a long time to be able to do this. We have heard all the excuses and accusations from the Minister against the Greens and our opposition to this legislation, but they cannot hide his culpability in deceiving the public about the real intentions of this legislation—that is, to enable the introduction of GMOs as a passenger organism. This legislation puts our economy at risk, and to see that one needs only to look at who opposed it at the Primary Production Committee: Meat and Wool New Zealand, the deer industry, the pork industry, the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, Fonterra, the National Beekeepers’ Association, the Pig Veterinary Society, Retail Meat New Zealand, and even our mates Federated Farmers. They oppose this bill because of the risk it poses to them and to our economy.

One of the organisations that has a responsibility for the protection of our environment is, of course, the Department of Conservation. That department had very serious reservations about this bill. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reported in January of last year that the Department of Conservation did not support the proposal, that it believed there were significant gaps in the analysis, and that the document failed to meet the criteria identified by the working-group for an effective system. In an email from the Department of Conservation to the Ministry for the Environment—which was released under the Official Information Act; officials did not make it available in any other way—the Department of Conservation makes it clear that it has serious concerns; that the proposal is likely to reduce the quality of risk assessment; that it would therefore expose New Zealand to greater risks from new organisms; that it would create an inconsistent system; and that it is unwarranted in relation to the scale of the problem.

Then again we had another email from the Department of Conservation a few weeks ago stating: “DOC also expressed the view in 2006 that the Biosecurity Act should have the minimum standards and a precautionary principle applied within it, as does HSNO Act. The Biosecurity Act currently lacks the transparency and certainty that the principles and such criteria provide in HSNO, and this poses risks. DOC still holds this view as of a few weeks ago and wishes to see it addressed.”

The fact is that this Government, in collusion with National, is putting this country’s economy and the environment at risk. This legislation has been passed through the process with extraordinary speed, avoiding as much public scrutiny as possible. There is even some suggestion in the documents that the Government would have preferred to have no select committee consideration of this legislation. In the meantime our economy and our primary production and tourism sectors are being put at risk.

The concern for the Green Party relates to New Zealand’s own ordinary Kiwi businesses. Ordinary New Zealand Kiwi businesses will now have to deal with a regime that will allow the importation of known risky passenger organisms that could cause them significant economic cost. How are they expected to manage the cost of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s accepted level of contamination? The cost to Kiwi businesses simply to manage those contaminations, to deal with any publicity issues, and to manage the environmental and business impacts on their work is unknown. What the economic impacts will be is simply unknown. What the economic damage could be to these Kiwi businesses is unquantifiable. This Government, along with National, is allowing that to happen. It is allowing that risk to proceed.

We were very pleased to vote with the Māori Party and to work with it on its Supplementary Order Papers to make changes to the bill. We were pleased to force the Minister to expose his primary problem, which is that he wanted to protect the World Trade Organization agreements, not New Zealand businesses, and to allow for the unintentional but known introduction of passenger organisms. I feel proud that the Green Party has protected, as far as it could, the primary production sector, the tourism sector, our economy, and our environment. Along with our colleagues from the Māori Party, we have been the only ones standing up for the key economic sectors in this country, while National and Labour jointly make efforts to destroy them. It is a disgrace. We will be opposing this legislation and supporting organisations that continue to oppose this legislation in the future.