O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Like other speakers it gives me pleasure to rise to speak on this bill. Timing is everything. Just this week I spent several hours at the Taylor Preston freezing works not far from here. Those who do come to the city and think it's purely for those suit wearers should go just 10 minutes down the road and you will see a freezing works down there. It is a very efficient freezing works the biggest employer in the Ōhāriu electorate—export only. But the reason I bring this up is that I was given cause to reflect on when I worked in the Horotiu freezing works some years ago and the difference in the way food is treated. To be able to stand and walk the line and see the animal identification right through to the end compared to perhaps my time in a freezing works many years ago when we were scuttling around looking for ear tags to make sure we'd attached them to the right animal—I see just how far we have actually come.Who can forget the botulism scare. It was something that we hope was one of those little exercises we went through that did prepare us forced us to go back through our legislation. While it wasn't quite a clean bill of health certainly we found that our systems were in place but there were some improvements that could be made and I'll just look at some of those technical amendments. They are incredibly common sense and what they do is ensure that there will be cooperation through the industry and not only through the industry cooperation through New Zealand. We don't need reminding of just how important farming is to New Zealand. We don't need reminding to understand how we are all in this together and that if farmers get a cold the rest of the country gets pneumonia. Perhaps that might not be quite as accurate as it was in the past but certainly I am reminded to say that the employer that I spoke of the Taylor Preston freezing works was previously the biggest employer in Wellington but it's now been overtaken by Weta Workshop and the film industry which again just shows the diversification that's taking place in our economy. Nevertheless it is still an incredibly important part of our economy and far too important a part of our economy to play politics with. So we just do hope we won't get a repeat of what we saw from the Opposition in the last election: an attempt to open a divide between country and city in New Zealand for cheap political points. So what we have to do is make sure that we are cooperating.If we go to the technical amendments in this bill they are the sorts of amendments that actually look at addressing and they are about cooperation. One of the technical amendments was designed to align the relevant two-year limitation period for bringing criminal proceedings to allow for a four-year period as currently in the Food Act. Well who can forget the 1080 scare previously spoken about by one of the previous speakers? I have to commend my former colleagues. It took some time. I can't remember who the speaker was who quite accurately explained it and described it as looking for a needle in a haystack. But my former colleagues which I looked after did find that proverbial needle and the gentleman in question is now in Her Majesty's care—hopefully for some time. But the important thing there is the fact that we are looking at extending the period of bringing criminal proceedings and it just shows how important it is that we do find these people and that we provide the disincentive to carry on.But carrying along those technical amendments there's another there—and these are all from the departmental report from the Ministry for Primary Industries to the Primary Production Committee. It states: Allow that when taking compliance action compliance officers may rely on the reasonable belief of a superior officer or the Director-General when forming a reasonable belief". Well what we're really talking about there is making sure we've got the best people involved in this industry: people that we can actually trust; people that work together because we're giving them some reasonable powers there and they're taking that compliance action. So their senior officer their supervisor or the director-general who's making these decisions—we're actually giving some quite substantial power. Generally when a lot of those powers are given out there'll be some sort of judicial oversight so again—just an idea of how important this is to our economy.Another sector in there provides that "matters started by one compliance officer may be completed by another compliance officer". Again it's just common sense. It's just that we're in the middle—I know in the past having been involved in a possible foot-and-mouth outbreak in my younger days as a compliance officer just the full effort that is going to have to be put in to making sure that we isolate and we do what is necessary to give the reassurance. I hope we won't have to go as far as they did in Ireland when they had their foot-and-mouth outbreak when even Gaelic football was banned on Saturdays and the weekends to ensure that there was no chance of things moving around. I'm sure our rugby and netball and hockey courts will survive that.We also clarify—and this is an important one here another technical amendment—that "no 'right of review' exists in relation to a decision to suspend an export operation made by a person acting under delegated authority"—no "right of review" exists. Again this is a pretty heavy piece of legislation so I'm complimenting those that put that together and it's very important. Again it just shows how much cooperation there is going to need to be and that we should avoid any policies or any strategies that have the long-term effect of causing a divide between country and city because it's quite clear when you look through this that most of the people that are going to be required to help most of the people that are going to be required to be operationalised when this occurs if this occurs are going to be from the cities from the towns. So we need to be cooperating.Also one of the technical amendments is "the Director-General decides whether a review of a decision made under delegated authority is to be undertaken by a person designated by him or her". Again just another example of where we are empowering the right people and of course the director-general—that's the person who should have this sort of power. It's an operation that shouldn't have to go through 15 sets of hands because we will all know what that will mean: the old—dare I say it; I'm not sure we are allowed to say it—whispers shall we say that can change through the telling.Brett Hudson: Get ready Kieran. The greatest two minutes of your life Kieran.GREG O'CONNOR: Another proposed amendment is to "Clarify that where a person is designated by the Director-General to review"—I'm sorry do I really have two minutes left? But perhaps you'll get another chance with this: "Clarify that where a person is designated by the Director-General to review a decision made under delegated authority the decision made by that designated person is final". Again we come down to "I've made the decision I'm going to give this delegation the person underneath can make that as well." And also another amendment: "Clarify that the Food Act regulatory regime may apply in relation to a non-animal product business operating in the same premises as a dual operator butcher". Again this is forward thinking to make sure that we don't get that technicality that just because there's one business operating in there others can carry on. It is actually making sure that we have absolute faith that what we're trying to achieve we will achieve.Also there is an amendment to "Clarify that the Director-General may exempt exporters from certain requirements whether those requirements are specified by regulation or by notice". So again it's not an out clause but again making sure that business does have to go on through this. As I've looked at this bill I believe we have achieved the balance in terms of making sure that we have the power to do what needs to be done in any of these emergencies or at any time to protect our industry. This will protect particularly our generally rural industry although obviously this bill does of course amend the Food Act the Animal Products Act and the Wine Act. So it does actually cover—[Interruption] I'm not sure whether the Wine Act—that these things do all. So of the 34 recommendations of course they've all been taken up as was mentioned before. Those recommendations really clarify things to make sure that we can get what we want to achieve. I come back to the fact that we will need cooperation and the technical parts of this bill ensure that the cooperation that will be needed by all New Zealanders at every level can be achieved. Those that need to be empowered are empowered. So I commend this bill."