Biosecurity NZ ignored by Minister

National’s Biosecurity spokesman, Shane Ardern, says the latest GE corn incident shows the Minister has done nothing to improve border control since the Auditor General’s highly critical report in May this year.

“The latest GM corn breach is bigger than first thought, with 4420 kgs of GM corn being investigated, not 1800 kgs as first reported.

“Official Information Act papers clearly show the Minister ignored the advice of Biosecurity NZ, which said eradication of the Varroa beemite had an 80% chance of success and was the recommended option.

“The latest incident follows other Biosecurity breaches, including the very serious Varroa infestation.
“The Minister went with the second option to ‘buy time’ condemning the South Island to the inevitable spread of Varroa in the future.

“Now, we have 26 waterways infected with Didymo, disease carrying exotic lizards with salmonella being smuggled through our borders, the Red Ant moving faster around New Zealand than the Minister and the Salt Marsh Mosquito out of control.

“It’s obvious that under the Labour Government, biosecurity systems simply aren’t working.”

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