Smith Stuart; Rurawhe AdrianCONSUMERS' RIGHT TO KNOW (COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF FOOD) BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Tank yu tumas. The Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill was introduced by Steffan Browning who happens to be one of my constituents a former Green MP and certainly a man who stood on his principles. He's a guy I know very well and I sent him a text to tell him his bill was coming up so he assures me he is watching the bill go through the House. While he's not able to shepherd it through now himself I know he'll be very justifiably proud.This bill is really important actually and I had quite a bit of difficulty I think with a number of people across the House not understanding the importance of this bill and why it is so important. Coming from a wine industry background I think what people misunderstood was how people do connect with where their food comes from and the difficulties that have been alluded to before are actually with the drafting of the bill in its original state. However the Primary Production Committee did do a lot of work on getting the drafting to a point where it was pared back to quite the minimum to allow the Minister to actually through regulation-making powers add foods as they go along as seen fit. Where the bill has come in at the moment it is at its simplest form being single ingredient foods such as fruit vegetables and of course meat. But where the difficulty came was around things like bacon which has in fact been cured and those sorts of issues where it did in fact have another ingredient. Those things can and will be worked through with the benefit of the Minister's regulation-making powers now that the bill has been pared back a bit.Pork of course as has been mentioned is a major benefactor of this and in my electorate I certainly have the largest pork farm in Patoa Farms and the Sterne family run a fantastic operation there. It's great that they and other pork producers now have a way of identifying their product on the shelf so that consumers can make an informed decision about what they buy.As I said coming from a wine industry background I've always struggled to see why people saw this as a difficult thing to do. In fact we have passed through this House in my time the Geographical Indications Act which allows—in fact requires—rules around identifying the area in which a wine is grown in New Zealand. That of course also goes with a country of origin. All of this goes back to—in fact the wine industry and the cheese industry are really good examples around the world where the location of where those things are produced is very very important. For example champagne: you can't make champagne or claim champagne on a label unless it's been grown made and actually bottled in Champagne the region in France. We've also got burgundy and Bordeaux and they are two different regions in France as well and gouda in the case of cheese in the Netherlands and then Saint-Marcellin in cheese and also Livarot which is another cheese—all of those things relate to an area where they were grown and produced.Of course some on the other side don't have the understanding of what happens around the world in terms of food and wine but I'm quite happy to help educate them outside of the House.Dr Duncan Webb: You give it I'll eat it.STUART SMITH: As long as you pay I'll go through the wine list for you—Dr Duncan Webb: Ha ha! Typical Nat.STUART SMITH: —and we can have a good little experience. Dr Webb is a very enthusiastic supporter of that idea I can see.But back to the bill. I think when we went through all this in select committee it was quite clear that there was a real will for this to go through. There were only a couple of minor objections from industries that didn't seem to understand the benefits that New Zealanders will get out of this. I congratulate Steffan Browning for bringing the bill to the House and Gareth Hughes for taking it over. It's fantastic to have a bill pass in your name and I think that while Steffan's name won't be on the bill it will be known by those involved that he was the person who brought this bill through and we'll all be the better for it. So it's with great pleasure I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes.