SpeechHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Just before I comment on the Organic Products Bill that we've got in front of us this afternoon I just want to acknowledge that this week we've been talking a lot about COVID-19. I just want to take just a small moment to acknowledge the people in my electorate who right now in Kāpiti and Horowhenua are quite worried about it. I've got mates in the supermarket business up there on the coast and they tell me that the shelves are being hit pretty hard. So I guess my message through to my constituents is to keep calm as much as they can. The Government has announced a package and there's a lot of resources available. I guess we need to stand within reason shoulder to shoulder—it might be a metre or two apart nowadays—but try and support one another to get through this. That brings me on to my next comment which is when we think about COVID-19 and we think about this organics bill that we are debating this afternoon it comes back to the fundamental which is what is New Zealand's economy based on and that's food. We are a great producer of food whether it's organic food or not and one thing that is going to be significant through this period of recession that we now find ourselves in is that farmers are going to drag this economy forward and out of recession. It is going to be very very important for the Government and for this Parliament to acknowledge that food is vitally important to the New Zealand economy. We can feed about 40 million people around the world whether that's organic food or other food. But fundamentally our farmers and growers are going to be the ones that pay the bills for this Government and for the New Zealand economy through this. They won't be able to get us out of recession but I just want to spend a moment and acknowledge the good work that our farmers and growers do. What is important about this bill is that it's been around for a while. David Bennett kicked it off in 2017. I want to acknowledge him. I want to acknowledge Damien O'Connor as well for bringing this bill into the Parliament today and for the work that he and his officials have done. I was thinking back that it was not that long ago that we were debating the country-of-origin bill. That took a while to get through. The Primary Production Committee worked across the Parliament through that select committee to get that bill through and I think listening to the speeches this afternoon there is widespread support for this bill. So I won't spend a lot of time talking about it but I do have a little bit of an anecdote that's worthwhile telling about one of our neighbours not too far away from our farm—a couple of kilometres away. One of the local tributary streams that flows into the Manawatū River burst its banks and overtopped and his whole organic farm was under water more or less. I thought Gosh what on earth can I do to try and support this organic farmer?" who is a good neighbour. So I picked up the phone and said "How can we help? I've got a whole lot of supplementary feed on hand. You can take all that." He said "Unfortunately it's not organic." and I said "Well we can take some of your cows to help you out a bit." He said "Unfortunately you can't or that'll mean our certification is ruined and we'll lose our licence to be a certified organic farmer." So those that make a commitment to move into organics they make it knowingly and they know that it takes a hell of a long time to get there. It takes on average three to five years to get to the point where you can get certification. Part of this bill is going to mean that there are regulations that are transparent. There's going to be an audit process and there's going to be an enforcement—having lived through the mānuka honey situation where there were all sorts of fun and games going on in there and indeed some of that product that was exported wasn't mānuka honey—so this bill is important. It's going to mean that we're going to move the food that we produce up the value chain. It's easy for politicians to talk about it but quite hard to deliver. It's interesting. When we think back to COVID-19 you know there's been a lot of talk about adding value. The Government talk about it in every speech. I've listened to the Minister. What's going to be interesting with COVID-19 is there'll be a whole lot of people around the world that just want to consume food from New Zealand whether it's milk powder—which some say is not value-add. But they'll want to consume it because we produce some of the best and safest food in the world and I support this bill."