Browning Steffan; Borrows ChesterSTEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak in the Committee stage of—well partly on the proposed amendments to—the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. We spoke at the second reading about the bill in general and covered a lot of the aspects of it. I floated at the time that I intended to do an amendment in terms of genetically modified (GM) food labelling and irradiated food labelling as well. There is some coverage of that in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code—standard 1.5.2 for genetically modified food and standard 1.5.3 for irradiated food. However there has been woeful coverage in terms of monitoring and enforcement of both of those food codes. Since 2003 there has been no monitoring or enforcement of the genetically modified foods part. So while we are getting a huge amount of genetically modified foods in consumers cannot identify it.Someone said: Hey it's not a problem." This is what the ministry will tell you. This is a ministry the Ministry for Primary Industries that has run amok. It has lost its way and it is hard to know whom it is answering to. I do not think it is answering to the Minister I do not think is answering to the consumers and it is certainly not answering to the health and welfare of New Zealanders. It is just about production at any cost it would seem.In terms of those who may doubt the need for genetically modified foods to be labelled first I would say that most of them are heavily heavily sprayed with herbicides because they have actually been modified to be resistant to herbicides. That is the point—you spray the crop the weeds die and the crop survives but it gets loaded with herbicide residues. Beyond that and this is why I am trying to win support across this Committee—for the future it would seem because we have so little time to cover this as this Parliament winds up—feeding studies on laboratory animals and farm livestock have found some GM crops including those that are being imported into New Zealand for humans and animal livestock have toxic or allergenic effects. That could be liver and kidney toxicity; enlarged liver; disturbed liver pancreas or testes function—these are all separate studies—or accelerated liver ageing. There are digestive system issues. There are altered gut bacteria and intestinal abnormalities excessive growth in the lining of the gut similar to a precancerous condition altered blood biochemistry and the like. Those are the reasons that I have brought my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 355 here. It is to actually get the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries to make the changes or to actually do what he—or she if there is a change in the future—is meant to be doing. We need regular "monitoring and enforcement of food labelling requirements for irradiated foods and genetically modified foods." That is the part there in my new section 4(g) of the Food Act set out in my proposed new clause 3A. I believe we have a large amount of support for this. The Government will probably be the main party lacking. The Māori Party will support it. New Zealand First will support it. Labour will support it and obviously it is a Greens SOP. There are a couple of strays; we wait to see.I want to touch on Biddy's cheese as well. Mr Chair and members of the Primary and Production Committee will remember at our wind-up this year we enjoyed some of that cheese and at my valedictory party we enjoyed the rest of it. It was a nice big round of cheese—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I am sorry to interrupt the member on his last call but time has come for me to report progress to the House.House resumed.Progress reported.Report adopted.The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m."