Andrew Hoggard: Duty Minister on what a day in the role is like and what the government is working on at this time

Parliament may have closed down for the summer but that doesn’t mean the work has stopped. 

MPs stand in as Duty Minister over the summer period, remaining on call and responsible for any important Government business that occurs. 

The man greeting 2025 as Duty Minister is Minister for Biosecurity and Food Safety, Andrew Hoggard. 

Andrew tells Tim Beveridge his new year will be business as usual, with work on issues such as the Security Act review and animal welfare regulations. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Parliament may have closed down for the summer, but that
doesn't mean that work has stopped. MPs take a turn
at the role of judy Minister, remaining on court and
responsible for any government and important government business that occurs
over this time. And the man that is greeting twenty
twenty five is a judy ministers, the Minister for Biosecurity
and Food Safety Andrew Hoggard.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Andrew, good morning, Good morning Tom?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
So you in charge? You wake all night? No?

Speaker 3 (00:45):
No, I slipped reasonably. Well, I'm just hoping everyone's nice
and calm today and no one does anything stupid because
I did have other plans today.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I think the stupid stuff would have been last night,
wouldn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
What does the days judy minister look like?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Uh? I guess I'm just got to keep watching my
phone and if the message goes off then to respond
and deal with it.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
What are the sort of issues that you might deal
with that might not necessarily involve him to call the
rest of the troops.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
In generally just I guess if there's a media inquiry
on a specific issue that's risen up, that would be
the response. I think if he was sort of a
if there was a footall scale adverse event, then I'd
probably be calling on the rest of the troops. But say,

(01:38):
if there was something medium size, we are not too major,
then I'd be expected to provide direction or you know,
just keep people updated.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
What are you focusing on heading into twenty twenty five?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
For me, there's a whole lot of business as usual work.
There's legislation that's by security actor review, various things like
that in the food safety area, I guess that's sort
of the stuff that's got to happen. Key things I'm
keen to do really in the biosecurity space is make
sure we really look at how we responded to the

(02:18):
bird flu incursion down in the Targan. What can we
learn from that, what's relevant to any future The H
five N one was to arrive. What can we learn
from that to better be able to respond And not
saying that we didn't do a great job. I mean
that an awesome job down there, But there's always things
you can learn. And also, you know, with this with

(02:40):
some of these learnings apply to foot and mouth as well,
and on those two topics, it's getting an operational agreement
in place with farming industry on how we respond to
that with food saftually, I'm quite a keen to delve into.
There was a report into last year from Business New

(03:01):
Zealand about some of the impacts on small business of
red tape and food safety was mentioned. Quite came to
really delve in and work out what precise things within
the food safety framework is causing duplication or excess effort
that's not really needed given that we still need to

(03:22):
maintain high levels of food security. And probably the other
one would be in the animal welfare space dog tethering
regulations that've been bubbling away for a while. Finally got
them in a place I'm happy with, so hopeful to
get that through early in the year.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Excellent. Hey, thanks to Andrew. I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
For more from News Talks EDB listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.