Webb Duncan; Rurawhe AdrianDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Now it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill because it really is time that we beefed up this area of the law. It's very important that people do have an ability to know exactly where their food comes from and I congratulate Gareth Hughes for having this bill progress through the House. He does look somewhat like the cat that got the cream.The way food is produced is very very important and whilst there's room for improvement in New Zealand—and I know Minister O'Connor is doing that—we have some of the highest-quality food production standards and animal welfare standards in the world. So if you are buying New Zealand pork you know that it has met minimum welfare standards minimum hygiene standards minimum packaging standards and so on and so forth. Those standards simply don't necessarily exist in other countries so that's simply one reason why this is such an important bill. It hasn't yet expanded to some of the more complex products—the products that include multiple ingredients—in a substantial way but it is clear and the bill itself makes clear that it's open to the Minister to expand it in that way. So hopefully the Minister won't simply cherry-pick the odd product here and there but will have a much more comprehensive approach to regulation of country of origin.As I said it is very important and the fact of the matter is that for some of our foods in particular country of origin is a quality mark. Where something comes from tells you something about those goods. Apricots are a good example: without wanting to disparage Turkish apricots we know that New Zealand apricots and Central Otago apricots are a different product altogether to some of those apricots from overseas. And so when we go to the shops we don't want to simply know they're dried apricots; we want to know exactly where they come from because it's a different quality. It's a different item and as Stuart Smith was saying location is part of the product and in some ways part of the brand. He mentioned French wines and Dutch cheeses that he might be familiar with; I'm more familiar with South Island lamb myself which we know is the best lamb in the world. When you come to New Zealand and you look at it you see it there you know that it's New Zealand lamb and what's more hopefully South Island lamb. Here in New Zealand it's going to be better than any other lamb there can be. And of course we are a bit behind the eight ball because many overseas jurisdictions are well ahead of us on this. We don't want to buy something that's as cheap as chips and think that it's a New Zealand product. We're usually happy to pay that little bit more for something which is a New Zealand product.Of course the other aspect of this is the fact that in New Zealand we can usually identify the food chain—the farm to plate idea. We know there's been security in it. We know that in terms of all of those standards it's met those standards whereas overseas food—and there was not that long ago an example of grapes having a venomous spider found in them. Now if they'd been marked as being from I think South America then at least you would have known that that was a possibility whereas here if you know they're New Zealand grapes you know they've got a full secure chain of supply including biosecurity. So sometimes the systems overseas clearly don't cut the mustard and you have to take their quality standards with a bit of a pinch of salt.So what's been done with this bill here is that we've really picked the low-hanging fruit by going for single-ingredient items but I do think the Minister will soon have an opportunity to go further than that. And also it's useful to have an ability to exclude some items because obviously you don't necessarily need to know the country of origin of a bag of lemons that you're buying on the side of a country road. You pretty much know where they've come from and other items. I see fundraisers are excluded as well so your raffle down at the pub.Kieran McAnulty: What about a National Party fund-raisers?Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Yeah even the odd bottle of high-quality wine at a National Party fund-raiser—you probably don't have to label that because sometimes it will be unduly onerous to label those foods. It's important to note of course that you don't have to mark everything; you don't have to put a sticker on every apple. It's going to be enough simply if you put next to the price of the apples a sign there.It's an interesting piece of legislation in some ways because the Minister is essentially instructed to make these regulations and then the legislation expires within 18 months and I must say it was the first time that I'd seen a sunset clause quite of that nature where the Act is repealed 18 months after its commencement but that's the mandate—that's the indication to the Minister that the regulations have to be in place by that time. But it's an absolutely appropriate thing to do and I do think that this is the first step of a journey to improve our country-of-origin labelling so that people will know where their food comes from. We do have this broad ability to regulate anyway under the Fair Trading Act. I myself have been involved in litigation involving country of origin and at the moment it's simply not clear to people what those rules are. So even when you do put a made in New Zealand" sticker on something—because it is a quality sticker—what we need is good guidance so that people know not only exactly when they can do that but also when they must do that.Now I hope that that guidance will be expanded so that when people are putting that "made in New Zealand" sticker on a packet of biscuits or a tin of goat's milk or whatever it might be they know exactly the kind of composition—that it doesn't have to be 100 percent made in New Zealand perhaps but at least predominantly made in New Zealand. And of course it's not just a manufacturing process; a lot of this stuff is simply grown in New Zealand or sourced in New Zealand or fished in New Zealand and so on and so forth. So those kinds of thing are going to be important as well.There's a lot of food for thought in there and it's good to see that the National Party has come on board and has made a workable piece of legislation. There are no sour grapes there and we're not playing any pork-barrel politics but rather we're just getting on side with it and actually making something that is going to work. It is really a value proposition and it's great for New Zealand producers that they can now expect on these items not only to put their own sticker on their own food or whatever it might be saying that it's made in New Zealand but to not be at that disadvantage where someone thinks that the pork or the apples or whatever it might be are also sourced in New Zealand and that information isn't given clearly and accurately.When you think about it it's not that hard. Consumers do have a right to know. And look in many cases consumers can find out but it's so difficult. So what we have here is the ability of the Minister to say "Yes you've got to label these foods and here's how you do it." You do it prominently you do it accurately and if you look at the Australian framework I think there's plenty to be learned from there where the ACCC I think it is has given a pretty good indication of how you might go about it including a nice little bar that tells you what kind of proportion of the goods is made in Australia. Now we don't have to do that here because it's mainly single ingredient goods but when we do come to look at multi-ingredient goods to know that it's 75 percent New Zealand ingredients is a really helpful thing to know.So if you're a New Zealand producer now the world really is your oyster. You can get out there. You can make sure that your goods are properly compared—that people aren't under some misapprehension; that they're not thinking they're buying one thing and then they're not. They can compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges.Kiritapu Allan: That's right.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Exactly—actually and literally. So that's a really good thing. So look I really commend this bill to the House because it is a real leap forward for consumers in New Zealand. At last they can look at something know what it is and purchase something with full information.David Seymour: Thirty seconds. The member can do it! A few more thoughts?Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Mr Seymour there don't look at me like that. I know you're a bit sour about this but don't worry about it.David Seymour: About what?Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Don't go nuts. Just hold your noodle. But this is a good piece of legislation and I commend it to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Are you seeking the call Mr Scott?Alastair Scott: I am.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Alastair Scott."