Tirikatene RinoParts 1 to 4 schedules 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 (continued)RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm pleased to take a call in this 52nd Parliament continuing on the committee stage for the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. As one of the members of the Primary Production Committee of the 51st Parliament along with the Minister now seated in the chair Damien O'Connor it's great that we are able to now be in Government to be able to continue on the passage of this very sensible piece of legislation. As we know the background—if I can just quickly canvass that again. This bill arose as a result of the whey protein inquiries on what was called the botulism scare. As we know a Fonterra plant had a dirty pipe and—long story short—it led to massive worldwide recalls of whey protein concentrate which was used as an ingredient in child infant formula. This went all the way around the world in terms of the recalls. It caused substantial damage to customer relationships to suppliers of baby food particularly Danone. As we know there's been only recently results of an arbitration that went against Fonterra to the tune of well over $100 million. So the costs of this episode are still being felt. This bill was in direct result of the recommendations that came out of the inquiries—two inquiries actually—that took place in the aftermath of that event.This bill is widely supported. We heard from a number of submitters from major industry groups in the primary sector—major exporters. This bill is all about protecting the reputation of New Zealand exporters ensuring that we have impeccable standards and that we can compete and supply our wonderful produce and export products worldwide. So it's really important. This cuts right to the heart of the integrity of our food systems and also our ability to trade with the outside world.This bill amends three pieces of legislation: the Animal Products Act the Wine Act and the Food Act—I'm just quickly relaying it from memory. We heard from major industry groups from the likes of the horticulture industry the meat industry the seafood industry and of course the dairy industry. We heard from exporters and processors large and small who all have an active and keen interest in this piece of legislation. On the whole most of the operational changes that occurred didn't require legislative change but this bill captures all of those changes that need to be implemented through legislation.So in this contribution I wanted to touch on—and hopefully I might be able to get another one—and to really cover the main areas in terms of the provisions of this bill around the scope of delegated legislation. I think that was a big area that we heard submissions on at the select committee. Just last evening we considered the Legislation Bill which would be looking at a central registry of all secondary legislation and a core part of being able to reinforce our systems of traceability of recall of enforcement—it all cuts to the ability for quick decisions to be made and for systems to be in place. The ability to activate those systems as a matter of urgency not only requires primary legislation to be in place not only requires secondary legislation by way of regulations but might also require more technical pieces of legislation such as notices or subsequent notices to reinforce or to provide more detail I suppose on the actual secondary legislation or regulations. So a large part of the work that we did at the committee was listening and trying to deal with the concerns around providing certainty providing a cost-effective regime by which exporters and food manufacturers of all sizes would be able to comply meet their obligations and also tighten up our regime.So I believe we've struck a good balance in the bill right across all the three principal pieces of legislation that we are amending in that we are leaving scope for secondary legislation to be able to be consulted upon with industry and also to be able to be implemented in a timely fashion but also making sure that it is constrained and it is not an unfettered power that we are granting to the Ministry for Primary Industries or certain other officials or decision-making bodies that are involved in making these critical decisions.So a lot of what we are doing with this piece of legislation concerns putting in place the framework by which our major food exporters meat exporters and wine exporters can have confidence that their food plans and their risk management plans and everything that is involved in their manufacturing processes and their export processes are robust and are able I guess to stand up to the scrutiny and ultimately stand up to what might be an urgent event that may arise. All of it is designed to ensure that we have just a strong robust system so we can ensure that the quality and the reputation of our export products maintain an impeccable standard.I just want to—as we are talking about the different levels and scope that are contained in the bill around the secondary legislation—acknowledge the fact that there was the best practice that has been followed through the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee and that committee made up of eminent senior practitioners and legal minds—Chris Bishop: Could be you one day.RINO TIRIKATENE: Could be. Ha ha! It set forth the elements for producing the secondary regulations. Having gone through all of those elements the committee was satisfied through the very good advice that we received from officials that the regime that is now in place through this bill would be able to cater for the wide variety of instances be it through regulations be it through notices be it through subsequent notices—it would cover the full array of situations but also fall within good legislative practice and I'm pleased that as a committee the work that we achieved on the bill was able to meet those high standards and generally be supported by all of the major food industry groups.And we're not talking about—sure there might have been maybe a dozen or so of these groups but the membership of those groups which they represent is enormous if we are talking about Horticulture New Zealand and all of the different product groups that they represent and the meat industry. So I commend this bill.