Chadwick Steve: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I felt compelled to take a call after hearing Tau Henare interjecting across the Chamber. This was his moment to rise and take a call on what is an important bill. It is an important bill and I would have thought that the member would stand up and talk about the Toi Iho brand and about the counterfeiting of Maori products that we are seeing infiltrating into the market. 
This bill gives the powers of enforcement to the Ministry of Economic Development the Customs Service and the Police and strengthens their powers. The member opposite should be fighting to say that these powers are absolutely significant for us. This bill is incredibly important but of course Mr Henare belongs to a Government that as one of its first moves when it came into Government said that the Toi Iho brand was no longer significant—and that is the brand that marks genuine Maori product. 
The Government cut funding in its first Budget for maintaining and spreading the marketing of the value of the brand of Toi Iho. We in Labour stood up and said that the Ministry of Economic Development must have strengthened capacity to sell that brand so that we could pick up counterfeit models. We shamed the Government into bringing back the Toi Iho brand and saving it in time for our incredibly important cultural products in New Zealand. 
There is another aspect to this bill that will give protection to the departments and I am pleased they have these reinforced powers and that we have some alignment across the ministries. In Rotorua we have been particularly concerned that products are being brought into the country from offshore and sold as pounamu. We would like to see stronger enforcement on that because we in New Zealand are very proud of our greenstone our pounamu and we are not happy when we see cheaper products coming into the market—having copied our taonga—and being sold in our souvenir shops as genuine New Zealand souvenirs and artefacts. That is a very important aspect of this Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. Tau Henare has gone very quiet now because he realises that he could have been constructive in this debate. 
Part 1 is a very significant part and it is about strengthening those powers. Goodness me we need more of them. Our officers will not be rushing through retail outlets and saying that they will ping this or that person. It is about the public eyes and ears bringing to the attention of customs officers police and Ministry of Economic Development officials that there is an influx of product that is causing us concern. As a small island country we should be supporting our own manufacturers and our own products for export to international markets. 
This is a very good bill. I congratulate Judith Tizard on bringing in the bill. She understands the value of New Zealand’s products and that is one reason why she brought in this bill. The problem that we have— 
Hon David Carter 
: Who is she? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: We should not take lightly the issue of counterfeit goods. I have travelled overseas with the member who is laughing opposite and we all rather enjoyed seeing the “Gucci” sunglasses that were not Gucci sunglasses. I think the member knows what I am talking about. Those are the sorts of cheap products that we do not want to come into our country and clutter the market when we are trying to encourage our own producers of exports to produce products that are second to none to sell on the world stage. 
Unfortunately it has taken too long for this bill to get to the Committee stage. It is one that is very significant and important for New Zealand as we are trying to strengthen our role as a trading partner on the world stage. I congratulate the members of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee on getting the bill back to the House and we are able to have the Committee stage today.