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Bid to boost biosecurity

Rural News
Bid to boost biosecurity

The level of pest incursions at NZ's border is unsustainable and threatens NZ's competitive agricultural advantage, National biosecurity spokesman Shane Ardern says in the Rural News. "˜A National government would introduce a range of measures to ensure this does not happen."˜I'd put some horsepower behind some of those ideas to reduce the number of biosecurity-risk items entering NZ. "˜There's no doubt we need stronger border controls, and National will make changes to do that.' He says 333 new organisms have been found in NZ over the past five years, and the number of biosecurity-risk items entering our borders topped 157,467 last year. One of the most obvious changes to the biosecurity status quo is National's proposal to raise the penalty for those travellers caught deliberately flouting New Zealand's biosecurity laws from an instant fine of $200 to up to $1000.

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