Prosser Richard: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17850. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in this Committee of the whole House as we continue to debate the Food Bill. I would just like to say first off following on from the Minister for Food Safety that we will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of Damien O’Connor and also Supplementary Order Paper 449 in the name of Steffan Browning which is very similar and complementary. In this part of our deliberations I want to focus on some of the perhaps less glamorous aspects of the bill. In any piece of legislation there will be much that is mundane yet none the less necessary. Not every subclause or annotated paragraph will set the world on fire but each of them provides an essential cog in the machinery of law. With that in mind the first thing I want to look at is Part 1 clause 8 which relates to the meaning of food.To an independent observer this may appear to be a somewhat unnecessary consideration. The average citizen I might posit could perhaps be forgiven for presuming that the definition of “food” was a fairly straightforward affair: if you eat something it is food. Not so in the eyes of the law. The proof of that particular pudding is in Part 1 clause 8 “Meaning of food”. In this bill clause 8(1) states: “unless the context otherwise requires food—(a) means anything that is used capable of being used or represented as being for use for human consumption (whether raw prepared or partly prepared); and (b) includes—(i) seeds plants or plant material intended for human consumption including seeds that are intended to be sprouted and consumed as sprouts but not other seeds plants or plant material intended for planting;”.So a potato is food but a seed spud is not. What is the difference between a spud and a seed spud one might ask. Well a seed spud is a spud that has gone to seed. It may have been grown especially with that purpose in mind. As such it could rightly be classified as not being intended for human consumption. Equally it may be an ordinary spud originally intended for eating but that has somehow been overlooked—it may have languished at the bottom of the bag at the back of the pantry alone and forlorn in the dark until it has thrown out a few of those pale spindly shoots by which the life force of the potato plant attempts to replicate itself. At that time the intention for it to become the subject of human consumption is extinguished. Under the definition in the law as it is enshrined in this bill it is therefore no longer food. That is not to say that such a spudcan be presumed to now be intended for planting. Such an accidental seed spud may well find itself in the charge and care of a non-gardener and it may very well come to end its days in the compost bin or worse. But that is of no matter. The important point is that it is no longer food in a legal sense. This is an important distinction and one that has to be made. I would venture to suggest to the House that this bill makes that distinction rather well.Food is also defined under clause 8(1)(b) as “(ii) live animals intended for human consumption at the place of purchase; and (iii) live animals intended for human consumption that are sold in retail premises;”. I presume this refers primarily to such comestibles as lobster or perhaps live shellfish but equally it could conceivably include live chickens purchased for later preparation. Again this is an important consideration because if the bill did not contain a specific reference to the intention for the live animal to be for human consumption every pet shop in the country might find itself in a very unenviable position. Once again we see the tiny cogs of the great machine performing their sterling service mostly unseen and presumably underappreciated but none the less completely necessary.The bill also provides under the definition of the meaning of food “(iv) any ingredient or other constituent of any food or drink whether that ingredient or other constituent is consumed or represented for consumption on its own by humans or is used in the preparation of or mixed with or added to any food or drink; and (v) anything that is or is intended to be mixed with or added to any food or drink; and (vi) chewing gum and any ingredient of chewing gum and anything that is or is intended to be mixed with or added to chewing gum;”. So chewing gum is food. This may come as something of a surprise to members. It has come to pass that generations of children were right all along and their parents were wrong.Chewing gum is food because Parliament by its sovereign power and authority has decreed that it be so. Tobacco however is not food and rightly so. I think most members if not all would agree that tobacco is not food—at least not food for humans. This includes chewing tobacco. Unlike chewing gum chewing tobacco may not lawfully be food. It is not the act of chewing therefore that makes it food or even the non-swallowing of the substance in question. Neither chewing gum nor chewing tobacco are intended to be ingested which may in itself seem somewhat incongruous in terms of the ordinary person’s perception of what food may be given its intended purpose. Rather it is the letter of the law that determines the relative foodness or non-foodness of any particular substance.In closing then I will note that the bill also provides in clause 8(1)(b)(vii) that food is “anything that is declared by the Governor-General by Order in Council made under section 355 to be food for the purposes of this Act;” and thus chewing gum may be food but chewing tobacco may not so must it be. These are splendid definitions and we support them entirely as we support this bill. Thank you.