David Carter

Wellington, June 21 NZPA - The Government today set out four themes for its proposed changes to pest management over the next 25 years.

Biosecurity Minister David Carter called for submissions on a "national plan of action" on pest management, with changes proposed for clear roles and accountabilities, improved and simplified processes, better tools and more collective work.

Pests cost the primary production nearly $1.9 billion a year -- $1.15b in lost production and $719m in directly trying to prevent pest incursions and managing them once they established. There are also additional environmental, social, cultural and economic costs.

Mr Carter, releasing a discussion paper for public comment by July 23, said the Government wanted to ensure pest management strategies limited these costs.

The plan would help drive a new national policy direction to be announced next year.

Reports commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and regional councils in 2008 found that pest management needed fine tuning and strengthening.

The Biosecurity Act will be changed to provide specified functions for MAF and regional councils, an interim policy on management of aquatic pests -- including legal powers to control slow-moving vessels spreading pests around the coast -- and ways for a minister to assign lead accountability for a pest to a specific agency.

Legislative changes are also expected to mesh the Wild Animal Control Act and the Freshwater Fisheries Regulations with the Biosecurity Act.

The discussion paper also signals concerns over the Environmental Risk Management Authority's (Erma) regulation of biological control agents and hazardous substances.

"Regulatory barriers to importing or registering new tools ... mean it is uneconomic for manufacturers of these tools to enter the New Zealand market," the paper said.

The Government has already said it plans to roll Erma into a new environmental protection agency, and some lobbyists have questioned whether that will lead to weaker regulation of genetic engineering and imports of toxic chemicals.

Mr Carter also indicated interest in "collective action", such as public-private partnerships, saying private companies faced barriers such as a lack of information, access to resources and "free-riders" that benefitted from pest control without paying for it.

He said he did not want submissions on the National Party's election policy of requiring Crown landowners -- such as the Department of Conservation -- to meet "good neighbour" obligations in regional pest-management strategies.

The Government would meet these obligations once regional strategies had been re-aligned with the new policy direction.

"All landowners in New Zealand will be bound to control pests, such as rabbits and wilding trees, so that they don't spill over and affect their neighbours," Mr Carter said.