Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): The question I would like to ask is: how much is a brand worth? In 2005 the then Ministry of Economic Development tried to value Brand New Zealand—you know the clean green 100% Pure New Zealand" brand—and came up with a figure of about $20 billion a year. In 2008 PricewaterhouseCoopers came out with a report that said about 80 percent of New Zealand companies that are exporting leverage off Brand New Zealand. So clearly anything to do with Brand New Zealand is worth a lot of money and it is good to see these protections are going to be in place—there is no doubt about that.I look at the province where I come from Hawke's Bay which is building an enviable reputation around fine wine and great food. I mean some would argue—and I doubt any in this Chamber at the moment would doubt it—that in fact Hawke's Bay produces the best wine in the country.Meka Whaitiri: That's right.STUART NASH: Yes thank you very much. And I know that what we do is we target the super-premium end of the market which is where we should be as a country and if we are not there as a country then we need to take a good hard look at what we are doing. There are a couple of questions I have with regard to this bill and I am unsure whether the Minister in the chair the Hon Michael Woodhouse is able to answer those or not but they are worth bringing up. The first thing is the ability to register a brand is I think very important for what a lot of companies in certain regions are trying to do. It is slightly at odds with what Dr Nick Smith is trying to do though for example around GE-free Hawke's Bay. We want to have this as part of our overall brand offering and Nick Smith is saying "No it can't be done." which concerns me. There are also things around fracking. We want to be able to say as a region no to fracking because we think it is at odds with the brand that we are trying to create and yet Nick Smith again is saying no he does not think that this sort of decision should be made at regional level. First of all I want to talk about the duration of registration and I have slight concerns about this. It may be that Mr McKelvie as chair of the Primary Production Committee will be able to help me out on this. For some reason the bill started talking about a period of duration of 10 years but then they cut it down to 5 years and I am unsure why. When an organisation or a group of organisations or an industry is trying to build a brand they invest a whole lot of capital in getting that brand to a level where they believe it is actually paying its way. I would argue that 5 years is not long enough and that you absolutely need at least 10 years. To cut down registration from 10 years to 5 years—I just cannot see the logic in that unless it is purely financial and they believe that what they are going to do is increase the registration. I hope that that is not the point. Reducing the time of registration from 10 years to 5 years seems to be at odds with continuous use. When I look at clause 16 which amends section 29 "Continuous use"—I think this is very important and let me backtrack a second. We have a winery in Hawke's Bay called the Bridge Pa Vineyard for example. The Bridge Pa Triangle Wine District is a specific area. I would hate for another winery to be able to come in and say: "Well we're located in Bridge Pa; therefore we can use this."The bill defines continuous use as 32 years and then 22 years. I would argue that that is far too long a time to define continuous use. I would argue that even 10 years is a very good pre-emptor of continuous use because 10 years of a specific brand certainly in a global market is enough to create the level of brand attribute that will repay the investment that is put into that brand itself. I do not know why this bill allows only 5 years for registration when it was 10 years but the continuous use provisions in clause 16 are a lot harder.The thing I would also like to talk about is "offensive". I am not too sure where Mr Prosser is coming from because the way I read this it says "be likely to offend a significant section of the community including Māori."; it is not specific to Māori. The thing that I would like to also know is: what is going to define "offensive"? Is it going to be quite a prescriptive list of what offensive is? If one person is offended is that enough to say: "No we're not going to allow this."? What actually is the definition of "offensive"? How is this going to be policed in a way that is actually legitimately fair? The other thing that we must understand I think—because you know the purpose of this bill is actually to protect those who have been using a brand. I believe that those in the wine industry are inherently honest anyway. If they were not honest and they were using a brand in a way that was dishonest what it would in effect do is cause harm to that brand anyway. For example if we in Hawke's Bay said "This is Marlborough sauvignon blanc." then that would be inherently dishonest and the risk to the brand's integrity would be significant. The thing I do like about this bill is that what it actually does is it codifies in legislation that which I think the industry does already at this point in time—so that is good to see.There is just one last point I would like to make and that is—you know what? I have forgotten what it was. It was incredibly important and it was going to be about Hawke's Bay. The thing I suppose I would like to say is that it is good to see this and it is good I say as a person who comes from Hawke's Bay because I think this will only benefit what we do in the bay. Thank you very much."