Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Makers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Makers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is pleased to support this bill. However we are not quite so sure about the motivation for the bill in the first place. I think we are being compelled to have this legislation by the European Union; it is certainly not coming from any pressure from within New Zealand or from the industry. 
The messages inherent in the European Union placing these stringent conditions on our exporters are interesting. The first message is that European consumers want country-of-origin labelling. That is a message that our own importers of pork and other food items should take very careful note of. The second point is that consumers want traceability of their product and the third is that consumers want high quality. 
I think it is very interesting that the wine glut being experienced in the United States at the moment—where prices of ordinary-quality wine have plummeted to about US$2 a litre—has not had any impact at all on our exports to the European Union or to other countries. The reason for that is that we are exporting very high quality wine. We are not affected by the glut because that is of wine of lower quality. 
We have very clear market signals from our consumers. First of all they want high quality and secondly they are prepared to pay for it. Inherent in that message is something else for New Zealand. First of all consumers want low or no chemical residue and secondly they want zero genetic pollution. In fact New Zealand winegrowers have already made it very clear that they will stay GE free because of the market signals from other parts of the world that have been made clear to them. New Zealand is already very clearly satisfying a highly discriminating highly knowledgable market and I think we can do even better. The market signals are clear. There is a demand as I said for nil chemical residue and nil genetic contamination and a demand for traceability and high quality. 
We do that very well with our organic wineries. If members speak to any organic winegrowers and ask them what their market demands are they will say they simply cannot grow enough to meet the demand. For all their food products demand is growing exponentially. This is the way of the future for New Zealand. We need to get away from the idea that we put more and more toxic chemicals into our wines and we need to get away from the idea that we need genetic engineering. 
I think the interesting thing about what the European Union is imposing on us is that it is a regulation that is a non-tariff barrier to trade. I think that is a very interesting concept for us. It means that another of our big markets is actually moving away from free trade. It is increasing the barriers to trade. Think about agriculture in the European Union and in America; in both places it is very very heavily subsidised. For instance last year the Americans moved to increase subsidies to their agricultural industry by $400 billion over 10 years. That is not free trade. I think what the European Union is doing in imposing its regulations on us is protecting its own. I support it in doing that. The European Union has a right to protect its own and we have to abide by its regulations because it is a big player but I think we need to be very clear that what it is doing overall is not free trade. 
I am very pleased to say that the Greens support this bill and I think we join every other party in the House in doing so.