O'Connor Damien: Food Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Food Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17846. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I have to apologise to my colleague Rino Tirikatene whom I left out in the lurch a little bit. I was trying to escape a meeting.We welcome the Food Bill into the Committee. It has been a long time coming. In debating Part 1 of the bill I would like to firstly acknowledge some of the officials there many of whom have been around for as long as this bill has and as long as I have which is quite some time. We hope that the ageing of the bill like a good wine has improved it. A number of Ministers for Food Safety have overseen it and I welcome the current Minister’s comments on a number of the provisions.In Part 1 of the bill we have as rightfully it should be the purpose of the bill. I have as my colleague noted proposed an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 440 which we believe is essential to finish off what is essentially a very good bill following almost 10 years I guess of consideration of assessment by the Primary Production Committee on indeed a couple of occasions and as I say oversight andinput from people up and down this country on at least two occasions and other opportunities through consultation with officials.If I can go to the purpose of the bill it is indeed an amalgam of pieces of legislation that have been around for a while. We are attempting to align those pieces of legislation to give better effect to the purpose of producing safe food maintaining New Zealand’s reputation and ensuring that consumers get a good deal from a country that we say—and I think we can rightfully say—is one of the best producers of food in the world bar none.The purpose of the bill and I can read out clause 4 is to: “(a) restate and reform the law relating to how persons trade in food; and (b) achieve the safety and suitability of food for sale; and (ba) maintain confidence in New Zealand’s food safety regime”. That was an amendment put up by the Primary Production Committee to emphasise the reality that the confidence that the public have in the legislation around food should not be in question and that this is not a partisan piece of legislation. It has been endorsed and I hope it will be by all parties across the House because we have attempted to achieve the very best outcome. The inclusion of that subclause in the purpose clause that is to maintain the confidence in New Zealand’s food safety regime was an important addition.The next subclause is to “(c) provide for risk-based measures that—(i) minimise and manage risks to public health; and (ii) protect and promote public health.” That is a very important part and objective of this piece of legislation. The fourth one is to “(d) provide certainty for food businesses in relation to how the requirements of this Act will affect their activities;”We have up and down this country—from the very largest producers of food to the very smallest and most innovative and creative at times—people who in classic Kiwi style get out look around them see what opportunities there are and often through biological production systems be it through grapes or honey and bees or through new fruit varieties come up with a new food that they want to manufacture or indeed to just sell in its raw form. This piece of legislation has to give them certainty so that the time and the money that they might invest in that production system is supported through legislation through good regulations and through a system that is going to give them the opportunity to develop that further.If I can use the example going back some time of kiwifruit the humble Chinese gooseberry which was grown on a few farms and in a few gardens around the place and has now become a billion-dollar industry because the regulations were sound and because of the ability for those growers to develop the intellectual property the varieties and to get out there and develop the systems of handling of storage and of sale—the legislation had to support that development through the years. We are upgrading the legislation to modernise it and to make it fit for purpose.The next thing here is subclause (d) to “provide certainty for food businesses” and then moving on to clause 4(e) which is to “require persons who trade in food to take responsibility for the safety and suitability of that food.” [Interruption] I acknowledge the Minister and I would welcome responses.This is I guess an area where responsibility is placed back on to the people in the food sector themselves. The risk-based system that we are proposing puts trust in them to do what they say they are going to do in administering the regime at whatever level. The people who are taking responsibility are those who are trading in food and it is about ensuring that they deliver to their consumers to their customers food that is not too old does not have contaminants in it or does not have food safety issues that might harm them in any way. The regime that we have is a very stringent risk-based system for those from the very top—Fonterra and the big producers—down to the personselling sausages for the sausage sizzle. There are different requirements that ultimately depend upon the individuals involved or the companies involved to implement what they say they will do. The officials can never be there every moment of every day. I think we are lucky to be in a country that has people of integrity systems of integrity and regulations that are generally sound and sensible. We should be able to trust the systems once this legislation passes.All those objectives we say are sound but there is one missing and I know I have had discussions with the Minister—hopefully she has seen the light of day to come and support us—on mandatory country-of-origin labelling informing the consumers who buy the food where the food was produced and manufactured. We say that it is a core right of any consumer to know where the food they are eating has come from. We are part of a trans-Tasman arrangement the Food Standards Australia New Zealand authority which says that we share with Australia the same regime for risk-based systems for food safety and for labelling. So using CER and the transfer of goods either side of the Tasman aligns and makes that system more simple.But New Zealand sought an exemption from those trans-Tasman regulations that allows us to not have country-of-origin labelling. For a country so dependent upon food production for our survival and our prosperity it is absolutely bizarre that we do not have country-of-origin labelling—something that identifies clearly the food produced in this country under regulation that would allow consumers to know whether that food was produced and manufactured in New Zealand or whether it was produced somewhere else in the world.I am proposing Supplementary Order Paper 440 and an amendment that would add to the purpose clause in the bill a requirement to introduce country-of-origin labelling requirements in accordance with the Australia - New Zealand food standards code. The exemption that we have—and the Minister might say “Oh it’s not appropriate to have this in the bill.” That is absolutely wrong. It is appropriate that we have in the purpose of this bill a requirement to align ourselves with the agreed regulations that are currently in place on both sides of the Tasman. So I welcome the Minister’s response as to why the National Party and its two coalition partners Peter Dunne and Mr Banks are not supporting something that the vast majority of the public expects.Country-of origin labelling is taking place in some areas through a voluntary code but it is not mandatory and in fact there are many occasions when consumers are confused as to where the food they are purchasing is grown and manufactured. We will be putting to the Committee this amendment to the purpose in Part 1 of the bill and I hope that the Government can see the wisdom in supporting that for the good of the consumers and for their right to have information and knowledge about the food that they are going to consume.