Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill

I move, That the Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that this bill be considered by the Commerce Committee. This bill should be supported by every party in this House because it is about the basic democratic right of every New Zealander to know what is in the food he or she eats and where it comes from. It is a simple bill based on the simple proposition that consumers have a right to have enough information on a label so that they can make informed choices about the food they buy. Surely, all political parties would support that. It is a simple bill that recognises that people are becoming more and more concerned about what is in their food and where it comes from, and that they want better and more informative food labels. Surely, all political parties would support that. This bill requires mandatory country-of-origin labelling, all GE ingredients in food to be declared on a label, egg cartons to identify whether eggs have been produced from free-range, barn raised, or caged hens, and fish packaging to identify whether fish is wild-caught or farmed. It also establishes a traceability system for foods containing GE ingredients so that they can be traced throughout the food production and distribution system, and it guarantees full public access to Government information on residues of pesticides and other chemicals in our food.

At present, consumers do not have this very basic information. The Greens did a survey a little time ago of 450 items in the supermarket. None of them had GE ingredients declared on the label, there was no indication of where most fresh food items, such as meat, came from, and many of the labels were misleading and confusing. This means, for example, that consumers simply cannot figure out whether a tomato like the one I have here has been grown in New Zealand or imported from Australia, in which case it has been dipped in a highly toxic insecticide called dimethoate. Nor can they figure out whether most garlic, such as that which I have here—on sale in our supermarkets—comes from New Zealand or whether it has been transported 10,000 miles from China, a country where 80 percent of the waterways are polluted and garlic can be contaminated with a virus that could decimate our onion industry. Surely, consumers have a right to know that.

In a world awash with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and avian influenza, surely consumers have a right to know where their meat comes from. Unbeknown to most New Zealanders, thousands of tonnes of pork, beef, lamb, and other meats are imported into New Zealand. Last year 27,000 tonnes of pork alone was imported into New Zealand, but there is no way that consumers—even detectives—can find out where all that meat has ended up because there is no label on any meat in the supermarket to indicate which country the meat has been imported from. Surely, consumers have a right to know that.

Consumer research has demonstrated that consumers want to know where their food comes from, and for a variety of reasons. Some just want to support local producers. Others are concerned about food miles—the huge environmental cost of transporting food from the other side of the world. Others are concerned about the lack of quality control standards in some countries that we import food from.

GE-derived ingredients in our food supply have not undergone safety testing—they go through only a phoney assessment process. Surely, if we do not even require that GE ingredients are safety tested, we should at least require producers to declare on a label whether there are GE-derived ingredients in their food so that consumers can avoid buying that food if they wish. Under our woefully inadequate labelling laws, the vast majority of GE ingredients in food do not have to be declared on a label, so it is actually impossible for consumers to work out which foods do or do not contain GE ingredients. There are about 15 ingredients in the package of rich tomato soup I have here—many of them are likely to be GE derived, but there is nothing on the label to declare that. Proper labelling of GE ingredients would give credit to the majority of food companies in New Zealand that have already eliminated GE-derived ingredients in their food. It would also require the GE industry to stand by its products instead of sneaking GE ingredients into our food without a label.

If we are going to allow hens to be kept in cruel battery cages that violate the basic principles of the Animal Welfare Act, surely we should at least require producers to declare on a label that eggs come from hens that have been kept in cages. Surely, all parties in this House would support the traceability provisions in this bill that would ensure the Government could trace any direct or indirect unforeseen effects on human health or the environment of GE food and help protect our reputation as a quality producer of clean, safe food.

There is overwhelming support amongst consumers for the labelling provisions in this bill. In an independent poll carried out by Consumer Link, 84 percent of respondents said they wanted all GE ingredients in food declared on a label, 81 percent wanted food labels to tell them whether a product is imported, and 71 percent wanted egg cartons to declare whether hens have been kept in battery cages. Only yesterday, SAFE presented to this Parliament a 51,000-signature petition calling for the mandatory labelling of egg cartons. So these are issues that consumers care passionately about.

As well, 21 organisations, including Parents Centres, the SPCA, the Breast Cancer Network, GE-Free New Zealand, Greenpeace, and so forth, have written to me to support this bill. So too have major producer boards such as Horticulture New Zealand—representing all fruit and vegetable growers—and the Pork Industry Board, both of which support the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill. There is nothing radical or controversial in this bill. Countries in Europe and many other countries already have such provisions. They already have a requirement that all GE ingredients in food be declared on a label. Most of our trading partners already have country-of-origin labelling.

Nor does this bill impose onerous compliance costs on industry. There are no additional compliance costs in providing in-store labelling of fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish. The country-of-origin provisions for processed food are based on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand standard that is already in effect in Australia and that is not onerous, either. Nor is there any cost in putting a label on an egg carton to state that eggs have come from caged hens. The new requirement to label GE ingredients would apply only to the dozen or so companies in New Zealand that have not removed GE ingredients from their products, and there would be a 2-year phase-in period for those businesses to comply. So nobody can wring their hands and talk about compliance costs, because there are no significant ones. Furthermore, the need for accurate, truthful, and meaningful food labelling is recognised by all major national and international food standard - setting agencies, including the World Health Organization, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and our own Food Safety Authority, and by our own food laws.

This bill is simply about freedom of choice and personal responsibility. These are things that parties like National and ACT say are their core values, so we assume those parties will support this bill, otherwise they will be seen by the majority of New Zealanders to be utterly hypocritical. If there are segments of this bill that political parties have difficulty with, then let us thrash out those issues in the select committee. I know that some people have expressed concerns about the percentage of labelling of inadvertent contamination of food by GE. Let us discuss those sorts of issues in a select committee. Let us not seize on a couple of little issues to try to justify opposition to a bill like this that should be supported by every party in this House.

We should already have mandatory country-of-origin labelling. We would have it if the Government had not unilaterally pulled out of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand standard on country-of-origin labelling without consulting a single member of this House. It pulled out unilaterally. The Cabinet Minister in question made the decision—a decision that concerned the 80 percent of New Zealand consumers who wanted it. The Government unilaterally rejected our standard without consulting this House. It is profoundly ironic that a Government that supports a Buy New Zealand Made campaign has refused to implement a country-of-origin labelling campaign. Consumers are watching closely to see how political parties vote on this bill. I urge members to support it.

I seek leave to table a letter from Horticulture New Zealand, which supports the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from the Pork Industry Board supporting the country-of-origin labelling provisions of this bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from the SPCA strongly supporting my Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from the Breast Cancer Network supporting this bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table an email from Parents Centres supporting this bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics confirming their support for this member’s bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Darren Hughes: Is this the last one?

No, it is not. I said there were 21.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Would the member please just list all the documents.

I seek leave to table a press release by Greenpeace supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table the Pesticide Action Network letter supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from Bio-Gro New Zealand strongly supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the president of the New Zealand Natural Medicine Association supporting the provisions of this bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the New Zealand Vegetarian Society strongly supporting the contents of this bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the Herb Federation of New Zealand supporting the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. I seek leave to table a letter from Agrissentials New Zealand Limited supporting the provisions of this bill.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a media release by Save Animals From Exploitation supporting this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I seek leave to table a letter from the Soil and Health Association of New Zealand, publisher of Organic NZ, supporting the contents of this bill.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a press release from GE-Free New Zealand supporting this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I seek leave to table a letter from Rural Women New Zealand supporting two of the provisions of my bill. I seek leave to table a letter from the Bio Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association supporting this bill. Finally, I seek leave to table the survey that the Green Party undertook of 453 products in our supermarkets. It showed that none of the GE ingredients in food were declared on labels, that there was no indication of where most fresh items, such as meat, came from, and that many of the labels were misleading or confusing.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on Sue Kedgley’s Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. The National Party certainly does promote choice and freedom, and we certainly encourage the right of consumers to know what is in their food. What we do not agree with, however, is the purpose of this bill, which is to require the Government to introduce a comprehensive labelling system in New Zealand. We know that in-depth research around the world clearly shows that consumers want to know whether food is safe, nutritious, and of high quality, and what its cost is.

In actual fact, the origin of where food comes from is possibly quite misleading. Just looking at the number of campylobacter-notified cases for New Zealand between 1996 and 2005, we can see that it went up from 7,600 in 1996 to 13,835 last year. The quality of our food clearly varies tremendously, and really it is the quality we want to know about. I think it is also important to realise that New Zealand has very comprehensive food labelling legislation in action as we speak. I thought it was appropriate and worthwhile to bring the packets from my breakfast this morning, because they do indeed illustrate the fact that since 2002, when we put in—

💬 Hon Mark Burton: You can’t have your breakfast in here.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON:—no, not the breakfast; just the packages—comprehensive labelling in New Zealand, at the cost of about $1 billion to Australia and New Zealand, the requirements for that were very extensive. Just looking at the packaging of the honey I had the other morning, I can see what is required these days. It is mandatory for the manufacturer to state its name and where it comes from, and the manufacturer can also voluntarily display a freephone number—as is done by most manufacturers in New Zealand—so that it can be traced.

Secondly, I can see that extensive ingredient labelling is required in New Zealand. Members should look at the honey carton’s nutrition information—its content in terms of energy, protein, total and saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, and minerals. Over and above that, there is very extensive barcoding information. That is not just in relation to the honey; it is also there for the Vogel’s bread. Mr Klisser, whom I used to know very well, brought that excellent brand in. Again, I say that labelling requirements in New Zealand are extensive. I also have here the excellent muesli with fruit from the Mayor of Auckland, Mr Hubbard.

One of the things that I think is often overlooked by the Greens is the fact that any manufacturer in New Zealand does have the choice to label, if that manufacturer wants to. I absolutely commend New Zealand’s National Heart Foundation for its tick. One can go easily into supermarkets, see the tick, and be reassured that the evidence base behind the nutritious value of the food, and its quality, is substantial. I think that it is indeed one of the great qualities of New Zealand that we have choice, and it is really fortunate that the very onerous requirements of compulsory labelling are not as total as Sue Kedgley would require.

Much to my surprise, Sue sent me a letter from Foodstuffs, which she told me was supportive of her bill. Well, I would like to read a little bit of the letter. It states: “We generally support measures to provide consumers with product information, with the proviso that the information is actually useful to consumers, feasible for food suppliers to provide, and the costs imposed on business are not disproportionate to the usefulness of the information.” The letter goes on to state: “In relation to country of origin, while Pam’s”—one of their labels—“already comply with the Australian country-of-origin labelling, we have never supported a mandatory approach to labelling for processed foods, because we believe statements like ‘Made from local and imported ingredients’, which is required in Australia, are virtually meaningless. On the other hand, we accept that origin labelling for individual ingredients would be hugely complex and expensive to implement. This is compounded by the fact that suppliers frequently change the source of ingredients, for many reasons—for example, seasonal supply—but tend to change product labels only once every 3 to 4 years. The cost of frequent label changes would be prohibitively expensive.”

This bill that Sue Kedgley has brought to the House has some very perplexing parts to it. For instance, in the part relating to GM food and feed, she promotes the thought that packaged food derived from GM food, or containing an ingredient derived from GM food, must be labelled as such—lowering the threshold from 1 percent to 0.5 percent. GM content will either be safe or unsafe. Lowering the threshold from 1 percent to 0.5 percent carries absolutely no virtue whatsoever in terms of whether the food is safe, which is one of the basic requirements that most consumers are concerned about.

I go back to the topic of country-of origin-labelling. I concede that Sue Kedgley also sent me a letter from the Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand, which was signed by Peter Silcock, the chief executive. I do have a degree of sympathy for the thought that fresh food and vegetables and fresh fish, as in Australia, could easily be labelled with the country of origin. I think that Peter Silcock says that in-store point of sale tags are already used throughout the industry to indicate the name of the product and price. His letter states: “Simply adding the country of origin of the product to the tag would be a very simple task and would add no or very minimal cost.” It may be that that part could be explored by this Parliament at a later date.

But I go back, once again, to the fundamental consumer concern about food. Consumers are interested in whether food is safe, whether it is nutritious, and whether it has quality. I remind Ms Kedgley that if she is buying mussels down in Nelson again, she should remember that those mussels, if they are left for a few days, could easily have something like listeriosis or campylobacter in them—whether they are from Nelson, New Zealand, Tasmania, or China. When Ms Kedgley shows us some garlic from China and says that 80 percent of China’s water is not safe, I believe she is making a very incautious statement. Again, if the garlic arrived in New Zealand, we would be concerned that it was safe, and that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry controls and biosecurity measures required to ensure that those viruses were knocked off, were indeed in place.

Coming from Port Waikato, an area famous throughout New Zealand and the world for its fresh produce, I know that the traceability requirements of our magnificent fresh onions are absolutely extensive, if they are to be sold successfully in Sainsbury’s, over there in London. But that chain is not so concerned about country-of origin-labelling. It absolutely concedes that country-of-origin labelling should not be made mandatory, and that New Zealand manufacturers should have the choice about whether they adopt it and how they do so.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.