O'Connor Damien: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17872. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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.