Groser Tim: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination IncidentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGroser Tim: Urgent Debates — Dairy Products Whey Protein—Response to Contamination Incident[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12337. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade):First of all I would just like to acknowledge to my colleague Mr Cosgrove that I have taken very careful note of your constructive suggestions. You will understand that I cannot go beyond that. I think all of us understand that there is a very high degree of unanimity in this House on this matter and I think that it has got certain common elements to it. The first and most important common element coming through clearly from all of the leaders’ speeches and subsequent comments that we have just heard in this snap debate is a deep concern for the very very young children who could be affected. Thank God we have not heard reports of that so far. Also so closely associated with that is deep concern for their parents their caregivers their grandparents their relatives and all of these people who worry about these little people because of the intense emotional bond that you feel to one of your own at that age.Rather than talk about this in generalities I would like to talk about it specifically. I do not know whether members noticed but half an hour ago I was in the visitors gallery with two of my own little mokopuna Lucia and Sophia—reflecting the Italian heritage of part of my wider family. They are visiting me their grandpa from Hong Kong. The elder little girl was about 8 months old when the disaster in 2008 occurred over milk poisoning and I had just been appointed informally Minister of Trade to replace my parliamentary colleague Phil Goff and was sent on a plane to the APEC leaders meeting. At that stage we did not know whether it was New Zealand milk. We did not know what the cause of it was. Just before I got on the plane my daughter-in-law who was also up there half an hour ago rang me and said: “Congratulations on becoming a Minister. Now you are the Minister of Trade you’ve got to do something about this because I can’t find infant formula for your granddaughter.”—who was the child up there.So I went to make an appointment with the Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming who would also be very well-known to Mr Goff and at the end of this discussion in which neither of us really knew what was going on other that dozens of babies in China were going to hospital with renal failure for reasons that neither of us really knew at the time I told him this story in slightly more diplomatic terms. And he paused and he said: “This is extraordinary because I have just received the same phone call about one of my granddaughters.” It is moments like that when you realise howcompletely trivial positions are and that at the end of the day human beings are speaking to human beings across cultures with exactly the same concerns.Members will appreciate that I have tried to do what I can for the parents and caregivers of children in China today. I have been speaking to China Central Television one of the main Chinese television channels trying to convey our sympathy and understanding for the uncertainties of the situation they are in. But I do think we should acknowledge that this is a very testing time for the caregivers of these children. As I say thank God we have not heard of any illness so far but for technical reasons that I do not really have time to go into you should not read too much optimism into that statement because of the delays that can occur under certain clinical conditions.I do appreciate that members outside a small group of Ministers—well not that small; eight Ministers are involved in this—have not been briefed properly by us for the reasons that Mr Cosgrove was alluding to fully understanding the need for priorities here. But one thing that I can put to rest immediately is that the Director-General of Health and his senior officials have been intimately involved in this. The front face in terms of the media has been the Director-General but I can assure members that the Ministry of Health is deeply involved and I personally heard the Director-General in one of our teleconferences at least once with his technical advisers talking about the health aspects of this. This will slowly emerge as we are able to have more time to brief people more fully on these issues.In the very brief time that I have left just let me assure members that in terms of my part in this puzzle I will leave no stone unturned to try to both deal with the immediate human concerns of our customers and then contain the economic damage to our country for all the reasons that are stunningly obvious. Just to make one final concluding comment I am optimistic that with the proud record of this country—we are a small but sophisticated country—we will find our way through. Thank you.