Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee Third Reading 
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IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I would like to start my contribution this evening by thanking the officials who are here tonight. They undertook a very long and involved consultation process and when they got to the select committee they found that basically they had to redo it. In my opinion they did an outstanding job and I do give my sincere thanks to them. However I give them a small word of advice. If they were the ones who were responsible for the Supplementary Order Paper arriving on my desk at about 11 o’clock this morning then they should try getting it there a bit earlier next time if they want me to support it. 
I would also like to express my gratitude to Philip Gregan the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Winegrowers. My other colleagues have mentioned his contribution as well. I think he brought a degree of rational debate to the whole discussion we had around the bill simply because of his depth of knowledge. He was able to bring the views at least of the bigger players in the industry to the officials and into the select committee. 
I see the Wine Bill as being a very positive expression of democracy in action. The wine industry wanted to integrate its activities into a single legislative framework and basically this is what we have done. We have a regime that provides certainty for the industry. The industry wanted certainty in areas like the standards of production exports compliance enforcement and industry-good funding. 
The bill has a number of objectives and my colleagues have mentioned a number of them. I would like to focus on just one this evening—that is the setting of standards for identity labelling and the safety of wine. The wine standards management plan or “WSMP” as we came to know it as lies at the very heart of the structure of this bill. It probably has its genesis in the Coopers Creek fiasco which was a mislabelling exercise that occurred a few years ago. Coopers Creek was found guilty of placing gold medal labels on vastly inferior wine of the same variety but not the actual wine that won the gold medal. In that case the actions of a very few people quite explicitly undermined the whole industry—up to that point anyway—and the quite extraordinarily cooperative behaviour that was exhibited across the industry. 
The ramifications of the actions of those few people have rumbled on through the years and I think that this bill is a logical consequence of what happened all those years ago. I guess one of the ramifications that was unexpected by Coopers Creek at the time was that it made the winemaker famous. When he came to sell his label rights not long ago he did exceptionally well out of it financially. The industry has made its reputation worldwide by focusing single-mindedly on quality. That I believe is a very clear message for the rest of the agricultural industry. We should concentrate very closely on quality as with the possible exception of the milk solids dairy industry New Zealand can never compete in a commodity market. We have to be a niche player. We will always be a minnow in agricultural terms. 
Just as a very incidental point I cannot resist saying that we need to be free of genetically engineered organisms for precisely that reason which is exactly the position the wine industry is taking. It is my opinion that we are best to concentrate on the top end of the market and that is what the wine industry already does. We already have very good market acceptance in all our premium markets. 
So it is into this scenario that the wine standards management plan is designed to fit. Its intention or its design is to encourage all growers to comply with this overarching quest for quality and at the same time provide a disincentive in terms of a compliance regime for those who may consider that their best interests are served by not complying. The wine standards management plan is a scaffold a skeleton around which the wine is created. Each management plan can be individually created by the winemaker or by his or her company. Equally though it can be based on a template or a model that is more generic in nature. The whole idea of the wine standards management plan is that it is designed to identify control manage and eliminate—or at least minimise—the hazards and other risk factors in relation to the making of wine and therefore to ensure that it is fit for its intended purpose. Once a wine standards management plan is constructed by the winemaker or the company it then has to be approved by the director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. It is then this plan that the winery works to in the creation of its wine. 
I must confess that I really like the idea of management plans. On the one hand they do create a uniformity of process—keeping records and things like that—that focuses on quality so there is an underlying quest for quality that the management plans encourage. On the other hand the management plans behave in an enabling way. They enable winemakers within this structure to be creative in the making of their wines. It is a bit like saying it does not matter what language we speak we can still make a speech—but let us not go down that road. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: In this Parliament. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: In this Parliament we can in any language. The wine standards management plans simply ensure that human health and safety is upheld that the manufacture of the wine is traceable and accountable and that the wine contains no unsafe ingredients. 
Another aspect of this bill is that which refers to labelling. There has been quite a controversy around labelling and I guess that dates back to Coopers Creek as well. The bill provides empowering provisions that set New Zealand’s standards by regulation. The regulations do not change what is on the label of New Zealand wine but it does change how the information on the label is verified and that is an important distinction. The wine industry was probably in an unusual situation in that it approached the Government to increase the controls over the whole of the winemaking process. Usually people come to us wanting to decrease controls. The wine industry actively wants to have more on the wine labels in terms of accountability. They want labels to reflect information like the country of origin—obviously New Zealand - made—the region where the wine is made; the variety of the wine whether it is Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Gris Pinot Noir or whatever; the vintage of the wine which is the year it was made; and a whole range of other things. What the industry clearly wants is maximised information. It manifestly does not want a recurrence of the Coopers Creek fiasco. 
I cannot let pass this opportunity to mention levies. A lot of submitters were opposed to the idea that this legislation would enable levies for cost recovery to be imposed. Their claim—and I have some sympathy for it—was that they already pay huge amounts in excise tax. The Hon David Carter mentioned the problems we have had with the increase in tax on port sherry and other fortified wines—by mistake in effect. Although I have some sympathy with small winemakers not wanting to be lumbered with compliance costs and having increased levies we do have to look at the reality of the wine industry—that is its primary function is to produce alcohol. Although alcohol can be argued to be fairly harmless when taken in moderation—and I must admit I am a great contributor to the industry on the consumption side— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Are you a wine buff? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: On occasions I have been known to— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Imbibe. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: —imbibe yes. It is certainly my recreational drug of choice. 
Marc Alexander 
: Do you swallow? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Yes I do swallow. The fact remains that alcohol can have very negative impacts on our society. I am thinking in terms of alcoholism for some people who cannot control their desire for alcohol and of course in terms of its being a lead-up to car crashes and death by accident. 
This is common-sense legislation. It started off as being very complex legislation and will probably finish up as being pretty complex as well. But it is certainly a lot better a lot clearer and a lot simpler now than it was when it first came before the select committee. The Greens take great pleasure in supporting the legislation.