12. SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) Link to this
to the Minister for Biosecurity
Does the Minister have confidence in Biosecurity New Zealand?
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Biosecurity) Link to this
Yes, and at a much higher level than any confidence I or this House could ever have in the spokesperson on biosecurity from the National Party.
Madam SPEAKERDoes the Minister support the proposal to allow chilled pork meat into New Zealand, or will he listen to international expert Professor Roger Morris, who has strongly opposed that proposal?
For porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome to infect our local commercial pork industry, an almost impossible chain of events would have to occur. It is so unlikely that the risk to New Zealand pork producers is considered to be negligible by reputable national and international scientists.
Lesley SoperUnder the Biosecurity Act, passed by a National Government in 1993, it is quite properly inappropriate for me to influence Import Health Standards. Decisions on such standards are properly determined by the director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, following expert scientific evaluation and a public consultation process. Political interference in the objective decision-making process on Import Health Standards is totally inappropriate and is completely contrary to our broader trading interests. If the member is suggesting that there should be political interference in our biosecurity apparatus, then New Zealand’s agricultural and horticultural exporters have everything to fear from a National Government, if that is what National is proposing.
At the conclusion of my questions, I will seek leave to table section 63 of the Biosecurity Act, which was amended in 1998—
I will give the Minister a chance to check it out. Why would the Minister play Russian roulette, with the potential of importing porcine reproductive respiratory disease, when Professor Morris, who is recognised internationally as an expert in this field and is currently seconded to the UK to help it with its foot-and-mouth outbreak, has stated that this is a very high-risk proposal with a high probability of importing this disease, which to the pork industry is the equivalent of foot-and-mouth disease?
With respect to Professor Morris, I say that he has a long and close association with the pork industry. There is nothing wrong with that, but the import risk analysis conducted on this issue was peer reviewed by seven independent New Zealand and international experts. I understand that Scott Dee, professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Minnesota, and Scott Hurd, the director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Risk Assessment and Hazard Identification in Foods of Animal Origin, either agreed with the risk analysis or indicated that we had overestimated the risk. There are expert views, of course, on all sides, and Biosecurity New Zealand has had to make a rational decision, after balancing all of the views and risks. I support it in doing so without political interference.
It is strongly in the interests of New Zealand’s primary producers that we support a risk-based approach to trade, based on sound science. I suspect that National MPs such as Lockwood Smith, David Carter, and Tim Groser support a science-based approach to trade, but every few months they let Mr Ardern have question No. 12 in order to run some kind of alarmist shock, horror story—as he did when he drove up the steps of Parliament on a Massey Ferguson tractor.
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I will allow the Minister a chance to correct his last statement, because I think he may have misled the House. It was actually a Ferguson tractor, not a Massey Ferguson tractor.
If the Minister thinks the risk is low, then is he prepared to put his money where his mouth is and cover any costs that may be incurred by the industry if this virus were to be accidentally imported, and if that is not the case, why is it reported that the Minister or his officials have stated to the industry that it will be the industry’s problem or issue to police the feeding of raw pork meat to pigs?
Firstly, this is not a decision of the Minister’s, and whatever the Minister’s opinion may or may not be of it, we have a science-based, evidence-based process for biosecurity in this country. I would like to hear from the leadership on the front bench of the National Party as to whether those members propose to change that at the whim of Mr Ardern from the backbenches. There is no such thing as no biosecurity risk; that is quite simply unachievable. The closest we could come to that is to close our borders entirely, but even then biosecurity risks would come by the oceans or the wind. If Mr Ardern has some way of stopping those two elements, I would like to hear from him.