Andrew Hoggard: Biosecurity Minister says the government is clamping down on arriving travellers

The Government is clamping down on arriving travellers at the border.

It's making several biosecurity law changes including doubling the fine for people who don't declare fresh fruit and meat, to 800 dollars.

There'll be new penalties and fines up to half a million dollars for breaches of controlled area notices.

Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard told Mike Hosking that they want to deter behaviour that puts New Zealand at risk.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got new biosecurity measures. The idea is to protect

(00:02):
the food and fiber sector. Is the food and fibersector important?
You bet? Its forecast hit sixty one billion in export
revenue next year. That'll be ten percent of GDP. So
the change is, what are they doubling? Border declaration finds
to eight hundred bucks penalties of up to five hundred
thousand dollars for behavior that puts New Zealand at risk.
New import health standards to support innovation as well. Andrew
Hoggart is the Minister for Biosecurity and is with US

(00:24):
Morning Welling Mike the border business. How much of that's
idiots versus crooks?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think most of it, or a good chunk of
it's probably people who mistakenly left a sandwich in their bag.
That's certainly a lot of the emails I get to
my office pleading to be let off their four hundred
dollars fine, which generally gets a big no. But there's
a few people who just deliberately, quite frankly, They probably
know the rules, but they decide they want their favorite

(00:52):
thing from somewhere else in the world, and they try
and sneak it through and that's the sort of stuff
that can really put our country at risk, and we
need to deter that.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Are we at risk and are these deterrents or as
monitoring the real answer or more monitoring the real answer.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, look at all of the above. You know, we
need to do the monitoring and we need to have
the deterrence in place. You know, it's so critical we
keep diseases and pests out of this country. You know,
we did the work recently around what would foot and
mouth cost this country and absolutely huge, I think it
was fifteen percent of GDP, massive numbers, and you know

(01:29):
this really matters to New Zealand. We are such our
primary sector is so lucky that we are effectively an
ireland and we're able to keep out diseases and pests
that we just don't have to worry about other parts
of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Do the behavior that puts New Zealand at risk? What
actually is that and how would that translate eventually to
five hundred thousand dollars?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, well that would be a you know, a company
organization that decides it wants to break the rules and
bringing some new seed or plant material without going through
the proper rules and try to sneak it in that
would it's always a possible threat. We do have it

(02:12):
going the other way. The infamous gold key we fruit
into China. That's sort of someone came here and stole
some stuff and sent it over there. We had a
prosecution I think last year where someone had deliberately brought
in type of grape or something to do with wineries cutting. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(02:32):
So these things do happen, and it's you know, realiant.
You know, there's a disease going through Italy at the
moment that's wiping out the olive trees and so that's
the sort of stuff that we want to keep print
from damaging our horticultural pastoral sectors.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Good border security. As we said here this morning, as Minister,
how confident are you that we're doing a top level,
gold standard job and we're good to go.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Look, I think we're doing an excellent job. I've seen
with some of the responses, particularly the fruit fly. I
was really impressed with how the team was able to
respond and the plans were in place and just everything
happened like clockwork. The third flu outbreakdown and otago last year.
You know, the team had everything in place over a weekend.

(03:21):
You know, most people's expectation of government departments as they
knock off at four o'clock on a Friday. These guys
worked all weekend, had everything ready to go Monday. Well,
you know, things were already in place on Sunday. So
you know, I think they're excellently. We can always do
stuff better, but you know we're starting from a pretty
high bar.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
How big a buzz in the community is there about
Fontira today?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
To be honest, they haven't heard too much from other farmers.
I think everyone's you know, other dairy farmers I talked too.
They're just sort of taking it all in. Possibly I
already made their minds up. And yeah, not a lot
of chit chat. But unlike you know, the Alliance deal
where you had quite a bit of talk happening amongst

(04:03):
farmers that are affected there, I haven't picked up a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
This has got a foe gone very and all over.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Quite possibly, Yes, all.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right, mate, nice to talk to you. Appreciate Andrew Hoggar,
Administer for Biosecurity Mike. Upon Tira sale, the actual return
would be very small, of any taking into account shares,
purchase payout, retentions, inflation, a lot of the investment made
over the years was ego driven by numerous CEOs and directors.
I guess, but it's going to be an interesting day. Nevertheless,
I mean, you must not underestimate the impact of four
billion dollars to the New Zealand economy. Of course.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
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