Kedgley Sue: General Debates 
Kedgley Sue: General Debates 
[Volume:607;Page:4212] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to talk about a subject that may not be of great interest to members in this House but I can assure them it is of deep interest to the consumers of New Zealand—that is country-of-origin labelling or rather the lack of it in New Zealand. 
Even though New Zealand is a food-producing nation we import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food including for example more than 30000 tonnes of meat from countries such as China Canada the United States of America and Australia. Our meat imports have absolutely rocketed. In 1998 New Zealand was a net exporter of meat to Australia to the tune of $10 million. Now we are a net importer of meat from Australia to the tune of $78 million. The point is that if consumers were to wander around a supermarket as I have done they would not find a single label to identify whether the meat they are about to purchase has been imported from China Australia or wherever. That begs the question: where do all these hundreds of thousands of tonnes of meat that we import actually end up? The answer of course is that they all go into our supermarkets and are sold as unlabelled fresh meat or are processed into meat products like the one I have here. It says on the label “Made in New Zealand” even though the pork in this product actually comes from Canada. 
The reason for this grossly misleading and deceptive practice is that there is no requirement for mandatory country-of-origin labelling in New Zealand. There is in Australia and in Europe and it has been introduced into the United States and Canada—but not in New Zealand. Surely it is an absolutely basic consumer right for us to know what is in the food we eat and where it comes from. This is so particularly for meat products which may contain residues of growth promotants and other things not used in New Zealand such as the pig growth hormone widely used in Australia. Astonishingly our Government is vehemently implacably opposing this basic consumer right and it has been involved in a prolonged secret fight with Australia over this issue. Australia has mandatory country-of-origin labelling and because we are harmonising our food standards with Australia’s we should be introducing the same mandatory labelling that Australia has. But no our officials are even threatening to opt out from the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code on this issue or seek a variation to avoid country-of-origin labelling. 
To justify this extraordinary opposition to what is simply a basic consumer right the Minister for Food Safety said in question time that we did not need that labelling because we have the Fair Trading Act. What utter twaddle! If that were the case why would we have percentage labelling? Why would we have genetic engineering labelling? Why would we have nutrition labelling? All that the Fair Trading Act does is enable the consumer to take a case to the Commerce Commission. It does not give consumers the basic right that they are entitled to: to know what is in their food and where it comes from. 
The second reason the Government gives for opposing country-of-origin labelling is stated in an official paper which I will be tabling. It says that there is “virtually no demand for this information in New Zealand”. How can that be? In 2002 a survey was undertaken of New Zealand consumers and it found that New Zealand consumers—surprise surprise—do want country-of-origin labelling. They do want it so how could officials come up with this statement that we do not want it? 
The other astonishing thing is that many of the officials who are writing these papers and engaging in this war with Australia in a particular food standards committee—and who are vehemently opposing country-of-origin labelling—are from the Ministry of Food Safety which is a department charged with promoting consumer choice through accurate and meaningful labelling. That is the second statement of purpose of that department. So how can officials who have a duty to promote consumer choice and accurate and meaningful labelling oppose mandatory country-of-origin labelling which would give consumers the right to know where their food comes from? It is absolutely preposterous! The Minister for Food Safety is the Minister in charge of the department that is required to promote accurate and meaningful labelling. The Minister therefore has a duty to ensure that happens.