New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill will update the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act 1987, and will make some of the key provisions in the Act more flexible and clearer for the industries involved. The Act is of critical importance to our horticulture sector. Most of the industries in the sector are small, but with many producers and exporters. The Act provides a framework for producers and exporters to collaborate on the export marketing of their products.

This is an enabling piece of legislation. Producers and exporters decide whether to come under this framework, and once they are under the framework, they decide on the marketing strategies for their export produce. Grade standards are a key component of their marketing strategies.

The Primary Production Committee recommended a number of changes to the bill in response to submissions received. As I said in my second reading speech, the changes recommended by the Primary Production Committee provide greater clarity and will improve the implementation of the amendments proposed in this bill. I want to thank the members of the Primary Production Committee. They did an outstanding job under the leadership of Ian McKelvie. The Government has supported all of the recommended changes that came through that committee.

The bill will make a number of changes to the Act, and I just want to go through those. There will be increased flexibility for the industries from the proposed multi-tier export licensing provision, with industries being able to choose up to five tiers of markets. They can choose to retain their current one-tier model, if they like. This change is about choice and empowering industries to optimise their returns from different markets. There will be more clarity around the entry and exit requirements. The industries will retain their ability to choose if and when to enter and exit from this export framework.

There will be more clarity, certainty, and transparency around the authority’s funding, and around the fees and levies that producers and exporters will be charged. The updated fines will improve the effectiveness of the enforcement provisions in the Act. The current fines were set in 1987—almost 30 years ago.

There will be greater need for our industries to collaborate in the markets in the future, as we continue to successfully market our produce and retain our reputation for exporting high-quality and safe produce. The Horticulture Export Authority framework has proven over the last 29 years or so that it works for the industries, and those industries will continue to benefit from this framework long into the future.

We all know, in this House—and particularly on this side of the House—that our primary sectors are indeed innovative, from orchard to farm, and right through to the plate. We are breeding new, highly successful cultivars at one end, and developing new high-value markets at the other. Our horticulture export sector has diversified into new markets. We are exporting produce to over 100 countries a year now. In 1995, 39 percent of our horticultural exports, by value, went to the European Union, and 20 years later, in 2015, only 21 percent went into that market. Our industries are developing new markets, as the Government seeks to improve market access for these products around the globe.

Population growth and increasing prosperity through Asia is resulting in increasing demand for our premium horticulture products. That will continue into the future. For our industries to benefit from this, with premium prices in the growing and new markets, we must not only remain innovative and competitive; we must also collaborate together in these markets. The New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act provides that framework for collaboration.

With the upcoming changes to the Act, our industries will have a more flexible tool to target specific market opportunities in these different markets and to minimise the cost, which is hugely important. It is a small entity. It has very low overhead costs, and this bill will not change that. The bill updates and futureproofs the existing provisions in the Act, and it provides more options and clarity for the industries. I commend this bill to the House.

I am pleased to speak at this third reading of the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill. I know that this third reading is welcomed very much by not only the export authority but also the constituent groups made up of all the product groups. It has been a long time in the making. There is a statutory review of the authority that happens every 5 years, and I believe that the last two 5-yearly reviews have said “The bill needs updating—the bill needs updating.”, and so here we are, finally, being able to complete this process, much to the appreciation of the horticultural groups that comprise the authority.

This is a wonderful model, and I do want to acknowledge the great agriculture Minister from the fourth Labour Government, Colin Moyle, who promoted this authority and, you know, did some wonderful things in his time, including the introduction of the quota management system for fish. He also spearheaded this piece of legislation, and what we have seen over the past 30 years is that this has proven to be a really successful model. It does not compel companies to be part of it; it is completely voluntary. It is not a single desk, and it is not completely free-market. It is a voluntary model whereby product groups and the members within those product groups can come under the export authority’s framework. As part of that framework, they are to have an export marketing strategy, and the exporters must be licensed and must abide by that export marketing strategy. It is a unique hybrid model but it has proven to be successful, and I understand that over that 30-year period the export value of the various product groups has grown tenfold—now around $300 million in exports. That is a testament to the work that the export authority has done.

It is a very lean organisation—very lean—and it is supported only by the product groups. It receives no Government funding. But, obviously, it has proven its worth over the past 30 years, and all we are doing here, as the Minister for Primary Industries has noted, is making things a bit more flexible and a bit clearer, and we are futureproofing the workings of the export authority so that it can continue its good work.

When I mention the product groups, just for the benefit of those folks at home, we are talking about avocados, blackcurrants, buttercup squash, chestnuts, kiwifruit—but only to Australia—persimmons, summer fruit, tamarillos, and truffles. We are talking about those particular products. The producers have formed their own product groups, they have export strategies in place, and those growers and processers must be licensed in accordance with the Act to be able to conduct their business. The reason they do that is that by being able to collaborate they can be more competitive in those international markets. It is making sure that they can have the scale—that there is the scale to be able to compete, and to have consistent, good quality standards, which will uplift the reputation of our products in those particular markets. It is a win-win. It is all about cooperating to compete, and Kiwis and New Zealand companies do that very well, as evidenced by the export authority.

I do commend the work of the Primary Production Committee, under our chair, Mr McKelvie, and my senior colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor. We are very thorough in our work, and I am pleased with the amendments that we have made to this bill. It is not to the liking of everyone in the horticulture industry who is affiliated with this body—I guess, particularly, in respect of the entry and exit requirements. They wanted a slightly lower bar, but, in the end, we thought it was important. For an entire product group to come under this framework it would need broad support, not only from growers and exporters but also from the small ones and the big ones. I think we have found the right balance in that requirement, and also in a whole host of other provisions, which will all assist in the workings of the export authority to grow the exports. That is what we want—to grow the exports from the various product groups.

I certainly hope that the next 30 years of this export authority are even more successful than the first 30 years. I would hope that we can see the introduction of new product groups, new product sectors, to the body. There certainly are little fledgling producers out there, and I guess for them to get the scale to be able to sell their products into international markets, this is a proven model that will be well suited to them. So I certainly hope that they can expand, and with that expansion they can grow their export earnings, which all benefits us here in “New Zealand Inc.”

I do not think I intend to go on much further, just suffice to say that I do support this bill. I do support the model, and the good work that the export authority has been doing these past 30 years. I am sure that it will continue to assist our New Zealand companies to sell their delicious, high-quality, premium products to discerning markets worldwide and generate foreign exchange earnings to improve our standard of living here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

It has been a long Tuesday. I just looked at the cricket score before I stood up, and I can assure you that the day has got longer.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: What is it?

It is not good; they got 380-odd, and we are about 20-odd, without loss. Back to the bill. It is a pleasure for me to take a short call on the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill and to, I guess, outline some of the work that was undertaken by the Primary Production Committee to get to the point we got to, and to explain the value of this bill to New Zealand horticulture or agriculture, actually, but horticulture in particular. There are nine horticultural-based export industries that operate under this bill currently, and, as alluded to by the previous speaker, Rino Tirikatene, there are a number of others that operate on the fringe of it and may well, as a result of these changes to the bill, come into it at any time they wish.

The ones that operate under it currently are the avocado exporters, the blackcurrant exporters, the buttercup squash exporters, the chestnut exporters—and I bet you not many of you knew there was a chestnut exporters authority—the kiwifruit exporters, the persimmon exporters, the summer fruit exporters, the tamarillo exporters, and the truffle exporters. And, of course, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would know well what was part of this bill as you were part of the select committee that dealt with it.

The object of this bill is to create, I guess, extra value for New Zealand horticulture and to give its members the opportunity to trade in a manner in the world market that enables them to trade as a collective and in a strong environment. Whereas individually they would be picked off in a world market place, collectively they have significant strength, and so this bill gives strength to that opportunity for them, and enables them to compete in a world market that is very competitive.

It is also worth noting that the horticultural exports from New Zealand have grown significantly in the last few years, continue to grow, and, I think, have reached some $4 billion now. But it is also worth noting that some of our environmental policies that we are implementing around New Zealand have the effect of limiting land-use change in the future. One of the interesting things with horticulture, as it grows very rapidly—and I think it is probably going to, in the future, be the significant grower in New Zealand agriculture—is that it needs the opportunity to acquire more land and to use more land as it goes forward. Some of our environmental policy around the country at the moment is precluding that opportunity. So that is a challenge for us in New Zealand, as we move forward—to get that resolved and to enable the horticultural sector to grow as it should.

If you think about our horticultural sector, the big opportunity for it is to put fresh produce into our markets. Some years ago, fresh produce into Asia would have seemed a distant hope. But nowadays, modern transport and the very quickly cheapening air routes around the world are enabling us to put fresh fruit and produce into those markets very quickly, so we can provide fresh-to-the-supermarket-door in Asia any time we wish. That is really the future for New Zealand agriculture and horticulture. So that is a real opportunity for us, and I think it is something that will be a priority for this industry. So the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill enables the industry to collectively gain strength very quickly in that area.

There were some changes as this bill came through the select committee and through the Committee of the whole House—which was very brief. The bill will be passed with the following amendments as recommended by the Primary Production Committee. The first is to clarify that a vacant office is considered as an office holder being unavailable—you might think this is minor—and also applying this change for the purpose of identifying who the alternative chairperson is, when the chairperson is unavailable. It does seem a little pedantic, but none the less that is quite an important change to this legislation. It enables those authorities to move with nimbleness, I guess.

Other changes also enabled the clarification that grade standards can be included in export marketing strategies. They changed the interval between proposals for amendments of tiers of export licence, from at least 2 years to at least 1 year. They added a requirement for the authority to consult the Privacy Commissioner before amending certain information-sharing agreements, which is quite important and obviously a part of a lot of legislation we pass through this House. They also clarified the provision relating to fee and levy regulations.

There was Supplementary Order Paper 247 put forward during the course of the Committee stage; that was to add a levy provision to the legislation. The levy provision was necessary because a legal interpretation of what was previously thought to be fees, I guess, proved that, in fact, they were levies. That Supplementary Order Paper amendment needed to be added. It needed to be added to clause 31 of the bill, inserting new section 62, and changed the word “fees” to “any fee or levy”.

I have got the role of thanking my select committee for a great job. As Rino Tirikatene said a moment or two ago, the select committee gets on pretty well with these things. We got this done. It is a pleasure for me to support this bill in its third reading, as it goes through the House. Thank you.

I would like to say to the member Ian McKelvie, who just took his seat: cheer up. It is not that bad. Twenty-six for none in the fourth over—not that bad. Maybe it is the kind of week that that side of the House is having. I call that a good start.

We are here at the third reading of the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill. There are a number of points the previous speaker made that I would like to respond to. First of all, I would like to commend the Primary Production Committee. Clearly, this is a piece of legislation that is aimed at updating a piece of legislation that was past its use-by date. It needed updating. It is a piece of legislation that was passed in 1987. That was 3 years before Bill English entered Parliament, so it really did need updating, in terms of that.

A number of these changes that the committee made were warranted and sensible changes. They were around the need for the industries covered off under this agreement to have the flexibility to be able to respond. I think the first change that the select committee made, about when an office holder is unavailable—in the amendment that was made to clause 10, inserting new section 13A, identifying who the alternative chairperson is when the chairperson is unavailable—could be seen by some as quite prescient in terms of what the members on the opposite side of the House are doing. But do not worry—you can always look at the caucus rulebook to find out what those rules are, as well.

The other changes that needed to be made around this legislation were the tiers of licences and, of course, the rules that needed to go around the sharing of information. This is a piece of legislation that is about seeing product groups cooperate for industry good, working together to market particular product groups. That requires the sharing of information. Whenever we do require that kind of sharing of information, there have to be robust rules around how that is done. Likewise, when you give statutory power to a body to levy, that is also something that we need to make sure is circumscribed and that the right rules are around it, because, fundamentally, the groups who are asked to voluntarily sign up and be part of this authority have to have faith. Because it is a voluntary scheme, they have to have confidence that that is the case.

The previous speaker, the chair of the select committee—who has done an able job on this legislation—made a good point in his speech. He talked about the need for us to be able to identify and allocate more land for horticulture in our future—that it is a high-value export for us that is very much part of New Zealand’s economic future. I could not agree more. I hope that member will see that a land-use strategy is what is required, and that introducing agriculture into the emissions trading scheme is an absolutely critical part of deciding how it is that we use our land for future use. I was heartened to hear those comments from the speaker opposite, saying that he is up to face the challenge of how it is that we identify more land—and it is through progressive measures like looking at how it is that we use our land in a holistic way.

The kinds of products that are coming into this industry speak to the diversity of our horticultural industry in New Zealand. The horticultural industry is an industry that I worked with before I entered Parliament. I think it is an exciting industry and one that is very much part of New Zealand’s future. When we see the diversity of the groups coming in there—as previous speakers have mentioned, from chestnuts to squash and various products in between—it is very exciting.

I think one of the key things this legislation does, which was really required and shows how the world has moved since 1987, is allowing fit for purpose marketing in different markets. What we know is that where we have seen New Zealand horticultural products succeed, they have had very targeted marketing strategies into particular markets that have been based on the benefits of the particular cultivar that is being used. Often a screening process is used to identify the type of cultivar that will be fit for that market and then marketed through there, but also a lot of very sophisticated consumer research occurs within many of our horticultural industries in New Zealand. They know that if they want to market into a particular market, health and wellness may well be the way in one market, but it may be about security of supply in another market, and it may be about “pure New Zealand” in another. I celebrate any legislation that allows this kind of flexibility for groups to be really strategic and to target their effort where it is going to benefit the particular industry group that it is benefiting.

We all know, and I think can all agree, that the export value of our fruit and vegetables is going to be very much part of New Zealand’s future. We know that this is a more sustainable use of our land than many other land uses that are out there. We can just look at the dollars. We had $50 million of exports in 1988, a year after the principal Act was passed, rising to $300 million last year. This is growth that we need to make sure we are putting the legislation in place to support, and we need to make sure that our industry sectors can succeed. Labour is happy to support this legislation.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thirty-six for nothing.

The New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill is updating legislation, as has already been said, and is quite timely and necessary. What this bill and the Horticulture Export Authority are about, in essence, is marketing, but it is not necessarily about marketing in the sense that people think. Although consumer preferences are very important, you cannot get to the consumer if you do not get through the gatekeeper, and having scale is one way we can get through the gatekeeper.

We can look at the Australian market, for example, which is very similar to our own market here. There are two supermarkets that control most of the market, really, in Australia, and it is pretty similar here in New Zealand, although it is changing in Australia. I suspect the market is not large enough for it to change here, with Costco, etc., and ALDI in Australia. We do not have those two entities operating in New Zealand. But it is what it is, and to get past those gatekeepers you require scale. Although a farmers’ market works really well and it is great to be able to talk to the person who grew the products that you are purchasing, that is not possible in a supermarket in any way at all. To get through those gatekeepers you need to have security of supply, a uniform product, and all of the things that this bill allows a group of exporters to get together and provide. The only way to get to those consumers is to get through those gatekeepers in that way.

I think it is too often forgotten that we can grow fantastic produce in New Zealand, and we do, but the big missing part of the puzzle is how we get it and market it into the market, into the consumer. That is where all the profit is made, and it is also the hardest nut to crack. You can invest probably almost as much money in that section of the industry as you do in things like land, equipment, and machinery to process and grade all of the fruit or vegetables or whatever it is that you are exporting. So that is a really important point that I think is why this bill is so valuable.

I think the tiers of licences also make a lot of sense. They allow people to enter the market in different grades and at times that suit their particular industry. I like, as the Minister said, the term “orchard to the plate”. It is absolutely a good term and it is the way we should think about things in our industries in New Zealand anyway, because we cannot extract the maximum return without that.

This is a valuable piece of legislation. It is timely. It will be welcomed by the industry, and I believe it will be welcomed by consumers all around the world who will get to sample New Zealand’s best horticultural products, marketed in a uniform and sensible way. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am very pleased to take a call on the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill. I do agree with the previous speaker, Mr Smith, that how we market to the consumer is crucial to growing the value of our horticultural exports. It is also crucial to increasing the return to growers, to pack-house operators, and to exporters. This bill is a small step towards doing that, because it is providing a structure for minimum recognised quality standards and an ability to coordinate marketing through export marketing strategies and export licensing.

But if this Government was genuinely interested in helping the horticultural sector more seriously then it would have progressed this bill much more quickly—it has been 5 years in the making. The Horticulture Export Authority even had a diagram in one of its most recent annual reports that showed a snail, to highlight the very slow progress with the bill since consultation started in 2010. So it has been significantly delayed, when it could have been introduced and dealt with much more quickly.

One of the other ways in which the Government has failed to respond to the needs of the horticultural sector is that the Horticulture Export Authority has long called for country-of-origin labelling for fresh fruit and vegetable products, because it believes that this would benefit quality production. Yet the National Government has resolutely opposed this, and it could have been dealt with in this bill. We do not have mandatory country-of-origin labelling, unlike in Australia. In Australia any food product must identify the country of origin of whatever makes up more than 50 percent of the total production cost of the product. Because we do not have it, that means that fruit and vegetable products in our local shops do not have to have any identification on them as to where they come from. Certainly, some supermarkets have done this voluntarily, but it does mean that local producers are put at risk when we have scares, as we did in December 2015 when we had a Hepatitis A scare that was traced back to imported berries. Consumers in New Zealand could not choose local berries so that they would know that they were getting safe berries, because we did not have country-of-origin labelling, so, potentially, local producers lost out.

If we had the same rules as Australia—if there was proper legislation that was wider in scope than this one—that would make life simpler both for food manufacturers and for exports who were sending their products to both markets. Given that New Zealand is quite a small market, it would make more sense if the food producers were doing it on that wider scale so they did not have to change their labels just for us. So that is one area where this bill has failed.

Another area, generally, where the Government is failing the horticultural sector is the fact that it has not taken notice of the Horticulture Export Authority as it has highlighted, in its most recent annual report, that there is an increasing focus on sustainability in markets around the world. We like to think of ourselves as being clean and green. We like to have that as the basis for marketing a lot of our primary produce, yet we are failing to keep up with the international interest and commitment in this area.

In Ireland, for example, Origin Green has been established by the Irish Food Board. It was established in 2012 and it is a whole strategy around sustainability for food. It aims to shift Ireland’s agrifood business from one that is focused on low-value commodities, as we are here in New Zealand, to a much greater focus on what consumers want, to being a world leader in the market for premium products, and to getting a bigger value share from those markets. Origin Green in Ireland is a voluntary national-scale programme. It is coordinated by its food board and it involves around 55,000 Irish farms and 95 percent of food and drink producers—each of those has a 5-year sustainability plan. It has got measurable targets for producers to reduce their environmental impacts and also to provide social benefits to local communities, and to make their businesses more sustainable. Those sustainability plans are independently audited annually through the board’s quality assurance scheme.

In Ireland they are focusing on meeting consumer demands for high-quality safe food that is sustainably produced. Ireland is leaving us for dead, in terms of its commitment to sustainability. So that is one initiative that the Green Party would potentially look to review and introduce here, because we want a much stronger commitment to sustainability across the agricultural sector.

In terms of some of the comments made by previous speakers—Mr McKelvie commented on how we want to see more land used for horticulture in New Zealand. We would certainly agree with that, but it is not environmental constraints that are preventing that; what it is is the inflated prices for dairy land. Land prices are inflated because dairying is not considering its externalities in terms of water pollution and climate pollution. If agriculture is brought into the emissions trading scheme (ETS), and if dairying had to recognise that it has costs for the environment, and it was having to pay for those costs through being part of the ETS, then land prices would decline and it would be much more affordable to have much more diverse land uses, not just for horticulture but also for things like forestry. So, again, Green Party policy to bring agriculture into a regime where it accounts for its greenhouse emissions would help horticulture expand, because it would help bring our inflated land prices down.

This is a small and useful bill, but it only takes a very small step in terms of marketing strategies; it does not really tackle the barriers to the horticultural sector expanding. Those include bringing land prices down, having a long-term strategy for sustainability in the sector, and ensuring that we actually have all food production and fibre production sectors taking their greenhouse gas emissions into account. That is the sort of more innovative and more comprehensive initiative we would get with the Green Party being part of a progressive Government next year.

There is not actually a great deal left to be said about this bill, although, having said that, there are a great many of us here saying a great deal about it. I do not intend to wax lyrical for very long, this late at night and this late in the year. But I think it is poignant, actually, that there are so many voices from all sides of the House in agreement on this bill. I am finding myself in agreement with everyone who has spoken so far, including, actually, a colleague from the Greens—not on every detail; I think there are some aspects that, although they may have merit in themselves, perhaps do not fit within the scope of this bill. Country-of-origin labelling is perhaps one of those. We certainly agree with that and support that as a goal. I do not know whether it could have been fit into this bill, particularly, but that is something else to be looked at.

When you go back to the very beginning, the explanatory note, it says: “The purpose of the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act 1987 … is to promote the effective export marketing of horticultural commodities.”—that is what it is about. If we were to go down the line that our Green colleague was suggesting—in other words, to bring all agriculture into the emissions trading scheme—that would be something, I think, that would work against the effective marketing of horticultural commodities. It would impose unnecessary costs that do not currently exist on another sector of the productive part of New Zealand’s economy, really for no real reason. But that also would be outside the scope of this bill.

I would like to acknowledge the work of our extremely able and affable chair, Mr McKelvie, who has shepherded the bill through its stages—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: No pun intended.

—no, no pun intended, Mr Cunliffe—working closely with the Minister. On that note, in the Committee of the whole House, I did have a question for the Minister, on the Supplementary Order Paper that he had brought, Supplementary Order Paper 247. We took it on trust that the information that the Minister was bringing us on behalf of the industry was true and accurate, and that is certainly the case.

I had the opportunity to attend the horticulture industry’s end-of-year conference and the last speeches of that, prior to assembling on the steps of Parliament for a recreation of a 1916 photo. I managed to worm my way into that, and I will be recorded in history for ever as being “Who’s that character there?”—well, I guess my name will be written on the back somewhere. That was followed by a cocktail function, which I did not attend, but I did notice one or two members walking in the direction of it.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Go back to the bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: This sounds like evidence in a jury trial.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sounds like Lonely Planet to me.

Judge only—judge only. But if we look at the overall aims of the bill, I think it is fairly clear that it does achieve them all: “to—enable product groups to develop more flexible and targeted export marketing strategies;”—yes; “clarify the requirements for product groups to enter into and to exit from the export framework established by the Act;”—yes, it does that; “clarify the powers of product groups to collect fees and levies to fund their export marketing strategies;”—it does that; “improve the effectiveness of the enforcement provisions …”—it does that; and “formalise the information-sharing activities …”—it does that too. So it ticks the boxes for what it set out to achieve, and it has done it in a way that has gained the support of all parties across the House.

This is actually about Parliament doing what Parliament should do. Parliament is listening to the industry, listening to the people. The people and the industry have come to Parliament and said: “We want your help and assistance in putting together a piece of legislation that enables us to work better, for our industry to operate better, for us to make more money and more wealth for New Zealand Inc.” It creates employment; everyone is happy. As a Parliament, we have come together. As a committee we have come together—we have achieved that. Perhaps this could, I think, in the closing stages of this year, shine as a beacon for the new Prime Minister, whoever that person turns out to be—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Andrew Little.

—no, being realistic, Mr Cunliffe—to go forward into the New Year in a new spirit of cooperation, embracing the positive suggestions from members all across the House, and coming to a consensus conclusion in passing good legislation that everybody likes and everybody supports. So I am not going to hold up the progress of this bill or the House any further. New Zealand First is pleased and happy to support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

I always find myself speaking after the honourable member Mr Prosser, and I do agree with two things that he said in his speech. The first was that the bill ticks all the boxes for what it set out to achieve. That is right, because it was shepherded through under the able and pragmatic leadership of our chairperson, Mr Ian McKelvie, and I would like to acknowledge Ian and the other members of the committee.

The second thing that Mr Prosser said that I agree with is that the last thing we would want to see would be agriculture being introduced into the emissions trading scheme, which leads me on to a point that I agree with from the Green Party member Eugenie Sage, the previous member who spoke, when she said that one thing that would achieve would be decreased land prices. That is absolutely right. I think you would see land prices go through the floor if that were to be introduced.

This is a bill that we have had the privilege of working on in the Primary Production Committee, and one of the things that is really interesting about it is that it is a cornerstone piece of legislation that can actually see the pathway forward for a number of industries on a global stage. We have got such an opportunity to be able to put forward our premium brand as an exporting nation. One of things that this bill actually does is it puts a lot of safeguards around that and solidifies a lot of the processes that are in place to enable more of these industries to do that.

We know the value of this industry to our country. When the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act was introduced there was about $50 million worth of produce that was exported through that. Last year, we know that under the facilitation of this Act—the legislation governing this—there was about $300 million that was shepherded through. So we know the importance of this to our economy, and that is why it is a great privilege to speak in support of it. Thank you very much.

I rise to talk in support of the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill in its third and final reading. The Green Party welcomes this bill. It is in line with Green Party policy on diversifying our agriculture, supporting high-value primary production, leveraging our “clean, green” reputation, and supporting an initiative that is led by horticulturalists in the horticulture sector. We welcome the range of products that will be supported by this bill: avocados, blackcurrants, boysenberries, buttercup squash, chestnuts, nashi pears, tamarillos, etc. We congratulate the Horticulture Export Authority on the excellent work it has been doing, which has increased revenues from $50 million in 1998 to $300 million last year. This bill, we think, is an important new framework that helps growers, pack-house operators, and exporters increase market share and develop new markets.

However, we think it is about time this bill was introduced. We note that five annual reports in a row by the Horticulture Export Authority had called for this bill. As my colleague Eugenie Sage said, there is an amusing diagram on the Horticulture Export Authority’s website called Sid the Snail’s Trail, which is all about the passage of this bill. So why did it take so long? Well, one of the things, we think, is that perhaps the Government may be obsessed with supporting the commodity sector, rather than the high-value horticultural sector. The lack of focus on high-value production from the horticultural sector, we believe, may be partly responsible for the Government’s missing its target for export revenues to achieve 40 percent of gross domestic product. In fact, since the Government came in in 2008, the proportion of exports as a percentage of GDP has gone down rather than up towards that target.

So, although supporting this bill, we think that it needs other measures that would constitute a more coherent strategy. So what might that strategy look like? It might look like this: a proper partnership between Governments and producers, a marketing board that is responsive and supportive, and support for food provenance—where food is grown and under what conditions; the quality of food, and the sustainability of food is something that consumers around the world care deeply about. As my colleague Eugenie Sage said, we have country-of-origin labelling in Australia, but not in New Zealand. It would make all the sense in the world for us to join Australia in country-of-origin labelling.

We have geographical indications now for wine, and I think that is also a good bill that has gone through. However, why not geographical indications for food? Why do we not have Bluff oysters? Why do we not have Central Otago beef? Why do we not have geographical indications for products across the country such as Waiheke olives and Pukekohe potatoes and Ōhākune carrots—and all sorts of food that is grown to high-quality standards in this country? Why do we not celebrate the provenance of our products? That would increase the value, which would give that distinctive marketing edge.

We have also heard from my colleague around rational land use, which would make sectors like dairy pay their way and would enable more land to be leased for high-value uses like horticulture. We need proper support for sustainability and cleaning up our rivers, we need investment in New Zealand’s clean, green reputation, which has been allowed to degrade through neglect and through poor environmental performance, and we need support for high-value marketing.

So the Green Party looks forward to this bill being passed. We support it. We think it is a big step forward, but we also look forward to an even bigger step forward of getting into Government and supporting the excellent work done by the horticultural sector and others to increase the value of our agricultural products. Thank you.

I call Clare Curran—a 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party.

Taking a call on the third reading of this bill, I support the member Eugenie Sage in her description of it as a small but useful bill. I did not sit on the select committee for this particular piece of legislation and my personal contribution to horticulture is trying to keep my vegetable garden producing when I am not there. However, anything that involves supporting high-value export industries is something to be supported and Labour certainly supports this bill. I also support what the previous speaker, Barry Coates, said around the geographical indicators. The glaringly obvious—really—trajectory for an industry such as horticulture and for anything that we are particularly proud of in this country that we export and produce is to have it linked to a geographical part of the country. The technology will, ultimately, lead us in that direction but it will likely be a progressive Labour-led Government that will actually enable it.

I note that my colleague Damien O’Connor in his speeches in previous readings talked about this being coordination and collaboration across primary sectors. Certainly, this Horticulture Export Authority has been around for 29 years, I think, exporting to 100 countries, with $300 million exports. It is clearly going on a trajectory upwards. That is all great and something to be supported. But as my colleague Damien O’Connor asked—and the Minister never really adequately answered this question in the Committee stage of this legislation—why not meat? Why are we not going down this route of formal collaboration with an authority that has a definite plan around it? Why are we not doing this in our meat industry? Why are we allowing our meat industry to continue to be so disunified?

I also note that the amendment to have the levies in the primary legislation—also something that the Minister touched on only very lightly—had to be put at the Committee stage. What actually occurred with that stuff-up in this bill and why could he not address that during the Committee stage of the bill? I do not think he adequately addressed it during the third reading. I do think these things are important for transparency and I just want to put that on the record as well.

Ultimately, this is a bill that is a blindingly obvious bill that we would support. It talks about various product groups. There are various product groups that are forming across the way at the moment in the National Party. They are forming and taking shape—

💬 Richard Prosser: Do you think we should export them?

We could export them but they are taking shape before our very eyes. When I was looking at the product groups that were listed under the Horticulture Export Authority, I wondered what the synergies were. I was looking for swedes and potatoes, actually, which are not listed there and which I thought would characterise Bill English. But I thought it would be more likely to describe him as that old chestnut. Looking at Jonathan Coleman, he is more like the nashi pear. It is on restaurant menus, it is flashy, but it is, ultimately, also a bit watery and tasteless. With Judith Collins, you could talk about the tamarillo, because you either love it or you hate it, and it is quite tart—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Not tart enough.

Well, it is quite tart. But there has to be a fourth. There is a fourth option, which I think is pitched as the truffle, which, ultimately, could turn out to be the lemon.

I am not quite sure whether the last speaker, Clare Curran, really understood the concept of what we are talking about with the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill. This is about collaboration and cooperation between exporting industries in the horticulture area. I also have to take to task the previous speaker before her, Barry Coates, because he was telling a great story about food provenance, and he talked about partnering with the Government to sell its story. Well, actually, food producers are very good at telling their own stories. I think New Zealand needs to start getting prouder at telling the story and we need to be very careful about the stories that we tell.

We talk about food provenance and we talk about pride in our food and we talk about all of those things, and then we have the likes of the Green Party members who spend their time actually knocking down some of our producers who are making every effort to get in line with their environmental concerns. So we cannot tell one story on one hand to the world and say, yes, we have got these fabulous food producers, and on the other hand actually go around pulling it to bits. So we have got a bit of a conundrum there on the Opposition side of the fence.

To me this is a really good story. It is about nine horticulture-based export industries operating together. It is about the “New Zealand Inc.” brand, and I think it is really important that we are able to do that out in the market. We are very proud of our horticultural industry. It is a top-performing primary industry, and the exports are now worth over $4 billion. They have grown 17 percent over the last 3 years and I think that is very commendable. I think that working together can only corroborate that effort and provide us a lot more growth in the future, so it is a pleasure to support this bill. Thank you.

I am not too sure what that member, Barbara Kuriger, was talking about, but let me add a little bit of clarity to the debate here.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Nor was she.

I know, ha, ha! Well, look, the purpose of this bill is actually to promote effective export marketing of horticultural commodities. That is something that we all want, but we must understand in the 21st century that it is countries, not just companies, that are seeking to develop a global competitive advantage in this day and age. Gone are the days when we can go overseas and hand out a whole lot of rugby jerseys and expect to do business.

As I mentioned in a speech earlier on this evening, one of the things that I think that Government has done incredibly poorly is manage our global brand. What is a global brand worth? Well, in 2005 the then Ministry of Economic Development valued New Zealand’s global brand—the clean, green “100% Pure” brand—at $20 billion a year. At the same time, Deloitte did a survey and found that 80 percent of New Zealand companies that sought to export leveraged off this clean, green brand. Yet I think it was Amy Adams who talked about rivers; that it was acceptable if they were a good enough quality to go wading in—to go wading in.

One thing that I think that I agree with Barbara Kuriger on—I think what she was trying to say is that the story we tell overseas about our brand, the clean, green “100% Pure” brand, if we do not actually live that brand and if we do not walk the walk, then what happens is it becomes a fallacy. What happens, ultimately, is we become just another small economy pushing commodities into an increasingly competitive global market. We need a global competitive advantage that stands for something. When someone buys a kiwifruit or an apple or a banana or a nashi in a supermarket and it has “New Zealand” on it, they need to know that that stands for freshness, for great systems, for organic—or whatever, but it has got to stand for something more than the same product from Australia or South America or somewhere else. If we do not manage this brand well, we are in huge trouble. What I would really like to see is the environmental policy from that Government over the next 8 months—because that is all it has got—actually start to reflect the value of this brand in a way that is walking the walk, because if it becomes a myth, we are in trouble.

When we talk about horticultural exports, what are we actually talking about? Is this a big industry or is this a small industry? Well, it did increase by 9.5 percent in 2016—horticultural exports—to a record $4.3 billion. Kiwifruit exports in 2015 increased by $251 million to $1.2 billion, and they are on target to meet their 2025 target of $3 billion. Apples—they are up by $25 million to $562 million, and they are on track to meet their target of a billion dollars of exports by 2020.

Let us put this into perspective and see how valuable this industry has become to this country. In terms of the total horticultural exports, in 1985 they were worth $481 million, or 4.4 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise exports. By 2005 that had grown to $2.3 billion, or 7.5 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise exports. Move forward to 2015 and we are now talking about nearly $4.5 billion, or 8.8 percent of New Zealand’s exports, and it is only going to get better. I know that in Hawke’s Bay, which has the second-largest area under horticulture—behind Marlborough, and significantly more than most regions—there are literally millions of dollars being put into planting more orchards. This is a significant industry, and we need to get this right.

The products with export values of greater than $10 million are kiwifruit, wine, apples, cherries, and avocadoes—the things we do not necessarily think about. Asia, for example—we sent $1.43 billion of horticultural exports to Asia in 2015, $826 million to Australia, and $642 million to North America. Continental Europe—$632 million into the UK, over $500 million of exports.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now relate it to the bill.

Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are halfway through; you have not done that yet.

Yes, well, we are talking about the horticultural exports here, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point I am making is that if we are to get this right, if we are to really grow the premium brand—the Brand New Zealand—then exporting our horticultural products is just so important. This bill is a small step. It is not a panacea. We should be doing more; there is no doubt about that. I completely agree with the Greens in terms of country-of-origin labelling. Why would we not do it? We have absolutely nothing to lose by doing this. We have nothing to lose by doing this.

Let us get “Brand New Zealand” out there. When I go to the supermarket, I want to know where I am buying my food from. I want to know whether I am buying Kiwi, or buying wherever. Why should we not do this? Why should we not know this? But, also, why should we not expect our export markets to do exactly the same? If we get this right, the value of horticultural exports will go through the roof. Zespri for me is a classic case of how to de-commoditise something that was a commodity. It has done a brilliant job of really creating a differential in the market place around quality, around different products, actually. Fonterra—they could be doing better, but brand Fonterra means something. This is what we need to do in the horticultural sector, as well.

Time and time again in primary industries, whether it be meat or wool or wood, we go overseas and we compete against each other. How does that help us in the 21st century? Quite simply, it does not, at all. So I am in favour of this bill, but actually I would like to see a whole lot more done to really drive value to get that “Brand New Zealand” up there—not only “Brand New Zealand” in the global markets but to have “Brand New Zealand” mean something in New Zealand, because, probably like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I grew up swimming in clean rivers and fresh lakes. Our kids are not doing that at the moment. We need to get back to that, because that is what—[Interruption] I am sorry if I am keeping you up, Mr McKelvie. That is what “Brand New Zealand” means to Kiwis, but it also must be what “Brand New Zealand” means to our global markets. If we cannot get that premium, we are in trouble. Conversely, if we can get that premium around what New Zealand is worth, then these exports will go through the roof.

So I do support this bill, but I think there is a lot more we could be doing. Thank you very much.

It is a really great privilege and a pleasure to be the last speaker on the third reading of this bill. The select committee chair tells me that it is worth billions of dollars to the New Zealand horticultural sector and, as the MP for Coromandel, which includes the horticultural heartland hub of Katikati in the Western Bay of Plenty, I know that the horticultural sector orchardists in my part of the world will be greatly welcoming this bill.

I did not have an opportunity to sit on the select committee, but I understand from listening to other speakers that this is a bill whose time has come. It is a good bill for “New Zealand Inc.” and the horticultural sector. I have enormous pleasure in commending it to the House.

Bill read a third time.