Prosser RichardRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise and take a third and final call on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. New Zealand First will not be voting for this bill despite the fact that we acknowledge the need for it and despite the fact that we agree with almost everything in it.It is a good bill in almost all regards. [Interruption] It is certainly a necessary bill—in almost all regards. It is certainly a necessary bill in terms of what it does and indeed what it needs to do for the wine industry and for New Zealand's trade in general. Other speakers have made mention of the value of registered geographical identifiers for other products—cheese honey red meat and so forth as Damien O'Connor and other speakers on the other side have said. There are other primary exports that could benefit from being linked certainly with New Zealand by taking advantage of Brand New Zealand—but also going beyond that by being associated with particular regional flavours. I agree with the chair of the Primary Production Committee that that is something that the House will almost certainly come to consider hopefully not too many years from now but that is a discussion for a different day.This bill concerns the wine industry and being a winemaker and viticulturist by trade it is something that I have a particular attachment to. I have to say as members will acknowledge I think that New Zealand wines are amongst the best in the world if not the best in the world. Certainly in terms of two of our flagship varieties those being Marlborough sauvignon blanc and Central Otago pinot noir they are arguably the best in their classes in the world and acknowledged as being such by recognised experts.There are reasons for this obviously and they go to the heart of what this bill is about. Marlborough has comparable soils and climate to the Loire Valley in France which is the home of sauvignon blanc and that is coupled with perhaps a better climate and something else: there is a French word terroir" for which there is no direct English translation but it kind of means "the spirit of the land". It is the combination of the soils the climate and something intangible that imparts itself to the wine that people come to recognise with some sense beyond the physical senses. That really is the essence of what this regional identifier gets to. There is only one place in the world that can create a wine that has a certain "terroir" and that is what this is about.I seem to recall a number of years ago a wine company—I think it was an Argentinian wine company—attempting to market what they called a "Marlborough-style" sauvignon blanc. It is this very situation that this bill is attempting to overcome and in fact it may well have been the genesis of the original bill back in 2006. Likewise the very best pinot noir in the world is grown in Central Otago and more particularly in the Alexandra basin and on the Bendigo Loop Road although it is fair to say that Waipara is catching up as some of its vines have now got some proper age under their belts and are starting to mature a little. These names need to be protected and these geographical identifiers that link unrivalled quality with particular places need to be recognised and protected. That is for the good of the industry and the good of New Zealand Inc. as a whole. We need to provide this protection. We need to be able to say to our trading partners that we will recognise their unique geographic identifiers as well and respect those names and recognise and respect the intellectual property the ownership and the investment that they have in them. Other Governments in other jurisdictions will reciprocate that.So this is an important bill and the issues it addresses are important. That is why it is very frustrating that we have had to pull our support because of the refusal on the part of the Government to remove from it the one clause that makes it untenable—the one completely unnecessary clause that gives special status and favourable treatment to Māori. New Zealand First has argued in the latter stages of this bill against the inclusion of special recognition special concern for whether or not Māori are going to take offence and a special advisory body that needs to be consulted and that will not be free—you can bet the vineyard on that. That will come at a cost to wine and spirits makers and it will introduce another delay. Both of these things are completely unnecessary and completely unjustifiable. We just simply cannot let that go unchallenged. New Zealand First cannot sit by and say nothing while this rampantly PC National Government enacts yet another piece of racially-biased legislation. There is no requirement for any kind of special procedure to determine whether or not a proposed geographical indicator for a wine or spirit is or could be offensive to anyone other than Māori. The bill in new section 13A inserted by clause 10 says: "… a significant section of community including Māori." Well of course a significant section of the community would include Māori and it would include women and it would include superannuitants—and the disabled and cat lovers and left-handed people and any other significant sections of society that you care to name.Of course Māori would be sizeably represented in any of those particular designations because they are a significant part of—guess what—the whole of New Zealand society. But the bill does not make any special reference to any of these other groups. It does not provide special recognition for people of Scottish ancestry or Dutch or Samoan or anything else. But it does take another step towards the creation of two separate societies here in New Zealand. It does reinforce the National Party's desire to appease a few Māori separatists: people who seek to divide this nation to create division where there should be none. I have no doubt that the clauses in the bill are solely to placate the racially-based Māori Party on whose votes this Government depends. They appear quite happy to sell out any principle at all in return for the guarantee of staying in power and that is a sad thing for the wine industry and for this bill. The clause is neither necessary nor useful. In fact it is the antithesis of those things. And incorporating it in this bill actually the Government has hijacked what in other ways is a very useful and necessary piece of legislation.We offered a compromise. New Zealand First offered a compromise in the form of the Geographic Board instead of a special Māori advisory committee which could be consulted to see whether a proposed name for a geographic wine region might be offensive to anyone. The Geographic Board does after all deal with place names and essentially this bill is about place names—names of places. But the Minister said that would not be appropriate and frankly I struggle to think of a situation where it would be more appropriate to have the Geographic Board involved than in a bill that deals with geographic place names.But the bill will pass because the Government has the numbers and I am glad that the wine industry and New Zealand's trade will benefit from it. I am sorry that it will cost them time and money for a part of the process that is counter-productive and completely unnecessary. I am deeply saddened that Māori are patronised and insulted by the inclusion of clause 21B and I am deeply disappointed that the National Government has chosen to use it as an excuse to cynically advance the separation and division of races in this country. We are meant to be one people one country—New Zealanders all of us with one law for all. But this bill contains two laws: one law for Māori and one for everybody else. In other ways this bill is perfectly acceptable; in this one way it is utterly unacceptable. New Zealand First stands for one law for everybody and for that reason we cannot support this bill. Thank you."