Goodhew JoHon JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata): I am delighted to take a call on the Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. Congratulations Steffan Browning. I am pleased this has been drawn out of the ballot and I understand New Zealanders' desire to know where their food comes from. But I want to cover off a few things here today and I think it is really important that we continue to remember that this bill is about choice so that consumers can easily find out where the product they are buying comes from. There has been a lot of demand for that and a lot of discussion around that for quite some time but there are also some misapprehensions around that.First of all we thought that voluntary labelling and the fact that 80 percent of the retail food market—that being Progressive Enterprises and Foodstuffs—were doing it voluntarily would get us across the line and have enough New Zealanders knowing what they wanted to know. As it turned out that proved to be not quite enough. I want to say that there are two reasons that people think this is going to be good for New Zealand. First of all New Zealand producers of food think this is going to give them a competitive advantage. If they pretend they do not that is wrong. They think that New Zealanders want to buy New Zealand products and largely they do. But New Zealand products or any products—fresh fruit and vegetables—are price sensitive as well.I myself was thinking the other day when I saw a particular fruit—I think it was lemons—in the supermarket and I wanted a lemon for my gin and tonic that in fact I did not think the difference in taste was important enough for me to buy the product that was twice the price just because it came from somewhere in New Zealand. So I am sorry but I bought a lemon from overseas. However I did have the choice and that is what we are saying New Zealanders should have now—that is the choice.The second problem we have is that New Zealanders believe that this will give them a choice that will assure them of food safety—wrong wrong wrong. It will not. There are many other mechanisms to assure New Zealanders of food safety and they do not always work. We saw a few years ago New Zealanders getting sick from New Zealand produced vegetables. We saw a couple of years ago New Zealanders getting sick with hepatitis A from eating frozen berries. At the time 95 percent of New Zealand's frozen berries in supermarkets were labelled with country of origin. That was done voluntarily. It did not stop anybody getting sick though did it?I want to cover off another couple of things. The survey showed us that a good representation of New Zealanders want this. I believe it was Horticulture New Zealand and Consumer New Zealand that put together a good survey that gave us a clear steer and that has helped us to make up our minds that this is a good way to go.However in the select committee we need to make sure that this bill is simple and it is as cost-effective for the producers as is possible. The reason I say that is if we look across the Ditch to Australia where they have a country-of-origin labelling scheme that is anything but the last thing we want to do is go down the path that they have. All the Australians have decided to do is label what percentage of the product is Australian-made. If it is 50 percent Australian-made that is what the label says. If it is 50 percent a New Zealand product it does not say that.They are not getting anything on their label other than how much of it is Australian-made and that to me is a fraud. Personally I think it is also a barrier to trade. So that will be an interesting one to watch over the years to come and it has just been very recently introduced.If we look across the country the people supporting this are shoppers in the main. It is New Zealand producers of the single-ingredient products. It is rural New Zealand largely. But there is some sensitivity around the companies that will have to do the labelling and about how easily their product will be labelled. We know that if it is in a packet labelling it is a whole lot easier than if it is an apple rolling around and we have to make sure that every single one of them has got a sticker on it.However I think these things are not insurmountable. It is my view that what we are doing here today is putting in place a process through a select committee where the bill can be carefully looked at. We can minimise the costs to the producers. We can give New Zealanders the information they want but they must remember that when they are choosing food there are other ways that they can be more assured of its safety—looking at its best-before date making sure they store it appropriately and preparing it properly for eating. That will be much more about food safety; this is about choice and knowing what you are buying. Thank you.