Mathers Mojo: Food Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Food Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17763. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): I am very pleased that we are supporting this bill the Food Bill. Back in December 2011 just after this 50th Parliament had started the first mass emails were from people who were extremely concerned about the Food Bill. We were literally inundated with hundreds if not thousands of emails due to a very effective social media campaign that expressed significant concern that this bill had far too far-reaching powers. You could sort of understand the concerns that people were expressing because the ability to grow our own food to share the surplus with our family and friends and to contribute that surplus to fund-raising events is a fundamental part of our Kiwi identity. It contributes to our own sense of well-being to our sense of security and to our sense of community resilience and independence.We are talking about things like the fruits and vegetables from the garden jams and pickles surplus eggs that a few of our chooks may have laid baking heritage seeds trading these heritage seeds and trading these heritage foods amongst people and so on.People were very very concerned that this bill might be unduly restrictive and discourage people from undertaking these activities. That of course was extremely concerning for us in the Green Party because we strongly believe that we need to be doing everything that we can to promote and encourage independent food production amongst families and at the local community level.For me personally this was really highlighted during the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes. Soon after the February quake the roads to east Christchurch and in particular to the New Brighton strip were cut off. The supermarkets were closed. There was nowhere where you could go and buy food. I biked over there and what we saw were people who had surplus in their gardens and so on putting their surplus food on to the pavement in plastic bags with signs saying “Please help yourself”. It was an absolute saviour for people—that the communities would get together use their collective goods and their surplus produce from the gardens and the food that they had in their cupboards and so on and share it amongst each other. Since the Christchurch earthquakes because of the incredibly important role of being able to grow your own there has been a renewed interest in things like community gardens and in growing your own. Whatever happens we do not want to be imposing in the name of food safety restrictive controls on that ability at that sort of very grassroots level and that extends of course to fund-raising and so on.So it is fantastic that we are now supporting this bill partly due to the fact of my colleague Steffan Browning’s tremendous work on articulating the concerns of small producers of local food producers and so on and watching out for their interests. We are very pleased that the Primary Production Committee has listened to these concerns and the Minister for Food Safety as well and has come back with a bill that seems to strike the right balance between ensuring food safety and protecting our international reputation but not being unduly restrictive on local food producers. Thank you.