It's also important not just for our natural environment but also for our economy. New Zealand's economy depends very heavily on our primary industries, and this means we need to run a tight biosecurity system. Farmers and growers have been at the forefront of New Zealand's export-led economic recovery, and, over the past two years, we've seen this continue to do well, despite the global economic conditions that we find ourselves in under COVID. Aotearoa New Zealand is largely free of many of the pests and diseases that we see in many other countries—Australia, next door. This gives us a unique comparative and economic advantage to other countries that we are trading against. New pests and diseases can undermine the advantage that we hold right now on the global stage, and so it's more important than ever that we maintain this and keep working at it. These can have consequences both across regional and national economies, and that's local jobs, local businesses, and local farmers. Unwanted pests and diseases can weaken New Zealand's earning potential and introduce new costs, including by reducing the health and the productivity of commercial animals and New Zealand's access to export markets.