Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Thank you Madam Chair kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. I want to pick up on some of the points we've heard in the debate and I want to start with the last comment by Kiritapu Allan which was around the courts and how some of these tricky questions of definition—where the line is drawn what's in and what's out—are dealt with. Now this goes back to the original point which is why it's such a pragmatic step to use the Fair Trading Act as the model or the template and using the existing infrastructure offences and regulation-making powers rather than a bespoke system. This is something that was proposed in the original bill and you would have had to decide the specific exemptions a specific regime and how you'd deal with those different issues. The member Dr Deborah Russell talked about the Avondale market and my message to those people who go to the Avondale market is that this bill isn't going to require each fruit and each food product sold at that market to have an individual label. What we worked through with the officials was that as quite commonly frequently happens—say you've got a big crate full of fruit sold at the market. You can just put on the side of the crate Product of Gisborne New Zealand." for example for mandarins or oranges. So that would be sufficient to provide greater certainty. This is where clause 5(4) comes in around trying to make it a pragmatic workable regime that isn't onerous because what we don't want to do is put a whole bunch of costs on to retailers or food providers which ultimately of course are simply going to flow through to consumers. So we've canvassed the very specific example of a roadside stall. It's pretty apparent where the food's coming from when you see the farm or the orchard literally as you pull up in the car and buy the food. I would point out a protection though which is that if that vendor is fraudulently selling produce from other countries and pretending that it's from New Zealand existing complaint provisions under the Fair Trading Act could apply. Another example where foods may be considered more onerous is coffee. Here you regularly see beans from multiple countries imported in New Zealand dried together and sold as a product. They're medium or dark roast for example and it's not actually listed as to whether they're from Mexico or Ghana or Nicaragua. This was a very clear example that was canvassed in the select committee and that I imagine the Minister would make in regulations; one of those foods which is excluded. Now why it's important to have foods in of course is that consumers at the Avondale market might want to know why they're buying products. It could be for worker rules in that country or because of their genetic engineering policy. It could be because of their policy on antibiotics or the environment. There are multiple reasons why consumers need that information. At a roadside stall less so but if you're talking about the Avondale market or if you're talking about a Countdown or a Foodstuffs it's quite important that consumers can actually have the power and the information so that they can exercise it. We heard a question from the member Kieran McAnulty about frozen foods—why is there a differential time? Now why the committee agreed for a greater length of period for frozen foods to come into this regime—18 months—is because of the packaging rules. It simply takes a lot longer to change the packaging on frozen foods which can sit in a supermarket or other store freezer for an awfully long time. We wanted to find a pragmatic workable solution that gave them more than enough time to work with this regime. This touches on the issue of cost which I know some National members on the committee were concerned about. Now we had two rounds of submissions and on the second round we specifically asked some retailers about the issue of costs of foods. What we heard was actually two very divergent estimates from some of our largest retailers in New Zealand. On one side there was the argument that large IT infrastructure costs would flow through in the order of millions of dollars and on the other side there was virtually zero cost because with existing IT infrastructure and labelling rules in supermarkets—noting that many supermarkets already do try and encourage country-of-origin labelling as much as possible—there would be zero cost at all. Even at that greatest cost estimate which I think was—well I know the member Stuart Smith on the committee picked this up with his background with wine and other food retailing. It was probably a little bit on the overgenerous side. Still in terms of the average consumer in New Zealand we're talking literally cents on the impact. What they gain of course is the consumer power to exercise that power which they couldn't have if they didn't have the information. So that's the answer as to why frozen food has a differential time period—we were trying to make it more workable. Thirdly when it comes to the issue of nuts grains and seeds this is something that would have been covered under Steffan Browning's original proposal as a clearly single-component food but actually it's a lot more complicated than that because obviously nuts are roasted they're blanched and often seasonings or other products are put on nuts. So the question is—and National members didn't want to see this included in the bill because the Minister through regulation-making powers under section 27 of the Fair Trading Act can actually have a much more involved consultation with food providers or retailers than was possible for a member and the Primary Production Committee. So we may see nuts in this regime. The issue of course with say wheat—which is another example very similar—is that often wheats grown in various countries are milled together so it's very difficult to find the actual origin for it. So if we simply exclude it at this point it doesn't exclude it at the end product but it does give the country more time to consult and actually hear from people so that we can find this workable regime. Pork though was the key standout and I'm very pleased that all parties supported its inclusion back in. Here was a clear case where consumers were demanding information. We—Hon Christopher Finlayson: I'm kosher so it's irrelevant to me. GARETH HUGHES: Ah we have a kosher member in the committee but do you know where your pork comes from the Hon Chris Finlayson because when I look at the label—Rt Hon David Carter: It's probably come from a pig. GARETH HUGHES: "From a pig" David Carter says. But you wouldn't know if that pig came from Mexico or Scandinavia or the Wairarapa and for those consumers that want to know where their pig products came from they will actually get that choice. So thank you very much for the questions. I'm glad I was able to talk about them. I did touch on penalties in an earlier call but for clarification's sake the penalties—$10000 for an individual and $50000 for a corporate offence—are similar to the existing Fair Trading Act provisions. What we didn't want was something far out of whack with the existing rules. This way all consumers and all retailers can have certainty that a fair regime will apply to them. I'm not anticipating we're going to see great offences. I think we have a very honest retailing sector in New Zealand. But where we do see egregious breaches—and I hope we don't see them—we do have a clear penalty a clear offence that can make sure that this regime actually has teeth."