Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Wine Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9506] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 Tonight we have heard I think every party support the wine industry and I join them. I think the wine industry has shown the way to many of our agricultural industries. The wine industry is innovative it knows its market it goes out and sells to the top of the market and it knows exactly what it wants to do. It is focusing on quality. If there is any suspicion that somebody might be not playing the game it lands heavily on them. That is what this bill is all about. It is putting in place the structure the industry has been wanting to have in place. 
This industry is very important to this country but it is vulnerable. One need look no further than to what has happened in California and Florida to see that a wine industry can collapse virtually overnight though biosecurity problems. In California and in Florida they have the glassy-winged sharpshooter—I had to get that in—which is a vector for Pierce’s disease. If we had that infestation which is fatal to grapevines in New Zealand then the wine industry would go down the gurgler virtually overnight because it is an incurable disease. The wine industry does have the option of protecting against that sort of thing. In the United States they are looking at genetically engineering their grapevines to prevent any kind of infection like that. But the wine industry in New Zealand has quite specifically and repeatedly said that it will not embrace genetic engineering for the reason that its markets will not accept genetically modified wine. These people are not rabid “greenies”. They are not rabid longhaired jandal-wearing tree-hugging mung-bean munching “greenies”. These people are basing their decision on cold hard economics. They are saying that they do not want to embrace that technology because it is bad for their business. They do not even want genetic engineering for other forms of agriculture in this country because it will harm their business. That is the reason that this industry is doing well—these people know what its market is. They know that if they go to the top end of the market and provide high quality they will never regret it. Yet that is what this Government is going to impose on them. 
Rodney Hide 
: What Government? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: That 4½-year Government over there. It is going to introduce genetically engineered organisms into our wider environment and what is going to happen to our market? It is going to go down the gurgler aided and abetted I might add by the National Party and ACT and United. 
 It is a shame. Why do we not learn from the people who are playing the game properly—the people who are actually in touch with the realities of economics and of growing things in this country? We are always going to be a minnow in agricultural terms. We can only ever go for the niche market. The niche market that is best suited to this country is the quality end of the market which is where the wine industry goes and where a lot of our other industries go. 
Zespri is another industry that is right at the top of its game. What does it do? Does it want to embrace GE? Not on your nelly! It does not want it. It knows what its market is. Zespri knows that its consumers in the UK rejected it absolutely as did consumers of wine in the UK and Europe. Not only will they not buy it; they will go out of their way to avoid buying it. They will pay a large premium to avoid buying it. What on earth are we doing? 
Rodney Hide 
: God knows what the Greens are up to. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: God knows what the country is up to. 
We are a market-driven economy. For better or for worse that is the reality for us. We are a market-driven economy. It is incumbent on us to produce what the market requires. The market has made it very very clear that it does not want genetically engineered products. The wine industry knows that the kiwifruit industry knows that and the meat industry knows that. Most industries know that. When will the Government pick it up? We are not talking rocket science I say to the Government; we are talking common sense. We are talking economics. We are talking markets. 
Another aspect of this bill that I find very positive is the aspect of labelling. 
Simon Power 
: This is hopeless. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: The labelling is not actually hopeless. 
Simon Power 
: No this is hopeless. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Is it? Well it is better than the National Party with its secret meetings and its desire to collapse the debate at the moment. At least we do not have the internal problems that the National Party has. Perhaps the member’s interjections might be better placed—[ 
Interruption 
] 
One of the aspects of this bill that the industry wanted was—to pick up an ACT phrase—to have truth in labelling. It wants to have country of origin the vintage the variety and the provenance of the grape on the label. I support that. Why on earth do we not have that with genetically engineered food coming into this country? What is so difficult about putting on a label the words “This food may or does have genetically engineered ingredients”? 
Ron Mark 
: They can’t write that small. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: That is about right too. There is no reason why that labelling cannot be put on. If labelling on all food said: “This food may include genetically modified organisms” then it would immediately lose its impact. The label may as well not exist. The wine industry knows what its market is. It is saying that the consumers and the producers want to know the history the traceability the accountability of the production of wine and that is what the consumer wants. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: So why doesn’t the European Union label its wine? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: The Minister for the Environment is all very keen to interject but we are talking about reality here. We are talking about markets. I was accosted by that well-known left-wing radical in the street the other day Doug Kidd—a former National member and Speaker of the House. He accosted me in Lambton Quay and said: “I’ve just come back from England.” He put his arm around my shoulder and said: “Ian what you guys need to do is tell the country that all the trucks that are supplying the supermarkets in England—the Sainsburys the Tescos the Icelands—have big signs on them saying: ‘All our food is GE free’.” I said: “Doug that is exactly what we’ve been trying to tell the country the Government and the National Party for the last 5 years. But will they listen? Will they what!” So I suggested to Doug Kidd that maybe the National Party might like to take up GE free as its policy. I think that is a pretty good idea. We might get the National Party back as a real Opposition if it actually took on a common-sense policy such as that and said: “Why don’t we support what 70 percent of the population want?”. People want a GE-free New Zealand. That is a bit like the nuclear ships issue is it not I ask Mr Power. New Zealand identifies really really strongly with being nuclear free and we identify really really strongly with being GE free. 
Simon Power 
: Take a science-based approach. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: I am a scientist. I do take a science approach. I pride myself on my scientific approach. There is good science and there is bad science. Take nuclear bombs. That is science but it is bad science and there is really bad science associated with GE. I do not put aside the possibility that in future it will be good science but let us keep it in the lab until such a time as it is good science until it is predictable and until we know the outcomes and the long-term consequences of introducing alien species into our environment. We do not know those consequences. We cannot know them. The Greens do support this bill and we look forward with pleasure to its becoming law.