Damien O’Connor: NZ united on global trade
When it comes to international trade, politicians from all sides of the aisle are united, says Labour's trade spokesman Damien O'Connor.
He told Rural News that from top to bottom changes are needed to make the NAIT system more effective. He says NAIT has failed to deliver at a time of great need, during the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak.
O’Connor says the NAIT Review, just released, should have been reported to the government a year ago, but those parties have been reluctant to release the final report and take action on it and that’s been frustrating.
A review of NAIT started in 2016 under the previous government, and a final report was recently given to O’Connor after he asked for its completion. The report was scheduled to be completed in March 2017.
“If we had had this report when it was due over a year ago, changes could have been made and we could have been in a better position with Mycoplasma bovis,” he claims. “We would have been able to track and contain the disease more quickly if NAIT had been operating properly.
“The last government wasn’t keen to enforce NAIT and the management agency OSPRI didn’t take action on glaringly obvious problems with the system,” says O’Connor.
He has called on all farmers and the industry to read the report reviewing the performance of the animal tracing system NAIT.
“Given what we’ve learnt from the Mycoplasma bovis response, I was concerned that this report had not been finalised and released. The technical advisory group helping with the Mycoplasma bovis response, and investigators tracing animal movements on the ground, have made it clear that the lack of accurate records for animal movements in NAIT have complicated and slowed response efforts,” he says.
O’Connor says the NAIT report raised issues including a lack of up-to-date information on cattle location and the need for enforcement, which he says had been non-existent for people failing to use the system. It also pointed to inconsistencies across data sets because of multiple farm IDs and the need for more resources to operate NAIT.
“There has been a lack of appreciation of the need for a tracing system despite New Zealand’s high economic dependence on cattle and that NAIT was behind systems used internationally, especially Australia,” he adds.
O’Connor says the report shows that a lack of, or inaccurate, animal movement data leads to time consuming interviews during a biosecurity response. He notes the report includes a summary of performance statistics showing the poor uptake of NAIT.
“I will work with the industry to make NAIT fit-for-purpose, which the previous Government did not,” he says.
O’Connor says a consultation process would start soon so farmers and industry could have their say on how to improve NAIT as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
