Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. In addressing the third reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill may I please just seek the indulgence of the House for a second on a personal matter in thanking the Rt Hon David Carter for a wonderful tribute to my recently deceased father. It was very much appreciated by me and my family. And thanks also for the many other kind reflections from other members from across this House.Of course the passing of someone from natural causes at the end of a well-lived life is one thing but to lose someone tragically through nourishing themselves through eating an item of food and getting sick or having their life changed dramatically through just the food that they eat is totally unacceptable and of course it is something for which New Zealand food products' and food producers' reputation goes well before us in that respect. We have a proud tradition in producing quality food products. I think it's one thing when you travel overseas you do realise the quality of the food here and you appreciate the safety that we have.Of course this bill is to address some of the concerns that came out of the false botulism scare and the whey protein concentrate bacteria that was found during some safety testing which caused all sorts of problems and issues for our food producers across the board. We had 1000 tonnes of consumer product across seven countries that were affected in various resultant recalls. This is something that we're totally unused to and we cannot afford this to become a regular occurrence. To the credit of members across the House we have recognised that there is a need to bring some reforms. And actually across industry they have—as they often do—responded well ahead of where Governments are and have moved already to implement a lot of the recommendations that we'll be doing if they weren't already.Of course going back—we're talking about food safety—we remember the melamine in the Sanlu debacle and tragedy in China which Fonterra had an ownership stake in but of course no control. So we can see that as the worst-case scenario and why we have to avoid that under all circumstances.Of course within the whey protein thing there were no sicknesses. It was a false alarm. It was the result of a simple breaking of a torch lens in a Waikato dairy factory and the ripples were significant. But as the Hon Nathan Guy has just mentioned we have $25 billion of food exports and the primary exports generally still underpin our economy. We heard earlier on the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Bill that now export education—$4.2 billion. It's great to see our economy diversifying but we are still so reliant on our food producers. We also at New Zealand First did have some questions about this and the Minister addressed that in his contribution.We are concerned about the effect of this on the small food producers—the artisan the niche food producers—that are so important culturally for us. Now I get to spend a bit of time on airplanes and I read the inflight magazine and there's always a feature on a section of New Zealand and prominently amongst those features are the artisan food producers that are unique to that particular area. And subsequently New Zealand First is very concerned that we're not putting compliance on those small producers that would burden them unnecessarily while tidying up our regulations in terms of our export companies. So it's a balance that we have sought. The Minister addressed that in his earlier contribution to this reading and we have been assured that that work is in progress. We have sat with the officials and they have given us an outline of what they are looking at. The integrity of the Minister is beyond question. With us the working relationship I might say in the primary industry sector space and indeed across the Government but particularly with my involvement in the primary industry side of things with Minister O'Connor is excellent. That communication is going back and forward. He is well aware of our concerns and he is looking to bring with it a further body of work. So that's something that we are conscious of on this side of the House.I note that just in our local community of Lawrence we have a local chocolate shop that's opened up a small manufacturer. They are immigrants from Australia. They are great contributors to our community. They started off as a small chocolate-making business. I was sitting down with Alisa and she told me about first-hand experience that the regulations are actually pretty tough now to comply with. She's very very experienced. She's brought a lot of skill with her but without that experience she felt that she would have been struggling to get that business off the ground. So I think that is an area where New Zealand First will be working with our Labour coalition partners and the Greens for support to bring some further clarification and streamlining I guess to make sure that they're not caught up with unnecessary compliance costs.This bill of course looks to amend all three of New Zealand's main food safety Acts—the Animal Products Act 1999 the Food Act 2014 and the Wine Act 2003—and bring some alignment into the operation of those Acts to protect human health and our global reputation which is paramount. We just cannot do that. It's been referred to by other speakers the biosecurity situation. We've had a recent one with the Mycoplasma bovis of course amongst others—Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah stink bugs.MARK PATTERSON: The stink bugs now—so these are live issues that we have to deal with all the time. One of the perhaps lessons of that in some respects is that it does give us a test run as a country as to how we would react to something like a foot-and-mouth disease or a botulism situation. So we've had some heads-up some ability to test our systems in real time. They have been found wanting in some areas and this is part of a tidy-up in making sure that we can respond and respond appropriately in these areas. The bill does address the segments that require statutory change to implement these measures.It gives us a clear direction. It gives business a clear direction of the expectations and as I said before many of our businesses if they hadn't already have already amended their practices ahead of this legislation to make sure that they are fully compliant and futureproofing their own business.I have a quote here from a United States food safety expert Debbie Newslow: We can no longer learn from our mistakes. We cannot allow mistakes to happen in the first place. In today's world of food safety we must be proactive in preventing mistakes before they occur." I think that pretty much sums up what we are doing with this regulatory reform but what industry has already gone ahead and pre-empted in most cases.New Zealand First supports this bill and is happy to vote for it. We'd like to thank the officials for the good work that was put to the select committee. There was a famous presentation I think from Biddy the cheesemaker from the Wairarapa who I understand had a very big impact on that bill and the shaping of this regulation and some of the stuff going forward. So I think it does show that this House and this Parliament are working as we would hope for such an important piece of legislation that all views were taken into account and reflected. So New Zealand First has much pleasure in commending this bill to the House."