Faafoi Kris: Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9900. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a genuine pleasure to speak to the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill at its first reading and for the benefit of the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs I will put him out of his misery and let him know that Labour will be supporting this bill. I know that he was worried he might not get the numbers to get this through the House but Labour will be supporting this piece of legislation.I also acknowledge the Minister and that he is taking the lead on this bill. I do realise that when Cabinet approved this piece of legislation it was under the name of both the Minister who just took his seat and also the Hon Tim Groser the former Minister of Trade of our country who is now deeply ensconced in Washington DC and who not only was the Minister for Trade at the time but also is an expert on many things—almost everything. He is also a self-professed expert on wine so I think he will be deeply sad that he is not here to take the first speech in the first reading of this piece of legislation which we think and hope will have a speedy journey through this Parliament because it is one that is relatively non-controversial.The overriding principle around this legislation and the necessity of this piece of legislation is that our wine is good—it is better than good; it is excellent.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The more you drink the better it gets.KRIS FAAFOI: Well that is your opinion. This piece of legislation is needed to protect and also to increase the potential earnings for New Zealand whether it be from Central Otago—and I will come to a story around that of a recent example soon—the Canterbury region the Wairarapa the Hawke’s Bay or Waiheke Island. Our wine is so good that there could be a certain element within the industry that may want to take a geographic indication and pass its product off as one of the quality products that we produce here in New Zealand.The recent event that I was talking about was that I was enjoying dinner with a parliamentary delegation for the Government Administration Committee in Canberra. We were talking to the President of the Senate Stephen Parry at a dinner that he hosted and I had the pleasure of sitting at the table with a former Speaker of the Australian Parliament Bronwyn Bishop. The President of the Senate was talking about how good the quality of Tasmanian wine was and one of our delegates said: “But have you tasted some of our Central Otago Pinots though Mr President?”. Bronwyn Bishop who is no longer the Speaker of Parliament House said: “Oh no they’re rubbish.” She almost caused a diplomatic incident there and we did commit to sending her a bottle of good Central Otago Pinot to prove just how good our wine is. But she has got problems about helicopters and her own transport so I do not think she is hanging out for that bottle of wine.This piece of legislation will ensure precision around where wine comes from. I note that the Minister did go into some detail about the functions of this piece of legislation but I think one of the most important ones—certainly the most important one that the officials are pushing in the regulatory impact statements—is that in the past you could pass off New Zealand wine as being wine from a region if 85 percent of the grapes in the bottle of wine were from that region. We have gone from a situation where you could have 85 percent—and let us choose a region at random; say the Hawke’s Bay—of the grapes from the Hawke’s Bay and 15 percent of the grapes in that make-up of wine could be from anywhere else including overseas.To make sure that there is certainty and integrity in our product this piece of legislation says that that is not good enough to be labelled as being from a particular region in New Zealand or from New Zealand and we are going to make sure that they are 100 percent from that region or from New Zealand. I think that as an exporter of wine our country needs that certainty in other trade markets so that for people buying our wine—and I know that it is going great guns in the UK—they have certainty that it is not a blend of our grapes and Australian grapes but it is a 100 percent New Zealand product.I think that precision of information will ensure the integrity of our exports overseas and I understand that also it is a reciprocal agreement with deals that we are looking to do especially with the EU in that because they want certainty about the product that we send to them we will have certainty about the product that they send to us. It is not so much wine coming across that I think we would want certainty with. I am a whisky drinker so I want to know with a decent amount of certainty that the whisky that I buy of a particular brand and from a particular place does come from that particular place. I think it is even-stevens to make sure that if we have certainty from our end as a consumer they have certainty about the product that we are sending away as well.The Minister also made out the case for registration in that it lasts for 10 years. One issue that I think we will want some certainty and some clarity around in the select committee is how the registration system will work and to make sure—and I am sure that the wine industry will make a submission—that the system around payment and costs for running the registration system is fair and that it is not too onerous especially front-loading it when you register a geographic indication the first time. It gives them the ability to spread it over time to make sure we are not putting a massive burden on winegrowers and wine producers at the very beginning which would make it very difficult for them to I guess at the first instance make sense of that.Going back to some of the indications from my reading of some of the publications that came out when former Minister of Trade Tim Groser said that this piece of legislation would be introduced to the House they said that it would also prevent the use of indications such as “in the style of”. You will not be able to say “in the style of Marlborough” or “in the style of New Zealand” or “in the style of Hawke’s Bay” because I guess some producers could try to use that sneaky language to get out of that.I think that is tricky and sneaky and I think we have seen an example of that recently with “in the style of Eminem” “in the style of Coldplay”—the taking of someone else’s intellectual property and using it for your own benefit and calling it “pretty legal”. In this instance it will not be “pretty legal”; it will be illegal. To say that things are “in the style of Marlborough” or “in the style of Hawke’s Bay” will no longer be allowed. Maybe we could transfer that over to other areas and say well “in the style of Eminem” and “in the style of Coldplay” is not really fair either. So let us see whether we can get some agreement there as well.That aside there is massive potential here for our wine industry to use this as a selling point. I think there have been indications from those in the industry themselves that if we do not take this action with this piece of legislation there will be risks to our reputation and risks to our brand and it will prevent them from telling a story about wine that comes from their specific region or wine that has come from our country.Having a look at some of the media that came out when this piece of legislation was first mooted Blair Walter from Felton Road Wines was talking about his particular brand of Riesling. Again I think the Minister said that this was updating a piece of legislation that was passed in 2006. It has not been enacted yet so we are updating it to make it more modern. Mr Walter said that the rules were made years ago to protect the consumer to ensure that what they were getting was a good quality wine and he is right. But he said that nowadays as that wine producer it is almost becoming a trade barrier if we cannot guarantee that a wine is from a particular area. So I guess it makes this piece of legislation necessary to protect not only the brands and the consumers of New Zealand but also the potential trade earnings we can get from really really good wine that as I said at the beginning of my speech is heading overseas. I understand it was somewhere in the vicinity of $1.4 billion of exports for New Zealand wine to the year to September last year. That is a lot of money—and there is a lot more potentially that we can earn—and there is nothing to protect those potential earnings. This piece of legislation should be supported.