Biosecurity is the work of the whole community
Pest management is a responsibility for all of us.
---------------------------------
Address to the New Zealand Biosecurity Institute, National Education & Training Seminar, Wellington Town Hall
When I was a young political activist starting out in politics, it was the height of the Cold War and there was a particularly noxious species of politicians: They were Cold War warriors. Their specialty was to warn darkly of a red menace. They would warn us that New Zealand was about to be over-run by a red army.
When the Cold War ended, we all thought the red army threat was gone − but it turned out those curmudgeonly warnings had some value. We were in danger of being over-run by a red army all right − an army of red fire ants.
They were discovered in June last year in the Hawke's Bay. They invaded backyards, school grounds and recreation areas. They are aggressive, and they have a nasty sting, making unusable many of the places our lifestyle depends on.
We wouldn't face a real army invading our shores by leaving it all up to the government to do something. We would expect to pull together as a community to defend ourselves.
And that is how we set out to fight back against red fire ants. Biosecurity New Zealand worked closely with the local community in Whirinaki where the ants were found. We had the same success when we found a single Asian Tiger Mosquito at Ports of Auckland − with the public ringing a Ministry of Health hotline (0800 Mozzie) to report nuisance mosquito bites. The public got on board.
When it came to the red fire ant, Cabinet approved nearly eleven million dollars for surveillance and eradication. Special ground teams were sent in to lay baits and look for nests. And the fight is in full flush. A nest was treated last month and movement controls put in place to stop the menace spreading.
But to date the ant has been successfully eradicated from Auckland and the Port of Napier and there's been work with Pacific countries to reduce contamination in containers coming into New Zealand.
There is a lot that's important about this story: It tells us about the nature of the most significant threat from outside facing New Zealand. Many countries around the world are under siege from bombs and bullets. Our bad guys are biological.
Second, the threats we face are ongoing. New incursions are always lurking.
So, because there are always new threats and new incursions, we will never vanquish them. We will never be able to say our biosecurity is assured and we can now relax.
Therefore, we all have a role in responding to biosecurity threats, as the episode of the red fire ants, and the Asian tiger mosquito, and many other pests, shows.
And fifth, the government is serious about playing our role in defending New Zealand's biosecurity. Being serious about biosecurity requires investing in the resources to defend our border as well as we can. It also means being vigilant in ensuring we use our resources in the most effective way.
There will never be a time when we can promise one hundred percent secure defences against biosecurity incursions. And sometimes when there are pest incursions, we will have to manage them rather than eradicate them.
We don't have unlimited resources and we never will. We could try to protect our border by closing it − and even then it would leak. But we are part of the world, and as long as we expect to go out in the world and come back (and as long as we welcome others to New Zealand), pests will make their way here, too. So it doesn't make sense to say we will eliminate all threats. Our strategy has to be to minimise them as effectively as we can.
If we try to aim for perfection, we will actually be less effective, because we would take limited resources away from where they are most needed and put them to lower value uses. That makes no sense − but it is what people mean when they say we should aim for complete protection and one hundred percent success.
Sometimes seeking the most effective solution means hard decisions must be made. For example, we had to manage Varroa in the South Island, rather than try to eradicate it.
In reality it means that the government can actually do more in defending our biosecurity. We spent fifty percent more on biosecurity last year than we spent in 2001.
We spend around $77 million at the border keeping pests out, more than $20 million a year on surveillance and incursion responses and $4 million on biosecurity enforcement. Another $30 million is spent on Bovine Tuberculosis. As a result, bovine tuberculosis in cattle and deer herds has dropped from 1.4 percent to 0.65.
In the Budget this year the government increased biosecurity funding even further. We put another $39 million into the effectiveness of managing our border. There's a good reason for that − prevention is better than cure. Money spent stopping pests getting in is more effectively spent than trying to eliminate pests once they are already here.
You only have to think of the drenching of Auckland to kill one elusive painted apple moth to realise the value of shifting our biosecurity risks from the border to overseas.
That's why more effort is going into getting other countries and traders to manage biosecurity risks proactively before they get to New Zealand. Around 180-thousand used cars and machines a year are inspected − the majority in Japan, where they are decontaminated if necessary before they leave for New Zealand. Sea container importers are working to reduce container contaminants through improving processes such as storage procedures.
At the start of this month MAF Quarantine Service and Biosecurity New Zealand were brought together into a single unit called MAF Biosecurity New Zealand. This will better bring together policy development, risk analysis, standards and operational functions.
Border agencies, including MAF, Customs and Immigration have been told to work together in a way that gets the job done more effectively. For example, they're looking at sharing new information systems and other border infrastructure.
Working together better across agencies goes back to the Biosecurity Strategy in 2003, which recommended an integrated approach to managing our biosecurity interests. The strategy made MAF accountable for leading the biosecurity system.
This does not mean MAF is responsible for doing all the work −it means MAF is responsible for coordinating what we do to protect our biosecurity − at the border and before the border is reached, surveillance, incursion responses and eradication, and the transition to pest management.
The Biosecurity Strategy concluded that pest management lacked strong leadership and overview. Pest management agencies were assigned clearer areas of responsibility.
And communication between central and local government was improved. For example, there has been a forum set up over the last two years which includes the chief executives of regional councils and central government agencies with biosecurity accountabilities − MAF, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of Health, and Land Information New Zealand. This has helped to work out a single set of strategic pest management priorities and a five-year work plan to address them.
The agencies have also agreed on new roles and responsibilities that distinguish when a pest will be managed at a national level by MAF, and when it will instead be managed at a regional level by agencies such as DOC or regional councils.
This arrangement reflects that pest management is a responsibility for all of us. It is not something only for central government − and I am reminded of that when I hear calls for us to spend more on regional programmes.
Government is already providing substantial funding for managing pests that are of regional as well as national concern. Last year the government spent $140 million managing pests − from incursion responses to pest management programmes on Crown land, to the Bovine Tuberculosis National Pest Management Strategy managed by the Animal Health Board.
Working with regional councils, central agencies and technical experts, MAF has decided to establish early intervention programmes for eleven pests.
Partnership is vital.
The National Pest Plant Accord is a good example of central and regional government working together with industry to manage nationally significant pest plants.
The Accord targets pest plants being sold or propagated. The focus is on casual markets like road-side stalls and on commercial nurseries and plant retailers. This is a good example of partnership, with the industry participating as a decision-maker.
Also, last year the Government approved an extra $20 million to develop MAF's ability to handle a major exotic disease outbreak, such as bird flu or Foot and Mouth Disease (as well as other major incursions such as fruit fly and red fire ants.)
Since then MAF has implemented a new generic incursion response system built around the 'four Rs': reduction, readiness, response and recovery. This should make it easier for other organisations to work with MAF on biosecurity responses and for responses to be scaled up and down as appropriate.
MAF has also been working on a new generic biosecurity risk organism response policy. The proposed new policy sets out the principles for responding to new or already established pests.
Whether the organism is a recent incursion or has been in New Zealand for a long time is not as important as whether or not it has an impact on our economic, environmental, social, cultural values and human health. The response will depend on whether effective action can be taken to mitigate the impact to the overall benefit of New Zealand. The new policy will go out for consultation. It should be ready in September.
But we are not sitting around waiting. MAF is currently running six major incursion response programmes, including: Varroa, Didymo, Styela, Southern Saltmarsh Mosquito, Red Imported Fire Ant and Painted Apple Moth. These are each separately funded at a cost of around $27 million last year.
Yet there is even more work underway on biosecurity. After a surveillance programme and a ban on feeding ruminant protein to ruminants, New Zealand has been confirmed as free from BSE.
The threat of bird flu was met with a surveillance and response programme, which was worked out with industry and others who have a stake. We have a nationwide fruit fly surveillance and response programme.
Marine surveillance has been significantly boosted and we are finding out more about what lives in our ports and on the hulls of arriving ships. It was a surprise to discover, when I became Biosecurity Minister, that we knew very little about what was in our harbours, what was coming here on ships and what we could do about it. We are beginning to find out more.
There is a lot being done. I had the privilege of addressing the Biosecurity Institute two years ago, just after I had been appointed as a new Minister for Biosecurity. Back then I said my approach to the portfolio would be to continually improve our biosecurity systems in an evolutionary way. I promised to build on the work that had been done by my predecessors. And I promised to build partnerships across central and local government, industry and the community to confront our biosecurity threats.
It's important we get this right because our biosecurity is crucial to New Zealand. Our primary producers are crucial to our economic well-being, and their ability to compete in global markets depends on our biosecurity assurance. Our livelihoods depend on keeping pests and diseases out, protecting our natural advantage and providing assurance to our trade.
It's crucial, too, for our sense of New Zealand. We identify ourselves partly by our unique environment, and pests threaten that. We have a responsibility to protect our abundant unique species and habitats.
It's ironic that the more we increase public awareness about biosecurity, the more it seems our biosecurity is weakening. But it isn't − we have never been tougher in defending our biosecurity. We are transforming our border protections to reduce the risk before pests enter New Zealand. We are strengthening our readiness and response when pests and diseases do make it in.
And we are working with all those who have a stake to manage pests of national significance. I'm confident the government is playing its role in defending New Zealand's biosecurity and I believe we will become even more effective as our new programmes take effect.
---------------------------------
Address to the New Zealand Biosecurity Institute, National Education & Training Seminar, Wellington Town Hall
When I was a young political activist starting out in politics, it was the height of the Cold War and there was a particularly noxious species of politicians: They were Cold War warriors. Their specialty was to warn darkly of a red menace. They would warn us that New Zealand was about to be over-run by a red army.
When the Cold War ended, we all thought the red army threat was gone − but it turned out those curmudgeonly warnings had some value. We were in danger of being over-run by a red army all right − an army of red fire ants.
They were discovered in June last year in the Hawke's Bay. They invaded backyards, school grounds and recreation areas. They are aggressive, and they have a nasty sting, making unusable many of the places our lifestyle depends on.
We wouldn't face a real army invading our shores by leaving it all up to the government to do something. We would expect to pull together as a community to defend ourselves.
And that is how we set out to fight back against red fire ants. Biosecurity New Zealand worked closely with the local community in Whirinaki where the ants were found. We had the same success when we found a single Asian Tiger Mosquito at Ports of Auckland − with the public ringing a Ministry of Health hotline (0800 Mozzie) to report nuisance mosquito bites. The public got on board.
When it came to the red fire ant, Cabinet approved nearly eleven million dollars for surveillance and eradication. Special ground teams were sent in to lay baits and look for nests. And the fight is in full flush. A nest was treated last month and movement controls put in place to stop the menace spreading.
But to date the ant has been successfully eradicated from Auckland and the Port of Napier and there's been work with Pacific countries to reduce contamination in containers coming into New Zealand.
There is a lot that's important about this story: It tells us about the nature of the most significant threat from outside facing New Zealand. Many countries around the world are under siege from bombs and bullets. Our bad guys are biological.
Second, the threats we face are ongoing. New incursions are always lurking.
So, because there are always new threats and new incursions, we will never vanquish them. We will never be able to say our biosecurity is assured and we can now relax.
Therefore, we all have a role in responding to biosecurity threats, as the episode of the red fire ants, and the Asian tiger mosquito, and many other pests, shows.
And fifth, the government is serious about playing our role in defending New Zealand's biosecurity. Being serious about biosecurity requires investing in the resources to defend our border as well as we can. It also means being vigilant in ensuring we use our resources in the most effective way.
There will never be a time when we can promise one hundred percent secure defences against biosecurity incursions. And sometimes when there are pest incursions, we will have to manage them rather than eradicate them.
We don't have unlimited resources and we never will. We could try to protect our border by closing it − and even then it would leak. But we are part of the world, and as long as we expect to go out in the world and come back (and as long as we welcome others to New Zealand), pests will make their way here, too. So it doesn't make sense to say we will eliminate all threats. Our strategy has to be to minimise them as effectively as we can.
If we try to aim for perfection, we will actually be less effective, because we would take limited resources away from where they are most needed and put them to lower value uses. That makes no sense − but it is what people mean when they say we should aim for complete protection and one hundred percent success.
Sometimes seeking the most effective solution means hard decisions must be made. For example, we had to manage Varroa in the South Island, rather than try to eradicate it.
In reality it means that the government can actually do more in defending our biosecurity. We spent fifty percent more on biosecurity last year than we spent in 2001.
We spend around $77 million at the border keeping pests out, more than $20 million a year on surveillance and incursion responses and $4 million on biosecurity enforcement. Another $30 million is spent on Bovine Tuberculosis. As a result, bovine tuberculosis in cattle and deer herds has dropped from 1.4 percent to 0.65.
In the Budget this year the government increased biosecurity funding even further. We put another $39 million into the effectiveness of managing our border. There's a good reason for that − prevention is better than cure. Money spent stopping pests getting in is more effectively spent than trying to eliminate pests once they are already here.
You only have to think of the drenching of Auckland to kill one elusive painted apple moth to realise the value of shifting our biosecurity risks from the border to overseas.
That's why more effort is going into getting other countries and traders to manage biosecurity risks proactively before they get to New Zealand. Around 180-thousand used cars and machines a year are inspected − the majority in Japan, where they are decontaminated if necessary before they leave for New Zealand. Sea container importers are working to reduce container contaminants through improving processes such as storage procedures.
At the start of this month MAF Quarantine Service and Biosecurity New Zealand were brought together into a single unit called MAF Biosecurity New Zealand. This will better bring together policy development, risk analysis, standards and operational functions.
Border agencies, including MAF, Customs and Immigration have been told to work together in a way that gets the job done more effectively. For example, they're looking at sharing new information systems and other border infrastructure.
Working together better across agencies goes back to the Biosecurity Strategy in 2003, which recommended an integrated approach to managing our biosecurity interests. The strategy made MAF accountable for leading the biosecurity system.
This does not mean MAF is responsible for doing all the work −it means MAF is responsible for coordinating what we do to protect our biosecurity − at the border and before the border is reached, surveillance, incursion responses and eradication, and the transition to pest management.
The Biosecurity Strategy concluded that pest management lacked strong leadership and overview. Pest management agencies were assigned clearer areas of responsibility.
And communication between central and local government was improved. For example, there has been a forum set up over the last two years which includes the chief executives of regional councils and central government agencies with biosecurity accountabilities − MAF, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of Health, and Land Information New Zealand. This has helped to work out a single set of strategic pest management priorities and a five-year work plan to address them.
The agencies have also agreed on new roles and responsibilities that distinguish when a pest will be managed at a national level by MAF, and when it will instead be managed at a regional level by agencies such as DOC or regional councils.
This arrangement reflects that pest management is a responsibility for all of us. It is not something only for central government − and I am reminded of that when I hear calls for us to spend more on regional programmes.
Government is already providing substantial funding for managing pests that are of regional as well as national concern. Last year the government spent $140 million managing pests − from incursion responses to pest management programmes on Crown land, to the Bovine Tuberculosis National Pest Management Strategy managed by the Animal Health Board.
Working with regional councils, central agencies and technical experts, MAF has decided to establish early intervention programmes for eleven pests.
Partnership is vital.
The National Pest Plant Accord is a good example of central and regional government working together with industry to manage nationally significant pest plants.
The Accord targets pest plants being sold or propagated. The focus is on casual markets like road-side stalls and on commercial nurseries and plant retailers. This is a good example of partnership, with the industry participating as a decision-maker.
Also, last year the Government approved an extra $20 million to develop MAF's ability to handle a major exotic disease outbreak, such as bird flu or Foot and Mouth Disease (as well as other major incursions such as fruit fly and red fire ants.)
Since then MAF has implemented a new generic incursion response system built around the 'four Rs': reduction, readiness, response and recovery. This should make it easier for other organisations to work with MAF on biosecurity responses and for responses to be scaled up and down as appropriate.
MAF has also been working on a new generic biosecurity risk organism response policy. The proposed new policy sets out the principles for responding to new or already established pests.
Whether the organism is a recent incursion or has been in New Zealand for a long time is not as important as whether or not it has an impact on our economic, environmental, social, cultural values and human health. The response will depend on whether effective action can be taken to mitigate the impact to the overall benefit of New Zealand. The new policy will go out for consultation. It should be ready in September.
But we are not sitting around waiting. MAF is currently running six major incursion response programmes, including: Varroa, Didymo, Styela, Southern Saltmarsh Mosquito, Red Imported Fire Ant and Painted Apple Moth. These are each separately funded at a cost of around $27 million last year.
Yet there is even more work underway on biosecurity. After a surveillance programme and a ban on feeding ruminant protein to ruminants, New Zealand has been confirmed as free from BSE.
The threat of bird flu was met with a surveillance and response programme, which was worked out with industry and others who have a stake. We have a nationwide fruit fly surveillance and response programme.
Marine surveillance has been significantly boosted and we are finding out more about what lives in our ports and on the hulls of arriving ships. It was a surprise to discover, when I became Biosecurity Minister, that we knew very little about what was in our harbours, what was coming here on ships and what we could do about it. We are beginning to find out more.
There is a lot being done. I had the privilege of addressing the Biosecurity Institute two years ago, just after I had been appointed as a new Minister for Biosecurity. Back then I said my approach to the portfolio would be to continually improve our biosecurity systems in an evolutionary way. I promised to build on the work that had been done by my predecessors. And I promised to build partnerships across central and local government, industry and the community to confront our biosecurity threats.
It's important we get this right because our biosecurity is crucial to New Zealand. Our primary producers are crucial to our economic well-being, and their ability to compete in global markets depends on our biosecurity assurance. Our livelihoods depend on keeping pests and diseases out, protecting our natural advantage and providing assurance to our trade.
It's crucial, too, for our sense of New Zealand. We identify ourselves partly by our unique environment, and pests threaten that. We have a responsibility to protect our abundant unique species and habitats.
It's ironic that the more we increase public awareness about biosecurity, the more it seems our biosecurity is weakening. But it isn't − we have never been tougher in defending our biosecurity. We are transforming our border protections to reduce the risk before pests enter New Zealand. We are strengthening our readiness and response when pests and diseases do make it in.
And we are working with all those who have a stake to manage pests of national significance. I'm confident the government is playing its role in defending New Zealand's biosecurity and I believe we will become even more effective as our new programmes take effect.