Warren-Clark AngieANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a real pleasure to stand and speak on this bill. I got to speak in the first reading of this bill and as a result of that I was very fortunate in that BLOOMZ New Zealand came to see me and speak to me about the bill itself because obviously when we sit in the House sometimes we get bills that we don't know very much about. So I'd just like to do a wee shout-out to Louisa and Andy from BLOOMZ New Zealand who are a local Tauranga business who came and spent a good hour two hours talking to me about why this bill is so very important to a very particular niche community. So a wee shout-out to them. I'm sure they will be watching because in fact they watched the first reading which is often missed by a lot of people. So first and foremost thank you. So it was not tongue in cheek to Minister David Clark that I actually did get up and say that I was really happy to speak on this bill because I found it fascinating. I literally found this bill to be fascinating. It has so many facets and applications across so many areas in our community that actually while it is quite a big piece of legislation there are so many things to talk about around this bill. First and foremost I do want to just acknowledge the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the Hon Dr David Clark for getting this bill to the place that it is in and Jamie Strange and the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. So there are only five members on that select committee and we've heard from Naisi Chen and Jamie Strange from our side who are on that committee. Their contributions I think were so much easier and enjoyable because they were actually sitting there in the process. So there were I understand 38 submissions and 20 of those were oral submissions and I imagine they were quite in-depth because this is a group of really passionate fascinating people. So we're here talking about the Plant Variety Rights Bill which replaces the Plant Variety Rights Act of 1987 and what we know is this is about the intellectual property rights granted to breeders for plant varieties. Now I live in the beautiful Bay of Plenty the home of the kiwifruit and the home of the avocado so this is an incredibly important aspect for our community because we are in fact the beneficiaries in our community of an amazing amount of industry export that actually really keeps our community going. So what we do know is that there was $3.96 billion in fiscal 2021 in regards to kiwifruit. It was a record year last year and it looks like SunGold and green and red are in fact again going to smash that last year. So it's really important for our community. We have this reputation in the world for high-quality safe food we have excellent growing systems—I'd like to talk a little bit about eliminating food waste but I will do that another time—and we have lots of novel products. So this is one of those pieces of legislation that really improves things. The previous Act was aligned with the UPOV-78 convention. So everyone has said it but I will say it again: it is the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants—UPOV. This bill basically moves everything forward into the 1991 convention which is the most common convention. We've heard from a lot of people and I'd just like to acknowledge my colleague Rachel Brooking who talked with some real authority about the Tiriti of Waitangi areas of this bill and how Wai 262 has been applied. So I don't actually want to talk on that particular aspect—I think that's a really fascinating aspect and I think we've got the balance right there. Nevertheless I would like to talk about a couple of other things that haven't been raised today and this is from my background of geese farming when I grew up and also from my mother who is a gardener. One of the things we know about gardeners is that they do cuttings and they do seeds and they do swapping and they do those kinds of things. Now this bill doesn't apply to those particular private gardeners but there is a very interesting test that does apply. It's the farm-saved seed exception and I want to talk about that because this is one of those things we know that our farmers are doing out there. So a farmer grows a crop she harvests that crop she collects the seeds the seeds get kept over that winter period or over a period and then it's used to be sown again the next year. Now there is a limited life in how long that can last or how long that can happen but nevertheless there is a carve-out here: an exception that actually allows people to grow crops and gather the seed and keep the seed. What the exception makes very clear—and I think this is very sensible—is that you can't then onsell that seed. You cannot take away the right of the licence owner to do that but you can in fact do your normal planting growing and yield processes and I think that that's a really useful practical application. So I'd also like to in the last three minutes—gosh I could talk on this for a bit more than that. I remember when BLOOMZ New Zealand came to talk to me and they were a little bit concerned about the loss of the Plant Variety Rights Office. So the reason they were concerned about that is that essentially that was the place that everyone knew where to go. So the rights office was going to be closed down and it was of concern to them—and a concern obviously in the submissions that we saw—that this was going to happen. It's a very small little area within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. It's a unit within not information technology—I've lost the word—but it's a very small little unit and this bill is actually saying that we don't need to get rid of it. We don't need to get rid of this expert little area where we can actually go and we know we can lodge everything and we know what we can do. So that is being kept as well. Look like I said I found this bill quite fascinating and I've really enjoyed speaking on it. I appreciate the work and the submissions and thanks to the Minister for bringing it to the House as well. I think my time is probably up but I commend this bill to the House.