Mathers Mojo: Food Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Food Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18351. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): I am pleased to be rising to speak in support of this bill the Food Bill. Food safety is an incredibly important issue and it is great that it is now being made the overarching principle that this bill is based upon. A review of our laws is long overdue. Food-borne illnesses are extremely nasty they can be fatal andthey can have lasting health impacts. And as we have seen not long ago just one incident of food safety concerns in our food exports can have a lasting impact on our food-exporting industry. It is critical that we get food safety right in New Zealand.The Green Party strongly supports the risk-based approach that underpins this bill and that basically means recognising that some types of food pose a higher risk than other types of food and also that the scale of the food production is really important—whether it is local food production regional food production nationwide or for the export market and therefore the number of people who could potentially be seriously impacted by a food safety upset is taken into account.As I said at the previous reading one of the major concerns for non-commercial producers of food—ordinary everyday Kiwis—has been that they can continue to do what they have always done which is grow their own produce and be able to use the surplus from their gardens to swap with friends or donate to schools and clubs for fund-raising—whether it is fruit and vegetables jams and pickles baking eggs and so on. It is incredibly important for local food resilience that we can continue to do that and it is our expectation that this bill will not adversely impact on our ability to do these things and to continue to do them.We are extremely pleased that GE has been incorporated into the bill as a food safety issue. I remember reading about the negative impacts of GE food overseas and the host of serious health consequences. It is important that we do not become complacent and that we remain vigilant for these types of potential problems in New Zealand. But having said that although we like all of these things we are seriously disappointed that the Government did not take on board Supplementary Order Paper 449 and the proposed amendments to bring in country-of-origin labelling. This is something that consumers really really want—the right to know where their food comes from. It is fundamental. It is fundamental because of the safety concerns and it is fundamental because people want to be able to make their own informed decisions about the food they buy how it is made where it comes from and what the standards are in the country where the food has come from. They might be concerned about animal welfare standards. They may be concerned about environmental impacts. They may be concerned about the labour standards in countries overseas and prefer to purchase food from one country but not from another.Of course in New Zealand we really want to be able to support Kiwi producers and very often we will choose to do that over and above imported food. I still constantly meet people who are surprised that for example so much of the pork that is available at the supermarket and so on is not produced in New Zealand. There are people who really want to say: “But this is shocking. If I’d known that it was imported from Canada I wouldn’t be buying it. It should be labelled.” It should be and it is simple and straightforward to do with single-ingredient products. We should have mandatory labelling. The other advantage of mandatory labelling—