Update from Biosecurity NZ – November 2024

An update from Biosecurity New Zealand

In coming months, Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) will work with people and organisations across the system to confirm a shared direction for collective biosecurity management and identify priority actions to achieve this.

Throughout 2023 and early 2024, we conducted extensive engagement with people offering local, regional and central government, Māori, industry, business, environmental, science, non-governmental agency, youth and Crown Research Institute perspectives.  Thank you to those of you who have contributed to this work.

BNZ is using all this information and advice to draft a one-page Strategic Action Plan comprising a vision, mission, outcomes and priority actions.

The development of this jointly owned plan is a shift in approach from the previously intended aspirational system-wide strategy and separate implementation plan.

This changed approach is expected to deliver timely improvements where they are needed most and in a way that makes efficient, effective use of collective existing resources.

BNZ will now refine this draft plan with partners and stakeholders that are committed to joint ownership, and who are prepared to take the lead on actions where they are best placed and can commit the necessary resources. We are in the process of setting up a joint steering group that will finalise the Strategic Action Plan, and drive and monitor its implementation.

Opportunities for wider involvement will be confirmed once the joint steering group has been established, and plans have been firmed up. In the meantime, please visit https://www.mpi.govt.nz/biosecurity/about-biosecurity-in-new-zealand/a-strategic-action-plan-for-the-biosecurity-system for developments.

BBP Field Trip – Lyttleton Port Company

Friday 29 November saw 12 pledge members join with nine staff from BNZ, together with four from LPC and the BBP to participate in a biosecurity readiness workshop.

Expertly facilitated by Angus McKay, Assistant Commissioner Compliance & Response, BNZ, the morning session featured a hypothetical BMSB incursion scenario and what impacts a Controlled Area Notice may have. Participants were then tasked with a number of questions and taken through an evolving scenario which examined levels of readiness for organisations. I think it was best summed up by one participant who stressed the need for businesses to understand what life could be like in a response and make plans accordingly.

The session was expertly curated by BNZ staff with special thanks to Shelley Ashton for pulling it all together. The not-to-scale BMSB 3-D printed models were the real stars of the show – as per the photos. Special mention to Pledge members, the French Bakery, for providing a delicious, freshly created morning tea.

Admiring a 3D printed BMSB model

 

Stuart Anderson, Deputy Director-General, Biosecurity New Zealand, then addressed the group and spoke about the importance of partnership to the government-led biosecurity programme. MPI have consulted on proposed amendments to the Biosecurity Act.

After a quick working lunch, it was off to the bus for a tour of the Port.

LPC absolutely dominates the shoreline so it was good to be able to head for the surrounding hills to find a vantage spot to take it all in. Tony Simpson, Head of Bulk Cargo at LPC and chief conspirator with Shelley for the day’s events, did a magnificent job of not only explaining the inner workings of the biosecurity aspects of the Port (including a close of the transitional facility and the only dry-dock in New Zealand (think hull de-fouling) apart from the facility at Devonport Naval base.

View of LPC from the surrounding hills

 

Tony was also able to regale us with tales of Lyttleton’s wider history – which ran to the town’s last hanging (1918), early encounters with a German pirate, a nearby quarantine station and the gun emplacements – built but not required to protect against the prevalent Russian threat in the 1880s.

It was an excellent day with many highlights and a day that I am sure helped BBP members appreciate the intricacies of a potential response, the workings of a port and that they have colleagues nearby who have a shared interest in protecting what is important to us all. Ko tatou.

Pledge Members, LPC Staff and BNZ Staff on the tour

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