Browning Steffan: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17857. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Part 2 of the Food Bill with the risk-based approach is the piece of the bill that we very much support. That is the part of the modernisation that was envisaged back something like 11 years ago when this bill was first raised. Of course when the bill first came there were some parts in it that looked particularly Draconian and that seriously concerned a lot of people. A lot of small producers thought they would automatically be going out of business when this bill was implemented and that they would have to go into levels of bureaucracy I will call it that currently they did not and they could see lots and lots of expenses coming from that. There are still concerns about that. There are concerns for some processorsparticularly—rather than say fruit and vegetable producers but more the people processing cheeses and the like. We had very good submissions on that from people who are anxious that their costs will come down as the Minister for Food Safety has outlined and they will be able to carry on their business in a very good way.One of the changes though that was put through that we are very happy about is the inclusion of a good Samaritan clause to allow people to keep donating food to those in need. There are organisations—and there is a great one in Wellington here called Kaibosh which was a submitter—that go around and pick up food that at the end of the day a supermarket café or restaurant will not be running through to the next day but that food is still healthy or certainly viable and safe food. I am not sure about healthy as a lot of them might be sweet treats. Those organisations are able through this clause to carry on with that without having to go into some sort of compliance level that would prevent them doing that. So that is fantastic.Swapping food over the fence was another area that really really concerned people. You could read into the bill the way it was that that might actually be a transaction. It could be under bartering and of course barter according to the Inland Revenue Department is a sale and it should be because we can barter some pretty big things that would be effectively avoiding tax and the like. That was teased out and there was a solution to that. People in the community—through their families over the fence down the road and at the community gardens—could do that swapping. Seeds as was outlined earlier might get caught up in it. That was sorted out.What we will be needing now is some very good work with the Minister around the point of exemptions from these different tiers of approaches to risk and she has agreed to meet to try to do that. I think the tiers are great and that the different schedules we will get into later reflect those tiers of risk. However the smallest producers do not need to be incorporated into that. I did suggest through the select committee process that for the smallest ones there should be an affidavit system and maybe through the regulation we can still do that. For the smallest ones actually sign an affidavit to say that they do understand food safety issues and they know about washing their hands and making sure certain contaminants do not go near the food and potentially under a certain level of production they will not have to go into a situation where they would say “Blow it. I’m out of here. I’m not going to carry on this business.” We would be all the poorer if they did not. To have those extra safeguards put into the bill allows for the scale of the enterprise—so the Fonterras the peanut butter manufacturers or whatever—to be treated differently from somebody growing a few lettuces or picking a few apricots and wanting to sell but not being able to afford the compliance costs.There will be ways of achieving that. It could go the other way and it will depend on the people implementing it. A lot of the fears were driven by video clips and the like of activities in the US where food safety officers were going into businesses in a fairly heavy-handed way and appeared to be driving some people out of business. So it is I think an achievement that we all did come to common agreement. Some of us actually visited some of the producers at their homes or at their points of business and I know that members from both sides of the Committee met one of the cheese makers and saw what the real situation was for them.Ian McKelvie: What’s the cow’s name Steffan?STEFFAN BROWNING: Pardon?Ian McKelvie: What’s the cow’s name?STEFFAN BROWNING: Well one of them will be called Daisy would it not? I am not sure. But this was someone with just three or four cows who was making a handcrafted cheese. Seriously think of their production and the total turnover of $20000 and yet they end up with compliance fees of thousands of dollars. So clearlythat was not about $20000 of profit; that was turnover. So it was absolutely critical. Some of that is not caught up in the Food Bill because it is under the animal products regimes too. So there is some crossover there that I know the Minister and all sides of the Committee will want to sort out in time to make sure there is good harmony and that we can make some good progress.There are other parts of the bill that I would like to speak to particularly and I hopefully will not be cut short because I had more to debate on Part 1. I am hoping that when we get into some other parts that we will have the debate in full rather than it being cut short because I do have something I need to outline around genetic engineering which does not quite fit with this risk-management part that is around the production of food in New Zealand. I am pleased to say that no one is legally able to produce food that is genetically engineered in New Zealand at this time. So it does not actually need to be outlined in the risk-management strata that are in Part 2. The Greens are happy to support this aspect of the bill.