Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFood Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17844. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Food BillIn CommitteePart 1 Preliminary provisionsSHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the Committee stage of the Food Bill having sat through endless hours in the Primary Production Committee listening to submissions on the formation of and amendments to this bill. I think it is probably worth noting at the beginning the chronology of the bill. The bill was first introduced into the House on 26 May 2010 it had its first reading on 27 July 2010 and was reported on by the Primary Production Committee on 16 December 2010. On 2 July 2013 it was returned to the Primary Production Committee for a second round having been delayed and then revisited as a result of the whey protein concentrate scare. The select committee had a couple of substantial goes at amending the original bill and then the Supplementary Order Paper that subsequently followed as a result of that.The points that were made by the select committee are well covered in the commentary that the select committee reported back to the House and it is worthtouching on a couple of those. To the purpose of the bill we recommended adding clause 4(ba) to make it clear that one of the primary purposes of the bill is to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as a producer and exporter of safe and suitable food. I think that cuts right to the nub of what this bill is about at one end of it and that is that New Zealand is an export nation of protein-based food—and other types of food but predominantly protein-based food—which have the opportunity I guess within them to carry all sorts of potential dangers from a food safety point of view. To have a robust legislative framework around controls and Government responses to those types of risks from a reputational point of view is an essential ingredient to New Zealand’s economy—more than I think most people realise given that something like 72 to 73 percent of all export earnings from New Zealand come from our primary sector. That was a major consideration in the deliberations on this bill.At the other end of the spectrum of course you have the small fund-raising committees etc. such as Lions Rotary clubs marae school calf days those kinds of things where there was a pretty heavy-handed bureaucratic approach and so it was decided that there must be a better way. Through like I say a long process we believe that we have arrived at a point where we have achieved that. I look forward to debating various parts of this bill as it moves through the Committee.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this Committee stage of the Food Bill. I believe I may have just nipped ahead of my colleague Mr O’Connor. I will start this off.I am pleased to be speaking in this Committee stage. This is a significant piece of legislation. As we know it has had many years in development going all the way back to when Labour was in Government. It is a very important piece of legislation because we need a modern risk-based food safety regime.As we are on Part 1 I would like to start my contribution right at the very start where clause3(1) says: “This Act replaces the Food Act 1981.” That is a very welcome provision because that is a very outdated piece of legislation—30-plus years old—and it has caused a host of difficulties for many small businesses and territorial authorities right across the country over a long period of time. It is very welcome that we will be putting this bill through so that we can see the repeal of that particular piece of legislation.Just to give you an example there are many small businesses across the country that have been stymied at times by overly bureaucratic territorial authorities that have been trying to fit the archaic piece of legislation the Food Act 1981 to the operations of modern food vendors and modern purveyors of kai of food. To give you an example we have had a host of some really bizarre situations—for instance a cafe owner in Tūrangi Ms Upston’s great electorate. Unfortunately the district council there insisted that with the installation of a new toasted-sandwich maker that cafe had to install a commercial-grade extractor that cost more than $7000—just because the cafe operator wanted to have a toasted-sandwich maker. Fortunately these absolutely really bizarre draconian measures that have been placed on cafe owners are eliminated through the introduction of this legislation.There are other examples such as the kuias the old ladies up in the far north who made strawberry jam and sold it at the local Kerikeri hospice charity shop. Those lovely dear ladies found that they had to produce their jam in a commercial kitchen so they were technically contravening the law. Again these really bizarre outcomes stymied the entrepreneurial spirit and the generosity of these small businesses.There are other examples of territorial authorities really struggling with the one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach of the Food Act 1981 because as we know back in the early 1980s it was far different from what we have today. I think it was simpler. We did have fish and chips and fast food but we did not have things like I guess onlinepurchases of food. The industrial techniques of producing food have really come on in leaps and bounds over that period of time. Therefore the legislation of 1981 is really out of date and it is a very welcome move under this legislation that we will finally say goodbye not only to that Act but also to the prescriptive regulations that were promulgated under that piece of legislation because those regulations added to the complexity and the cost and the bizarre outcomes for small-business owners. What we are getting under this piece of legislation is a much more suitable piece of legislation that fits all types of food businesses from the small coffee cart and the small cottage-industry jam-maker right through to the big industrial processes and indeed exporters.It is a well-thought-through piece of legislation and can I commend all of the officials who have spent many years on this and also especially members of the Primary Production Committee who have given it very close consideration and made some very good improvements especially Supplementary Order Paper 278 from the Minister for Food Safety. Things like the good old Kiwiana sausage sizzle have been given due recognition that they do not need overly bureaucratic sorts of food standards and other compliance measures placed over the top of them. So there are some real common-sense amendments that have been made to get the bill to this Committee stage.But there is one glaring omission in this bill in Part 1. Thankfully my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor has proposed a very sensible amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 440 that there be country-of-origin labelling included in clause 4. That is very important because we on this side of the Chamber and many other parties here—except for Peter Dunne whom this amendment really rests on—believe that Kiwis have the right to know the origin of the food that they consume and that they purchase. It should be implemented through this Supplementary Order Paper. I encourage the members of this Committee to take the opportunity to make this very sensible improvement to Part 1 so that we do add that element of as Mr O’Connor calls it COOL—to adopt the acronym for country-of-origin labelling. I am not really getting any jokes out of this. We need to adopt the cool. We need some coolness. We need to put some cool into the country-of-origin labelling in clause 4.I would like to go back to my favourite example which is the good old Kiwi sausage the banger and bacon. Very few Kiwis know that the majority of the pork that is consumed in this country actually comes all the way from Canada North America. Should there be country-of-origin labelling I think people will be a bit more thoughtful in terms of the origin of their pork of their food and where it comes from. They do have a right to know. So that is one sensible amendment that I do recommend in my contribution on this first part. Thank you.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I have to apologise to my colleague Rino Tirikatene whom I left out in the lurch a little bit. I was trying to escape a meeting.We welcome the Food Bill into the Committee. It has been a long time coming. In debating Part 1 of the bill I would like to firstly acknowledge some of the officials there many of whom have been around for as long as this bill has and as long as I have which is quite some time. We hope that the ageing of the bill like a good wine has improved it. A number of Ministers for Food Safety have overseen it and I welcome the current Minister’s comments on a number of the provisions.In Part 1 of the bill we have as rightfully it should be the purpose of the bill. I have as my colleague noted proposed an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 440 which we believe is essential to finish off what is essentially a very good bill following almost 10 years I guess of consideration of assessment by the Primary Production Committee on indeed a couple of occasions and as I say oversight andinput from people up and down this country on at least two occasions and other opportunities through consultation with officials.If I can go to the purpose of the bill it is indeed an amalgam of pieces of legislation that have been around for a while. We are attempting to align those pieces of legislation to give better effect to the purpose of producing safe food maintaining New Zealand’s reputation and ensuring that consumers get a good deal from a country that we say—and I think we can rightfully say—is one of the best producers of food in the world bar none.The purpose of the bill and I can read out clause 4 is to: “(a) restate and reform the law relating to how persons trade in food; and (b) achieve the safety and suitability of food for sale; and (ba) maintain confidence in New Zealand’s food safety regime”. That was an amendment put up by the Primary Production Committee to emphasise the reality that the confidence that the public have in the legislation around food should not be in question and that this is not a partisan piece of legislation. It has been endorsed and I hope it will be by all parties across the House because we have attempted to achieve the very best outcome. The inclusion of that subclause in the purpose clause that is to maintain the confidence in New Zealand’s food safety regime was an important addition.The next subclause is to “(c) provide for risk-based measures that—(i) minimise and manage risks to public health; and (ii) protect and promote public health.” That is a very important part and objective of this piece of legislation. The fourth one is to “(d) provide certainty for food businesses in relation to how the requirements of this Act will affect their activities;”We have up and down this country—from the very largest producers of food to the very smallest and most innovative and creative at times—people who in classic Kiwi style get out look around them see what opportunities there are and often through biological production systems be it through grapes or honey and bees or through new fruit varieties come up with a new food that they want to manufacture or indeed to just sell in its raw form. This piece of legislation has to give them certainty so that the time and the money that they might invest in that production system is supported through legislation through good regulations and through a system that is going to give them the opportunity to develop that further.If I can use the example going back some time of kiwifruit the humble Chinese gooseberry which was grown on a few farms and in a few gardens around the place and has now become a billion-dollar industry because the regulations were sound and because of the ability for those growers to develop the intellectual property the varieties and to get out there and develop the systems of handling of storage and of sale—the legislation had to support that development through the years. We are upgrading the legislation to modernise it and to make it fit for purpose.The next thing here is subclause (d) to “provide certainty for food businesses” and then moving on to clause 4(e) which is to “require persons who trade in food to take responsibility for the safety and suitability of that food.” [Interruption] I acknowledge the Minister and I would welcome responses.This is I guess an area where responsibility is placed back on to the people in the food sector themselves. The risk-based system that we are proposing puts trust in them to do what they say they are going to do in administering the regime at whatever level. The people who are taking responsibility are those who are trading in food and it is about ensuring that they deliver to their consumers to their customers food that is not too old does not have contaminants in it or does not have food safety issues that might harm them in any way. The regime that we have is a very stringent risk-based system for those from the very top—Fonterra and the big producers—down to the personselling sausages for the sausage sizzle. There are different requirements that ultimately depend upon the individuals involved or the companies involved to implement what they say they will do. The officials can never be there every moment of every day. I think we are lucky to be in a country that has people of integrity systems of integrity and regulations that are generally sound and sensible. We should be able to trust the systems once this legislation passes.All those objectives we say are sound but there is one missing and I know I have had discussions with the Minister—hopefully she has seen the light of day to come and support us—on mandatory country-of-origin labelling informing the consumers who buy the food where the food was produced and manufactured. We say that it is a core right of any consumer to know where the food they are eating has come from. We are part of a trans-Tasman arrangement the Food Standards Australia New Zealand authority which says that we share with Australia the same regime for risk-based systems for food safety and for labelling. So using CER and the transfer of goods either side of the Tasman aligns and makes that system more simple.But New Zealand sought an exemption from those trans-Tasman regulations that allows us to not have country-of-origin labelling. For a country so dependent upon food production for our survival and our prosperity it is absolutely bizarre that we do not have country-of-origin labelling—something that identifies clearly the food produced in this country under regulation that would allow consumers to know whether that food was produced and manufactured in New Zealand or whether it was produced somewhere else in the world.I am proposing Supplementary Order Paper 440 and an amendment that would add to the purpose clause in the bill a requirement to introduce country-of-origin labelling requirements in accordance with the Australia - New Zealand food standards code. The exemption that we have—and the Minister might say “Oh it’s not appropriate to have this in the bill.” That is absolutely wrong. It is appropriate that we have in the purpose of this bill a requirement to align ourselves with the agreed regulations that are currently in place on both sides of the Tasman. So I welcome the Minister’s response as to why the National Party and its two coalition partners Peter Dunne and Mr Banks are not supporting something that the vast majority of the public expects.Country-of origin labelling is taking place in some areas through a voluntary code but it is not mandatory and in fact there are many occasions when consumers are confused as to where the food they are purchasing is grown and manufactured. We will be putting to the Committee this amendment to the purpose in Part 1 of the bill and I hope that the Government can see the wisdom in supporting that for the good of the consumers and for their right to have information and knowledge about the food that they are going to consume.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.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in this Committee of the whole House as we continue to debate the Food Bill. I would just like to say first off following on from the Minister for Food Safety that we will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of Damien O’Connor and also Supplementary Order Paper 449 in the name of Steffan Browning which is very similar and complementary. In this part of our deliberations I want to focus on some of the perhaps less glamorous aspects of the bill. In any piece of legislation there will be much that is mundane yet none the less necessary. Not every subclause or annotated paragraph will set the world on fire but each of them provides an essential cog in the machinery of law. With that in mind the first thing I want to look at is Part 1 clause 8 which relates to the meaning of food.To an independent observer this may appear to be a somewhat unnecessary consideration. The average citizen I might posit could perhaps be forgiven for presuming that the definition of “food” was a fairly straightforward affair: if you eat something it is food. Not so in the eyes of the law. The proof of that particular pudding is in Part 1 clause 8 “Meaning of food”. In this bill clause 8(1) states: “unless the context otherwise requires food—(a) means anything that is used capable of being used or represented as being for use for human consumption (whether raw prepared or partly prepared); and (b) includes—(i) seeds plants or plant material intended for human consumption including seeds that are intended to be sprouted and consumed as sprouts but not other seeds plants or plant material intended for planting;”.So a potato is food but a seed spud is not. What is the difference between a spud and a seed spud one might ask. Well a seed spud is a spud that has gone to seed. It may have been grown especially with that purpose in mind. As such it could rightly be classified as not being intended for human consumption. Equally it may be an ordinary spud originally intended for eating but that has somehow been overlooked—it may have languished at the bottom of the bag at the back of the pantry alone and forlorn in the dark until it has thrown out a few of those pale spindly shoots by which the life force of the potato plant attempts to replicate itself. At that time the intention for it to become the subject of human consumption is extinguished. Under the definition in the law as it is enshrined in this bill it is therefore no longer food. That is not to say that such a spudcan be presumed to now be intended for planting. Such an accidental seed spud may well find itself in the charge and care of a non-gardener and it may very well come to end its days in the compost bin or worse. But that is of no matter. The important point is that it is no longer food in a legal sense. This is an important distinction and one that has to be made. I would venture to suggest to the House that this bill makes that distinction rather well.Food is also defined under clause 8(1)(b) as “(ii) live animals intended for human consumption at the place of purchase; and (iii) live animals intended for human consumption that are sold in retail premises;”. I presume this refers primarily to such comestibles as lobster or perhaps live shellfish but equally it could conceivably include live chickens purchased for later preparation. Again this is an important consideration because if the bill did not contain a specific reference to the intention for the live animal to be for human consumption every pet shop in the country might find itself in a very unenviable position. Once again we see the tiny cogs of the great machine performing their sterling service mostly unseen and presumably underappreciated but none the less completely necessary.The bill also provides under the definition of the meaning of food “(iv) any ingredient or other constituent of any food or drink whether that ingredient or other constituent is consumed or represented for consumption on its own by humans or is used in the preparation of or mixed with or added to any food or drink; and (v) anything that is or is intended to be mixed with or added to any food or drink; and (vi) chewing gum and any ingredient of chewing gum and anything that is or is intended to be mixed with or added to chewing gum;”. So chewing gum is food. This may come as something of a surprise to members. It has come to pass that generations of children were right all along and their parents were wrong.Chewing gum is food because Parliament by its sovereign power and authority has decreed that it be so. Tobacco however is not food and rightly so. I think most members if not all would agree that tobacco is not food—at least not food for humans. This includes chewing tobacco. Unlike chewing gum chewing tobacco may not lawfully be food. It is not the act of chewing therefore that makes it food or even the non-swallowing of the substance in question. Neither chewing gum nor chewing tobacco are intended to be ingested which may in itself seem somewhat incongruous in terms of the ordinary person’s perception of what food may be given its intended purpose. Rather it is the letter of the law that determines the relative foodness or non-foodness of any particular substance.In closing then I will note that the bill also provides in clause 8(1)(b)(vii) that food is “anything that is declared by the Governor-General by Order in Council made under section 355 to be food for the purposes of this Act;” and thus chewing gum may be food but chewing tobacco may not so must it be. These are splendid definitions and we support them entirely as we support this bill. Thank you.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I am pleased to be able to speak in the Committee of the whole House stage of the Food Bill. Part 1 is pretty broad and I think we need to visit a few aspects of it. I will just reflect on the broad level of agreement that has been arrived at in terms of this bill across Parliament. But in saying that that does not mean that the Green Party is happy with all aspects of the bill—not just this issue of country-of-origin labelling but other aspects as well. But we think there has been a reasonable move to accept some of our concerns and to address them. In time I would like to see further change to this bill. I referred to it last night that we actually do need a truly independent New Zealand Food Safety Authority—not just the one that we did have but something much more genuinely independent. This bill goes a long way and it has been mentioned about the new part in the purpose clause inserted by newclause 4 (ba) which is that the legislation will help “maintain confidence in New Zealand’s food safety regime;”. That is all about external trade and that is obviously important with agriculture being 54 percent of our export value. It is absolutely critical.However New Zealanders are being fed some very very poor food. This bill could deal with that but will not necessarily. The bill is full of mays and possibilities—the Minister may do this or the Ministry for Primary Industries may do that. But what we actually need is some serious compliance. We need to be looking at what is in our food who is measuring it and how they are measuring it. I have been involved in this issue for many years—more than a decade—looking at issues around pesticides in food genetically modified foods and how they are coming into the country and antibiotic resistance and that. The bill can address them all but so could the Food Act and successive Governments have failed New Zealanders in the application of legislation and regulation to ensure the best food is going to them their children and in fact their unborn children as well. So I am looking forward to seeing very good and appropriate application to ensure that this bill works well once it is passed.There has been a fair bit of talk on country-of-origin labelling and I am sure we are going to address that several more times. I was just taking some notes when the Minister for Food Safety was talking. We have had some of these discussions before. I do not think it is right that we rely on the joint partnership Minister. I have just been reflecting on it a little bit over the last hour or so. The joint partnership with Australia has some sense. We are a small country Australia is a much bigger country so let us work together on food standards. But what we are getting from them and what the Minister is unfortunately being advised about are not necessarily good outcomes for New Zealanders. I know that through and through on genetic engineering. I am not sure when I will do a speech on that through the course of what we are doing now but I will.Ian McKelvie: Oh dear!STEFFAN BROWNING: And Ian McKelvie is waiting for that. I promise you Ian I will give it to you.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member must use the member’s full name and title.STEFFAN BROWNING: OK—Ian McKelvie I look forward to it. I aim to have that very very much clarified—not his name but the issues around genetic modification and how the Minister almost has her arm being held up her back to rubber-stamp it because of the advice she has been given and these trade imperatives that seem to overrule food safety for New Zealand consumers.Country-of-origin labelling comes into that turf to a degree too and people want that. People want country-of-origin labelling for a range of reasons. Some of them are for food safety and their assumptions and ideas around the food safety that is achieved in various countries. But others will be for a range of reasons about how that food is produced. Is it produced by a big agrichemical company? It could be because a big rainforest has been slashed down and they do not want to get food that was produced in that sort of area. It could even be the parochial thing and that they want to look after New Zealand producers and make sure that their food is consumed first.Reflecting on the pork industry 45 percent of pork—and I think it is more than that now—consumed in New Zealand comes from overseas. But the voluntary scheme that the Minister has referred to is not dealing with that. What pork does anyone in this Chamber any member anyone who works in these buildings or anyone in our communities see that is labelled with its country of origin saying that it comes from Canada or maybe China or Australia or countries in fact that even have diseases which we should not be importing from? There are a number of consumers who would say they do not want to contribute to that but who do not get the choice because as it iscountry-of-origin labelling is voluntary. There is nothing mandatory. What is the backstop to that? There is no enforcement because it is voluntary. The only thing is that if a consumer can be absolutely sure that something is misrepresented then they can go to the Commerce Commission through one of the trade Acts.We do need mandatory country-of-origin labelling. I agree that the stuff through the trans-Tasman joint partnership stuff is maybe not the clearest or the best method or form of that country-of-origin labelling. The reason for that—and I agree with the Minister—is the level of complexity. That is why I think Supplementary Order Paper 449 in my name is slightly superior to Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of Damien O’Connor because that one is relying on that system. This has got three parts to it. Firstly if it is imported you actually label it with the country that it comes from. But then it has got this word “or”: or if you put a little bit of local stuff in there you say “local and imported goods” and it tells you nothing at that point. Or it goes on again and you get a mix of imported products but I might want to know the difference between Canada and Argentina for a range of reasons and perceptions. It is a bit messy that way. So the Supplementary Order Paper I have put up is talking about single ingredients and very very clear country-of-origin labelling there.My Supplementary Order Paper goes further to also suggest a change in clause 4(e) to require regular monitoring and enforcement of food labelling requirements. There is a very good reason for that. The food labelling requirements that we have now—and GE is the one that I know so well—are not being enforced. The bill does have—and discussions with the Minister support this—some provisions that would suggest that there is a certain liability on the regulators to do that job. Maybe my Supplementary Order Paper is not needed. We certainly see it as pretty needed because that labelling that I was just talking about has not been enforced or even monitored since 2003. We are talking about 11 years since a certain labelling requirement which is legally applicable has even been monitored and enforced. Even if the Hon Damien O’Connor’s Supplementary Order Paper or my Supplementary Order Paper were to be agreed to—and I would really like the Minister to reconsider—DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): It is good to be able to stand and speak on the Food Bill. It is a hefty tome of a bill and I guess that speaks to the time that it took to go through the Primary Production Committee and the 570-odd submissions that were presented to the committee in order to cover it. This bill was introduced on 26 May 2010. It was more than 2 years in 2013 until it came back here and now we are still going through it in the Committee stage. We support this bill. Labour believes this is a step forward and that it clarifies considerably the issues around food safety. As the Minister for Food Safety points out and we completely agree with her New Zealand should have the highest standards of food safety because our economy depends on it. The scare around botulism last year emphasised that a scare around that sort of issue can have an enormous impact on our ability to export and on the way that we are perceived across the world.This bill I think successfully balances the need for safety on the one hand with the need to preserve at the same time our way life. We talked about the sausage sizzle and the earlier possible requirement in the bill for those things to be heavily regulated and effectively regulated out of existence. I do not know how much campylobacter is spread through sausage sizzles but I like the idea on a Saturday morning when I am going around the sports teams in my electorate of picking up a breakfast snack from one of the charities that are around there in order to help them out. That is part of our way of life. So the fact that that has been balanced with the need for safety in our food is I think a step forward. The fact that small businesses will be able to save money on this in terms of their compliance costs is also a step forward.When we look at the Food Bill what it effectively does is to look more at the risk of what might happen in terms of handling food rather than at the actual businesses themselves that are affected. It looks at risk in terms of about five different areas. I just want to run through these very quickly because they are in and around the purpose of the bill. They are the food control plans around the control of food; national programmes to be implemented for medium and low-risk food handling; food handler guidance so those companies and others who will be handling food will be able to obtain guidance; monitoring obviously of those programmes which is absolutely necessary; and also a much clearer requirement set out for the issue around food imports. Obviously within that when you have got monitoring you are also going to have penalties and the penalties are updated as well as part of this lengthy tome. All in all this has been a good piece of work which has been done cooperatively across the select committee with good input from officials from what I understand although I was not serving on the committee and we have come up with a good piece of legislation that we are happy to support.But I want to come to the point that Damien O’Connor and Steffan Browning were just mentioning before which is the point about country of origin labelling. The Minister in the chair Nikki Kaye spoke to this and I have to say that her reply or response to this was a bit unconvincing. She said that we do not actually need this because 70 percent of our single-ingredient foods are already being looked after voluntarily. The issue is not really about the 70 percent that are being done so voluntarily; the issue is about the 30 percent of those foods that are not being looked at and their country of origin not being submitted because those are the ones that we have to worry about.I give as an example walking into your local fish shop. When I walk into our local fish shop my assumption up until fairly recently was that the fish in that shop were largely caught or harvested in New Zealand. I know that there are going to be certain standards. Actually that is a long way from the truth. It is a long way from the truth. The cheaper pieces of fish are actually sourced from places like Viet Nam where the fish are grown in ponds and fed hormones and a whole lot of other artificial products in order to grow them. They are brought to New Zealand and they are sold alongside New Zealand fish. I would like to see “Fish grown in Vietnam” clearly on the fish that we see in our fish shop but we are not seeing that because if you did that probably nobody would buy it. They would go for the New Zealand fish. The voluntary code is simply not working in the way that I believe—and New Zealanders have a right to believe—that it should.Then the Minister said that we can do it in another way rather than through this piece of legislation. As this is a comprehensive examination and regulation of our food industry in New Zealand why would you not put that into something like this bill in the form of a very simple Supplementary Order Paper rather than try to do it through some other means? On the one hand the Minister is saying that we do not need labelling because 70 percent of it is already done although the 30 percent that is not done is actually a real worry. On the other hand she said that if we do need it to be done—well does it need to be done or not—we can do it in some other way rather than this way. So the argument is very unconvincing. It is very unconvincing and I believe that what we should be doing is moving through with these Supplementary Order Papers and getting them through Parliament. What we need is for Peter Dunne to sign off on them and we can actually do that—and I would hope that he will actually be coming to the Committee later on to be able to help with that—so that we are able to have country of origin labelling that is clear and well set out for New Zealanders to see where their food is coming from.It is very simple. I believe we have a right to that and a right to enable that to happen. Although we have controversy elsewhere and the Minister says they are looking into country of origin food labelling in Australia let me just show you this chart here. People on television or anybody else might not be able to see this but this long column down here represents the list of countries that do have country of origin labelling. They include all of the OECD countries that we trade with. This small group here is the countries that do not have country of origin labelling. There are about a dozen of them. We are in the company of Guatemala Colombia Honduras Philippines and Viet Nam. Good old New Zealand is with them. Well if we are a food-exporting nation and we take food quality seriously then we should be in the other column. We should not be on this side of the ledger where countries are looking to us and asking why New Zealand cannot regulate its food industry in the same way that they can. So if these counties can do it why can we not do it?The Minister has been completely unconvincing in her argument that somehow it is not necessary because 70 percent of it is already done. Of course in relation to the 30 percent that is not done they are not doing it for the reason that it would discourage people from buying their products. Of course that is the case. So as a result of that for 30 percent of the products that we are buying in our shops nobody has any idea where they come from or what is actually inside them either. That is a whole other issue that I will bring up another day. I believe that although this is a good piece of legislation the country of origin labelling is a serious omission from what is otherwise a very good piece of legislation that could have actually advanced us up the chart and put us on the on the right side of the ledger with all the other countries in the OECD rather than languishing alongside Colombia Honduras and Viet Nam.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor to Part 1 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes59New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 449 in the name of Steffan Browning to Part 1 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Risk-based measuresThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now move to Part 2. This is debate on clauses 19 to 96 and schedules 1 to 4.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Part 2 of the Food Bill refers to risk-based measures. I guess in summary it is appropriate standards for appropriate risk—the volume and type of food where the foods are sold and what kind of system I guess the company in the most part can afford to run. I have to say that these things have been kicked around for some time by select committees and by the Minister for Food Safety and I think we have got the balance about right.But what I am concerned about is the Minister’s statement earlier on about the savings that this bill would create for the industry. The Government has been very good at working on costs but not on value. This is a piece of legislation that affects arguably the single biggest part of our income generation across the economy both at the primary level in terms of animal production and food and also at the secondary and tertiary level—that is manufacturing and then the sale at retail. So it is a very important piece of legislation.The cost savings which the Minister claims are around $40 million may be there. In my view they are a lesser part of our consideration than the value that we may assist to create for the food industry and for the primary sector. So I would like to think that we are assisting in the establishment of a system of integrity—a robust system of integrity—that allows anyone producing primary produce or food or whatever in this country to get out there and sell with confidence that at every part of the supply chain we have avoided any possible contamination we have not allowed an infiltration by anyone or anything and we have got food that is true to label—in spite of us not having country-of-origin labelling—and that what is said on the pack will indeed be what the consumer buys and the person eats and consumes. That is very very important. So the risk-based measures the systems put in place to work through every part of possible systems breakdown or contamination are really really important.There have been concerns of course about over-regulation. The Primary Production Committee has moved on a couple of occasions—with the assistance of the Minister who has clarified a few things—to hopefully not over-regulate and perhaps that is where the Minister is pointing to the possible savings. The reality is that most of the laws that we pass in this House are for the people who are potentially going to break them not for the vast majority of people who understand the wisdom of running a system that delivers safe food.There will always be people who want to cut corners. There will always be people who want to mislabel or to put in horsemeat when beef is what the food is labelled as. There are numerous examples across the world of inappropriate labelling—effectively fraudulent operations—to the point where in the UK now and in the European Union there are major inquiries around the counterfeiting of food. Gangs are moving from drugs to food. So let us not underestimate the risks that we are talking about here.Although the Minister may be focused on reducing costs we in the Opposition are more focused on having a robust piece of legislation that actually prevents this kind of counterfeiting and fraudulent behaviour. So that is the approach that we have taken to this. We have not looked at each and every clause through Part 2 of the bill and said: “Well this is going to save a bit for people here and there.” and in fact at the same time we are doing this in the meat industry for example the Minister is allowing the dumbing down and the deregulation of meat inspection. So on the one hand we are hopefully moving to a comprehensive piece of legislation that has appropriate risk-based measures in it but on the other hand the Government has been moving in the wrong direction.Although it is not a specific part of this what happens in the slaughterhouse and what happens at every part of food manufacture will have to be identified in the food control plans that are currently covered by this area. Also of course in Part 2 we have how we develop the food control plans how we oversee them how we register them what are the national programmes and how we deal with I guess the monitoring of course which is really really important.Can I go back to the point I raised in relation to Part 1 that an independent food safety authority which this Government got rid of is going to be an essential component to any robust system as we move forward. Just as the Chinese were confused when it came to the botulism debacle about whom they should speak to and whether we had a food safety authority—in fact going back to the meat issue they demanded certification from the Food Safety Authority the old agency because they did not trust the Ministry for Primary Industries.The point is that the implementation the oversight and the enforcement of all these risk-based measures should be carried out under the control of an independent food safety authority. We in Government will reinstate that independent agency. There are numerous examples now of the Ministry for Primary Industries not having the appropriate focus or expertise—with all due respect to its officials—or independence to focus solely on food safety. It is compromised by considerations of trade of biosecurity in some instances in other areas of responsibility across the Ministry for Primary Industries. If we are to have the risk-based measures upheld adjusted where necessary and implemented we need a separate food safety authority.Without getting into the details—the Minister might want to go through the details; there are quite a few in here. I do not think anyone in the gallery would want me to read through these things. In principle we believe it is appropriate to have risk-based measures at the level needed to ensure food safety but not at a level that undermines the ability for food producers to innovate to create and to get out and deliver new products to the market place.We have got to get the right balance. In the select committee we hope we have. But without an independent food safety authority we cannot guarantee that all our good work here is going to be carried through and will deliver an absolute assurance of food safety for our consumers. So that is something we have to continue to work on.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.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on Part 2 of the Food Bill. This is really the guts some of the core provisions in terms of the new risk management approach under the Food Bill. We know what those measures are. As the Minister for Food Safety explained earlier there is a sliding scale of measures that food businesses will have to comply with based on whether they are high risk and the types of foods they produce. At its most fundamental level there are the food control plans of which there are two types. There is the template plan which I am sure will be very helpful for those particular industries that fall within that category right through to individualised plans. Then it cascades through to other measures such as the national programmes and monitor programmes and a lot of that detail will be implemented by way of regulations once the Act has come into force.But I want to focus on the most very basic level. This is not even about just food businesses. It is around the food handler guidance that is also promoted through this legislation. This piece of legislation impacts on all food businesses but it also applies especially to Māori and maraes. I know that maraes are the heartbeat of the hapū of the particular community or hapū or whānau that they represent. They are the actual engine room of the marae complex. It is not actually the big house. It is not actually the whare tūpuna. The actual engine room of the marae is the wharekai the dining room because from that wharekai emanate all of the orders that go around to all the different parts of the marae including the big house. So when kai is served those orders go out and they have to listen to the cooks in the kitchen.In terms of the way that the marae operates this bill does have potential implications because a lot of maraes around the country do have aspirations to trade in food. They do have aspirations to perhaps set up cafés or restaurants—Shane Ardern: This bill will help them. This will help them.RINO TIRIKATENE: —and this bill definitely will help. At its most basic level there is the Te Kai Manawa Ora programme which has been promoted by the former Food Safety Authority. It is a very sensible programme that provides good guidance to marae in terms of proper food handling. With a lot of it especially when you talk to your old aunties they will get quite offended if you tell them what food handling standards or food safety standards are. They have been doing it mai rā nō as we say—for a long long time. But it is good that these measures are being promoted to Māori and that there is the pathway that they can follow to indeed become businesses that trade in food and that comply with the relevant food control plan.This is a good part. This is the guts of the legislation. It is about risk management as opposed to as I mentioned earlier the old hygiene regulations which were more worried about the fixtures and the fittings and what was on the walls and what was onthe floors and what was up in the air ducts. All of those are basically irrelevant with the passing of this legislation because everything will be based around the whole process of the handling of the kai the food—right through its production to the end product and ultimately the consumer.As I mentioned the wharekai is the engine room of the marae. As Māori we know that the mana of the hapū of the whānau is very much determined by the quality of the food and of the feast that is put on for the guests. It is very exciting for our kuias and our ringaweras around the motu. There are hundreds of marae. We know that there are many food businesses but equally there are hundreds of marae around the country with their caterers in the kitchen that will be covered within the ambit of this legislation. We know how important it is because the mana of the marae is based on the quality of the kai and the worst thing that could happen to any marae would be if the manuhiri got crook after eating the hākari. Unfortunately I have been the victim of such an occurrence but I will not name the marae. I will not name anywhere even close to where it is—the geographic proximity. But I can tell you that it was not pleasant for me and for many other whānau who attended that particular hui.That is the very reason why we need to have this legislation in place. We need to have this legislation which provides the full gambit of all food suppliers food businesses and food purveyors right across the country from all levels working under a much more user-friendly food safety risk management - based framework. That applies as I have mentioned right from the marae wharekai through to the coffee cart through to the cottage cheese-maker and right through to the big industrial export processor.I did want to touch on the fact that the food sector in general is critically important to the economy of our country. I cannot stress that enough. Māori in particular are major stakeholders in the food production sectors of our country. We need to look only at the agribusiness sector sheep and beef dairy production seafood fisheries aquaculture horticulture viticulture—you name it; Māori are major players. There are many many successful industry-leading organisations around the country that are doing wonderful things in terms of producing food employing people in the regions and earning good foreign exchange dollars through the exports of their fine produce. So it is great that this legislation can be in place so that they have a much more user-friendly regime to be able to work under. Ultimately that will see the increase in export returns and the increase in the standard of living that we want across all of the country.It is vitally important for Māori but we know that there are many many hundreds if not thousands of food premises and food businesses and there are many many people who rely on the food industry for employment. Likewise it is significant that half of our export returns as a country come from food production and food exports. So this is a very very significant piece of legislation. It has taken a long time to get to this point but as I mentioned yesterday good things take time as the Mainland cheese ad said. But it is true that this is a very very good measure in Part 2. Having the sliding scale and the range of different plans means that businesses will have certainty that they know they operate under or a means by which that can be determined. That is really the central aspect to the risk management approach. I commend Part 2. Kia ora.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.Part 2 agreed to.Part 3 Food imported for purpose of saleRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): We are now moving on to Part 3 of this very finely drafted bill the Food Bill which has had many years of input from officials from Governments both on this side of the Chamber and the other side of the Chamber—some 10 years in the making—and with some very good contributions made at the Primary Production Committee to where we are today. We are on to Part 3 which concerns food imported for the purpose of sale and as we have mentioned in other parts it is not only the food that we produce from the bounty of our land and our sea but also the imported food ingredients that form a vital part of our food industry and our food production.I am just scanning my eye over Part 3 and I see here that at the end of Part 3 there are provisions relating to the Joint Border Management System something that is very dear to the Customs Service and the Ministry for Primary Industries at the moment. It is a very comprehensive computer system which will ultimately make ease of reporting and recording and facilitating the import and export of goods across the border. It is a major IT system roll-out and means that the businesses concerned have a single registration point whereby they can register and have a lot more ease of processing. Reporting paperwork is all eliminated through a computer-based system. Businesses can work through this Joint Border Management System and the key element to that is the Trade Single Window.Clauses 122A and 122B feed into the Joint Border Management System. Clause 122A states: “Border information supplied using JBMS must be supplied in an approved form and manner”. Clause 122B states: “Duty to use JBMS to supply border information”. So it is good that this legislation aligns with that significant piece of information technology system which is critical. We can have all the food production in this country that we want—and importation is really important—but it has to cross our borders whether inbound or outbound and we need to have ease of transacting of business for those companies that are involved so it ultimately reduces the red tape.The Joint Border Management System is a key part of that as mentioned in this Part 3. We know that there are issues around the implementation of that system. We are unsure as to whether an evaluation has taken place. The system has cost in excess of $90 million and we are still unsure about the effectiveness of that system and whether all aspects around the functionality of that system have been delivered by the IT contractor concerned. I do not mean to be straying off from this bill but the Joint Border Management System is a central piece of the joint system between the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Customs Service. It is contained within this Part 3 and therefore I did feel obliged that I should make those few remarks around that system. But this bill does align with the IT systems.It is good that there is now a coordination between food businesses and the importers that they will be dealing with and the facilitation of the products that they will be using in their production of their end goods which will ultimately be ending up in the pukusof us Kiwi consumers and also our customers in international markets around the world. As I mentioned our food sector is the most important economic sector in terms of the value that it creates for our country.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): As I said before on the Food Bill I would like to speak on the GE food process because absolutely all genetically engineered food in New Zealand is imported. We do not grow any—and that is a very good position—and there is a need for enforcement and independent advice. First of all if an applicant generally a big agrichemical company like Monsanto Dow or Dupont wants to introduce something into the food chain here the authority is Food Standards Australia New Zealand and there are variants around that through our joint partnership arrangement. If the company wants to do that it applies to Food Standards Australia New Zealand say and then a notification is sent out after Food Standards Australia New Zealand has done an administrative assessment. It prepares what it says is a safety and nutrition assessment but I can assure you that it has very very limited information when it does that and it bases it on some very crude assumptions.Food Standards Australia New Zealand publishes that assessment report for public consultation. It includes whatever safety and other data is provided. It is fairly complex in the technicalities but very very low on the genuine safety appraisals. Then the public are invited to make submissions on that assessment. That is it. The public of New Zealand through this process get one chance of submitting on an issue that is dear to their food health and safety. There is just the one chance. The Ministry for Primary Industries makes submissions to Food Standards Australia New Zealand and it also gets what it calls an independent review by the National Institute of Environmental Science and Research on available information only. Then Food Standards Australia New Zealand considers the public submissions and puts out an approval report. That is signed off by the Food Standards Australia New Zealand board.Then it comes down to the next part the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation. That is where our current Minister for Food Safety Nikki Kaye is as were other food safety Ministers in the past. There was another name for this part but it is now called the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation. The forum gets an opportunity at that point to either accept or seek a review of what Food Standards Australia New Zealand has put before it. Let me just spell out that there are 10 Ministers on that forum. Our Minister our New Zealand Minister for Food Safety is one of the 10 because Australia has got various federal—Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Part 3 of this bill is a very small part and this member is not addressing his comments to any aspect of Part 3.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well I have the bill in front of me and I am looking at clause 122A which talks about border information. I have sought some advice but I just ask the member in his comments on Part 3 to be more succinct.STEFFAN BROWNING: Thank you Mr Chair. Part 3 is all about imported food. It is not about any domestically arranged food; it is all about imported food. Ministers can accept it or seek a review and they have done that a couple of times. The food is ultimately always accepted. It has never not been ultimately accepted. It gets gazetted in Australia then it goes to the Ministry for Primary Industries for an amendment and then it goes through and gets gazetted into New Zealand law. It gets put into the New Zealand food chain if it is available. So in Part 3 we are talking about who can actually import food how they are registered how they will comply and how they can be deregistered. Only certain people can do that. It is good that we are going to have a better overview on food that is imported but I do want to go through that process on how the decisions are made for that particular food on how that process goes.I just mentioned that New Zealanders and Australians for that matter have only one possibility. I do want to give an analogy on this. I know this is Part 3 but I need to show where that process is not fair.Tim Macindoe: Which clause is the member referring to?STEFFAN BROWNING: I will open it up again for you. I question the questioner as to what the concern is on having this spelt out. It needs to be spelt out. We have got the Food Bill in front of us.Tim Macindoe: What’s the relevant section?STEFFAN BROWNING: It is about importers. I am saying that this is a totally imported food. New Zealanders have only one opportunity to submit on this imported food. Then you ask: “Can they actually appeal it? Can they complain about it?”. The only possibility is to complain to our Regulations Review Committee to say that this should not have been imported. It should not have been approved. But the Regulations Review Committee when it has gone through a comprehensive look at it has said: “No we cannot uphold the complaint because Food Standards Australia New Zealand has ticked all the boxes.” At that point all a New Zealander an organisation or anyone can do is go to the High Court for a judicial review and yet this stuff is not fit for purpose because it has not been appraised properly or independently.Will we administer this bill—and this might be a way that the Minister can do it—by saying that these importers cannot import this food? You may feel compelled to gazette it and tick it through as suitable but I think you need to find a way of stopping it coming into the food chain. There is more on that and I will do that in Part 5 which may be the better part to finish this in. I will not be able to complete it in this section. Thank you.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Part 3 of the Food Bill as speakers have said previously relates to food imported for the purpose of sale. On reading through all the clauses here they basically refer to administration and administrative requirements. Not much of it actually refers to the food itself. It perhaps is part of the design but given the absence of country-of-origin labelling the assumption will be that when the food comes into the country it is safe. Nothing in Part 3 specifies that clearly. The person importing the food can be suspended or have their licence suspended if the food imported by the importer may pose a risk to human life or public health or there has been serious failure of the operations or there have been other matters that cast doubt on the safety and suitability of the food. That is in clause 113(1)(a) and (b). That is almost the sole reference to the food itself. The rest of the provisions here relate to the registration of individuals and what they must do the chief executive’s requirements around that their ability to refuse to register etc. Let us come back to the heart of the matter and that is imported food. Is it safe? We as a country export food and all the growers all the people involved have to meet very high standards to export food from this country. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for all other countries importing food from us or exporting food to us so we are reliant on systems. We have some authority within our own country but have very little authority in other countries to ensure that their systems are robust. There are big issues around biosecurity none of which are referenced in this particular part of the Food Bill. The Ministers may say that that is not necessary. I however think that it is and while the committee has kicked these things around there are still questions. I do not think any piece of legislation is perfect. We are learning every single day in this area of trade and its importance to us. We import things like pork from Canada where the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome is endemic. There is a real risk of biosecurity not direct food safety as such but it certainly does affect or has the potential to affect our food systems in this country because the syndrome leads to ill-health in pigs andthat inevitably leads to at times the slaughter of animals that are not appropriate for human consumption. When importing pork from Canada we have to trust their system to deliver us pork from healthy pigs. That is an issue of trust and one that is not always delivered on I have to say from other countries. Garlic for example—we import garlic believe it or not bizarre as it is. An onion fly was found in a garlic clove in a house in Nelson. It is a real pest for this country. Obviously it has come in in larvae form and was part of a biosecurity risk but it did question the systems of delivering to us as an importing country safe healthy and certified food. It was supposed to be certified as clear of all biosecurity risks just as it would have to be certified as healthy food. If there is a systems failure for one thing there can be systems failures for other things. We import a huge amount of meat into this country—a lot of it through Progressive Enterprises the Australian supermarket chain I have to say; Countdown and the like. They are importing meat out of Australia. We assume that it is safe meat although the Australians have been known before to export kangaroo meat as beef. Although I do not want to challenge the Australians directly there are other countries exporting food to us and I think we need to double-check their systems. The ability in Part 3 of the bill for the director-general to cease registration of any importing body company or individual is essential. The chief executive may do that. But I hope that the powers that we have offered through this part of the bill are extensive enough to say to someone—where for example the garlic imported into this country delivered a real biosecurity risk—that that allows us to go back to that importer and to cease imports immediately until the importer can prove that their systems are robust. I have to say that we have as the Opposition challenged the Minister to halt imports where we have identified biosecurity risks. The Government has been reluctant to do that. They say: “Oh no. Things are OK. We don’t want to upset our trade people and our negotiations.” Well sometimes we are going to have to harden up. Sometimes we are going to have to make a call and suspend an importer’s licence immediately if we think there is a biosecurity risk or in this case here a food safety risk. We have been reluctant to do that as a country. We have been reluctant and I think we have to take a tougher stance in this area. As I say country-of-origin labelling would better enable consumers to identify that food that is imported and in their minds might carry a higher risk than the food that is produced in New Zealand which we believe should be of lower risk particularly in the area of food safety. We pride ourselves in our systems but the Government is not prepared to—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: We are speaking on Part 3 of the Food Bill in relation to food imported for the purpose of sale. This I guess refers to the growing amount of food that we are importing into this country which many Kiwis think is quite bizarre really given that we produce some of the finest and safest food in the world. But we do have our borders open so that we can then reciprocate and export our food to those countries. So making sure that we have a good system in place is important. The Primary Production Committee has looked at all the issues here and has intended through its changes and improvements I guess to have a fair system that allows people to bring in food. But the specific references here are to systems that we hope are robust and that we trust are being met and implemented when people put up their plan to import food. We want their assurances that it will be safe food and ultimately that there is a check in the country of origin that the food has indeed been produced in a safe way.I made reference to the importation of particular products like pork for example out of Canada where the Government has been in a legal battle for some time with the Pork Industry Board. It has spent probably close to $1 million trying to defend its right to challenge the changing import health standards that relate primarily to biosecurity but indirectly to the possibility that pork in that country because of disease has been produced from pigs that are not entirely healthy. We have to rely on the systems in Canada to deliver that pork to the border and trust that everything has met the basic requirements. We probably can have some confidence that in a country like Canada that has occurred but there are many other countries from which we import food where I am not sure we could be quite as confident. So these provisions place a duty on the importer to make sure that all the applicable requirements of the Act are met. It allows the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries or in the case of the new Labour Government of the food safety authority that we will form and set up once again to cancel the registration of any importer who does not meet the basic requirements. There are in clause 113 mandatory suspension provisions that relate directly to the food and its risk to human life or public health. But other than that all the other provisions in Part 2 relate to systems and an obligation for the importer to meet those systems.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes41New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7.Motion agreed to.Part 3 agreed to.Part 4 Provisions relating to recognition territorial authorities administration and enforcementHon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Part 4 of the Food Bill relates to the enforcement agencies the territorial local authorities and the other organisations that will be expected to—and obliged to now of course—go out and ensure that the systems we are putting in place here will be met for the benefit of mainly local consumers I guess so that those people buying and selling food around the food markets farmers’ markets and other places can deliver safe food to consumers. We do not want to belittle in any way the importance of this. There was much debate around the requirement for monitoring as we said before the relative risk relating to the provision of food and the sale of it to people.Farmers’ markets are a relatively new evolution in food sales. They are certainly far more significant now than they were when the review of these Acts was first initiated back in the early 2000s under the Hon Annette King. Things like food markets were very low key. Now thankfully they are a far larger part of the whole food supply chain and if we here had our way they would be far greater. We would remove from the two big supermarket chains the absolute and total dominance that they have in the supply of food to Kiwis up and down this country. An interesting aside I must say is that a study out of Otago University said that if people purchased their fruit and vegetables from farmers’ markets rather than buying them from the supermarket chains they would save $2500 a year on average. That is something I would like to crow from therooftops and I am doing that today to promote the farmers’ markets because it is about the only way that we will keep the supermarkets honest.We are now dealing with Part 4 of the bill. Again I guess it goes through a whole lot of technical requirements such as the withdrawal of recognition and the ability of as I say territorial authorities to come in. At the moment of course they have pretty much sole charge of local food outlets in terms of restaurants takeaway bars and all the rest of it. There are changing oversight requirements for them but in the end they will still have to do a lot of the front-line work. But of course it will be checking different requirements that are related to food safety plans and to general provisions laid out in the bill here.The cost recovery provisions were something that the Primary Production Committee did focus on in spite of my comment earlier to the Minister for Food Safety that her focus and that of the National Government might have been just on cost savings which is kind of common. We were looking at taking a balanced approach to cost which could have been incurred on small businesses unnecessarily and I think we have got that balance about right. I mean we do of course go through in fine detail the penalties the fees and the charges—all of those particular provisions here. I am not going to go and quote from the bill because I think it would probably bore people to tears but there are not too many things in here that we have not thought of keeping in mind that the cost of compliance is not over the top.The offences are clearly in keeping with the risk and the threat to public health but we run right through things like offences involving intentionally hindering or obstructing officials. There was of course the ability for people and officials to enter without warrants which is a highly emotional provision in many pieces of legislation. Officials can get a bit overzealous and if they have the ability to rush in and investigate take food off the shelves and take it away without warrant then that is a significant power that needs cautious oversight. I hope—and I do believe—that the committee has got it about right. We did not spend too much time reviewing these particular provisions in the second round and in the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister put forward Supplementary Order Paper 278 but we believe that we have got it about right.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to make a contribution on Part 4 of the Food Bill. I would like to pick up on the remarks that my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor made regarding the power to enter premises without a search warrant which is conferred by this bill. I understand that the Primary Production Committee considered that and some amendment has been made but I am particularly interested in the provision that involves marae. I know that certain marae around the country are food businesses now. They have commercial activities or cafes or they sell food in their wharekai or across their marae facilities so they clearly fall within the ambit of this bill.I guess it is reassuring to know that the select committee I understand has taken consideration of the fact that it is not appropriate even though there may be good cause for a search warrant to be carried out—there may be some terrible gastric outbreak and to try to find the source of it a marae may come into the mix and it may be important that the authorities act quickly. I think that sensitivity does need to be applied particularly as we know that maraes do perform a lot of cultural practices for Māori whānau and hapū. I am particularly thinking of when a tangi is on. It would be insensitive for authorities to barge on to a marae and barge into a wharekai without a search warrant claiming at that particular time the powers they have under this bill when there are so many other things that are going on with the marae whānau. That is just in the event that there are customary practices tikanga and other things going on around a tangi. So I understand that under this provision they are not allowed to enter onto a marae without a search warrant when those sorts of things are taking place. We do commend that aspect.Otherwise there are wide powers conferred under Part 4 to the many different territorial authorities and all of the different charge officers and the like who will be performing functions under the Act. Obviously the functions have all been well thought through. But one thing that I think will be interesting to see operate in practice is the wide powers that are conferred on the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries. If you go through the bill particularly in this part there are very wide decision-making powers that rest with the chief executive. Those approvals relate to documents facilities and persons and it is quite a large discretion. I would hope that the chief executive would have the right skills and the right advice being given in relation to all of these matters because it is a statutory power that they have and a lot rests on that role. I think back to the former Ministry of Agriculture I guess. The senior role used to be in the hands of the director-general. The director-general role was different from a chief executive - type role. The director-general generally had some sort of agricultural or agribusiness-type background. Obviously a chief executive is quite different. It is modern Government corporatisation-type State sector terminology.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I just want to take a short call. Part 4 is a significant chunk of the Food Bill. It runs for about a third of this massive tome that we have here which the Primary Production Committee has been working on assiduously for nearly 3 years bringing it to a tumultuous and very exciting end as part of this Committee. Part 4 goes through the nuts and bolts in terms of the need for this bill and how it is going to operate in practice. I believe that what it will do and this has been touched on before by the Minister for Food Safety as well is ensure that the compliance charges and complications and some of the ambiguities of the previous legislation are removed. It will enable compliance issues to be simplified so much that it is estimated that about $40 million or $50 million I think will be saved particularly by small businesses which are obviously very concerned about that sort of money. It will make a big difference to their ability to make a profit so that is very good.The second part to what I think this bill does in a sense is that it really identifies the risk and how we are going to deal with that risk. As I said in the beginning at the introduction of the bill I believe that what this bill does is move the emphasis from the premises or the proprietor across to the risk that that particular food poses and then on to how to mitigate and build regulations around that risk. This part in a sense gives the guts and it gives the detail in and around that.My colleague mentioned the ability to search. This is something that is very much on the minds of New Zealanders as the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation was smashed through Parliament ignoring protocols and opportunities to argue it and negotiate it sufficiently. It is also relevant at the moment to the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) that is being looked at because that bill will give immigration officials much greater ability to conduct searches knock down doors in the middle of the night etc. which was not previously possible under the existing law.So I would like the Minister for Food Safety to perhaps take a call on this issue and reassure people because I do think that it is at the front of people’s minds that the search procedures as contained in Part 4 of the bill will be sufficient to ensure that we are able to crack down on those operators who are not operating responsibly but also at the same time that we do not step over the bounds of our ability to have basic human rights—that people do not come crashing through our doors and kick over our chip fryer or whatever. So that is I think the balance here and I call on the Minister to give us that assurance and just outline the procedures that are in place to ensure that that balance is maintained.I refer also to what the previous speaker Rino Tirikatene was just talking about in terms of marae. I do think that is quite a specific and in many ways quite a unique situation that exists in New Zealand the way that marae food is prepared and distributed to people but I think the bill deals with this adequately. It comes in on clause 294 on page 274. That gives you the idea actually—we are only halfway though this bill but we are up to page 274. People who are sitting at home watching this must be thinking “We’re really making big progress here!”. It is the day before the Budget and we are thumbing through 400 or 500 pages of the Food Bill. Not that it is not important but it is just building up to that momentous day tomorrow when for the first time this Government will be able to announce a Budget that is in the black. I think that is wonderful. I think that it is wonderful that after five tries the Minister of Finance has finally got a Budget that is going to go into the black. I think that is wonderful and he deserves recognition. The only thing that we do not mention is that every year that you run a deficit you have to borrow. So what we have ended up doing is having a $60 billion debt that somehow—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman I am getting back on to the bill now.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Please do.DAVID SHEARER: There is a way forward. There is a track that is leading inevitably back to this bill. I will take only a couple more minutes and then I would really appreciate the Minister talking on the issue of search and surveillance.But certainly the $60 billion debt is a big debt to overcome. That means that we have to be sure that we are able to export confidently—see I told you I was going to segue back on to this bill again. Being able to confidently export our food and make sure that our food is safe will enable us to give confidence to the export markets that they will be able to buy our products. So it all comes back to the same thing.I do not want to say too much more. Once again Part 4 has been gone through very comprehensively. There are pages and pages and pages here from the previous draft of the bill that have been eliminated and whole new sections have been written in. I think those people out there in the food industry and in both importing and exporting food will have some confidence that the bill has struck the right balance with the exception with the clarification of the search provisions that are contained in Part 4. I would welcome the Minister being able to speak to those.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Speaking on Part 4 of the Food Bill this is one of the core points of the bill. There were the tiers of risk. That was an important part of the bill—isolating and working out which food industries would be considered under what level of bureaucracy. But the other point of the bill was to what I would call homogenise the approach of local territorial authorities throughout the country. There are people whom I know—farmers market producers and the like—who will be selling in one part of a district of a region and they will be operating under one local territorial authority one council then the next day or even later the same day they will be wanting to sell the same stuff in another area and yet were being mucked around and had different standards or hoops to jump through as the different councils used the existing Food Act in different ways to interpret it. They had different fees and of course it was crazy that quite often they had to pay multiple fees to do the same thing even though they were only 20 kilometres away.I am aware that in Christchurch a number of the councils have at last come together in a sort of a hub and allowed producers to work to the one level of inspection and fees. In a way this is what this part—this is my interpretation of what this part of the bill is strongly about. That is one of the reasons the Green Party supports that. It is a very common-sense approach to try to have some commonality throughout the country. But what it also means is that we will still have to watch and make sure—and I say we; thatis the community—that we do not get little tsars of food safety inspectors who still try to make life miserable for people from time to time because it still does come down to personalities and people. But the bill is certainly setting up the way to make sure that there is this sort of more homogenous approach. That is good.All the same there is an issue around fees where the fee structures ideally are within a band and it is not meant to be going over the top. The bill allows for the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries to curtail some councils if they are going over the top and to potentially allow other people to do those inspections and everything to keep the costs down. So again we support that part of keeping costs off our producers. I think there possibly does need to be—and maybe it will come through the regulations—a little bit more clarity all the same of what those costs actually would be. As I say we just need to keep those costs down.The search and surveillance part was an area of great concern for a lot of submitters and it still is for a lot of people. As Damien O’Connor was saying before that is through a number of Acts—through all sorts of legislation and regulation. We have these rather strong powers through the Search and Surveillance Act actually that allow strong levels of inspection and basically breaking and entering at times. I have supported the intent of that in different public meetings because if there is something that has gone wrong and if there are people being admitted to hospital after contracting a food-borne illness and if people are becoming seriously ill we want that stopped. We want to be able to follow through and find where that food comes from. We want to also know where it has been distributed to. If that requires breaking down a door because we cannot get hold of somebody I think that is very sensible and practical. Again it will be a matter of how that aspect of the Food Bill or when it comes to it the Search and Surveillance Act is used—that it is not used inappropriately in any way—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I can see the Food Bill is so big that it is falling apart in my hands here. I hope it does not once it has been passed. This is actually at the heart of the amendment brought to the Primary Production Committee by the Minister for Food Safety. The issue here sparked by the botulism debacle was that the Ministry for Primary Industries the Minister and the National Government got caught with their pants down to some extent because they did not know whether they had the ability to recall the infant formula or whether they would be subject to a legal challenge by Nutricia or Danone as it is now of course. So the uncertainty around the recall provisions by the Minister gave rise to the amendment that is effectively addressed in this Part 4 of the bill here now.The select committee looked very very carefully at this and the consideration rested on one word. It is a word that is spoken of but not often implemented in Parliament—that is “reasonable”. There is I think judicial precedent around the word “reasonable” and the committee asked whether there was a requirement for officials to be reasonably convinced I guess in summary that there was good cause for recall. You could take either side of the debate. Some could say “Well of course officials are always reasonable and we have to provide them with the powers to recall because the risks are great.” That is indeed what many of us would think.However I personally was able to bring to the table an example of when officials were not reasonable. They had demanded the recall of a product—a wine-based product—and almost put a small innovative wine producer out of business. It was quite ironic really because the Government has just handed out money through the Primary Growth Partnership to the wine industry for innovation and yet a few months prior to that it had stamped down and clamped down on an innovative wine producer. I am notgoing to use the name of the wine but I will say that resveratrol was the component. It is a by-product of the wine-making process the filtration process. It was added back into the wine and it could be said it added a slight health component to the wine to be consumed.The point is that officials because it was a small producer demanded the recall take place. That was a huge cost and impost on that person. Of course the officials did not exert the same authority—or were not sure whether they had the authority to do it—over someone like Nutricia or Fonterra. So the Minister quite rightly I guess wanted the matter clarified. The amendment brought the matter to the select committee the committee considered it and I think we have arrived at the reasonable position that we trust the officials to initiate a recall only when necessary. I think on balance we should support the officials. If we have got the right Government and the right Minister in place I have every confidence. We have some concerns at the moment. No personal reference to the Minister—it is just that her regime leaves a bit to be desired. Under a Labour-led Government I would have every confidence that officials would make the right decision if a recall had to be made. As a cross-party Committee we have decided on I think a measure and a threshold that is fair and protects New Zealand’s reputation and position.Ian McKelvie: What’s the difference?Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: That member must have been asleep at the select committee. It is the silence of the lambs over there—or the sheep I should say. If they were allowed to speak out they would be able to explain and endorse the proposition I am putting forward but anyway the silence is deafening. Can I just say that this is a key part of the bill. The Minister put forward a proposition to clarify the recall provisions. We have I think tested it thoroughly and robustly. I think the position that we have arrived at is one that does allow officials—and under a Labour Government they will be food safety authority officials not officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries with all its multitude of obligations. It will allow the food safety authority—SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.Part 4 agreed to.Part 5 Miscellaneous provisionsThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): We move to the debate on Part 5 which is clauses 314 to 406 plus schedules 5 to 7.Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Food Safety): I am very pleased to take a call on Part 5 of the Food Bill. I want to first acknowledge the Hon Kate Wilkinson who is in the Chamber. She did a significant amount of the heavy lifting on this bill and I want to acknowledge the contribution that she has made. Look this part is quite wide in terms of the regulations and exemptions but I want to make a number of points that have actually been made in the debate already that tie up with this part.The first thing that we heard from the Labour members was that if they were in office they would get rid of the role of the Ministry for Primary Industries in this areaand they would have an independent food safety authority. The point that I would like to make there is that we have just had an independent inquiry. We have had experts internationally say in the independent inquiry that the typical comments that came from submitters across New Zealand were that biosecurity and food safety are two sides of the same coin and that the ministry and industry both benefit from the synergies between food safety and facilitating trade. There was a very common theme there. People do not want to go back. That is the first point that I would make. It is important to acknowledge though that we must ensure the role of the regulator is quite separate from what we are doing in terms of facilitating trade but I want to acknowledge what the independent inquiry said. We want the merger to work in terms of the Ministry for Primary Industries and food safety roles.The second point that I want to make which is tied to our miscellaneous provisions in this area is around compliance and enforcement. You cannot have a good food safety system without having not only good legislation but also good authority like what the Ministry for Primary Industries is currently doing in terms of its role and having the dial turned appropriately in terms of compliance and enforcement. I think some of the provisions in this bill are going to be incredibly important in terms of people’s confidence in our food safety system. I want to acknowledge Steffan Browning in terms of his Supplementary Order Paper 449. The point that I would make around his amendment is that actually the law currently puts requirements on the chief executive of the ministry to ensure there is adequate compliance so we do think that the amendment is redundant.The other point I would like to make following the conversations that we have had Steffan around ensuring that enforcement is there is that I completely agree with you. That is why one of the powers in this bill that is so important in terms of ensuring that compliance is fines for things like labelling. At the moment the issue is not that we do not investigate these incidents; the issue is that the Food Act is so outdated that we cannot actually punish these people unless we take them to court. So these fines are going to be incredibly important in terms of the integrity of our labelling system.The next point I want to make is that there have been a number of comments in terms of the balance. Damien O’Connor has made a number of comments around the cost versus ensuring that we have appropriate regulations in this area. Let me be very clear: the whole point of this bill is that there actually will be businesses in New Zealand that will have more compliance costs out of this because they will have higher-risk food. They will be the people who will be at the forefront. If they get it wrong people will actually die. So we need to acknowledge that the whole point of this bill is that yes there will be less regulation for some people but for some people who are producing higher-risk food the compliance will be stronger. So I just regret any assertion that this bill has not got the balance right in terms of compliance versus the risks of food.The next comment is very relevant in terms of this part and also the whey protein concentrate inquiry. I want to say to Mr O’Connor and let me be really clear that the recall provisions that came to the Primary Production Committee have been at the heart of the whey protein concentrate incident. It is about understanding that we have to have an appropriate threshold here when there is an uncertain situation. With whey protein concentrate there was some uncertainty. Obviously there have been a number of investigations in that area but people have died in other countries in areas of food like brussels sprouts because there has been uncertainty but not the ability to act. I think this Parliament has absolutely got those recall provisions right. We have changed the test basically lowering the test to enable officers to act.That brings me on to the next point which David Shearer raised that is effectively around food safety officers. This bill absolutely acknowledges that there has to be abalance there to make sure that for those small businesses in New Zealand there is not a heavy-handed approach where it is not proper to have that approach unless people are at risk. But I want to make this point and I want to acknowledge the situation that Damien O’Connor referred to. There are two things. One is that in terms of food safety officers for 30 years we have had powers in terms of entry. So the point that David Shearer raises has actually been in the law for 30 years. The difference here is that because we are actually enabling less regulation for certain people who may have home-based businesses if there is an outbreak of listeria tomorrow and we have mums at risk of losing their babies we absolutely need to go in. That is the only change that has been made. It is about food safety.The second point I would make is in terms of the situation Damien O’Connor raised around a particular company. I do not want to go into the detail of that but what I want to say is that that member knows very well that actually the point we made to him is that we would be ignoring the law and breaking the law if we had enabled people to put something into food that had not been agreed to by the code. The point that I make to him is that I agree with him generally that it is very important that when we are thinking through this legislation we have that appropriate balance of the powers in terms of the law versus officers and versus the Ministry for Primary Industries. But there are certain situations where you just do not let people add stuff to wine if it has not actually been agreed to in the code. That was the situation we both dealt with.Overall can I just say again that there has been amazing support across the Committee and huge work from the Opposition to really improve this bill. Finally in terms of country-of-origin labelling the points that I made before are that this side of the Chamber is not convinced of comprehensive country-of-origin food labelling because you have got an inquiry just being initiated in Australia—our closest trading partner—that has said that this is confusing and that it is adding complexity and costs to business. The other point that I would make to Mr O’Connor and to members of this Committee who want to vote for Mr O’Connor’s amendment—and I understand the good intentions there—is that they need to know that the way that his amendment is worded it would actually tie New Zealand for eternity to whatever Australia does in country-of-origin labelling. And for the Green Party here which constantly raises issues of sovereignty to be voting for Mr O’Connor’s amendment which ties us for eternity to Australia’s position I think is wrong.The second point that I would make is that I do understand Mr Browning’s amendment and although we are not going to vote for that amendment we have made the point that we do support voluntary country-of-origin labelling. I am doing more work in this area. I do support as much as possible getting more of that country-of-origin labelling in terms of single ingredient foods. It is actually pretty meaningless complex and costly when you take the Labour Party’s position of comprehensive country-of-origin labelling. The point is that to pass that in a primary statute would breach we believe the treaty between Australia and New Zealand. The whole point is that we have a flexible code that can be amended and that does not require Parliament to keep coming back every time we want to change labelling. That is the point. It is not at all that I do not support your intention Mr Browning of having consumers know as much as possible about the source of single ingredient foods. The point is about what the appropriate vehicle is.So can I say that I want to acknowledge all members across the Committee for their outstanding contributions and their support for passing this bill. We may disagree on certain aspects that have been put up but I commend this bill to the Committee.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I guess you may allow a little bit of scope in my speech. Although I acknowledge the theologicalapproach of the Minister in the chair the Minister for Food Safety I doubt there is much that we do in this place that will be for eternity. I acknowledge the point that she raises about the word in the Food Bill that says “must” and could be amended to “may”—David Shearer: Intended to be in the bill.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —yes but I still do not understand it and her attempt to dance on the head of a pin around country-of-origin labelling has not convinced me. I know that the Minister and her Government are trying the best that they can to do some work around the branding of our country and the New Zealand Story and all the rest of that but it will not amount to anything unless we can clearly identify that which is grown and produced in New Zealand as being a product of New Zealand. It is called country-of-origin labelling and it will enable us to build a brand and to sell that around the world.If I can just step back from that and point to another strange situation I will say that the Minister in the chair does not actually have a ministry. So it is a bit confusing when she advocates so strongly for the Ministry for Primary Industries to oversee food safety when as the Minister she does not actually have a ministry. The Ministry for Primary Industries answers to the Hon Nathan Guy. So this is where some foreign authorities like China have difficulty in understanding our regime—that is we have a food safety regime embedded in the Ministry for Primary Industries overseen by the Minister for Food Safety who has no real ministry and yet the Minister for Primary Industries who is in charge of forestry fishing agriculture horticulture biosecurity and food safety—David Shearer: It’s confusing isn’t it?Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Well little wonder. People have enough trouble understanding the English language let alone Kiwi ways which leads to the confusion that we have been having on a fairly regular basis—and are still having—with Chinese authorities over our food and health standards. At the moment we have still got some dilemmas around dairy and our ability to convince Chinese officials that we can produce safe products for infant formula. In fact Fonterra has not done it yet. None of the base product from Fonterra is currently able to be exported to China.I do not wish to regurgitate the botulism thing. The Minister referred to independent reports done on food safety. There are a couple of them. One makes reference to—and it is in my press statement—the need for clearly and authentically identifying the source of the product or authentication of the product through some might say country-of-origin labelling. The second thing pointed out in the independent report was that there is the potential for conflicts within the Ministry for Primary Industries over food safety and other obligations. In the first report that the Minister has on her desk—I have not got the wording in front of me and she knows that which is right. I do not have time to go through it and I could; in fact I might do that. The point is that I think we have a bill that has general support across the Committee but I do not in any way apologise for scrutinising each and every bit of it because it is arguably the most important piece of legislation for our economy. Our reputation and that which we are hoping to build around the production provision manufacture and sale of safe food is absolutely paramount. We cannot in any way compromise that.I think that the Primary Production Committee and the silent members over there probably endorse the fact—if they choose to take a call they might—that we have made great progress. The Food Bill has taken a long time to get here. I come back to the key point which is about why we believe that we need an independent authority. We need clear accountability clear responsibility certification authentication—all of that—and clearly tied back to a Minister who has responsibility not one who is well meaning smart intelligent and who is nurturing this bill through her colleagues in theCommittee but who actually has no ministry with which to administer the provisions that we are laying down in the bill. I do not want to be unnecessarily negative but I want the Committee to take note of a few qualifications that the Opposition is laying on the table. This is a good bill but it requires resources independent authority monitoring and implementation of all these provisions to be really effective. Then we will get on and produce the finest high-quality food for the world into the future be recognised for that and then paid for it which is really really important so that the Chairman can get fair return for his efforts. Thank you very much.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I just want to touch on a couple of things that the Minister in the chair Nikki Kaye spoke of before. One of them is whether the joint partnership between Australia and New Zealand on food standards is the right place to be addressing food standards and particularly labelling. The amendment of Damien O’Connor certainly might have locked us in and we might have lost some sovereignty but what I would say is that we have lost that already. The Minister is one Minister out of 10 when it comes to decisions coming out of that body. What my amendment would have done is to say “Let’s do it here in New Zealand.” The Food Bill is the right place to do it because it needs only to say that we will set country-of-origin labelling regulations in New Zealand. It is the right vehicle and it may be that the Minister does another Supplementary Order Paper herself to give us that level of sovereignty.My concern is around sovereignty and this may take a couple of calls to finish. I started earlier in Part 3 on the genetic engineering issue and went through the process by which New Zealanders can make a submission to the process and if they do not like it the High Court is the only place that they can go.My concern is that successive Ministers—and it goes right back through to the Labour Governments as well—are being given advice that is not up to it. They have been given advice to say that this food has been checked that it is OK that the science is robust and that there has been independent peer reviews or whatever around that and that they could accept that. But you know as a Minister—the Minister knows and others who have been in that same position here know—about the advice that you get.I want to touch on some of that advice. The advice said accepting that an organisation like GE-Free New Zealand was likely to seek a review of the approval—and it did through the Regulations Review Committee—“MPI is confident that the correct processes …”. What does it know? We do not have proper independent advice going into our Ministry for Primary Industries or the Institute of Environmental Science and Research when it comes down to it. Certainly when it comes in it is not independent nor is the advice going to Food Standards Australia New Zealand independent.When the independent scientists in the world come out—Séralini Judy Carman even our Professor Jack Heinemann in Christchurch—they get criticised snap like that all around the world. Why? Because there are such big vested interests from agribusiness for these foods—these bad poor-quality very unhealthy and risky foods—to come in. Big business wants that because it has got the patents and it has got the control. Since the last time that happened we had the Food Standards Australia New Zealand scientists in front of the select committee here and I put it to them that one of their chief advisers was not independent. They said: “Oh we barely talk to him.” Rubbish! That same man Langridge from the University of Adelaide gets direct funding from one of the companies that applies for these things. Not only that but he was the chair of a committee to look at new technologies that they wanted to take on so that they do not go through the system.Those are the people who are advising you Minister to say that this stuff is good for New Zealanders and it is not. I have given you a tome of information on that as I didwith Kate Wilkinson when she was the Minister for Food Safety. They say that not accepting the approval was “Inconsistent with scientific evidence.” I would say that that is wrong. They said that “A majority of FoFR members”—you are one in 10—“are likely to vote to accept the FSANZ approval.” New Zealanders would not expect this but they said: “New Zealand would be obliged to accept a majority decision”—where is our sovereignty now—“as there are no ‘exceptional grounds’ for us to ‘opt out’.” A unilateral decision by New Zealand to you know exercise its sovereignty to reject the Food Standards Australia New Zealand approval “would be a breach of the Food Treaty and would undermine the joint food system which underpins the valuable trade in food between the two countries.” Well whoopee-do! If this stuff is not fit for purpose and it is bad for New Zealanders to be consuming why are we just bowing over because of the discomfort maybe in a trade deal? This is not good enough.The next point was: “A unilateral rejection of the approval which is based on international guidelines may also be inconsistent with New Zealand’s WTO obligations.” I do not think so. The last one in there was: “If a New Zealand response is delayed beyond 8 April”—that was for that early approval or the option to go back and seek more information—“this may cause irritation in the joint food system relationship.”Do you know what this is about everyone? This is about a food that is going to be doused with 24-D glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate—three herbicides—with no inspection or checking on the health and safety of those being used in conjunction as they would be used. What do these guys in Food Standards Australia New Zealand do? They look at each one independently check out its maximum residue limits and things and see whether it is going to be an issue. Not only that but they put up the maximum residue limits so that the producers can do it. Three different herbicides let alone whatever else not looked at properly not safe and they are telling you: “Tick it through please because it will be an irritation to trade if you do not.” Well that is not fair to New Zealanders. I think we do need to get that independence back and we need to be doing it in New Zealand.Of course they tell you: “We will work with your office on a communications strategy in relation to any proposals by GE Free NZ or other groups to seek a review of the decision by the Regulations Review Committee.” Yes they will get your messaging right and they will get your public relations right but New Zealanders are stuck with it and they are stuck with it through this bill if we do not implement it properly. We could have that sort of food in here and all people can do is go to the High Court. If it were the Resource Management Act and you wanted to put up a three-storey building you would have your notification you would go to the council you would see other people’s submissions and you would get a decision. If you did not like it you could have a hearing de novo at the Environment Court then you might go to the High Court. You have got all those opportunities to comment.This is our food. This is the food for our kids. It is coming through into the blood supply of women. It is going into foetal blood the different parts of it. This is not good enough and it is time that New Zealand stood up and had genuine sovereignty. That is why people want sovereignty. They know as well that the Codex Alimentarius Commission—which is a fantastic organisation in principle because if we are importing stuff we want to know that it is safe; we want to know about the international trade stuff—has been taken over. We know how we do the dairy part of it. We make sure we get in there for that influence. But these same companies which do not give a toss apart from their bottom line for their unknown shareholders—Monsanto Dupont Dow—do not care about New Zealanders’ health but they are in there influencing thosedecisions. It changed from its original genuinely independent people. I know people who worked on it and said that it was great but it changed.So we do need sovereignty and Part 5 of the bill is about that. There are opportunities there. I implore the Minister and I implore this Committee to make sure that we turn round the 80 almost 90 different types of GE food that have been allowed in New Zealand and it is not understood except the independent science is coming out and it needs to be listened to. That might be in a minority because it is independent—there are no vested interests driving it—but I am hoping that this Minister will look at this in a much more robust way and at least have some further discussion with me on it. But do make some changes.You can see why I want GE food labelled. You could have made it labelled. The rules are there. They are not comprehensive enough—some GE food does not have to be labelled. But the stuff that is there is meant to have been labelled. The Food Standards Australia New Zealand stuff says that it is labelled but since 2003 there has been no monitoring and even in 2003 what did it do? It tried to put out of business the people who were trying to be GMO-free. When it found 0.008 percent and some of that was intentionally going GMO-free but clearly it had been contaminated it fined the hang out of them. It put them off labelling GMO-free but that then seemed to be the trigger not to bother monitoring—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on Part 5 of the Food Bill. I really just wanted to focus on the provisions relating to immunity delegation and review in Subpart 2. I think it is very important when we are conferring powers on to particular officers or bodies that there be some balance or review that can be applied. But on my reading of these provisions there is pretty much complete immunity for the chief executive right down to food safety officers from any civil or criminal liability in the exercise of their powers under the legislation. That is a very black pass that we are providing to those officers and we do not want to see a situation whereby an overzealous officer or verifier or whoever is exercising their rights under this bill is able to get—on my reading of this—a free pass from any civil or criminal liability however it may arise for any acts or omissions that they may be doing in the performance of a requirement under this legislation. That is a real broad black pass that you can get.I would like to think that there would be some proportionality or some sort of countermeasure to just giving them open slather to do anything in the exercise of their functions. I am thinking that when you talk about civil and criminal liability that is very broad. I am thinking about the instance of serious economic damage to a firm to a company through an erroneous food safety exercise of powers or a requirement under the Act that caused real serious damage to a firm or its brand or for instance a criminal act that may have occurred through exercising those requirements. There is complete immunity—complete immunity—for these officers.I do understand that the intent of the bill is that we maintain confidence in our food safety regime. That is a given and we do support that general aim. But when you give complete immunity to all of these powers to all of these people who are exercising powers under this Act it does give rise to abuse and there should be some check some review some mechanism. I am thinking of the Tūhoe raids as an example. That was a completely different arm of the police but that was an overreaching and a totally disproportionate act by the police at that time. At least their actions were subject to a review but under this complete immunity that is passed on to the chief executive and all the way down there is a free pass that they have. I am very concerned about thatbecause I would expect that the integrity of the jobs and the roles that they carry out needs to be paramount and that there would be appropriate training given to these food safety officers all the way through to verifiers and the like—people who are exercising their requirements under the Act.On the face of it it is very broad. I will just go over it again. They are protected from civil liability and criminal liability however it may arise. It can also be in the performance of their functions or duties but it also goes further to the purported performance of a power or a requirement that they have under the Act. That is an extremely broad immunity and I think we need to be very careful as a Parliament if we give out these blank free passes to these persons who are exercising these functions. I think we need to be very careful as a Parliament that we make sure that we do not just give all these powers away and that people get a free pass. It is very dangerous. It is a slippery slope. We want to see some proportionality in terms of the exercising of functions. An officer might think “Oh I can just get away with anything.” and that he or she can just waltz into any premises and exercise any search and seizure secure any documents or information demand a whole bunch of things and know that they are actually immune—no matter what damage it may cause to the business or if they commit a criminal act. Who knows? They might have bowled over a person in the process and hurt them or caused serious injuries yet they will get a free pass under this bill. I would think that this needs to be closely looked at because we do not want to be giving all of this power and a free pass and immunity away because it could lead to some disproportionate acts being able to be given a free pass. Cheers. Kia ora.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor to Part 5 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes59New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 449 in the name of Steffan Browning to Part 5 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.Part 5 agreed to.Schedule 1agreed to.Schedule 2agreed to.Schedule 3agreed to.Schedule 4agreed to.Schedule 5agreed to.Schedule 6agreed to.Schedule 7agreed to.Clause 1agreed to.Clause 2agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.