Browning Steffan: Food Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Food Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18343. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I am pleased to be able to rise and say that the Green Party is supporting the Food Bill. Although we are supporting the Food Bill we still have some reservations and I will discuss those as we go. There have been some major changes to the bill particularly in the last couple of years from where it started effectively 11 years ago.We have followed its history. I personally have followed it since way back when it was first mooted in the New Zealand Food Safety Authority. I think Annette King was the food safety Minister then and she brought it to the authority’s consumer forum where I was as a concept of modernising and improving the risk-based approach to food safety with the different tiers of foods food production and the likes and how they should be handled and what sort of food plans and the likes that different food should go under. It was a great concept and it is a great concept and we have got this far.However there were a number of concerns from when the Food Bill had finished with the first part of the Primary Production Committee consideration before I was a member of Parliament. When it came back from there potentially it would have incorporated provisions on seed that is grown for anything whether it be pasture seed whether it be vegetable seed whether it be potatoes for planting whether it be sunflowers for planting or anything. All seed-propagating material was being caught up in it so it was very good that Kate Wilkinson the then food safety Minister very quickly realised that this was a mistake that there was no way that it should be incorporated that way and that only food that was going to be consumed should go through the Food Bill. So that was the first major change that was mooted and that was successfully changed.However there were other issues that were very concerning. Genetic engineering or “genetic modification” as the bill describes it had been taken out as something that should be considered as a food safety item. It took a fair amount of negotiation and lobbying and lots of submissions and emails to nearly all of us in the House from people who were very concerned about that. So it was really good that the new Minister for Food Safety Nikki Kaye saw that provision reinserted so that genetic modification is in the Food Bill as something that may be considered as a food safety issue and that seriously needs to be considered as a food safety issue. I will touch on that later.There were issues around the donating of food and whether food could be donated whether community groups could be dispensing food without being caught up in undue bureaucracy and whether people would be able to swap food. The way the bill could have been read suggested that that may not be legal in the full sense again unless there was some level of bureaucracy and registration of the people swapping it and the like. So I am very pleased to say that with negotiation and submissions and discussion in the Primary Production Committee that was corrected. The inclusion of a good Samaritan clause to allow people to keep donating food to those in need is well cemented in the bill. That is fantastic. There are assurances that swapping food will remain legal. People can swap among their neighbours and the community and their relations and there is no hint of any problems with that. These were major gains.One part that was most unfortunate which has not been a gain as yet was country-of-origin labelling. Labour very nicely joined the party with the Greens who have been lobbying. We have taken to Parliament the petition of a huge number of submitters wanting country-of-origin labelling—not any old country-of-origin labelling but mandatory country-of-origin labelling. The Minister has spoken about the voluntary system and says it has got something like 70 percent coverage. That is not good enough. Not only is it not good enough in terms of coverage but because it is voluntary there is no real system of auditing. Of course food safety is not audited well in terms of the domestic food supply in this country anyway and I will discuss that a bit more as we go.One hundred and five of New Zealand’s 120 trading partners have country-of-origin labelling. It is not a matter of being voluntary and maybe the supermarket chains will put up a voluntary level of it so that they do not have a stronger more comprehensive system enforced on them. They are taking—how do you call it—a token approach. Some of it is quite good but it is not good enough when consumers cannot make those proper choices. I have a member’s bill for the consumer’s right to know around food and country-of-origin labelling and I am hoping that in time that will be introduced. Not only that but it will probably be a fresh Government and Labour has now come to the party. After opposing country-of-origin labelling for so long Labour will obviously support the Greens in getting that through.I am concerned when the Minister says “Well hey Australia is reviewing it.” They have got quite comprehensive country-of-origin labelling there but it could again be somewhat better. If we are going to align with Australia we should align immediately and have mandatory country-of-origin labelling like them not after Tony Abbott has got amongst it and wrecked it like he is about to wreck so many other protections for consumers and the people of Australia. That is no example to follow for this country.The other concern is domestic food sovereignty. There was a lot of concern from submitters that we were losing our ability to make our own regulations around food safety in this country. They refer to international organisations like the CodexAlimentarius Commission where New Zealand has a reasonable role to play in the dairy section and in some other parts. The commission is the international food standard - setting body that helps with harmonisation of food standards throughout the world. That organisation was fine once. That organisation was truly independent and looked at truly independent science and made proper decisions that reflected the genuine risk. But that organisation now is subject to the same lobbying and interference that it seems our Food Standards Australia New Zealand our joint partnership with Australia seems to be subject to which interferes with the real decisions or what the real decisions should be around food safety for New Zealand or for New Zealanders in particular.It was really good that in the select committee we ended up seeing some move towards some independence around food safety decisions but the only way that that hashappened is that we have got food safety as a primacy as the most important part of the Food Bill. It was not. It was just one of the things that needed to be taken into account and trade is a major part of the things that need to be taken into account apparently. But in the situation where there is a question of whether it is a trade agreement that is driving it or whether it is food safety food safety has primacy. That is really good and that is one of the major achievements that has happened in very recent times to the Food Bill.However if there is a decision around food safety who is calling the shots on the science behind it? When the Minister was in front of the select committee for the committee’s consideration of the Budget estimates recently I put it to her about the labelling of genetically engineered food and that there was a real issue around the food safety of that—and there is. Animals fed genetically engineered food are in very bad shape. Their fecundity their fertility is dropping significantly. Their lifespan is dropping. Their gut mechanisms are badly influenced. There is severe ulceration in way more animals that are fed that. We are feeding it to animals in this country and the food from that—