Mackey Moana: Motions — Food Standards—Folic Acid in Bread 
Mackey Moana: Motions — Food Standards—Folic Acid in Bread 
[Volume:667;Page:14342] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That this House disallow the New Zealand (Mandatory Fortification of Bread with Folic Acid) Amendment Food Standard 2009 
. It was after a lot of soul-searching and consultation with my colleagues that we decided to take the unusual step of bringing a Regulations Review Committee report to this House and using a motion to disallow a mandatory standard. 
I would like to give a brief background. In May 2004 the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council asked Food Standards Australia New Zealand to investigate the mandatory folic acid fortification of bread to prevent neural tube defects. Under a Labour Government it took 3 years to complete consultation including two rounds of extensive public consultation. On 18 September 2007—as I said 3 years later—the Hon Annette King the Minister for Food Safety issued the 2007 food standard. 
In 2008 there was a change of Government and the Hon Kate Wilkinson was appointed as the Minister for Food Safety. She made public statements that she did not support mandatory fortification but that due to trans-Tasman food standards her hands were tied and she was unable to make any changes. Following a discussion with her Australian counterpart the Minister was advised that Australia was comfortable with New Zealand taking its own course on the matter so on 22 July 2009 the New Zealand Food Safety Authority issued a paper under the Minister’s direction. Submissions responding to that discussion paper were due back a mere 3 weeks later. 
One week after that the Minister was briefed on the outcome of the consultation period and I add here that the overview of the submissions noted that 61 preferred the status quo option 42 preferred the option the Minister went with which was revocation and 19 preferred an option of delaying the commencement of mandatory fortification. Six days later Minister Wilkinson issued the 2009 amendment food standard. Members will note that the process took just over 1 month from start to finish. 
On 11 February 2010 the Regulations Review Committee received a complaint from the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders. In August of the same year the Regulations Review Committee reported back to this House. Labour members on that committee took the unusual step of putting in a minority report marking and recording our concerns about the consultation process followed by the Minister for Food Safety. Submitters to the Regulations Review Committee made the point that that select committee is the last bastion of protection for groups who want to challenge a regulation made by a Government. 
I firmly believe that genuine consultation should be just that and on an issue as serious and important as this I do not see how it is appropriate to follow a process that took merely 1 month during which time submitters were forced to rush. Officials told the Regulations Review Committee that they were under enormous pressure that they could have done a better job if they had had more time and that they had to take extreme measures in order to report back within the Minister’s time frame. I do not believe that any member of this House should say that that is an adequate process to be followed or that it represents genuine consultation. 
I acknowledge the officials because they did the best they could in extremely difficult circumstances. We have taken the unusual step of bringing this issue to the House because we believe that a line has been stepped over and that the concept of genuine consultation is under threat in this House. 
There are many reasons why this regulation should be disallowed and I say up front that I have always been naturally wary of issues such as mandatory fortification. It is not something that I am particularly comfortable with off the bat but I strongly believe that these decisions should be evidence-based. After being challenged to review the research on folate fortification by someone who had had a stillborn child due to folate deficiency I became convinced that it is the right thing to do. 
I know that this issue inflames passions and opinions and I respect everyone’s views but I was disappointed at the one-sided nature of the debate. Medical professionals including the Paediatric Society and families living with the reality of neural tube defects tried to inject some balance but they were drowned out by those with more political clout and more money. Folate is a naturally occurring B vitamin also known as folic acid or vitamin B9. It helps our bodies make new cells and it helps prevent anaemia. Although it is particularly important for pregnant women in fact everyone needs it. This is not something that men should be scared about having in their diet—well not if they want their cells to divide. 
The campaign to fortify bread has been going for more than 20 years and it has significant research evidence backing it with 57 countries already having mandatory folate fortification. Wheat naturally contains folate but it is stripped out when we unnaturally process it into flour. Rather than mass medication as it has been labelled by opponents fortification merely replenishes a natural nutrient that has been lost during processing. In that respect this debate is different from other arguments about mandatory fortification and I ask members to remember that consumers would still have been able to purchase non-fortified organic bread. 
A diet low in folate during conception and early pregnancy means an unborn child’s nervous system may not develop the most common outcome being spina bifida. Opponents argue that pregnant women can simply be educated to take supplements but most pregnancies are not planned and many women do not realise they are pregnant until the crucial period of organ development has already taken place. That explains why research shows educational campaigns have little effect. 
Statistics have shown a drop in the number of infants born with spina bifida but the reason for that drop is that almost all women now have mid-pregnancy ultrasounds which can diagnose spina bifida and the majority of those women choose termination of pregnancy. 
Opponents mischievously claim that women must eat 11 slices of bread a day to get any benefit. That would be true only if we ate nothing but bread. Folate is found in breakfast cereals orange juice green vegetables eggs fruit and yoghurt yet most women still consume only about 200 micrograms of folate a day well below the recommended minimum 400 micrograms. Folic acid fortification of bread would likely add a maximum 140 micrograms which is still below recommendations for some but enough to minimise the likelihood of a baby being born with a congenital abnormality. 
Concerns about the health impacts of folate are not borne out by the evidence. The World Health Organization said our planned levels of fortification had shown no evidence of negative health effects and all recent studies regarding cancer risks did not look at flour fortification but at high-dose folate supplements which is what the Minister is telling women they should take instead of mandatory fortification. 
Even the Prime Minister’s much touted Chief Science Adviser—who was appointed apparently to ensure that good science is paramount in Government decisions—said there would be about a two-third reduction in neural tube defects without significantly elevating folate levels beyond the norm in anybody. He condemned the scaremongering by various interest groups and the media saying that there was no risk to human health and that “there is some laboratory evidence that chronic use in doses 20 to 50 times what we’re talking about might do harm.” 
The latest UK research has also shown no risk to health with any delays in legislation occurring because of decisions about whether to fortify just bread or all flour. Claims that studies show that folic acid causes prostate cancer in humans are also not true. The study referred to involved dosing rats with extreme levels of folic acid—levels humans would never consume. 
In terms of cost fortification in the United States added 25c to the cost of bread per person per year which is minimal when we consider the enormous lifetime cost of care for children with these conditions—$400000 per child per year. But the most compelling arguments come from the Coalition of Parents of Children with Spina Bifida. It has long been my experience that parents of children with any kind of medical condition quickly become some of the most informed and up-to-date experts on the topic. The coalition points out that opposition to fortification in New Zealand is about money not food safety. It says that the bakers’ association which led the opposition has agreed to fortification many times during face-to-face meetings over 10 years as has the National Party. The coalition’s plea to Government is this: “We don’t have the Bakers budget of thousands of dollars to fight this. We do know this programme is soundly based on quality research full consultation international support and many hours of taxpayer and volunteer dollars over the past 20 years.” 
The Labour members of the Regulations Review Committee believe that the coalition’s voice deserves to be heard. We believe that the coalition deserved a genuine process not a rubber-stamping exercise at the select committee. I see Minister Wilkinson frowning at me; she could have turned up to the select committee to defend the decision that she made but she chose not to. This is one of the reasons that we have had to bring this issue to the House. We did not want to do that; this is an unusual step. 
The Regulations Review Committee members work very well together. It is a consensus committee and it is unfortunate that on this one issue we were unable to come to an agreement that the process followed here was horribly inadequate. It was insulting—the Minister can laugh but it was insulting to all those who live with this issue every single day of their lives. The Minister could have done better; she could simply have extended the consultation period and had proper consultation. She had a number of possibilities available to her but she chose none of those possibilities. It is a shameful and sorry day for this House.