Tirikatene Rino: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17876. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on Part 5 of the Food Bill. I really just wanted to focus on the provisions relating to immunity delegation and review in Subpart 2. I think it is very important when we are conferring powers on to particular officers or bodies that there be some balance or review that can be applied. But on my reading of these provisions there is pretty much complete immunity for the chief executive right down to food safety officers from any civil or criminal liability in the exercise of their powers under the legislation. That is a very black pass that we are providing to those officers and we do not want to see a situation whereby an overzealous officer or verifier or whoever is exercising their rights under this bill is able to get—on my reading of this—a free pass from any civil or criminal liability however it may arise for any acts or omissions that they may be doing in the performance of a requirement under this legislation. That is a real broad black pass that you can get.I would like to think that there would be some proportionality or some sort of countermeasure to just giving them open slather to do anything in the exercise of their functions. I am thinking that when you talk about civil and criminal liability that is very broad. I am thinking about the instance of serious economic damage to a firm to a company through an erroneous food safety exercise of powers or a requirement under the Act that caused real serious damage to a firm or its brand or for instance a criminal act that may have occurred through exercising those requirements. There is complete immunity—complete immunity—for these officers.I do understand that the intent of the bill is that we maintain confidence in our food safety regime. That is a given and we do support that general aim. But when you give complete immunity to all of these powers to all of these people who are exercising powers under this Act it does give rise to abuse and there should be some check some review some mechanism. I am thinking of the Tūhoe raids as an example. That was a completely different arm of the police but that was an overreaching and a totally disproportionate act by the police at that time. At least their actions were subject to a review but under this complete immunity that is passed on to the chief executive and all the way down there is a free pass that they have. I am very concerned about thatbecause I would expect that the integrity of the jobs and the roles that they carry out needs to be paramount and that there would be appropriate training given to these food safety officers all the way through to verifiers and the like—people who are exercising their requirements under the Act.On the face of it it is very broad. I will just go over it again. They are protected from civil liability and criminal liability however it may arise. It can also be in the performance of their functions or duties but it also goes further to the purported performance of a power or a requirement that they have under the Act. That is an extremely broad immunity and I think we need to be very careful as a Parliament if we give out these blank free passes to these persons who are exercising these functions. I think we need to be very careful as a Parliament that we make sure that we do not just give all these powers away and that people get a free pass. It is very dangerous. It is a slippery slope. We want to see some proportionality in terms of the exercising of functions. An officer might think “Oh I can just get away with anything.” and that he or she can just waltz into any premises and exercise any search and seizure secure any documents or information demand a whole bunch of things and know that they are actually immune—no matter what damage it may cause to the business or if they commit a criminal act. Who knows? They might have bowled over a person in the process and hurt them or caused serious injuries yet they will get a free pass under this bill. I would think that this needs to be closely looked at because we do not want to be giving all of this power and a free pass and immunity away because it could lead to some disproportionate acts being able to be given a free pass. Cheers. Kia ora.