Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill

Members, when we were last debating the second reading of the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill, Stuart Smith had the call and has 7 minutes remaining, should he wish. Are there any further speakers?

I understand that Mr Smith is away. I know it is a bit early in the morning to be talking about wine, but I am sure there will be a few members in the House who might still have some memories of it. Can I just say that this is a very important bill, and it moves into effect what was passed in 2006. Since 2006—10 years ago—a lot has happened in New Zealand across the agribusiness sector. A lot has happened in the wine industry, and, clearly, there is a greater appreciation for the need to protect the intellectual property and the brands that we have built up and are now so very proud of. This bill will give protection to Marlborough sauvignon blanc and to Central Otago pinot noir, and it will ensure that what we say is in the bottle indeed comes from the area to which the label refers.

In 2006, with the best of intentions, the general purpose being the same, there was the possibility that wine from overseas could have come in—up to 15 percent of any bottle by volume—and could have, arguably, tainted the integrity of the brand for something like Marlborough sauvignon blanc. That door has now been closed, and, in fact, anyone who purchases a bottle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc will know that 85 percent comes from Marlborough and possibly 15 percent from somewhere else in New Zealand. But, clearly, we have moved, and those who are smart will have all their wine from Marlborough if they call it Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

What the Opposition, although supporting the bill, is concerned about is perhaps the lost opportunity. We heard time after time from submitters to the select committee and from officials that it is absolutely essential that consumers know where their grapes are grown and where their wine comes from, because it is about the integrity of the product. But the Government refuses to move on the area of country-of-origin labelling—that is, identifying where food comes from across the rest of the consumer market. What absolute hypocrisy that we could have officials coming and saying such strong things about alcohol—which, arguably, is the least risk, I have to say, from a food safety perspective—and refusing to acknowledge that country-of-origin labelling should rightfully be imposed for consumers of products other than alcohol.

But, anyway, moving right on from that, where the Government will find that it has some trouble is that if it wants to make any progress on a EU trade deal, then—we have been told very clearly—unless we have geographical indicators for food, and unless we implement country-of-origin labelling, which is actually an overarching umbrella for geographical indicators, we are not going to have any trade deal, and that is the reality. The Government has missed the opportunity through this piece of legislation to actually move us ahead and to be in a better position to take up any offer of a trade deal with the EU, and so we are going to be back in the House with another geographical indicators piece of legislation that refers to food. I do not mind that; I think it is the smartest thing we could do, but once again the Government misses the opportunity.

My personal view is that I represent an amazing electorate called West Coast - Tasman—two distinct geographical areas; three, really, but two that are well known: the West Coast, bound by the Southern Alps, and Golden Bay. These are two areas that, in my view, should have geographical indicator protection for the products that we produce: seafood, dairy, beef products. Both of those areas, in my view, should, over time, aim to have an international reputation for fine quality and safe food, but it is a brand that they have to, firstly, realise the value of and then work to develop. And then, hopefully, a visionary Government, a Labour-led Government, will come with a geographical indicators piece of legislation that will ensure that.

In fact, the Rangitīkei, where the chairman of the Primary Production Committee comes from, might even have some value in developing a brand. I mean, he tells me that it is a nice area up there, that maybe there is some value in having a geographical indicator, provenance, or appellation. There are a number of terms for it, but what it says is that the product that we are selling to the consumer comes from a distinct area and that there are some qualities unique to that that are worth paying a bit more for—because that is what we are about here. It is about value adding.

I say to this House and to the Government members of the select committee, who missed the opportunity to move in this area, that we need geographical indicator legislation for food and for regions like Golden Bay and the West Coast, where innovative producers of fine products can build a brand and sell to the rest of the world and tell a story about their magnificent region and why the qualities of their product are different from those of somewhere else in the world. Indeed, unless we accept and embrace that and promote that, New Zealand does not have a good future.

Last night I was at Landcorp, where those from Landcorp were promoting Pamu as a brand. It relates to their operation, their systems of production, and it depends, of course, upon the provenance of New Zealand Inc., that of our country, but I think that as they move down the path to, I guess, higher value and more brand distinction, they will be looking to identify, perhaps, the meat from the Mackenzie Country, or the wool from Mackenzie Country as Icebreaker does. This is an amazing area of opportunity for New Zealand as a primary producing country, and the passage of this legislation is needed. It is, effectively, an update on the 2006 piece of legislation.

There is a lot of passion about wine—it must be something related to the passion to drink it. But there is a passion about wine and the need to protect it and how well it has done in the international market. I have to acknowledge the wonderful growth in exports, but also too in other areas of primary production, we should be using the same wisdom. It may seem repetitive, but unless we get that message through, not just to the company executives but all the way down, through to traders, to the stock agents, and to the farmers themselves, we are not going to get a realisation of the underlying value that we have in this country for the amazing production of quality, pasture-fed—for the most part—protein and fibre to the rest of the world.

We miss the opportunities every single day because the Government sits on its hands and does not facilitate the growth of that branding and the growth of collaboration across the primary sector. I have said to the Minister for Primary Industries and to members of the select committee that we must move faster. Ireland has developed Origin Green. The Ministry for Primary Industries and the Minister have woken up to it 5 years down the track, and they are just now trying to discover why the Irish are making such good progress: the Irish realise that their country has some unique attributes and they are going out and building on those.

This piece of legislation says that for wine only we have got some wonderful attributes: Martinborough, Marlborough, and Central Otago, and there will be other areas like Waipara as well. As they build distinct brands and distinct taste profiles for their products, they need to have protection through legislation so that no one else in the world can sell a product using those terms. There will still be, as we have pointed out here, the risk that others might sell wine as “in the style of Marlborough sauvignon blanc.”, but it is not Marlborough sauvignon blanc. So our challenge now, and the challenge for those people, is to get out and market to the consumer the importance of reading the label carefully and knowing that it is Marlborough sauvignon blanc, not “in the style of”.

I think that the select committee has done a good job to tidy this up, but the Government has missed the opportunity to ensure that country-of-origin labelling and geographical indicators—that is, appellation and provenance—are legislated for for the whole of our primary food-producing sector.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill—hence the reason why we are dealing with wines and spirits here and not sheepmeat and all sorts of other things. But I will get on to that a little later.

Is it not nice to be talking about some positive legislation—legislation that adds value for an industry on the move, an industry that last year produced $1.6 billion worth of income for the New Zealand economy. The industry is growing at a rate of about 10 percent a year, which is pretty significant. It is also a really interesting example of how regional fortunes change around New Zealand. Some members will remember the Marlborough Plains of 30 years ago. They were pretty rocky, and if they did not have water on them they were brown—the same colour as this House—at all times. Now when you fly over the Marlborough Plains they are completely different and are producing a good deal of the $1.6 billion worth of wine that leaves New Zealand every year. It is a pretty amazing performance, really, and you can see that the same thing is happening in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Central Otago and other parts of New Zealand.

This bill is a result of an obligation under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. These oblige New Zealand, effectively, to provide protection for geographical indicators. A geographical indicator indicates that a wine or spirit comes from a particular region, and I guess two that come to mind very readily internationally are Scotch whisky and champagne. Of course, in New Zealand we have, as the previous speaker alluded to, many other geographical indicators that will be picked up as a result of the development of this legislation.

Although I have three wine growers in the Rangitīkei electorate, I find it highly unlikely that we will have a Rangitīkei wine registered. Of course, the other thing about it is that speaking about wine at this time of the day is quite dangerous for us laymen because they always say that if you are thinking about it at 9 o’clock in the morning you are in trouble by 6.

I want to speak very briefly about a topic that the last speaker, Damien O’Connor, touched on, because I think it is equally important. If you think about the Rangitīkei, for example, maybe one day we will see Rangitīkei land registered as a geographical indicator. I think it raises a very good point, which was part of a quite lengthy discussion we had in the select committee on this very topic. Of course, this piece of legislation is specific to wines and spirits, and it is an amendment of an Act that was put in place in 2006 but never implemented. That is why we have not dealt with the other points around geographical indicators in the course of this discussion. I am sure that, as the last speaker, Damien O’Connor, said, this will be an issue that comes back before a select committee in the future—and, I hope, reasonably quickly, because, I think, again, if you refer to the Pamu brand, which Damien O’Connor spoke about and which we visited last night, that type of branding is changing the world very quickly. Lewis Road Creamery is a good example of that type of branding. I think it is going to be hugely—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: This member should be a Minister.

Ha, ha! Certainly not! It is going to be hugely important for the future of New Zealand exports. The days of us exporting bulk commodities are long gone, and although we still rely on that type of export to some extent, it certainly needs to change. This is a way that it will change.

We received some 38 submissions on this bill, pretty much all of them agreeing with the bill. I just want to touch on a couple of other things the bill deals with, because they did engender some interesting discussion. It contains what are called “opposition procedures”. I would have thought that anyone can protest a thing if they do not like it, but “opposition procedures”—which, clearly, is a legal term we use to describe how you oppose something—allow an interested person to protest or oppose the registration of geographical indicators. An “interested person” is defined in the principal Act, so there is no issue with that. The bill also allows for objection on cultural lines, and we can be confident that this cannot be abused, as it did create quite some considerable discussion around the select committee table from one particular member. These conditions mirror a provision in the Trade Marks Act, which has long been enforced and has never really been challenged. I think that we can be sure that those types of provisions, from our perspective, are going to create the right impact—they are not going to cause any problems, I think.

I want to thank the select committee for some quite interesting discussion. With a bit of luck, we will have got most of this morning’s select committee discussion out of the way here in the House before we get to the select committee meeting, so we will have a much quicker select committee process than usual. The discussion that the Opposition has already raised this morning is one that we have every time we have a select committee meeting, and no doubt it will come back again.

I want to thank the committee members for the great bit of work they have done on this piece of legislation. I also want to congratulate Minister Goldsmith on getting this legislation to the post and on choosing the Primary Production Committee to deal with it. He was so enthusiastic about this bill that he was even seen last night wearing a geographical indicator of his own on his shirt. I have got a great deal of pleasure in commending this bill to the House for further discussion in the Committee stage. Thank you.

I rise to speak to the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. This is a very, very positive bill, as has been said, and we are very keen to be supporting it. There are some issues around it and things that we should be considering while it proceeds, all the same. I come from Marlborough. I was brought up in Marlborough from the age of 4. I live there currently, and just the other weekend I climbed my maunga, Mount Stokes, or Aorere, in the Outer Sounds. The area is very, very precious to me but, unfortunately, it has become degraded somewhat, and the reason for this bill is part of that.

Those names of Marlborough, Awatere, Wairau, Kaikōura, and maybe Kekerengu may end up as names that have the protection that will really emphasise the positive features around this industry. I also think that we should be exploring other aspects of the food industry in this as well. I can think of Marlborough garlic, for example—that is the best area in New Zealand for growing it. We are very well known for that. In Otago we have got apricots. We did actually lose a lot of apricots growing in Marlborough to wine, as the wine has been shown to be maybe more consistently lucrative for landowners in the area.

This is positive legislation. The move, as someone previously said, for the Marlborough Plains—she said the Wairau Plains—through to the Awatere Valley, into grapes has been phenomenal. It is a major economic shift for the region. But our diversity has gone as well, and so has the New Zealand ownership of that land—it has gone as well. Most that will benefit from this are overseas companies that are selling—or actually growing, but certainly controlling—the wine out of our region, and that is anathema.

I just noticed the new statistics on overseas ownership, and there is a lot of Chinese money in there and there is a lot of US money in there. Constellation, one of the US companies, is just moving through some very valuable land that would do much better food production, and it is just converting that. But not only that; it is bringing in its pesticide regimes more and more. We are having some growth in organics in the area, but this good labelling—Marlborough, Awatere, Kaikōura maybe—is likely to be lessened. It is at risk.

At the moment—and some members in here will have shares in it—at least 50 percent of the surface area that is under viticulture, which is the dominant thing in Marlborough, is herbicide covered, because in spring they think they will warm the ground and get some frost protection by doing that. It is 50 percent. In 2007 it was 70 percent at one stage and it dropped down with our work on the issue, and then they said: “Hey, that’s sustainable wine-growing.” There is nothing sustainable when you cover up to 100 percent in some vineyards. There is a member here in the Government who had 100 percent when I was talking about it in 2007. It may well be more than 50 percent at the moment. I have not had time to analyse it as fully as I would like.

Fifty percent of the surface area is under a probably carcinogenic regime, and then there are the rest of the pesticides, and the statistics around Marlborough, and the statistics in Hawke’s Bay—in those areas—need to be looked at. What will “Marlborough” mean when we ruin our reputation? It was good to hear Damien O’Connor mentioning the clean, green image and what we are doing for Brand New Zealand. This stuff will help if we do it right, but it will not help if we wreck that reputation because of what we are doing in terms of the health of the community and the health of the environment.

Just this last weekend I took photos of herbicide-resistant ryegrass. That herbicide resistance started in these vineyards because they were using glyphosates so consistently.

💬 Todd Barclay: Ha, ha!

The member over here may well laugh, but what do you use next? What did the wine industry want to use? Some of them wanted to use paraquat instead of glyphosate. They have got one tool they are allowed to use occasionally. That resistant ryegrass has now spread to the roadside corridor, and so the local territorial authorities are trying to manage their roadside that they might have done with glyphosate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member is wide of the mark on this. I just ask you to come back to the intent of the bill and its content, and just focus on that.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am totally on focus, because my region relies on good branding, and what is happening is bad branding, false branding. There is not going to be anything to be proud about if the region is being given a poor reputation. There are some major problems with the horticulture there. We have got to do it in a generally sustainable way if we are going to put our name to it and somehow protect it. What the hang are we going to protect a name like that for if it has got a bad reputation throughout the world?

We will be voting for this bill because we see it as positive, but hand in glove with that we must have those improvements that will protect our brand, protect Brand New Zealand, and our reputation at the same time. These names will be protected. They are already on a number of labels. But the same Government that is promoting this in terms of labels cannot get other aspects of food labelling correct at all. Some it has not even monitored or enforced since 2003, and consumers miss out there. So, again, this is a positive bill for what its intent is, but let us see the other areas of food labelling have their act cleaned up at the same time.

In terms of the other areas that could come under a similar bill—this one is very specific; wine and spirits—there are some problems with that. Fonterra makes some very good mozzarella and other cheeses, and feta is one that I think the Greeks will push back on if we start to go down the path of registration of geographical indicators. We may actually not be able to use some names, and so those are some of the complexities around that. Registration of wine and spirits is relatively simple and it has a long history. In Europe there is a long history of areas being able to protect their names.

So the Green Party will be supporting this bill for those positive things. We just really hope to see that Brand New Zealand and “Brand Marlborough” will be protected by some good sustainable practices. Thank you.

It is always a pleasure to follow my erstwhile friend and colleague from the Primary Production Committee and the Green Party, Steffan Browning. He has that wonderful ability that the Greens have of being able to support a bill but to do so very, very grumpily. So thanks for that, Mr Browning. I know it is early in the morning.

I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in the second reading of the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supported this bill to the select committee and we continue to do so because it is a necessary piece of legislation for the wine industry and for New Zealand’s international trade. But I do have to flag at this point that our support might not continue beyond the Committee of the whole House. I give that indication because of a clause that has found its way into the bill to which New Zealand First finds that we are diametrically opposed. As with so much of this Government’s legislation—as with too much of this Government’s legislation—it is a clause that makes special reference and gives special preference, yet again, for no adequately explained reason, to Māori on the basis of race, and that is a great shame. It would be a great shame if New Zealand First members were forced to withdraw our support for a bill that we acknowledge is a necessary thing for the wine industry—

💬 Hon Member: You’ve got to be joking, man.

—listen and learn, Mr Tirikatene, you will understand; I will explain—and for New Zealand’s international trade, both imports and exports of wine and spirits to the rest of the world, particularly to Europe, because of a clause that the Government has decided to include in it, which is not only entirely unnecessary but is actually counter-productive in a number of regards. It is counter-productive in that not only is it yet another example of the promotion of separatism but, at best, it could be seen as paternalistic and insulting to Māori. Members on both sides will doubtless argue that, yet again, here is New Zealand First being racist again, here is New Zealand First indulging in Māori bashing—the same tired old inaccurate excuses that they trot out for supporting political correctness every time New Zealand First stands up for one franchise, one people, one united people, and one law for all. The thing is that Māori is an official language of this country, and it should not need that kind of special recognition that it somehow needs this kind of paternalistic help and support. It is insulting, it is derogatory, and it does not need this special justification.

Clause 21B is the offending article that has raised our ire. It will insert new section 39A, which is proposed to read: “It is a function of an advisory committee appointed under section 177(1) of the Trade Marks Act 2002 to advise the Registrar whether the use of a geographical indication in relation to wine or spirits, or the registration of the geographical indication, is, or is likely to be, offensive to Māori.” The explanation given for the reasoning behind this proposed change, as is recorded in the report of the select committee, is that although the bill, as it is introduced, provides that “the Registrar must not register a geographical indication if its use or registration is deemed offensive to a significant section of the community, including Māori.”, the bill does not specify whom the registrar should consult to determine whether or not the registration of the geographical indication would be offensive to Māori. And that is true, but, by the same token, neither does it specify whom the registrar should consult in order to determine whether or not any other given geographical indication might be offensive to anybody else—or, more specifically, anyone, we would presume, who is not Māori.

I will come back to that point, but it is worth remembering at this point, I think, that we are dealing with geographical indicators here. This bill deals with geographical names and features that might be, or are, associated with wine labels and the production of wines and spirits. We are not talking about words, phrases, or cultural concepts, and for those who might argue that to some Māori, at least, and in some situations, these may well be one and the same, it is, essentially, place names and names of geographical features that are already in use, and it is difficult to see how their inclusion on a label could be offensive to anybody.

There are already provisions in the law allowing such names, words, and wording to be removed from official use and recognition if they are deemed offensive, and indeed, the Geographic Board is undertaking just such an exercise right at the moment with regard to some names that although they might reflect a period of this country’s history when certain nomenclature was not considered offensive by a large majority of the country at that time, are no longer considered to be so. There is a place in North Canterbury that is named and officially gazetted as Nigger Hill, and that is plainly no longer acceptable in terms of the values and mores of modern New Zealand. It is going to be removed, and rightly so. I do not believe there is a single rational person in New Zealand or a member of this House who would disagree with that. But that is a decision of the Geographic Board, and should not, we believe, be a function of the advisory committee to the registrar of trademarks.

If a name or a feature is deemed acceptable for use as a place name, then surely it should be acceptable for use on the label of a wine or a spirit that is associated with that place or feature. Perhaps the Māori Language Commission could be consulted if there is any perceived offensive potential in the combination of certain place names with certain products, though, once again, because it is going to be established and gazetted—names of places and features that will be registered—it is difficult to see how such an offence could be caused.

To return to my earlier point, this proposed new clause does not make any specific reference to any significant section of the community who might be offended other than Māori. That is plainly racist and separatist, and it is insulting and derogatory to Māori.

We need to be mindful that this bill deals not only with our own registration of geographical indicators for New Zealand wines and spirits but also it deals with this country’s recognition of the registered indicators from other parts of the world from where we import such products. On that note, there is a place in Australia that goes by the name of Chinamans Knob. That may or may not sell more wine, but it could well be seen as being offensive to any number of people in this country if it were to appear on a bottle of imported Australian wine, and, yet, we have made no provision in this bill as to whom the registrar should consult on that matter. The New Zealand Gazetteer on the Land Information New Zealand website, in fact, lists all sorts of officially recognised and, presumably, acceptable place names that could be offensive to all manner of people, and knobs feature quite heavily. There is a Scotts Knob, which might offend people of Scottish heritage—or it may well persuade them to buy more of the stuff. There is a Richards Knob, and I myself might choose to take offence at that, but the bill does not make any special mention of a body to be established or consulted in terms of asking me whether I object to that or not.

My point, really, is that we do not regard this as an insurmountable obstacle. Agencies that already exist could be utilised in order to satisfy the requirement that “the Registrar must not register a geographical indication if its use or registration is deemed offensive …” without requiring another inspection of every application by yet another agency, presumably requiring the payment of yet another fee. Further to that, a colleague of mine suggested that we could go one step further and require that any such agency that is going to undertake that activity should make up a list of words or names that might give offence and the reasons for that before any such application is submitted, so that both the applicants and officialdom would have some guidelines to work with. My colleague suggested that in similar circumstances references to things that are sacred—perhaps names of gods and so forth—might come into play, but, again, we are not talking about those sorts of cultural concepts. We are talking about place names that are already in use and that are already deemed acceptable. It is unlikely that anything outside those parameters would find its way on to a wine label, and if it was to do so, it is more likely, actually, that that sort of thing would probably be outside the scope of this bill.

So we will be proposing some changes to the bill when it comes to the Committee of the whole House. New Zealand First will be introducing Supplementary Order Papers to either scrap the proposed inclusion of clause 21B and new section 39A altogether or to, perhaps, replace the proposed use of the advisory committee for the registrar of trademarks with the oversight of the Geographic Board or the Māori Language Commission instead and to suggest, as I say, that whatever agency finally is settled on, it comes up with a list of names, words and phrases, and so forth, first, against which applications can be measured so that we do avoid the potential for any offence being caused and, also, so that we avoid the requirement for people paying unnecessary additional fees. We do hope that the Government will take a genuine, objective look at these proposals that we will bring forward.

In closing, I reiterate that we do agree that in all other regards this is a necessary bill. It is long overdue in some aspects, and we support its passage through the House at this stage. Thank you very much.

It is a privilege to speak in the second reading of the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. It never ceases to amaze me how one of the more simple bills, such as this one—which was, effectively, written by the industry for the industry—can still be almost derailed by some arguably more marginal, loose interpretations of what the bill is trying to set out to achieve by some members of the Opposition. It is always entertaining, though, having a robust discussion about the use of glyphosate, the prevalence of Monsanto in the New Zealand market, and so on. But this is an important bill for the wine and spirits industry across New Zealand.

In my electorate of Clutha-Southland, we are home to Central Otago pinot noir, among other varieties of wine, and a number of our colleagues here, right across the House, have pretty important industries that will benefit significantly from this. New Zealand prides itself on being a premium producer on the world stage, and that is one of the things that can set us apart from many of the larger producers. We are never going to be able to produce as much wine as somewhere like the United States or key parts of Europe, but what we can do is differentiate ourselves and really put forward the quality version of our various varieties. That is what this bill sets out to achieve.

I want to acknowledge the chairman of our Primary Production Committee, Ian McKelvie, who, through his primary sector background outside the wine industry, brought an interesting take on this to the select committee, as did Barbara Kuriger, through her dairy industry background. Also, I acknowledge one other member as well, our deputy chairperson, Stuart Smith, who has spent his life working for and on behalf of the wine industry. He actually developed this bill in the later stages of his time as chair of the New Zealand Winegrowers Association, so it was really good to have him on the committee to be able to engage with the industry and get this legislation into a good position.

I think it is quite unique, really—our committee, the Primary Production Committee, does not consider much legislation, but the legislation that it does consider is, generally, actually prepared by the industry that is going to benefit most significantly from it, itself. That is part of our role in Government, I think: we need to be able to do our best to enable, support, and protect industries as they produce and export on to the world stage. It is a real privilege to be able to assist them through our roles as members of Parliament—to give them greater protection in that space, despite the fact that Mr Prosser was mentioning some more marginal aspects, such as some geographical or cultural indicators outside of the wine industry. But it was fascinating to hear, anyway.

That is the main point, I think, that I just wanted to mention, which is really on behalf of—I have got a small wine region in my electorate, but there are a growing number of wine regions across the country, and each and every one of them is becoming more and more aware of the need to have that level of protection to protect their premium brand, which they invest so much in. It is a real privilege to be able to speak in support of this bill. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Barry Coates—5 minutes.

I rise to express support for this bill, for the Geographical Indicators (Wine and Spirits Registration) Amendment Bill. The Green Party strongly supports this. I must declare a family interest in winery and a personal enthusiastic consumption of New Zealand products. I think this is a fantastic example of a really savvy—excuse the expression—marketing approach for New Zealand products. We see New Zealand products earning a premium on world markets, associated with not only high quality but also with production values. I think we should not forget the really strong effort of the industry in moving towards 100 percent certification according to sustainability criteria, which works very well with geographic indicators, so that consumers know that not only are they drinking a good product but also that the product is certified as sustainable production.

My point from here is that this bill focuses on wine and spirits. We note that in Europe we have Parma ham, Scotch beef, Welsh lamb, Stilton cheese, Jersey royals. These are geographical indicators that apply to products other than wine and spirits, and the question is: if we are serious about adding value to New Zealand’s primary products, if we are serious about diversifying away from commodity products, if we are concerned about our clean, green image and defending it, then why are we not looking beyond wine and spirits? Certainly, we would encourage a stronger move to do so, so that we could celebrate Bluff oysters, Morrinsville cheese, Pukekohe potatoes, Ōhākune carrots, Waiheke olives, Taupō beef, and maybe Tokoroa kauri. In future, I think, we can hope that this extension from wine and spirits will actually provide a huge amount of benefit to the New Zealand rural sector.

However, there is a problem, and the problem is that New Zealand’s trade policy is very much aligned towards following US interests, and US interests regard trademark as being the primary form of identification of products and geographical indicators as potentially getting in the way. If I look at article 23 of the Doha agenda from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which provides the authorisation for countries to pursue this bill, then we see that article 23 talks also about extending protection beyond wines and spirits. However, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the “TPPA”, has provisions that focus on preventing confusion with trademark. This is a departure from the WTO approach—a departure from the trade-related intellectual property rights approach—which is primarily concerned with protecting geographical origin. We have here two systems of trade: one European Union system and one United States system.

I think it is of deep concern that we are about to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, apparently—not without the opposition of a number of parties in this House and a majority of the New Zealand public—which would, essentially, be locking us into a trademark-dominated system and could potentially undercut the establishment of geographical indicators beyond wine and spirits. Therefore, we will support the bill to this next stage, but we would also request that the Government undertake research into the potential extension of geographical indicators to other products and how this may or may not be undermined by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement ratification. We would remind the Government that there is still time for it to step back from the ratification process. We look forward to the Government response on that.

We look forward to geographical indicators being potentially a far stronger way of defending New Zealand’s image and reputation internationally and gaining more value for New Zealand’s primary sector producers. Thank you.

I call Kris Faafoi—5 minutes.

Can I just begin by agreeing with some of what the last speaker, Barry Coates, said in terms of the ability for this piece of legislation to be able to be spread further beyond wine and spirits, as it stands now. I do believe there is a lot more potential in being able to brand and market and give, as the title of this bill suggests, geographical indicators to a lot more of our primary products—and, as my colleague Damien O’Connor says, to be able to create a better narrative and a better story and a better marketing ability for our country and for our primary products. That was certainly the case when I visited a farm about 2½ months ago in the Wairarapa—a red meat farm in Wainuiōrū, I think it was. The farmer there, William Beetham, took us around and was very proud of his farm, obviously, despite the challenges that the farm was going through there at the time. He spoke of the ability for his industry to be able to tell a better story around their product.

I am not a wine drinker; I am a whisky drinker. I think of the story behind whisky out of areas of Scotland—the history and the storytelling and the ability for them to market their whisky. I think we have got the ability to do that, not only with our wine and our spirits but also with other primary products. So although the legislation has got a relatively tame title to it, I think it really is an important piece of legislation, in being able to get more value out of our products that we produce here in New Zealand.

I cannot go on for the next 3 minutes without trying to respond to some of the comments made by Mr Prosser. I actually think that the piece of legislation that we have in front of us has been made better by the Primary Production Committee acknowledging that the body that will have to decide whether or not a geographical indicator may or may not be offensive to Māori might need some advice during that process, and by its looking at setting up a body to go to for that advice.

I find it strange that if the New Zealand First Party is fundamentally opposed to Māori being given any special consideration at all in this piece of legislation, it has waited until this point to make that known. I know that it was brought up at the select committee, but there was a first reading of this legislation, and if New Zealand First is fundamentally opposed to that, then it should have raised the issue at the first reading, because that was a rather significant part of this bill.

💬 Richard Prosser: It wasn’t there then.

Yes, it was. It was there then. The change in the bill that has come to this House after the select committee stage is the fact that the body may need some advice. That is the change. I talked specifically about the original clause in the bill in the first reading, to say that I thought it was good that if in some cases the brand or the geographical indicator might be offensive to Māori, that should be taken into consideration.

Let me give you a potential hypothetical argument as to why I think that is good. If, per se, a vineyard were to be set up in my electorate and someone with absolutely no connection to the local iwi decided to call their wine Ngāti Toa or Toa or Whitireia, I am pretty sure that the local iwi would be a little bit concerned about that. I think the iwi would have the right to go to the body and say: “Look, these guys have no connection with us. They’ve come into our iwi area, set up a vineyard, and tried to take our brand in our name. We don’t like that.”

💬 Richard Prosser: But this is a place name, and do they live there?

Well, it might not be. I think Ngāti Toa or Toa or an iwi name is a geographical indicator, and that is the issue. If iwi have no ability to be able to stop that, if they find it offensive—and it was in the original first reading, it was; go and have a look at the original draft of the legislation—then I think they should have the right to do that.

I also think that the body that we give powers to, to be able to determine whether that is offensive or not—it may decide that it is not—should have the ability to go and ask someone for advice, whether it be cultural advice, intellectual property advice, local advice, or historical advice about whether or not it is a valid claim that it is offensive or not. To come to the House now and say that this is something that New Zealand First is fundamentally opposed to, to me smacks of the party potentially not having read the legislation at the first reading, discovering this aspect post that, and now wanting to make a political point of it, which I think is wrong.

It is a pleasure to take a call this morning on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. It really is related to wines and spirits, although we have had a lot of good discussions around food this morning, which I think is great because it is about provenance and it is about pride, as well as being about certainty of the product for people who buy this wine.

Parochialism is alive and well. There is a bit of an MP rivalry between Tasman and Taranaki when it comes to rugby, and, of course, Stuart Smith—who has a lot of knowledge of wine—and I, along with Nick Smith, agreed that whoever lost the recent game between Taranaki and Tasman would front up with a bottle of wine. We did not win. Unfortunately, Tasman did. But I got a text from Stuart Smith with the name of some specific bottle of wine from his region that he thought would be appropriate to pay my dues in terms of losing the rugby.

I quickly got back to him—and I am never going to win a discussion with Stuart Smith on wine as he is an expert on the subject; I drink beer—and I said to him: “No. You are going to get a wine from my electorate.” I have Vilagrad wines. I do not have much wine in my electorate, but I do have the Vilagrad Winery. It is recovering from a massive fire from last year, and it has reopened and is back in business. So he is going to get the bottle of wine with “V” for Vilagrad. Unfortunately, we did not have a “V” for victory.

But that parochialism and those geographic indicators are about provenance and pride in what we produce. So I am really supporting this piece of legislation, because I do think we need to go out into the world and be absolutely proud of what we produce. I do not get a lot of chances to watch TV, but when I had do it is often a cooking programme. We have far too many cooking programmes, but I watched a British one. It is all about buying British beef and British lamb, and I think that we in New Zealand have got to be a lot more proud of supporting our own products.

I was really thrilled recently when I had the opportunity to go through Taupō for a business parliamentary attachment. Louis and I went to a restaurant called The Lazy Trout. I opened up the menu—it was a lovely meal—and it had Kāwhia Coast whitebait, King Country beef, and King Country venison, and I am thinking “Wow! I’m so proud of my electorate.” I am so proud of where this food came from, and I had to taste everything that came from where I came from. I went in there with no intention of having dessert, but when I found out that it was Taharoa cheesecake with Pirongia forest berries on top, guess what? I had dessert. I did not need it, but I had it. But for me, it is about that provenance story.

I have been having a number of conversations with Wintec. It now has children making camembert in the classroom from our good dairy products. And I will put a call out to the dairy farmers. Yesterday it was fantastic to have that increase in the auction. It was really, specifically good to have that 19 percent increase in whole-milk powder and to actually lift stuff out of that commodity cycle, which we are so dependent on, and get some pride into our products.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be at the Pāmu Farms of New Zealand presentation and watch a great presentation about Lewis Road Creamery. I saw the pride that there is in that product and the extension of the product lines that are going out, the marketing and the advertising—it pops up on Facebook—and there is now a new chocolate spread, there is ice cream, and a whole range of things. Building on that brand and building on that story is so important.

While we are on the topic of food, we should not forget our fibre as well. We had a great presentation of what can be done in terms of natural and healthy carpets for our homes from the wool that we produce. Things have been taken over a little bit—well, a lot—by synthetics in recent times.

I proudly stand here in support of this bill on wines and spirits. I do have a tendency to drink beer rather than wine. Recently the King Country Brewing Co. has started labelling and canning the King Country beer with the big hat on, and the Ragland Brewing Co. has also launched, so pride and provenance is important to me, and I support this bill. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to speak in the second reading of this bill. I have to respond, first up, to Mr Prosser’s contribution, because I found it hard to believe that here we are in 2016—that sort of speech takes race relations in our country back into early last century. I am very disappointed—very disappointed, but not surprised—that New Zealand First is making an issue over the fact that there is an advisory committee, which has long been established under the Trade Marks Act, that is there to simply advise the registrar that a particular application may give rise to concerns to Māori.

I am even more shocked that the member sitting next to Mr Prosser, Pita Paraone, my whanaunga from the North—right from where the Treaty was signed, a rangatira from the North—is letting his own party run roughshod over what have been hard-fought battles by Māori in this House to get recognition of the Treaty and to give expression to that through all of the mechanisms of Government and the laws that we enact through this House. I am really disappointed. I am really disappointed in that, because, yes, we are talking about geographic names and we are talking about wine and spirits, and we do acknowledge that this will be of benefit to our wine industry, which is having stellar growth at the moment. So, in one sense, yes, we are looking at that. But there are instances where there are sacred sites, sacred names, sacred places to Māori, and they may well have concerns about whether a geographical indication (GI) application has been submitted. It may give rise to those issues.

I give a classic example—a couple of examples. I gave the example from my Ngāi Tahu side: if a geographical indication registration, say, hypothetically, would be made for Kaiapoi or Kaiapōhia—those very sacred areas where I dare not go into it but a lot of blood was shed back in those days. I believe that there would be real concerns. That would be of great concern to me and also—[Interruption] Well, let us use the example of how the member, Richard Prosser, would—and he can consult with his fellow colleague, Pita Paraone. What if a GI application were made for Ruapekapeka? Ruapekapeka is a very sacred site to us in the North, particularly to the member’s colleague there and to the leader of his party. What if a GI application was made for Te Ruapekapeka. That is just a place—it is a place name.

Here is another one: the Aoraki region. The Aoraki region is a region. It is recognised. Sure, you could say it is the Mackenzie region, as well. But those are examples where there should be at least some recognition, and that is what this bill does. It gives only an advisory role. Based on what the member is saying, he says: “Oh, well, we can deal with that another way.” Well, there is a way, and we have put that in this bill. So whether he wants to consult with his colleague and come up with some other process—but, definitely, those are likely to be very offensive if there were applications made for GIs for those names.

I am really disappointed that the member would set us right back by going back to the same old—talking about special treatment, talking about being paternalistic. That is insulting and derogatory. All we are asking for and all we have provided for is utilising the expertise of an advisory body that has long been established. I think it has been around for well over 12-plus years. All we are saying is that we are going to use the expertise of that body, which I know is drawn from academics, iwi representatives, and the like from all around the country. We are going to use their expertise if the alarm bells go off with the registrar on a particular registration. That is all we are asking for. That is all we are providing for, nothing more.

So if the member could come back, I would be interested to hear how he would deal with a GI application for Ruapekapeka. If this process is not good enough, or if he just thinks “Oh no, that’s just special treatment.”, well then, I guess his colleagues will have to stand up in the North and say how they would be promoting such a view. As I said, I am shocked and disappointed—shocked and disappointed. But I do not want to belabour the point.

Moving on to this bill, we do support it. We do support the amendments that we made at the Primary Production Committee. We have listened to the industry. This is a bill that is about promoting and enhancing the value that we can capture from selling our wines, which are in high demand around the world.

I am very lucky. The electorate that I represent has some fantastic wine regions—Marlborough, Nelson, Canterbury, the Waipara Valley, and Central Otago—so if anyone wants to support this bill, it is me. I know that the economic benefits have transformed these particular regions around the country, if you do look at Marlborough or through Central Otago. It is good to see that there are Māori participating in viticulture and in the wine sector, right back to wines that I remember over in Martinborough, from Hau Ariki Wines—which was probably the first Māori wine and which is still over there with the person who was my whanaunga, the late Mr Hawkins—to what we see with Tohu Wines and the Wakatū Incorporation and what they have been doing, to other grape-growing areas that have significant Māori involvement in the Hawke’s Bay and up on the East Coast and in Gisborne. This is a positive piece of legislation that we are wanting to implement.

I do want to touch on the matter about country of origin.

💬 Ian McKelvie: Oh!

Yes, Mr McKelvie, I had to go there. Mr McKelvie said maybe one day—maybe one day—sometime in the future that might happen. Certainly, if it is good enough that we can do this for wine, we need a bold Government that will make sure that we can do this—the story of provenance, the story of where our beautiful bounty from the land and the sea comes from. That is definitely what we want to enhance New Zealand Inc., because that is what this is about.

This is a separate issue, but returning to the point about the Māori names, I believe that maybe there needs to be some additional advice. We have just implemented Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori, a substantial piece of legislation to do with Te Reo Māori, and maybe there could be some input through the mechanisms and the bodies that we have set up under there into this process. But, for now, the advisory committee that we have recognised is more than appropriate to play that part. Therefore, I commend this bill at its second reading. Kia ora.

Bill read a second time.