Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines

The Maori Party comes to this third reading of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, from a context founded in the knowledge that land remains a central platform for Māori economic development.

We believe that future prosperity for tangata whenua is inextricably tied to the productivity and protection of the whenua, and as such, are very keen to address the risks associated with use of agricultural compounds – being:

· risks to trade in primary produce;

1 risks to animal welfare;
2 risks to agricultural security; and
3 risks to environmental well-being.

Tangata whenua are major stakeholders in the agribusiness sector, and some Maori agribusiness operations are performing exceedingly well, commercially.

For those others who may be under-performing, there is obviously considerable value in encouraging the wide uptake of best practice technology and management practices.

This bill turns to address and improve the prevention and management of the risks to human health from agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines - enabling Parliament to address the risks in the use of pesticides and chemicals in the farming and forestry industries.

It is imperative that the chemicals, compounds and veterinary medicines are evaluated to ensure that they do not pose any risk to human health - nor to that of animals, the environment or trade.

The committee stage of this Bill brought up the issue of drench resistance, and tied it to the proposals around data protection.

The Maori Party is keen to support initiatives which enhance business practice for the agricultural industry, and so we are pleased that the Bill has given consideration towards ensuring we have a significant period of data protection available for companies to warrant bringing new products into our market.

A critical issue must be about maintaining our international competitive advantage – something which of course has never been more ingrained into the national psyche then in the aftermath of the tragedy that occurred at Cardiff this weekend gone.

A key and primary objective of this Bill has been to introduce new provisions to protect public health from the adverse effects of agricultural compounds.

The timeliness of the legislation could hardly be more relevant, as the Business Council For Sustainable Development has only recently released their results of a survey which confirms that 78 percent of New Zealanders believe the public health service has worsened or stayed the same over this past five years.

Right throughout this Bill, we have agreed to new provisions framed in the context of reducing risks to the health of all New Zealanders.

The Primary Production Select Committee report asserts that some veterinary medicines that have been used on animals, such as anti-parasite dips and drenches, pose significant risks to human health and the environment.

We only have to think of the Bill that was before the House last session, for a classic example of the unpredictable and serious side effects that come about through the ingestion of a cattle worming agent by people.

BZP (Benzylpiperazine) was originally designed as a treatment for internal parasites for cattle – a de-worming treatment – which we all know to have serious risks to public health.

The other aspect of the timing for this Bill, was a recent announcement from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Now although the record of this current Government is hardly positive as far as listening to the United Nations goes, it does appear in this one isolated case, that New Zealand is taking their advice seriously.

The FAO has warned that global animal food production is undergoing a major transformation that could lead to a higher risk of disease transmission from animals to humans.

A dire warning indeed, which this Bill is responding to, through the strategies being put in place, to control the use of active ingredients for feed to food-producing animals which could pose a threat to human health.

We in the Maori Party really welcome the opportunity provided by this Bill, to invest in the greater ability to regulate and assess the contamination of food for the benefit of public health.

The risk of disease transmission from animals to humans will increase in the future, and so the work that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority undertook on the Bill has been greatly appreciated, in making explicit the association between the contamination of food and the risk to public health.

When I spoke at the second reading of this Bill, I raised the issue about the regulatory costs.

The Maori Party is pleased to see the obligation to avoid redundant regulatory control is clearly articulated in this Bill.

The Bill is quite clear that the controls already imposed under other legislation, such as the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act or the Medicines Act should be considered.

Effective legislation must be a priority for this House – not creating undue bureaucracy, or additional regulation, for the sake of it. We commend the Primary Production select committee for making amendments which will actually make a difference to people understanding the legislation, and thereby being able to comply with it.

We also support the proposal for the three year review of the compliance costs around this bill.

Finally, I want to bring the wider aspirations of the Maori Party for an organic and GE free Aotearoa to this debate. We believe that we could benefit from further analysis of ways to reduce reliance on pesticides and fertilisers, in our commitment to regulate, risk manage and reduce toxicity levels.

And we want to place on the record, the important contribution that Te Waka Kai Ora could bring to this policy. One of their ambitions is to develop a significant organic agriculture project, based on Hua Parakore – which would identify a pure product which assures consumers of the product’s integrity. Such a project would form the basis for developing an indigenous organic brand and standard.

Te Waka Kai Ora have suggested that the verification of organic produce under an indigenous brand would include the integration of tikanga Maori into processes and standards. It would help to set the standard, to independently check that organic products advertised for sale would meet the standard, and then the labelling would claim compliance with achieving the standard of organic produce.

As tangata whenua, we have an exclusive Treaty right to ensure that our lands, forests, fisheries and the subsequent produce from them remain free from being genetically modified or polluted by GMOs.

Te Waka Kai Ora suggest that maintaining, or perhaps more accurately 're-establishing', a GMO free environment and agriculture would give Aotearoa the competitive marketing edge that I raised earlier today – the push to lift demand in the American and global export marketplace.

At its very essence, agricultural compounds – pesticides, fertilisers impact on the mauri, the lifeforce of our foods, our flora and fauna, and it is therefore of great importance that we do all we can to prevent risks to environmental, animal and public health.

The impact of cross pollination from GE crops, super weed hybrids and general pollution in the environment, are all risks which threaten nga hua Maori (natural produce) – and as such, can not be disassociated from Maori cultural, social and other economic development.

The Maori Party is therefore happy to support the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill to prevent and manage risks associated with the use of agricultural compounds - risks to trade in primary produce; risks to animal welfare; risks to agricultural security; risks to environmental well-being.

We are pleased also to put forward our support to ensure that the use of agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines does not result in breaches of domestic food and residue standards in order to better prevent and manage the risks to public health.

The Maori Party will support the third reading of this Bill.