Latest / Best of Business / Fiona MacMillan: Poultry Association head on the Government implementing harsher rules to help farmers manage bird flu

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Fiona MacMillan: Poultry Association head on the Government implementing harsher rules to help farmers manage bird flu · Best of Business

• 0:09
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  Speaker 2: Right now, A new biosecurity regulation is coming and this
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  Speaker 2: is for poultry farmers to manage eight five, the H
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  Speaker 2: five rather the bird flu Government basically telling the poultry
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  Speaker 2: industry what to do now instead of just suggesting they'll
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  Speaker 2: be it's poultry farmers more than one hundred birds. We'll
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  Speaker 2: have to develop a plan on how to safely hold
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  Speaker 2: their livestock if it gets infected. They'll be forced to
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  Speaker 2: register their plans with the MPI and undergo audits as well.
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  Speaker 2: Fiona McMillan is Poultry Industry Association Executive director, with me
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  Speaker 2: tonight a good evening, good evening. Is this a good move?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it is. I think it's great to
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  Speaker 3: be consistent and you know the industry has been working
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  Speaker 3: really hard on making sure everyone's got a biosecurity plan.
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  Speaker 3: We've got really good guidance around how to do that
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  Speaker 3: on the industry website. But it's helpful if we're all
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  Speaker 3: completely on the same page government as well. So I
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  Speaker 3: think having a standard that's applied consistency, consistently across industry
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  Speaker 3: can only be a good thing.
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  Speaker 2: How do you safely cull animals like this?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is an area where really the health and
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  Speaker 3: safety needs to be carefully observed. So you know there
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  Speaker 3: are requirements around PPE gear and we know that when
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  Speaker 3: it's had to be done before, people have found it
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  Speaker 3: exhausting physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting. So you've got
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  Speaker 3: to have a plan where you think about what size
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  Speaker 3: is my farm, how many people are going to be
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  Speaker 3: required to do this, and do I have the right
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  Speaker 3: PPE gear available to me to make sure that they
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  Speaker 3: can do it really safely.
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  Speaker 2: What are the chances of that happening now, Fiona? Because
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  Speaker 2: the Minister has said basically it's an almost certainty now
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  Speaker 2: this will establish in wild birds. Is it then an
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  Speaker 2: almost certainty that will get into a brood of chickens?
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  Speaker 3: Nobody knows. We just don't. We can't know. It's such
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  Speaker 3: an impossible thing to track. You know, who would have
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  Speaker 3: thought that the first place that would come into New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand was on the Paternity Foreshore? Not me? And none
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  Speaker 3: of the signists that I spoke to were packing that,
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  Speaker 3: that's for sure. So I'm extremely reluctant to make predictions
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  Speaker 3: because they will end up being wrong for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have any clarity yet on when or how
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  Speaker 2: this whole thing is going to be implemented the changes
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  Speaker 2: that they've announced to this afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: So we're still looking for details on that, and I'm
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  Speaker 3: really confident we'll get those very very soon, because you know,
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  Speaker 3: the Colms has been pretty good on the stuff and
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  Speaker 3: we're grateful for that. What we'll be keen to know
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  Speaker 3: is it is the compulsory requirements. Are they kind of
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  Speaker 3: in line with what we've been doing anyway? Really helpful
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  Speaker 3: if they were. We think what we've been doing is
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  Speaker 3: pretty gold standard around developing biosecurity plans, so we're hopeful
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  Speaker 3: that the government's expectations will match that. That'll be really useful,
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  Speaker 3: and we'll be keen to understand what the timing is
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  Speaker 3: going to be like. So if this set of rules
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  Speaker 3: is going to come into force kind of maybe by
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  Speaker 3: the end of the year, how long will we then
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  Speaker 3: have exactly to work through a process around you know,
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  Speaker 3: filing those plans, having them are did it all? That
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  Speaker 3: sort of thing. So the more detail we get on
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  Speaker 3: that the better, just so we can understand that, communicate
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  Speaker 3: it to our members and make sure everyone's ready.
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  Speaker 2: Fiona McMillan, Poltry Industry Association Executive Director, nice TV, on
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  Speaker 2: the show tonight.
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