Bio-security and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Legislation Amendment Bill

Tena koe Mr Speaker, tena tatou katoa

It is somewhat ironic, that the issue at the top of the order paper in the Beehive today, features what has become known as a New Zealand icon – the bee.

Every gift shop hosts the legendary buzzy bee – or te pingipingi pi as our kohanga know it. The Diabetes Association 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 which 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 the international markets.

A classic example is Whakaari Beekeepers Limited which was established in late 2002, based in the isolated coastal community of Whangaparaoa.

Up until that point while beekeepers had routinely placed their hives on tribal lands, tangata whenua weren’t exactly 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 wasn’t exactly making anyone millionaires.

So in 2000, Eddie Matchett figured that local landowners should be able to benefit from the bees. Matchett and his mates were also keen to support a district which suffered from high unemployment, where most of the income was from benefit payments.

I wanted to share the experience of Whaakari Beekeepers Ltd as it is a good example of a new enterprise which can create wealth and employment, develop self-reliance amongst the people, support the Maori beekeeping sector, and maximize returns from a local abundantly available resource.

In short, it was all looking good until Varroa Jacobsen came along. The risk of varroa to beekeepers and the industries they provide pollination services to, has been a prominent issue in the agricultural sector for close to a decade.

But as this Bill demonstrates, there was to be another obstacle fly in the path of the bee –the bacterium ‘P. alvei’ which is often found in association with the virus European Foulbrood - a known and dangerous pest to bee larvae.

The Beekeepers Association believed that given this risk, ERMA approval under the HSNO Act was needed prior to honey and bee products being imported from Australia under the import health standard issued by MAF back in 2006.

As is now well established, the Court of Appeal decision in National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand v Chief Executive of MAF 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 this case, about the way in which such risks are managed; about the protections in place to care responsibly for our flora and fauna.

As the last two hundred years have demonstrated, hordes of seemingly innocuous organisms have been introduced, only to find dangers at a later stage.

Think about possums, gorse, rabbits, ferrets, the household cat, and so on. In fact, in just the last five 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 Bio-security Act.

In doing so it responds to the risks that emerge when organisms are deliberately imported, as well as those which 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 have contended that, in the face of insufficient information on the risk of any organism, that importation should be denied until such information is obtained.

In assessing the level of risk posed by Australian honey, they have relied on research suggesting that P.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 which weakens the hive as a whole.

Treatment for European Foulbrood is with antibiotics, which would have a huge impact on the anti-bacterial properties of honey, particularly 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 bio-security 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 everyone.

This Bill will have the effect of setting in place ‘Import Health Standards’ to ensure any risk goods are cleared before entering Aotearoa - effectively overturning the Court of Appeal decision which 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 Bio-security Act.

Any organisms introduced through the approval process of the Environmental Risk Management Authority will be dealt with through the HSNO Act.

But there remains a significant gap in the current statutory scheme which needs to be addressed - and that is not raised in the current version of this Bill.

That is, that there needs to be a clear process which will allow MAF to refer risk issues from known incidental new organisms to ERMA for investigation and approval.

And if ERMA don't have enough information to make that call, such information should be sought or research commissioned - instead of dealing with the gap via a Bill to push concerns under the table.

Rather than an either-or system, there needs to be workable connections between the Bio-security Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

Given the issues that we have seen recently with asbestos, painted apple moth spray, dioxin poisoning and other intrusions to 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 four year investigation by the Ombudsman into the impacts and effects of aerial spraying pesticide should have given sufficient warning to the Government of the need for ensuring future protection of crops and people and land; and investing in the safety of affected populations.

We in the Maori Party are happy to support this Bill to 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 bio-security statutory framework should include a total prohibition on Genetic Modified Organisms in the interests of a GE Free NZ. Only then, can we really be proud of our environmental clean, green image.