Presentation for 3rd National Pest Summit, Palmerston North, April 1999

By Bruce Stevenson
Chairman PMS Review Committee

Introduction

Honey Bees were introduced to New Zealand in 1839, by English missionaries. It was not until the mid 1870's that the Bee disease , American Foulbrood, was introduced. It probably arrived with the importation of new genetic strains of Apis Mellifera that occurred as a result of the development of commercial beekeeping in the 1860's and 70's. It spread throughout New Zealand very rapidly, with devastating effect on commercial beekeepers. Some lost their all of their hives, and were ruined by the disease. The potential of this disease , if it gets out of control, was ( and remains) very serious. There have been isolated instances of beekeeper suicides as a result of the devastation exacted by this disease.

In 1906, the Apiaries Act was passed, which was the beginning of government regulation of this disease. The Apiaries Act 1969, was the next major rewrite of this law, the last amendment being 1983.

The Biosecurity Act (BSA) has been hailed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer as the most significant piece of agricultural disease control legislation in decades. At the time of its passage in 1993, it promised more efficient and streamlined disease control programmes, tailored to the needs of agricultural industries, and in at least some cases controlled by the industries themselves rather than government.

Judging by the attendance at this function, the Act has obviously been a godsend for Regional Councils and the Animal Health Board. However, I am here to present a very different perspective; a perspective from a small but well-developed agricultural industry highly dependent on effective disease control.

For the beekeeping industry in this country, the BSA has been a great and shifting wall that our industry organisation, the National Beekeeper's Association (NBA) has been forced by government to climb. It is a wall we never asked for, and it is a wall at least some government officials probably never really thought we would be able to climb.

But climb it we did, and the Order in Council implementing the American Foulbrood Pest Management Strategy (AFB PMS) was signed into law in October 1998.

Unfortunately, the almost 5 years it took to develop the AFB PMS has left a lasting, negative mark on our industry. The process has placed great strain on the financial and personal resources of our industry organisation, and has sorely tested beekeepers' will to achieve common objectives using what we believe is an overly complex Act controlled in an overly bureaucratic way.

The PMS development process has also, unfortunately, caused many beekeepers in this country to reassess the role of government as a helpmate and partner in the future development and success of our industry. For that reason alone, the BSA can only be described by our industry in very negative terms.

PMS Not the Choice of the NBA

The NBA did not ask to have the Apiaries Act repealed, nor was it the beekeeping industry's decision to have the PMS to replace the previous AFB control programme. The repeal of the Act and its replacement with the Biosecurity Act was done by Parliament despite representations by the NBA at Select Committee hearing prior to the law's enactment.

The NBA developed the PMS as a matter of necessity, because without it the beekeeping industry would have been left with total deregulation of AFB control. The impetus for PMS development was government edict, not any obvious need to improve the current AFB control programme.

Despite the NBA's submission prior to the enactment of the BSA, government failed to take notice of the Uniqueness of Beekeeping-

Parliament failed to take into consideration the size of the beekeeping industry (compared to other industries included in the Act), the nature of the disease requiring control (AFB can be easily spread from a single beehive belonging to a hobbyist, and cause an infection resulting in thousands of dollars loss), and the historical perspective relating to AFB control (the original Act in 1906 was put in place because of serious losses being experienced as a result of the deregulated AFB control environment). If government had taken these things into consideration, the Apiaries Act would not have been included as a piece of legislation to be replaced by the BSA.

PMS Structure not Appropriate for Beekeeping Industry

During the almost 5 years it took to develop the AFB PMS, it became obvious that while the BSA was at least potentially suitable (once drafting inadequacies were ironed out) for large scale agricultural industries with significant quasi-public disease control infrastructures (e.g. Animal Health Board, Regional Councils), it was very inappropriate for a small agricultural industry like beekeeping with a small budget for disease control and an infrastructure that relied heavily on volunteerism.

A certain MAF RA advisor was heard to observe at one point that the NBA should never have been allowed to develop a PMS. Unfortunately, however, because of the decision by government to repeal the Apiaries Act by the BSA, the beekeeping industry and government officials were left with no other choice.

BSA Driven by Motives Other Than What Was Best for Beekeeping

Because of government's failure to take any heed of submissions by the NBA at the Select Committee stage, it became obvious to the Beekeeping industry leaders that the enactment of the BSA was driven by motives which over-rode what was best for a small agricultural industry like beekeeping.

The NBA came to the conclusion that those motives included

a) legislative tidiness (the desire to include all existing agricultural disease control legislation in an omnibus act), and

b) an ideological need by government to avoid legal responsibility for agricultural disease control, particularly in relation to endemic diseases.

The NBA was already fully funding the previously AFB control programme, through an annual contract with MAF Quality Management. Responsibility for the funding of the programme was therefore already outside the government. It was just that prior to the PMS, the government department continued to have operational responsibility as a result of the contract.

A positive outcome of this "user pays" philosophy, has been that from the time our industry began paying the bill for it's own disease control, there has been a marked and consistent decline in the incidence of AFB.

However, judging by parliament's decision to force the NBA to re-cast this successful programme in the form of a PMS, efficiency and user pays were not enough.

BSA Seriously Flawed

The NBA also pointed out in its Select Committee submission prior to BSA enactment that the Act was seriously flawed, both in relation to retention of various clauses in the Apiaries Act, and in relation to the deadline set in statute for repeal of the Act (and therefore the time frame that had to be met for PMS development).

Again, Parliament failed to take heed of the NBA submission.

As it turned out, the Act was so deficient in a number of areas that substantial revisions had to be made. In particular, there was the BSA Amendment 4, which ran to 71 pages and included 116 clauses (the original Act, excluding schedules, was 109 pages and had 185 sections).

Development and structural problems in working with the BSA

Deadline for PMS Development Unworkable

As the NBA pointed out in its submissions to Parliament on the Amendment, the deadline of 5 years after the BSA's enactment was far too short a time for any industry to develop a PMS, given the deficiencies of the Act. The NBA continually worked to impossibly tight timeframes, as government officials who were aware of its shortcomings from the beginning slowly interpreted the unworkable Act.

It should have been obvious to Parliament and MAF that the deadline was unworkable, and should never have been imposed on the beekeeping industry in this manner. Parliament and these officials finally came to their senses, and an extension of the Apiaries Act to October 1998 was finally made in mid-1995.

MAF RA Often Adversarial, Rather that Advisory

The MAF RA is charged by the Minister with enforcing provisions of the BSA relating to the development and notification of PMS's. This "enforcement" includes a major advisory component, so that PMS'S do not come forward that do not meet the terms of the Act and waste time and budgetary resources of the Ministry in processing the PMS through the notification process.

Although it appeared that the MAF RA was intent on ensuring that the Act was available and useable for the Animal Health Board and Regional Councils, it was not as forthcoming with the beekeeping industry's insistence that they make the Act workable for a small industry.

Lack of Suitable Expertise by Government Regulators

In the case of the AFB PMS, the MAF RA and MAF Policy did not possess suitable apiculture expertise, nor did it seek such expertise from available sources. As a result, government advisors without any knowledge or experience of bee disease control had the power to make decisions regarding crucial aspects of the AFB PMS.

This lack of suitable expertise resulted in the NBA spending extra time and expense both educating these officials in beekeeping matters, and arguing a range of both important and trivial points with them. Halfway through PMS development (and after the extensive round of industry consultation), the NBA was forced to change from the term "AFB eradication" to "AFB elimination", solely because of the protestations of government veterinary advisors without any background in AFB control.

Change of Programme Partly Forced by MAF RA Advisors

MAF RA advisors also argued strongly that the NBA would not be able to achieve its goal of AFB eradication/ elimination unless the PMS means were substantially different from the AFB control programme MAF Qual carried out under contract to the NBA.

It is fair to say that the NBA committee that developed the PMS took the decision to view the necessity to develop the strategy as an opportunity to improve the current programme, rather than just a threat imposed by Government. However, it is also fair to say that the strategy would not have been as complicated, nor would the development process have taken quite so long, if government veterinary advisors had not insisted on significant changes.

NBA representatives were told that the PMS could not hope to meet the objective of a 10% reduction in AFB incidence per annum unless the strategy was significantly different from the current AFB control programme. As it turned out, during the 7 years of the programme, AFB incidence in hives in NZ decreased on average by 12% per annum, with only one year not exceeding the 10% reduction figure.

The veterinary advisor was plainly wrong. But because he failed to venture out of Wellington to seek advice and information from professionals operating in the area of bee disease control, his advice to the Minister on the matter couldn't help but be seriously flawed.

Potential problems

PMS Has Potential for Conflict of Interest

While the transfer of disease control from government responsibility to industry responsibility has obvious practical and ideological advantages for Government, and is also attractive to people who believe in less government (i.e. Outside) control in their lives, the down side is that the adoption of a PMS like that for AFB, with the right of an industry organisation Management Agency (i.e. the NBA) to enforce legal obligations under the BSA, potentially subjects an Act of Parliament to political control by a non-governmental organisation.

In such circumstances, there is an obvious danger of conflicts of interest , with the strategy being influenced by the personal interests of people elected to positions of authority within the organisation, since those people are by their very nature likely to be effected by enforcement of the strategy.

This is particularly the case in organisations run on a voluntary basis. They often do not have structural checks and balances in place to protect the organisation and its members from such conflicts. There is only an assumption, mostly unspoken, that those elected to positions of authority in the association will represent the interests of the whole industry community, rather than representing their own commercial interests or personal ideology.

Order in Council Potentially Affect PMS Implementation

The NBA was forced to argue for the retention in the Order in Council of various important operational aspects of the PMS previously approved by the Minister.

The impetus for significant changes to these operational aspects (and the PMS rules) came from legal drafters who did not have any prior knowledge of either bee disease control or the rationale behind the various components of the Apiaries Act (for instance, the NBA was told that a certain section in the BSA could not be used in relation to beekeeping, even though NBA advisors pointed out that the single legal precedent in the BSA for that section was in fact the 1969 Apiaries Act!).

In the end, wording was changed in the Order of Council that had previously become part of the standard vocabulary of beekeeping in New Zealand, and had been continuously in legislation relating to beekeeping since the first Apiaries Act enacted in 1906.

Politicisation May Affect PMS Success

The strong, single-minded direction that is required to achieve successful outcomes in disease control can be potentially undermined by the vagaries of short-termed changes in direction and interest in the political affairs of industry organisations.

Disease control should be one of those essential activities for any growing agricultural industry that shouldn't be subject to the whims of industry politics. Unfortunately, the BSA almost mandates that politicisation will take place, at least for small industries without a quasi-public decision making and operational infrastructure like the Animal Health Board and Regional Authorities.

A strong consensus supporting a PMS can be seriously undermined by an organisation designated as the Management Agency if the organisation's elected representatives for whatever reason do not share the views of the majority of the membership, and for their own reasons seek to undermine the funding and operation of the strategy.

The fact that someone has been elected to a position of authority within the organisation does not mean that they are necessarily in favour of the strategy, or that they have been totally open and forth-coming to the organisation membership about thair true feelings and motives in relation to the strategy. To assume otherwise is to have a seriously na‹ve view of the democratic process, whether it be in Parliament or in industry organisations.

Our PMS has already faced the implications of this issue, with significant interference by a senior elected official of the organisation in the process of implementation of the PMS. The impact on the credibility of the National Beekeepers Association as the "Management Agency" has regrettably become an issue, and the industry is still working it's way through the implications and financial ramifications of these events.

To quote Ted Roberts, a great friend and advisor of the NZ beekeeping industry who sadly passed away last year, "There is a saying that some things are too important for politics. AFB control is definitely one of them."

Audit Process Has Potential to Destroy PMS

While it is understood that the activities of non-governmental organisations acting as Management Agencies are subject to government audit, the potential still exists for significant conflicts of interests to occur prior to any detection by audit.

If such conflicts of interest are found out and publicised, the PMS (and the BSA) are called into question, and there is a potential loss of the all-important element of voluntary compliance that makes workable much of our legal system ( including PMS's).

There is also a potential spin-off of serious negative publicity for the industry involved. The overall credibility of the industry is called into question, including the services and the products the industry provides to the public.

PMS Development Unduly Costly

The drain on both budget and personal resources of the NBA in developing the PMS was (relative to the size of the industry) quite excessive.

The NBA spent an excessive amount of time arguing relatively small details with the MAF officials, and went through 11 different drafts of the PMS document over the 4 years leading to notification.

The NBA was required to respond to 8 different submissions from the MAF on the document and had 5 face-to-face meetings with MAF representatives. Worst of all the Minister was not able to respond to the public discussion period for the PMS in October 1995. The response came in December, and contained a long series of items that should have been raised with the NBA in the 10 previous drafts provided to MAF.

The 'final' notification document to the Minister in February 1996. No official response was received back to the NBA for a further 8 months.

The lengthy consultation process, excessive number of drafts, and imposition of almost impossible deadlines continued with the development of the Order in Council for the AFB PMS.

The document went through 11 versions, including 20 communications and 3 face-to-face meeting with MAF officials. The NBA held 10 late night conference calls on the document, and in some cases was required to provide a response back to MAF by start of the next working day.

To put the amount expended by the NBA in context, total development cost represented 1.5 years' operational budget of AFB control under the previous programme. The NBA was required by government to expend this money, just to carry on with AFB control in New Zealand. Not one extra hive infected with AFB was found or destroyed as a result of this expenditure.

The drain on NBA resources, and the long time period for PMS development would in most industries seriously affect the strong consensus needed under the BSA to gain approval of such a strategy. It is a testament to the high priority placed on AFB control by New Zealand beekeepers that they have been able to preserve through what can only be described as a bureaucratic minefield leading to PMS implementation.

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