Small exporters fight biosecurity plan

Small exporters, already struggling to sustain strong sales overseas, will likely face increased costs through the proposed Biosecurity Law Reform Bill.
A five-strong team from Tauranga - comprising kiwifruit growers, lawyer Marcus Wilkins and Andy Warren, representing Export NZ Bay of Plenty - voiced its concerns in submissions to the Primary Production Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday.
Mr Warren, whose company Bloomz at Pyes Pa exports Calla lilly and other plant stock to more than 30 countries, said the bill was poorly conceived and the proposed levies were inequitable.
"They are just another financial hurdle to face before exporters send their product out," he said. "We are being asked to pay twice for [biosecurity] services and it's being driven by the Treasury."
At present, primary exporters pay for a phytosanitary health certificate before sending their product offshore.
Under the new biosecurity legislation, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will be setting up government industry agreements (GIAs) and establishing pest-management plans guarding against border incursions - at a cost to exporters - although it's voluntary.
"The Government is seeking a one-system-fits-all approach," said Mr Warren, deputy chairman of Plant Market Access Council.
"The concern is that priority will be given to those [bigger] exporters who enter the GIA system, which is not realistic for many of New Zealand's smaller and diverse primary-export sectors.
"The fragmentation ... will make it difficult to obtain a clear mandate and efficiently collect [incursion] levies.
"Some [exporters] could not afford to be part of a GIA, and there's no gain on what we have got now."
Mr Warren said exporters were already paying for biosecurity in the current regulatory environment to meet the importing country's requirements.
"To levy exporters for New Zealand imports, we are effectively being charged twice and assisting/subsidising our offshore competitors. The levying provisions in the bill do not seem to provide for the correct target. Exporters are not the exacerbators [of pest incursions]."
Mr Warren says the bill targets exporters at a time of high and volatile exchange rates, and does nothing to encourage the export sector to boost profitable production in the next five to 10 years - Government has set a goal of $10 billion worth of exports by 2020. He believes the costs of increased biosecurity and pest-management plans should be fairly shared among people who create the problem, and where the greatest threat exists.
"Likely incursions fall to all air passengers and importers, and only 0.5 per cent of incursions are blown over from Australia," Mr Warren said.
Lawyer Mr Wilkins said in his submission that recent events in the kiwifruit industry, such as the Psa outbreak, demonstrated that importing plant material, pollen and fruit carried the risk of importing unwanted organisms.
"I fail to understand why New Zealand needs to take the risk of importing unwanted organisms with, say, potting mix, which is hardly an essential import.
"The Minister of Biosecurity should have the power to impose a total import ban, provided it is based on a sound risk assessment supported by scientific evidence and an appropriate consultation process," Mr Wilkins said.
The bill also introduces post-border and electronic clearance rather than at-border inspection. "Post-border clearance is too late - the horse has bolted," said Mr Warren. "Border-entry incursions should be shipped back to origin or destroyed with no compensation to the importer, just as other countries do.
"Why are we moving to an import-clearance model that is far less stringent than that imposed on our exporters?"
Meanwhile, a local internet provider has described the government's Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill as "a lame duck". The bill was passed in Parliament this week and will become law on September 1.
Tauranga EOL's managing director, Terry Coles, says the bill is effectively useless because those who own copyrighted material catch alleged offenders downloading movies, music or software by identifying their IP (internet protocol) address.
"But the catch is that over 90 per cent of our customers, for example, share the same IP address for security reasons so they're essentially invisible on the internet," he said.
Mr Coles says another loophole exists at wireless hotspots, a growing part of EOL's business, where people can access the internet when they are out and about.
"Hot spots are also completely anonymous. People can connect to the internet at places like Tauranga Hospital as a casual user.
"They don't have to give us their name and address to do it, so there's no way we can identify someone who chooses to download illegal material while they are there," he said.
Mr Coles says he receives several requests a week from international corporations and Hollywood movie studios looking to track down offending IP addresses.
While EOL was against anyone downloading material illegally, Mr Coles was unable to help the studios. "Our network is set up so customers share an IP address because it is more secure that way.
"It means it's much harder for someone sitting in Russia to try and hack into one of our customer's computers."