Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to get up and speak at this committee stage of the Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. New Zealand First has been a strong supporter of this bill right the way through. Although just picking up from the previous speaker the Hon Stuart Nash we also were one of the handbrakes on expanding this bill wider. So it wasn't just the National Party as much as we like to throw them under the bus as much as possible.But in this case I had very clear direction from our caucus to keep it simple because as we saw through the select committee process it does get complex very quickly. Going to your Marmite example: it may be manufactured in New Zealand but where were those components—goodness knows what's in Marmite actually but where were those components? So it does get quite complex but that is the intent of where we're seeking to go. I think the member in the chair Gareth Hughes might like to allude to that further.But we're well behind the game here. In 2005 Australia brought their country of origin food labelling in. Fifty-five countries throughout the world have these standards already; their consumers know where their food comes from. But we took the view in New Zealand First that this is very much foundation legislation. It gives the single-component foods in the first instance so we can keep it simple get the systems up and running and as we can prove it fit for purpose and get our systems going then we can expand on that and bring in the Marmites and the like. And I think we would all like to go there.Consumers have expressed a very strong interest for this. I think it was Horticulture New Zealand that did a survey: 71 percent of consumers said that they wanted country of origin labelling on their food. And it's already mandatory on things like footwear and clothing and the like so surely it should be for food that we're putting in our bodies. Only 9 percent I think in that survey said that they weren't interested. We certainly at home always buy New Zealand made where we can but who knows?Just going to the pork carve-out that we got and we debated greatly through the select committee process—60 percent of pork is imported. But also with the cured products—which was the carve-out to allow bacon and ham to come in—80 percent of bacon and ham is imported. And Mr McKelvie that is probably why it's shrinking in the pan. You've got some of that foreign stuff. You'll be able to know where the New Zealand stuff is shortly and be able to consume accordingly.Importantly actually within that—and I'd be interested in the member's view on this—85 percent of the 60 percent so roughly half of all the pork coming in is from countries that do not meet our animal welfare standards. And I note the member Mr Hughes is the great champion now of the pork industry having got that carve-out through. He's probably the only vegetarian in the world who has been championing the pork industry but it shows the overall concept is bigger than individual taste. So that 85 percent—and we did ask some questions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade when they came in: can we—and I know the answer is no now with the trade deals that we have; as an exporting country we have to be very careful of the legislation that we pass in this House that it doesn't come across as a non-tariff barrier. But we are talking now about modern trade deals and I just wonder whether it is something that we should be looking to in our modern trade deals that are coming up—the EU the UK—to have those animal welfare standards incorporated in that because I think that's something that consumers also really want to know.We're putting more and more regulation on our farmers and producers and growers. We should know as consumers actually that (a) we want confidence in our New Zealand producers but also if we are going to consume an imported product it would be handy to know that. So maybe our trade deals can upgrade to reflect that in the future.So we look forward to progressing this through the committee stage. There are a number of details that I think we need to delve into at further stages but at this point we're very happy to have this piece of legislation in the House. Thank you.