Bennett DavidFOOD SAFETY LAW REFORM BILLSecond ReadingHon DAVID BENNETT (Minister for Food Safety): I move That the Food Safety Law Reform Bill be now read a second time. The bill addresses the recommendations from the Government Inquiry into the Whey Protein Concentrate Contamination Incident which required legislative change. The bill was referred to the Primary Production Committee in August 2016 and was reported back to this House in December 2016. We sincerely thank the members of the Primary Production Committee and particularly the chair Ian McKelvie for their thorough consideration of this bill. We also acknowledge the valuable input from both written and oral submitters and the considerable support the bill received from key industry stakeholders.To recap a little of the history of this bill the Fonterra botulism scare had a major impact on New Zealand's food safety reputation both domestically and internationally. The Government accepted all 38 recommendations made by the whey protein concentrate (WPC) inquiry into this incident. Most of the inquiry's recommendations have been or are being implemented through operational means. The bill addresses that these recommendations need statutory change before they can be implemented.The bill amends the three main food safety Acts: the Food Act the Wine Act and the Animal Products Act so that improvements stipulated by the WPC inquiry and other enhancements can also be made across the food safety system. The main areas the bill amends relate to incident responses where we are making sure that the Ministry for Primary Industries can ask the people who provide services to food businesses for information during a serious food incident.We are also allowing privileged statements to inform as well as protect the public setting requirements for tracing and recalling foods and ensuring that the statutory role in contingency planning of the Ministry for Primary Industries is clear.There are risk management plans and programmes where we are requiring more information to be supplied when a programme is submitted for registration and we require that all food safety obligations are clearly identified in these programmes.There is harmonisation of enforcement tools. The tools in the new Food Act will now be available under the Animal Products Act and the Wine Act. This will mean that similar offending can be treated in a similar manner across the food system. There is the ability to make regulations in certain areas—for example to require any operators to get formal verification checks that they are meeting their obligations and to require testing of procedures for tracing and recalling food.There is the design of delegated legislation which then requires duplication so that the empowering provisions are set at the right level of delegation. This will mean that more of the obligations on operators will be set in regulations rather than notices.The bill also makes enhancements to the wider regime such as allowing for the use of automated electronic systems that will improve the efficiency of interactions with operators and overseas trading partners. Additionally the opportunity is taken to make some minor and technical amendments that generally tidy up and clarify some interpretive issues and help the entire system to function smoothly.The Primary Production Committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a few revisions. We support all the changes recommended by the committee. As recommended by the Regulations Review Committee the bill now has a fall-back date for two provisions that would have delayed commencement. This will ensure the regulations provided for in the bill will be made promptly within 2 years of the bill's enactment providing certainty for business about any new requirements in a timely manner.The Animal Products Act and the Wine Act allow regulations to provide an exemption from the payment of certain levies. This exemption can be used in situations when the levy to be charged would be unfair such as when a charging mistake had occurred.The Regulations Review Committee advised that expiry dates should be set for exemptions if possible. The Primary Production Committee therefore recommends that as a legal safeguard these two exemption clauses should be amended to set an expiry date of no later than 5 years from the granting of the exception.The WPC inquiry was concerned about the regulators' access to risk management information held by food business operators. Our policy to address this has several strands including removing the ability for operators to supply only an outline of their risk management plans and programmes to the regulator for registration. Another part of the policy was to require operators to send full copies of their plans and all amendments to their verifiers. Verifiers would be required to store these so that there would always be in immediate access to the most up-to-date version of the programme. However industry submitters were concerned at the likely compliance costs for operators for this requirement. There was also concern about verification agencies having to hold and store up-to-date versions of the plans and programmes because this would generate costs for example in IT systems that would likely be passed on to operators.The Primary Production Committee recommended removing these requirements because it considered the food safety benefits would not justify the probable compliance costs. The law currently requires operators to supply full plans and programmes to the Ministry for Primary Industries within 48 hours on request and we consider this as an adequate source of information that is available quickly when needed. These provisions in the original bill have now been removed. However other provisions relating to improving access to risk management information remain in the bill. Coupled with existing law we are confident that these improvements will address the issue the WPC inquiry considered.The bill amends some additional regulation-making powers—for example to regulations to set traceability requirements. The Primary Production Committee recommends for the avoidance of doubt that the bill clarifies that consultation must occur on all proposed regulations and supplementary notices under the new powers. We agree and this change has also been made.These and other minor and technical amendments agreed by the committee reflect a balanced and careful consideration of the range of comments received from submitters and enhance the bill. I commend the Food Safety Law Reform Bill to the House.