Browning SteffanCONSUMERS' RIGHT TO KNOW (COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF FOOD) BILLFirst ReadingSTEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I move That the Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. This bill has a simple premise: consumers want and deserve to know where their food comes from. The purpose of this bill is to enshrine in law consumers' right to know the country from which the food they are purchasing originated so that they can make informed purchasing decisions. The purpose is for a simple mandatory labelling system in New Zealand that provides accurate information about the country of origin of single-component foods. Single-component foods means food or food products either packaged or unpackaged that contain only one fruit vegetable meat seafood nut grain seed or oil although these may contain water sugar or its substitutes salt or other ingredients used for preserving colouring and flavouring. This is a very simple very straightforward country-of-origin labelling (COOL) bill. Country of origin means the country in which food is grown harvested or produced. Examples would include mangoes beans zucchinis capsicum loose Australian tomatoes canned Italian tomatoes frozen berries from China nuts from the Middle East or the USA—or Canadian or Australian—bulk flour oats canola oil pork and prawns from Thailand or Australia. The list goes on and consumers want to know.This bill will deliver choice to consumers on single-component foods such as these. Mandatory country-of-origin labelling will guarantee accurate and consistent labels consistently applied across all food outlets and levelling the playing field rather than the variably applied voluntary system. The bill makes the standard to ensure that unscrupulous or sloppy operators do not provide consumers false or misleading information.Ministry of Justice legal advice concludes that the bill appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The analysis pointed out that mandatory country-of-origin labelling avoids consumers assuming in the absence of such information that such food has been produced in New Zealand. It went on to say in consideration of section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act: This will allow consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions which is a sufficiently important objective. The Bill extends to food products the current regime of country of manufacture labelling applying to clothing and footwear for sale. That Consumer Information Standard (Country of Origin) Regulations 1992 set out specific rules that require all new clothing or footwear for sale in New Zealand to be labelled with information that clearly states the country where the items were made or produced." The analysis also says: "We are satisfied that the potential limits on freedom of expression in the Bill are justified in terms of s 5 of the Bill of Rights Act as they are rationally and proportionately connected to this objective. A mandatory regime of country of origin labelling avoids retailers and manufacturers using country of origin labels as a marketing tool displaying labels only when it is in their interests to do so and is consistent with 47 other countries (including most of New Zealand's trading partners) that have mandatory regimes." I note that Australian consumers have enjoyed mandatory country-of-origin labelling for a considerable time. In 2005—12 years ago—New Zealand opted out of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code that made COOL mandatory but now in 2017 it is well recognised that it time to give New Zealand consumers the choice they want and deserve. In 2014 Russell McVeagh reported that a recent consumer survey found that 35 percent of New Zealanders then always or often considered a New Zealand made product first and more than 50 percent were prepared to pay a bit more for it. In this case they will not have to pay very much at all for it. Also in 2014 the seafood industry in a document entitled Country of origin labelling and the New Zealand seafood industry showed that most New Zealanders said they would support COOL—or country-of-origin labelling. Fifty-three percent wanted more on their labels and 42 percent wanted more country-of-origin labelling and manufacturer information.Recently Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand Inc. reported a poll of more than a thousand people. They found that now 71 percent of those polled wanted mandatory country-of-origin labelling and only 9 percent were opposed to it—just 9 percent were opposed. In 2007 the Green Party had a 39000-strong petition calling for mandatory country-of-origin labelling. In another capacity before I was here while attending the then New Zealand Food Safety Authority's consumer forum I recall that that very very diverse representation of New Zealand consumers all wanted mandatory country-of-origin labelling. Clearly they still do.Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand's 2017 poll showed that seven out of 10 Kiwis want mandatory country-of-origin labelling. They say 65 percent of shoppers look for labelling information on fresh fruit but less than a third always find it. Just 32 percent always find labelling information when they are looking for it and even fewer—just 29 percent—find it when looking at vegetables. New Zealanders deserve to know where their food comes from and they want to. They want to know. They want food they can trust. They want labels they can trust.The New Zealand Pork Industry Board (NZPork) reports that imported pork now accounts for 60 percent of New Zealanders' consumption of pig meat. That would be a great surprise to many New Zealanders. We do not see labels "Pork—product of Canada" "Pork—product of Australia" or "Pork—product of China" or wherever. We are lucky if we see some that say "Product of New Zealand". But consumers deserve and want to know where their food comes from. NZPork's research shows that New Zealanders expect that the meat they would buy in New Zealand is from animals born and raised here. If not they expect to be told. We also know that New Zealanders increasingly want to be sure that meat is produced from animals whose welfare is looked after yet imported pork does not have to meet New Zealand welfare standards. Voluntary labelling as partly used by the two main supermarket chains here is not good enough with hundreds of single-component foods not labelled and many misleading examples of country-of-origin labelling. Those are the voluntary users of country-of-origin labelling. Most other food retailers are not using it. I had an example of country-of-origin labelling on some capsicum that were labelled "Product of New Zealand or Australia or Holland". It did not say which one. That was in one of these main channels that have been using voluntary labelling. The need for accurate food labelling that assists consumers to make informed purchasing decisions is recognised by all major national and international food standards setting agencies including the New Zealand Food Safety Authority as it was back then Food Standards Australia New Zealand with our trans-Tasman arrangement and the joint food and agriculture organisation the World Health Organization's Codex Alimentarius Commission. So way back then the New Zealand Food Safety Authority had recognised it along with Food Standards Australia New Zealand and Codex.This is a very simple bill for single-ingredient foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables fish meat nuts oils and grains to be country-of-origin labelled. I am calling on all parties in the House to support it."