O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take this call on the Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill in the name of our Green colleague Steffan Browning. I think it is always a very proud moment when you can have a bill drawn from the ballot. There is great luck in that but I think it is also a great moment to be able to obviously pursue an area of interest and I know from the few times that I have sat in the Primary Production Committee that the member is very passionate about that sector. I am sure that the chair of the committee would have many comments to say on that. Again I acknowledge the member for his bill. As has already been noted by this side of the House the National Government is supporting this bill to a select committee.From my side I would not see this as one of the most pressing issues in the country and I say that only from a constituency point of view. This is not something I get a lot of queries about but the paradox within that is I am sure actually a number of my constituents would welcome this. It is one of those elements that they probably do not even think about.I think it is in the purposes of the bill where Mr Browning talks about the fact that people will assume in many ways if it is not labelled that it is already a New Zealand product. So at the heart of this bill is a question of knowledge. I am mentioning that because this is about knowledge not safety and I think that is a relatively important element to draw out. Others may have done so in the debate and we would welcome hearing from the member. But ultimately what this bill is seeking to do is to provide a little bit more knowledge for New Zealand consumers to better understand where the product they are about to eat comes from.It is not fundamentally a safety issue and I think it is probably important for people at home to understand this. The safety of food is already covered by existing legislation. I think it was in 2014 that a food safety Act—or an update effectively—was passed and I think again for those at home and perhaps for the House there should be that understanding that the safety of our food regardless of country of origin is already checked mandated and controlled via Governmental legislation. So what this is going to do is yes provide a little bit more opportunity to understand where effectively our food comes from.Importantly this is about single-component foods. You are allowed—sorry I will just quickly make a distinction. By single-component" we are obviously thinking of the likes of fish and meat and fruit. It does not preclude it if I think some—I assume—basic preservatives like salt or the like are put in. That does not exclude it but we are talking very basic products here. But as with the previous speaker Michael Wood I think it needs the select committee to take a bit of time to tease out some of these issues.In my initial looking over of the bill there is a little bit of concern—and it is only on my own side—about the level of fines that would be imposed. I would be particularly interested to see how they marry up against other sorts of enforcement activities particularly in this space. I do think we need to look at any cost that this might have on consumers indirectly because in the first instance it will be the importer—the likes of a supermarket for example—that will wear the cost.Importantly of course a number of our supermarkets already have a voluntary system where they are marking out the country of origin so in some ways that is probably an argument that this will not be a hefty cost because it is already happening. I suppose it then becomes an issue for some of the smaller producers—how is that going to look? The other element too will be simply: how is this going to be displayed? I suspect it is not going to be a massive issue and I think of fruit in the supermarket. It is not unusual and almost annoying I have to say that almost every piece of fruit has to be navigated with a little sticker. It might be fine on a banana; rather frustrating when it is an apple. But actually how is that going to look? Again how is it going to be mandated? What is going to be the consistent approach there? I think that is why certainly from this side of the House we are happy to see the bill progress.We assume—with the support of the House it will get through—there will be a chance for the select committee to importantly hear from the various groups. I come to the conclusion of my little contribution tonight encouraging those groups that have an interest here to come and speak to the committee to allow it to further formulate—I was going to say "better formulate" but that is a little bit presumptuous—the bill. I have every confidence that the member responsible for the bill will welcome that opportunity.I think finally we will just need a little bit of guidance which will probably come from the officials in the first instance around our World Trade Organization obligations to make sure we are in a good space there. But again I commend the member for bringing the bill to the House."