O'Connor Damien: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination IncidentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination Incident[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12340. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):Kia ora to the people in the gallery. Like many people in this House I am a parent. I am the father of five beautiful daughters and although I am a great advocate of “Breast is best” I like most parents have relied on infant formula to sustain our helpless but beautiful babies. We have got up in the middle of the night to mix the formula to make the milk. That is the only thing that our infant babies live on. That is why around the world people have reacted so strongly to this. It is an emotional issue—what we feed our children—and we should realise that. No parent should make any apology for being concerned.I have been a dairy farmer. I can appreciate the effort that goes in to providing clean and pure milk to the company. I was also the chairman of a select committee that set up Fonterra back in the year 2000. So I understand that companies set up through the legislation had some advantages but they also had with the legislation clear responsibilities. Fonterra was to be of course given its size and importance to our economy the guardian of a reputation that had been built up by generations of people that the dairy industry produced the safest and best food in the world. As the primary industry spokesperson on behalf of the Labour Party I am now supporting the Government and supporting Fonterra to get out around the world and reassure all our customers that the food that we produce from this country will be safe will be pure will be suitable for customers and will meet every one of their expectations including safety.Clearly we have had a problem here. A mistake has been made and we could spend a lot of time here trying to analyse time lines and what went on and what could have been done. The most important thing now is that we support the Government the Government agencies and Fonterra to get out around the world to explain how we produce our milk and milk products in this country and to give people an assurance that the systems are fine.There are of course questions starting to emerge today from China news sites—questions around the laissez-faire market ideology that does determine some of the current thinking by Government. In our own papers we have got: “Is Fonterra Too Big For Its Gumboots?”. Then we have another reference here to Fonterra harming NewZealand and itself. We know these things. That is why it is important that we act together to resolve this as quickly as possible.Fonterra is our single biggest company. We are proud of it. It is the single biggest exporter of anything from this country and our economy relies upon it. It is a hybrid cooperative. In this House recently we made changes to legislation that did expand a number of the masters that Fonterra should answer to. As a pure cooperative it was first and foremost to answer to its farmers and that was the traditional way of thinking. The new world which both farmers and the new unit holders through Trading Among Farmers realise is that it firstly must be responsible to its consumers to its customers—the people who buy its products—and must always keep in mind that the health and safety of those consumers and of its workers should be its highest priority.The farmers who have owned this company and who do so along with unit holders investors today are aware of the emerging as I say reality of social media of media and communication that can send around the world at a flash any concern that might emerge fromFonterra’s operations and from its products and they have to be on top of that reality. Nothing should be hidden from the processes and the products that Fonterra produces in this country. As I say I think the priority that Fonterra must state clearly to the public—more often perhaps to politicians—is that the health and safety of its consumers through its products and the health and safety of its workers at its worksites is the No. 1 priority for it. Production growth and profit are all things that flow from good management and I wish Fonterra all the very best with that.I think it is important to point out the growth that the dairy industry has sustained. It has helped this country grow but it does create some reality I guess for those looking at Fonterra from the outside. In 1990 the whole dairy industry produced about half a million tonnes of product for the world markets. About 5 percent of their total production gets consumed in New Zealand and that has been consistent right throughout. This year the company will export to the world about 2.7 million tonnes of product. There has been from some farming leaders reference to the fact that the tonnage involved here—38 tonnes—is a very very small percentage of that total production. That is true. None the less that small amount of contaminated production is something that the world is focusing on and we are focusing on and we have to get that sorted out.One of the questions I have raised—it is not cheap politics but it is a real question—is about the Government agency the Ministry for Primary Industries and its ability and capability to get alongside Fonterra to help resolve this as quickly as possible. I did go and look at the funding for that agency to ask whether it has been funded because I was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s statement that all possible resources will be committed to resolving this and to reassuring our customers. The question I must ask and it is one that will be answered down the track is whether the actual cutback in funding for the Ministry for Primary Industries has been at the right time when the dairy industry growth has been so phenomenal.We have had a meat industry report—again meat striking trouble and some challenges getting into the Chinese market—that identified that there were insufficient resources to properly follow through with the changes in accreditation and assurances that the Chinese market needed. The question I ask and it is for the Government to answer at some stage in the future is whether the cutback in funding from indeed $427 million in 2008 to $417 million in 2013 at a time of rapid growth particularly into markets has perhaps in some way contributed to this.I go back. As I say we are supporting the Prime Minister. He has given an assurance that all possible resources will be used. Our leader David Shearer has said that there needs to be questions asked ofFonterra’s systems and the interaction. There will betime for that. Of course the Minister for Food Safety Nikki Kaye said that Ministry for Primary Industries staff would be placed at Fonterra sites. That is welcomed. One of the issues may be—because the reality is that the dairy industry is a self-regulated industry unlike many others in the food industry—whether the Government is considering moving back to slightly more regulation.There will be international observers. They will not be watching us here in the House—they do not have to endure that—but they will be looking for assurances from Parliament and I think it is important to give assurances. We take food safety very seriously. This is a piece of legislation that is due to be back before Parliament to be passed and which governs the way that we deal with all food in this country. Rest assured we have good legislation.The focus as I say on safety for consumers and workers must be the primary consideration. Indeed it is the primary consideration after a few lessons around worker safety that we have learnt but particularly around food safety. It is the No. 1 focus and priority and it is committed to and supported by all parties in this House.The second thing is that we have good systems of food production in this country. They may not be perfect but anyone in the international market place can be assured that they are next to perfect and that in fact what we have identified here through an audit process through testing is that we have had a problem. That is something that acknowledges that the systems do work. We have got a healthy democracy. We have got a robust system of accountability back to Parliament. All the food produced in this country will ultimately be observed tested audited and checked by Parliament and our customers should be sure that we will be looking after their interests in the long term.