Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines
Tena koe Mr Speaker.
The Maori Party will be supporting this Bill.
It is an interesting co-incidence that this Bill, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, is being discussed on the day that the Law Commission, Te Aka Matua o te Ture, has released their issues paper, entitled Presentation of New Zealand Statute law.
The Commission’s paper starts from a premise that New Zealand’s statute law falls well short of a basic standard that the law must be accessible to the public. And they say, and I quote:
“Our statute law as a whole lacks coherence, is untidy and unwieldy, and is difficult to find, understand and use”.
It’s hardly a great advertisement for Acts of Parliament is it?
Addressing obscurity
In this setting then, the recommendation from the Select Committee to include a new provision to clarify the purpose of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill to “address any concerns regarding obscurity” is greatly welcomed.
The Primary Production Select Committee recommends, therefore the insertion of new clause 5a to make explicit the scheme of the Act, how the Act works and its relationship to the other Acts.
I want to make a point of this, because of course statements of purpose are extremely important in assisting citizens to be able to know and understand how the law affects them.
In the case of this Bill, the understanding that no agricultural compound may be used in New Zealand unless its use is authorised by, or under this Act, is a vital step towards clarifying the original policy intent of the Bill.
Relationships to Other Acts
Another key change introduced by the Primary Production Select Committee is the proposal to make explicit the relationship of this Bill to other Acts. These are variously listed as the Animal Products Act, the Food Act, the Wine Act, the Animal Welfare Act, the Bio-security Act, the Medicines Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.
This again, is a welcome innovation which the Law Commission also has something to say about.
The Commission promoted the practice of looking to historical Acts to interpret modern provisions, to provide the broader context for understanding.
In their report, released today, they describe the impressive process carried out in the case of Ngati Apa v Attorney-General in 2003, in which the Court considered thirty seven Acts in deciding the issue of whether any historical legislation had extinguished any Maori customary property in the seabed and foreshore.
That case, the House will recall, confirmed – following the expert interpretation of the precedent set by these thirty seven Acts – the possibility of territorial claims by Maori groups to the foreshore and seabed.
A decision, which again this House will recall, is perhaps the most significant legislative debate that thinking New Zealanders would consider has taken place in decades.
As history has shown the current Government chose to wilfully discard the expert interpretation of the statute, in the case of the Foreshore and Seabed Act, instead running roughshod into a process which squashed any opportunity for Maori or the Courts to be able to benefit from due access to justice.
We hope, therefore, that in the case of this Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, the wisdom and precedent established by the broader context of a relationship to other Acts, will have meaning and serve to improve the regulatory framework.
Provisions to protect public health
The Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill amends the 1997 Act to include provisions to protect public health from the adverse effects of agricultural compounds.
We, in the Maori Party, are pleased to support any amendments to regulate and assess the contamination of food for the benefit of public health.
We note, in particular, the support of the New Zealand Veterinary Association to include the management of risks to humans in the revision of the original Act.
While the management of risks is meant to be done by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, it is not sufficient to the task, because it excludes some of the key risks from veterinary medicines, including:
· anti-biotic resistance in humans arising from their use in humans;
· infectious agents such as live vaccines;
· needle prick injuries;
· drugs of habituation, dependency and abuse; and
· illegal use of performance enhancing drugs such as steroids.
What the revised Act will do in including the management of human risks, is therefore to offer an opportunity for a ‘one stop shop’ to regulate veterinary medicines.
Inter-relationships between public health and contamination
As the Law Commission made clear, the linkages between acts of parliament are a vital means of enhancing the quality and the meaning of legislation.
And so, I want to also make clear the importance of the link between this revised Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, in relation to the risk of contamination.
Let me take something of great interest to Maori – that of pig-hunting.
The nation saw this at first hand, with our own Corporal Bill Henry Apiata, awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in Afghanistan, and yet who spoke publically that rather than being honoured at all of the celebratory events, he’d far prefer to be pig-hunting.
So what does kaimoana, huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ have to do with the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill?
A 2005 report, Wild food contamination, described how anecdotal evidence indicated that hunters sometimes left skinned carcasses of poisoned possums which wild pigs could consume.
The report highlighted the need for a better understanding of the status of wild food and its consumption in New Zealand, to determine if there was a risk to public health and if there was, how it might be reduced.
What we know is that there's a risk of secondary poisoning when say, weka and pigs eat the possum carcasses and humans then go on and eat those same pigs.
The potential therefore, of contamination and poisoning of wild animals, of shellfish and watercress – has relevance to both this Bill and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, which we believe will merit greater consideration by the House.
Finally, Mr Speaker, I think it is important to note also, that it is not enough to regulate and risk manage toxicity levels – and to improve the regulatory framework, but we need to also consider opportunities to make progress towards an organic and GE Free Aotearoa.
The Maori Party believes that all people have a fundamental right to clean air, land, water and food. Such a commitment means we must work on all fronts to be protected from the production, release and disposal of toxic and hazardous waste.
A necessary component of such a pathway, would be to look at ways to reduce reliance on pesticides and fertilizers.
We will support this Bill, as it is in keeping with our responsibility towards upholding kaitiakiatanga, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga.
This is the commitment we make to ensure we use the resources of the earth in a way which preserves the planet and the peoples for current and future generations.