McKelvie Ian: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination IncidentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcKelvie Ian: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination Incident[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12342. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IANMcKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I want to firstly commend our team of Ministers for what obviously has been a very strong response to a very difficult situation. For New Zealand this is a critical issue. It alerts us to the importance of the dairy industry to New Zealand and more important it has reminded us of the importance of food safety to this country.Today I had the opportunity to ask Minister Groser what reports he had received of international reaction to the potential contamination of whey protein concentrate and what measures the Government will be taking to reassure overseas markets and consumers of our position. The Minister of Trade’s answers and knowledge of these issues reinforce the expertise that this country has and has been able to apply to this most critical of issues. I think again I want to commend the whole team of Ministers who have put a lot of work into this issue over the last 3 days. It is particularly important to this country.I think also worth noting are the efforts of the chief executive of Fonterra who was on the plane to China as quickly as he could be and although there is a significant amount of work to be done to understand the ramifications of this issue and what caused this issue I think Fonterra has reacted in a manner that is befitting its place in this whole issue.It is worth noting again the Prime Minister’s statement that now is not the time for recrimination. Now is the time to ensure that consumers have the best information possible available to them. However having said that we need to understand in the fullness of time the reasons for the initial uncertainty the reasons this contamination took place and the reasons that I guess there was some uncertainty about the timing of the announcements that were made as a consequence of that.It also reinforces for New Zealand the need to track all of our product and part products from paddock to plate. That is something that our food industries our meat industry and all other aspects of our food industry have been particularly fussy about and something of course that the National Animal Identification and Tracinglegislation enforced or reinforced for the cattle industry in New Zealand and it is no doubt an issue that will follow into many other of our products or paddock-placed products that end up on the plate in this country. So it is really important that we have that traceability and that we understand where those products have gone.I referred in the course of that little discussion to the part products. Of course the dairy industry is a manufacturer of numerous part products that make up end products. This is the issue that we face with this whey product here today. It is a product of which very small parts can be added to all sorts of things from energy drinks to milkreplacer products and in fact to calf milk products. That is another product that has been recalled in the course of this process.Because of the nature of this country we are all feeling the effects of this. We are all feeling for those parents of possibly affected children. We are all affected by any possible damage to our reputation as a producer of great food products. We rely on our reputation for our future and our country’s living. I have listened carefully to all the debate comment and questions on this issue today and I would like to commend all speakers for their constructive input. I also want to add having listened to all speakers today that were I a mother father or member of the public I would feel I had been much better briefed on this topic as a result of today’s discussion. Thank you.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.