Browning Steffan: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17874. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I just want to touch on a couple of things that the Minister in the chair Nikki Kaye spoke of before. One of them is whether the joint partnership between Australia and New Zealand on food standards is the right place to be addressing food standards and particularly labelling. The amendment of Damien O’Connor certainly might have locked us in and we might have lost some sovereignty but what I would say is that we have lost that already. The Minister is one Minister out of 10 when it comes to decisions coming out of that body. What my amendment would have done is to say “Let’s do it here in New Zealand.” The Food Bill is the right place to do it because it needs only to say that we will set country-of-origin labelling regulations in New Zealand. It is the right vehicle and it may be that the Minister does another Supplementary Order Paper herself to give us that level of sovereignty.My concern is around sovereignty and this may take a couple of calls to finish. I started earlier in Part 3 on the genetic engineering issue and went through the process by which New Zealanders can make a submission to the process and if they do not like it the High Court is the only place that they can go.My concern is that successive Ministers—and it goes right back through to the Labour Governments as well—are being given advice that is not up to it. They have been given advice to say that this food has been checked that it is OK that the science is robust and that there has been independent peer reviews or whatever around that and that they could accept that. But you know as a Minister—the Minister knows and others who have been in that same position here know—about the advice that you get.I want to touch on some of that advice. The advice said accepting that an organisation like GE-Free New Zealand was likely to seek a review of the approval—and it did through the Regulations Review Committee—“MPI is confident that the correct processes …”. What does it know? We do not have proper independent advice going into our Ministry for Primary Industries or the Institute of Environmental Science and Research when it comes down to it. Certainly when it comes in it is not independent nor is the advice going to Food Standards Australia New Zealand independent.When the independent scientists in the world come out—Séralini Judy Carman even our Professor Jack Heinemann in Christchurch—they get criticised snap like that all around the world. Why? Because there are such big vested interests from agribusiness for these foods—these bad poor-quality very unhealthy and risky foods—to come in. Big business wants that because it has got the patents and it has got the control. Since the last time that happened we had the Food Standards Australia New Zealand scientists in front of the select committee here and I put it to them that one of their chief advisers was not independent. They said: “Oh we barely talk to him.” Rubbish! That same man Langridge from the University of Adelaide gets direct funding from one of the companies that applies for these things. Not only that but he was the chair of a committee to look at new technologies that they wanted to take on so that they do not go through the system.Those are the people who are advising you Minister to say that this stuff is good for New Zealanders and it is not. I have given you a tome of information on that as I didwith Kate Wilkinson when she was the Minister for Food Safety. They say that not accepting the approval was “Inconsistent with scientific evidence.” I would say that that is wrong. They said that “A majority of FoFR members”—you are one in 10—“are likely to vote to accept the FSANZ approval.” New Zealanders would not expect this but they said: “New Zealand would be obliged to accept a majority decision”—where is our sovereignty now—“as there are no ‘exceptional grounds’ for us to ‘opt out’.” A unilateral decision by New Zealand to you know exercise its sovereignty to reject the Food Standards Australia New Zealand approval “would be a breach of the Food Treaty and would undermine the joint food system which underpins the valuable trade in food between the two countries.” Well whoopee-do! If this stuff is not fit for purpose and it is bad for New Zealanders to be consuming why are we just bowing over because of the discomfort maybe in a trade deal? This is not good enough.The next point was: “A unilateral rejection of the approval which is based on international guidelines may also be inconsistent with New Zealand’s WTO obligations.” I do not think so. The last one in there was: “If a New Zealand response is delayed beyond 8 April”—that was for that early approval or the option to go back and seek more information—“this may cause irritation in the joint food system relationship.”Do you know what this is about everyone? This is about a food that is going to be doused with 24-D glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate—three herbicides—with no inspection or checking on the health and safety of those being used in conjunction as they would be used. What do these guys in Food Standards Australia New Zealand do? They look at each one independently check out its maximum residue limits and things and see whether it is going to be an issue. Not only that but they put up the maximum residue limits so that the producers can do it. Three different herbicides let alone whatever else not looked at properly not safe and they are telling you: “Tick it through please because it will be an irritation to trade if you do not.” Well that is not fair to New Zealanders. I think we do need to get that independence back and we need to be doing it in New Zealand.Of course they tell you: “We will work with your office on a communications strategy in relation to any proposals by GE Free NZ or other groups to seek a review of the decision by the Regulations Review Committee.” Yes they will get your messaging right and they will get your public relations right but New Zealanders are stuck with it and they are stuck with it through this bill if we do not implement it properly. We could have that sort of food in here and all people can do is go to the High Court. If it were the Resource Management Act and you wanted to put up a three-storey building you would have your notification you would go to the council you would see other people’s submissions and you would get a decision. If you did not like it you could have a hearing de novo at the Environment Court then you might go to the High Court. You have got all those opportunities to comment.This is our food. This is the food for our kids. It is coming through into the blood supply of women. It is going into foetal blood the different parts of it. This is not good enough and it is time that New Zealand stood up and had genuine sovereignty. That is why people want sovereignty. They know as well that the Codex Alimentarius Commission—which is a fantastic organisation in principle because if we are importing stuff we want to know that it is safe; we want to know about the international trade stuff—has been taken over. We know how we do the dairy part of it. We make sure we get in there for that influence. But these same companies which do not give a toss apart from their bottom line for their unknown shareholders—Monsanto Dupont Dow—do not care about New Zealanders’ health but they are in there influencing thosedecisions. It changed from its original genuinely independent people. I know people who worked on it and said that it was great but it changed.So we do need sovereignty and Part 5 of the bill is about that. There are opportunities there. I implore the Minister and I implore this Committee to make sure that we turn round the 80 almost 90 different types of GE food that have been allowed in New Zealand and it is not understood except the independent science is coming out and it needs to be listened to. That might be in a minority because it is independent—there are no vested interests driving it—but I am hoping that this Minister will look at this in a much more robust way and at least have some further discussion with me on it. But do make some changes.You can see why I want GE food labelled. You could have made it labelled. The rules are there. They are not comprehensive enough—some GE food does not have to be labelled. But the stuff that is there is meant to have been labelled. The Food Standards Australia New Zealand stuff says that it is labelled but since 2003 there has been no monitoring and even in 2003 what did it do? It tried to put out of business the people who were trying to be GMO-free. When it found 0.008 percent and some of that was intentionally going GMO-free but clearly it had been contaminated it fined the hang out of them. It put them off labelling GMO-free but that then seemed to be the trigger not to bother monitoring—