Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Madam Chairperson Williams it is with great pleasure that I stand to support this bill on behalf of New Zealand First. It is also good to be participating in democracy and I note the lay down misère over the other side of the Chamber. This is an important bill and deserves important scrutiny from this committee. With all due respect to the debate that we have had just previously this is not debating the relevance of the fax machine; this is debating some of the most important issues around the food safety and sustainability of the New Zealand economy.This bill as my colleague Rino Tirikatene has just pointed out is a result of the independent Government inquiry into the false botulism scare the whey protein. This was a shot across the bows of New Zealand's food safety regulations and systems and it was good that it turned out to be a false scare but it was one that we have to take the opportunity to look at and see if our systems are in fact robust and fit for purpose. That was a very very expensive exercise. I note Danone—$183 million in costs they have got off Fonterra. That is probably only the tip of the iceberg when we look at a lot of the other issues that would have flowed from that.This is to better align the current standards and regulations under our three main food Acts as has been pointed out—the Animal Products Act 1999 the Food Act 2014 and the Wine Act 2003. This is an imperative that we protect the reputation of New Zealand's food producers and exporters with the twin pillars of biosecurity and food safety—and I note the new Minister putting extra scrutiny over both of those twin pillars—and that is welcome in this 52nd Parliament. It is imperative that we have world's best practice and gold standard and particularly as I note as we face new competition from alternative synthetic proteins that doesn't allow us to rest on our laurels in any way shape or form.This is really important for New Zealand in the sense that we are the only agrarian First World economy in the world—Matt King: We agree. Let's vote.MARK PATTERSON: And it will affect Northland Mr King. You may make light of this but it will affect Northland. Northland is an agrarian economy. This will be very very important for Northland.Let's look at the things we are doing: the free fees first-year free fees—and we've just heard today that that is going to be extended to trades for a second year—extending paid parental leave regional development and our billion-dollar fund and our billion-tree strategy which will vitalise the regions like Northland.The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Order! [Interruption] Order! Could we come back to the bill.MARK PATTERSON: All this Madam Chairperson is possible only because we have a food industry—a $6.5 billion horticulture industry $8.5 billion of red meats $17.5 billion in our dairy sector. We cannot afford to trifle with this particular sector and that's only the big ones; there are plenty more. So we need to improve these programmes and food safety regulations through this legislation. Exporters—and when we need to empower the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to be able to act in a more effective and timely manner.We need more robust traceability—so we need a lot of the things that have been brought forward in this bill. The mock recalls for example are things that are already standard practice within our large exporters. Our customers are demanding it so it's just regulation actually catching up with what is already being demanded and tidying some of this up.MPI I note are not going to enforce duplication. They are going to respect some of these practices that are already there so there are some good pragmatic things already there. New Zealand First did have some concerns around the effect on artisan food producers. We have talked with officials who have given us some reassurance that those things have been covered. So we look forward to progressing this bill.