Kaye Nikki: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKaye Nikki: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17848. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Food Safety): I am very pleased to take this call in the Committee of the whole House stage. Can I start by acknowledging that this is I think a great day for New Zealand. It has been over 10 years in the making. There have been many officials in a number of administrations who have worked on this Food Bill. I want to acknowledge what I acknowledged in the second reading. There have been several Ministers. I also want to acknowledge the huge amount of work across this House that has gone into making this bill better. I acknowledge also that this bill is supported by the Labour Party the Green Party United Future the ACT Party I believe and I think Brendan Horan is supporting it too. I think when we come to the purpose of this bill we can see why it has such cross-party support. It has cross-party support because at the heart of this bill is actually our nation’s economy. If we do not get food safety right then all of us are much poorer and our quality of life is poorer.What this bill does is two things. The first is that it says we are actually going to base our food law on the risk of food and not buildings. We are on the cusp of replacing the 30-year-old statute which will actually ensure that food safety is based on the risk of food not buildings and an outdated un-modern statute. The second key thing that has actually been at the heart of much of what I think was genuine concern about this statute is allowing New Zealanders to do what they have always done and to not have compliance costs on so many small businesses. That is why I am very pleased that the Primary Production Committee gave a lot of attention to understanding the impact on small businesses. This is a sliding scale regime. The advice that I have had is that $40 million in compliance costs will go out the window with this bill. The third thing as we saw was the sausage sizzle issue. That was an issue very dear to the heart of New Zealanders. I think the select committee has really improved the bill to ensure that those community groups that are fund-raising can go on and do what they have always done. I really think this is a great bill from the perspective that not only is it going to help so many small businesses across New Zealand have consistency in terms of food safety regulation but also it is going to reduce compliance costs and it is going to enable New Zealanders to do what they have always done.There are a couple of Supplementary Order Papers and I just want to address both Supplementary Order Paper 440 which Damien O’Connor put forward and also Steffan Browning’s variation within the House Supplementary Order Paper 449. From our perspective New Zealand has country of origin labelling. It is voluntary. I have actually been doing some work to look at what that coverage is. What I can tell the Committee is that the advice that I have had is that in terms of single-ingredient country of origin labelling—and I want to talk about the difference in a second—we estimate about 70 percent of coverage happens in terms of country of origin labelling for single ingredients. That is about 70 percent of fruit vegetables and meat in our supermarkets have country of origin labelling. So the question is twofold. How do we possibly encourage more of that? Secondly is it appropriate in this statute to pass a law that requires mandatory country of origin labelling?The first point I want to make—and I think this is very relevant for the Opposition—is that some of the advice I have had is that we would actually be breaching the Australia - New Zealand food treaty if we passed this law. We have set up a regime where we have been really clear—and Mr O’Connor you have mentioned in your speech—that we develop standards with Australia. Yes they have developed a standard in this area but we absolutely have the ability to adopt country of origin labelling through that process that we have agreed to with Australia. To pass a law via statute rather than the code is actually not the process that we agreed to with Australia. From my perspective it is not appropriate in this bill.However I want to raise a couple of issues generally around country of origin labelling. The other point I want to make to the Opposition is that they may not be aware but Australia has just launched an inquiry into country of origin labelling. The advice that I have had is that part of what the committee chairing that inquiry said in Australia is that there is widespread confusion there around the differences in terminology between “made in Australia” “product of Australia” and “made from Australian”. What this is about is actually recognising that although it may be relatively easy to deal with single ingredient country of origin labelling when you are asking and trying to pass a law for when you may have 10 to 12 different ingredients the reality as I think Australia is finding is one the complexity of trying to then label the source of all of those products; two the cost to business to be able to do that; and then three—and this is why I think Australia has launched this inquiry—how meaningful it is actually to consumers if you have got a whole lot of different sources of ingredients.I want to finish that issue by saying that the Government does at this point support voluntary country of origin labelling. We do think from the advice that I have had—but I am going to do a bit more work on it—that we have got quite a lot of take up around single-ingredient country of origin labelling but in terms of comprehensive country of origin labelling I would encourage the Opposition to look at the fact that Australia is actually launching an inquiry into this issue because I think of the confusion the complexity and the cost.Again I want to acknowledge why we are here. We are here in part to reduce compliance costs to businesses. We are here to ensure there is much greater alignment across the country in terms of food safety laws. In terms of the purpose of the bill as well we are here to ensure that New Zealanders can go on and do what they have always done. I think as well we are also here—and I want to acknowledge the select committee and its patience on this issue—because we had a major food safety incident last year. I think what that incident outlined for us was one the importance of food safety to New Zealand and our economy and secondly the need to ensure that we not only get our primary legislation right but also do whatever we can to reduce complexity in some of those tertiary instruments. I think this is a great bill. It is going to be great for New Zealand. I want to acknowledge again although we may have a few differences in terms of some of the Supplementary Order Papers the incredible support that has happened across the Committee to make this bill better. Thank you.