Woolerton R Doug: Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits)  Registration Bill — Second Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits)  Registration Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4728] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the passing of the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill. In my colloquial way I regard this as EU stuff inflicted upon New Zealand growers because this is something we need to do for our trade. As I said New Zealand First supports the passing of the bill but let us make no mistake: as the Associate Minister of Commerce said in her long and detailed address it is something that our growers have not initiated. It is something that in fact New Zealand’s grape industry and others have not sought. It is something we have had imposed upon us and I have to say that I give all credit to our trade negotiators in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee for going through this bill. 
At times like this—and I should not say it as my leader will kill me—I wish for the return of my former colleague Gerry Eckhoff who when he was on the Primary Production Committee having come from a family that was deeply entrenched in the wine industry and the selling thereof would wax lyrical about all of what I would call the pretentious stuff surrounding wine. He would go into immense detail about geographical regions and the tastes that pertain to those areas. Then when challenged to talk about this in any scientific manner he would resort to what we all resort to: “Well I think it tastes good anyway.” So we had many a good debate on this subject when I was on the Primary Production Committee. 
But having had these things imposed upon us it is imperative that we do debate this in a proper manner. The bill has gone through the select committee and it is imperative that it is carried forward in a way we can live with in New Zealand. New Zealand First has been in favour of food labelling and those sorts of things when they have been proposed by other parties in the House. We would have to say it is interesting that although we have had this imposed upon us we are going along with a bill about labels that covers regions not only in New Zealand but again as the Minister said in countries throughout the world. I wonder whether it is a forerunner of a proposal by the National Party or indeed by Labour to label food from overseas countries because I have a bit of a problem with the fact that we are now eating garlic from China—where the last lot in my house came from God bless my soul—or from India. I would like to see quite obviously that we are eating garlic that comes from New Zealand. We are also at Christmas time in the main eating pork that comes from Canada and I understand some of that comes from China as well. We would like to see the things that can be home-grown actually be home-grown. 
I digress slightly to say it is interesting to me that we have just debated the Meat Board Amendment Bill in which members talked about industry standards and hygiene and the wine industry in the main is careful about that. I have talked about pork from Canada but I cannot talk about any export industry without talking about the problems we have had with our poultry in New Zealand. I agree with the Green spokesperson in this area Sue Kedgley and I suggest to members most strongly that if we had an export business in poultry we would not have had the problems we have with poultry. It is not widely known in this country—and it should be—that we have two standards in many cases. One is the export standard which is the higher and one is the local standard which is the lower. Those in the meat business are doing their very best and have actually achieved one standard across the board. In apples the industry still has not with due respect and in poultry we certainly have not because we do not export. So exports are important not only for our economy but because we are going into markets where the standards demanded of us are extremely high. We as a country benefit from those as I have indicated. 
So although we support the bill we recognise that it has been imposed upon us to a great degree. We applaud the work of our trade negotiators in doing the best for our people but I point out if there is a barb in my speech that we wish other areas and producers in our economy would lift their game before we in this House are forced to legislate for them to have to do that—which they will not be too happy with.