Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. The Green Party is pleased to support this bill because it helps ensure that growers get some control and some influence over exporter behaviour in order to protect product reputation. It is legislation that is currently 30 years old but it has been a very slow process to amend the Act. I do not know whether people will be able to see this chart but it is by the Horticulture Export Authority—it has got a little snail showing the long snail-slow process to actually amend the Act after Neil Walker did that very comprehensive review which was released in March 2010. So the little snail has got another three stages to go before it gets to eat the leaf if this Parliament proceeds a little more quickly than the Government has proceeded to date. So we are pleased to support the bill but it is only tinkering because it makes only very small changes to the regime in the current Act to provide some clarity and some flexibility around the Act's provisions and that includes of course replacing the current one-size-fits-all approach with a multi-tier system with different requirements. This bill does not do what the industry and what the Horticulture Export Authority has been calling on the Government to do and that is to introduce country-of-origin labelling for fresh fruit and vegetables. The authority believes that this would benefit quality production but the National Government has resolutely opposed doing anything about country-of-origin labelling. So we do not have mandatory labelling of country of origin and that means that fruit and vegetables in our local shops do not have any identification unless the supermarket actually puts those on voluntarily to show consumers where they are produced and really to identify their value. If consumers know where products come from it enables them to make informed decisions about the products that they purchase what their families eat or what they eat and how it is produced. It is the Green Party that would go much further than this bill and introduce mandatory country-of-origin labelling so that people can be clear about what they are eating and where it comes from and choose to eat locally produced food. We had that hepatitis A scare last December where four cases of hepatitis A were traced back to imported berries. Consumers could not choose to buy local berries because we did not have mandatory country-of-origin labelling. This bill is a good bill as far as it goes but it does not go very far at all. It is important that we actually move to do the things that the sector wants that will protect the reputation of local producers that will allow local consumers to have more choice about what they buy and that would be done by mandatory country-of-origin labelling. Government speakers have talked about the value of the horticultural sector. Certainly it has increased significantly to produce export earnings of nearly $300 million in the last year but if we really want to grow the value of the horticultural sector we need to look at some of the non-tariff export barriers that countries are erecting to constrain New Zealand exports. We saw that with apples in Australia which was finally resolved. The Government actually also needs to pay much more attention to protecting the quality of the environment that produces avocados mandarins and all of our horticultural exports because increasingly we are seeing attention in international markets turning to sustainability issues. In its annual report in 2015 the Horticulture Export Authority said sustainability was a big issue in markets in Europe and North America and those markets were particularly interested in issues around water usage and availability and as Asian consumers' consumption patterns change the focus there will also be on sustainability. Yet this Government is neglecting environmental quality. It is allowing increased water pollution. That undermines our brand overseas. That undermines 100% Pure New Zealand" and the ability of New Zealand products to trade on that reputation. If we want a healthy economy we need a healthy environment. We need to be investing in water quality in reducing water pollution and in reducing our climate pollution so that our producers can trade on that image overseas and can continue to increase our export value in the horticultural sector."