Kedgley Sue: Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill — First Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill — First Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that this bill be considered by the Commerce Committee. This bill should be supported by every party in this House because it is about the basic democratic right of every New Zealander to know what is in the food he or she eats and where it comes from. It is a simple bill based on the simple proposition that consumers have a right to have enough information on a label so that they can make informed choices about the food they buy. Surely all political parties would support that. It is a simple bill that recognises that people are becoming more and more concerned about what is in their food and where it comes from and that they want better and more informative food labels. Surely all political parties would support that. This bill requires mandatory country-of-origin labelling all GE ingredients in food to be declared on a label egg cartons to identify whether eggs have been produced from free-range barn raised or caged hens and fish packaging to identify whether fish is wild-caught or farmed. It also establishes a traceability system for foods containing GE ingredients so that they can be traced throughout the food production and distribution system and it guarantees full public access to Government information on residues of pesticides and other chemicals in our food. 
At present consumers do not have this very basic information. The Greens did a survey a little time ago of 450 items in the supermarket. None of them had GE ingredients declared on the label there was no indication of where most fresh food items such as meat came from and many of the labels were misleading and confusing. This means for example that consumers simply cannot figure out whether a tomato like the one I have here has been grown in New Zealand or imported from Australia in which case it has been dipped in a highly toxic insecticide called dimethoate. Nor can they figure out whether most garlic such as that which I have here—on sale in our supermarkets—comes from New Zealand or whether it has been transported 10000 miles from China a country where 80 percent of the waterways are polluted and garlic can be contaminated with a virus that could decimate our onion industry. Surely consumers have a right to know that. 
In a world awash with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and avian influenza surely consumers have a right to know where their meat comes from. Unbeknown to most New Zealanders thousands of tonnes of pork beef lamb and other meats are imported into New Zealand. Last year 27000 tonnes of pork alone was imported into New Zealand but there is no way that consumers—even detectives—can find out where all that meat has ended up because there is no label on any meat in the supermarket to indicate which country the meat has been imported from. Surely consumers have a right to know that. 
Consumer research has demonstrated that consumers want to know where their food comes from and for a variety of reasons. Some just want to support local producers. Others are concerned about food miles—the huge environmental cost of transporting food from the other side of the world. Others are concerned about the lack of quality control standards in some countries that we import food from. 
GE-derived ingredients in our food supply have not undergone safety testing—they go through only a phoney assessment process. Surely if we do not even require that GE ingredients are safety tested we should at least require producers to declare on a label whether there are GE-derived ingredients in their food so that consumers can avoid buying that food if they wish. Under our woefully inadequate labelling laws the vast majority of GE ingredients in food do not have to be declared on a label so it is actually impossible for consumers to work out which foods do or do not contain GE ingredients. There are about 15 ingredients in the package of rich tomato soup I have here—many of them are likely to be GE derived but there is nothing on the label to declare that. Proper labelling of GE ingredients would give credit to the majority of food companies in New Zealand that have already eliminated GE-derived ingredients in their food. It would also require the GE industry to stand by its products instead of sneaking GE ingredients into our food without a label. 
If we are going to allow hens to be kept in cruel battery cages that violate the basic principles of the Animal Welfare Act surely we should at least require producers to declare on a label that eggs come from hens that have been kept in cages. Surely all parties in this House would support the traceability provisions in this bill that would ensure the Government could trace any direct or indirect unforeseen effects on human health or the environment of GE food and help protect our reputation as a quality producer of clean safe food. 
There is overwhelming support amongst consumers for the labelling provisions in this bill. In an independent poll carried out by Consumer Link 84 percent of respondents said they wanted all GE ingredients in food declared on a label 81 percent wanted food labels to tell them whether a product is imported and 71 percent wanted egg cartons to declare whether hens have been kept in battery cages. Only yesterday SAFE presented to this Parliament a 51000-signature petition calling for the mandatory labelling of egg cartons. So these are issues that consumers care passionately about. 
As well 21 organisations including Parents Centres the SPCA the Breast Cancer Network GE-Free New Zealand Greenpeace and so forth have written to me to support this bill. So too have major producer boards such as Horticulture New Zealand—representing all fruit and vegetable growers—and the Pork Industry Board both of which support the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill. There is nothing radical or controversial in this bill. Countries in Europe and many other countries already have such provisions. They already have a requirement that all GE ingredients in food be declared on a label. Most of our trading partners already have country-of-origin labelling. 
Nor does this bill impose onerous compliance costs on industry. There are no additional compliance costs in providing in-store labelling of fruit vegetables meat and fish. The country-of-origin provisions for processed food are based on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand standard that is already in effect in Australia and that is not onerous either. Nor is there any cost in putting a label on an egg carton to state that eggs have come from caged hens. The new requirement to label GE ingredients would apply only to the dozen or so companies in New Zealand that have not removed GE ingredients from their products and there would be a 2-year phase-in period for those businesses to comply. So nobody can wring their hands and talk about compliance costs because there are no significant ones. Furthermore the need for accurate truthful and meaningful food labelling is recognised by all major national and international food standard - setting agencies including the World Health Organization Food Standards Australia New Zealand and our own Food Safety Authority and by our own food laws. 
This bill is simply about freedom of choice and personal responsibility. These are things that parties like National and ACT say are their core values so we assume those parties will support this bill otherwise they will be seen by the majority of New Zealanders to be utterly hypocritical. If there are segments of this bill that political parties have difficulty with then let us thrash out those issues in the select committee. I know that some people have expressed concerns about the percentage of labelling of inadvertent contamination of food by GE. Let us discuss those sorts of issues in a select committee. Let us not seize on a couple of little issues to try to justify opposition to a bill like this that should be supported by every party in this House. 
 We should already have mandatory country-of-origin labelling. We would have it if the Government had not unilaterally pulled out of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand standard on country-of-origin labelling without consulting a single member of this House. It pulled out unilaterally. The Cabinet Minister in question made the decision—a decision that concerned the 80 percent of New Zealand consumers who wanted it. The Government unilaterally rejected our standard without consulting this House. It is profoundly ironic that a Government that supports a Buy New Zealand Made campaign has refused to implement a country-of-origin labelling campaign. Consumers are watching closely to see how political parties vote on this bill. I urge members to support it. 
I seek leave to table a letter from Horticulture New Zealand which supports the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the Pork Industry Board supporting the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the SPCA strongly supporting my Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the Breast Cancer Network supporting this bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table an email from Parents Centres supporting this bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics confirming their support for this member’s bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is this the last one? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: No it is not. I said there were 21. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Would the member please just list all the documents. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a press release by Greenpeace supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table the Pesticide Action Network letter supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from Bio-Gro New Zealand strongly supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the president of the New Zealand Natural Medicine Association supporting the provisions of this bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the New Zealand Vegetarian Society strongly supporting the contents of this bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the Herb Federation of New Zealand supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from Agrissentials New Zealand Limited supporting the provisions of this bill. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a media release by Save Animals From Exploitation supporting this bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the Soil and Health Association of New Zealand publisher of  
Organic NZ 
 supporting the contents of this bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a press release from GE-Free New Zealand supporting this bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to table a letter from Rural Women New Zealand supporting two of the provisions of my bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the Bio Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association supporting this bill. Finally I seek leave to table the survey that the Green Party undertook of 453 products in our supermarkets. It showed that none of the GE ingredients in food were declared on labels that there was no indication of where most fresh items such as meat came from and that many of the labels were misleading or confusing. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House.