Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, I’m actually slightly disappointed because I know that I got cut off halfway through in full flight, and I know there’ll be many—there were going to be many, many people coming in to tune in to my finishing of the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill, but they may have been slightly distracted. I feel a little bit aggrieved that my moment in the spotlight has been taken by others.

Just to review where I was for those that maybe didn’t catch the first part of my speech, I was reiterating New Zealand First’s strong support for this bill. I had commended Gareth Hughes and actually previous members of the Green Party who had also championed this bill over a long period of time, and it is good that we have got ourselves now into position to bring this important piece of legislation forward.

Consumers have voted enormously in favour of this: 71 percent of consumers in polls have declared that they would want to have this information, so it’s widely supported by the public. We know that in things like clothing and footwear we already have these provisions, so why not our food, which is something we actually consume in our body? As New Zealand First, we are totally behind New Zealand producers and the fine food and beverages that we produce here, and we want to see them showcased as highly as possible.

I also did go on to talk about the pork industry for which we have a special carve-out within this legislation, because we now have 60 percent of our pork imported, which is a huge proportion of our pork, obviously, that has crept in over the years. We are a trading nation so we’re not out to put non-tariff barriers in front of other countries. In the select committee process, we looked through this very carefully and we consulted with foreign affairs officials to make sure we weren’t creating a bill that maybe would be used against us when we tried to export our food products to the outside world. So we have managed to satisfy those proposals.

Of course, 55 countries in the world already have this type of legislation, so this is not world-leading legislation, and that’s something that we normally do pride ourselves on, especially in the food space, as leading the world. So we are Johnny-come-latelies to this particular debate. Of course, there is the animal ethics side of things as well with pork, which was something we considered strongly, because 85 percent of that 60 percent that we consume in New Zealand is pork and pork products that are not raised in conditions that would meet New Zealand’s animal welfare standards, and that is something we’re taking increasingly seriously. We’ve just had a new set of animal welfare regulations, which come in to play on 1 October, so I think consumers and a growing list of consumers want to know that the food they’re consuming has been produced ethically, and this will give New Zealand consumers of pork, in particular, that ability to know that. I know from a personal perspective there’s no way I’d be buying anything that is not New Zealand pork or bacon.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Beef.

And of course beef and lamb. That is a very good point, Marja. Beef and lamb: in parts of the year, especially in winter—coming out of the winter when there is low production—up to 20 percent of the beef can be imported from Australia, and I would imagine that not many people know that. So under this bill we will know that, when we go to our butcher or our supermarket.

The other thing that Gareth Hughes, the proponent of the bill, has suggested, I think within the committee stages of this bill, is that we might look at incorporating a wee bit wider—nuts and seeds, I think, are a couple of things that he has listed that we might be able to bring within the scope of this bill as well. I think we should consider that, take it back to our caucuses. But my instructions were pretty clear from our caucus: that we need to make this as simple as possible at the start. It can get very complex very quickly as we found out during the select committee process. So we’re open to looking at those extensions, but we are very keen on this bill and we commend it once again to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill is a bill for which the credit needs to be given to Steffan Browning, as he was the original owner of this bill. I had quite a bit to do with Steffan Browning back in the last Parliament where he and I had several good discussions around his idea for an origin of food bill and, really, the reality of how we were going to make that bill work and put it into practice. I just want to really acknowledge Steffan Browning because he was a member of Parliament with really strongly held beliefs, very strong convictions, and this was one of those issues that he did feel passionately about. So Steffan Browning, if you’re around, and if you’re watching or listening to this debate, thank you for being the member of Parliament who sponsored this bill, which is why we’re standing here today supporting the bill.

We need to acknowledge that the bill has had a substantial rewrite, and that is in order for the bill to be workable, not only for consumers and customers who have so strongly asked for and supported the introduction of country-of-origin labelling with foodstuffs but also for those retailers, on the offering side, who have to comply with the requirements of any piece of legislation that this House brings through. I do think that this current bill—which was adopted by Gareth Hughes—does that, and I think it does it very well. I did not sit on the select committee that considered this bill, but I think they’ve brought back to the House a regime which will receive wide support and acceptance.

I note that the New Zealand Pork board is particularly pleased that cured pork products are included within this regime, as is single origin food, with a staggered introduction with fresh foods and then frozen foods and so on being brought in. Again, that is a pragmatic way of dealing with this issue so that—upon the passage of this bill, and in a bit of time—we can all go to our green grocer, as I do, or the farmers market or the supermarket and know exactly where our produce comes from. Support New Zealand products is all I’d say in conclusion. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, Te Māngai. It’s my absolute privilege, actually, to rise this afternoon, and I really do want to commend our colleague Gareth Hughes, from the Green Party, who has stewarded this bill through and has been very active in terms of his advocacy across the House for the rights of consumers to know where their produce comes from. I know it’s no small feat to have to navigate with both sides of the House to get to an end point. As my colleague Mark Patterson said just prior, this is the type of legislation that can very quickly become very complicated: the overlays of implications with international trade partners, roiling that right through to our domestic citizens’ right to know where their produce comes from. Yes, it has been quite a journey, and I know that the member Gareth Hughes picked it up from one of his former colleagues. So I just want to acknowledge the journey that this bill has been on, and the work that has gone on in that corner.

I mean, look, I’m a fairly new member on the Primary Production Committee, so I didn’t really have the opportunity to hear, probably, a majority of the precursory advice that was given by a range of different officials, but I do just probably want to acknowledge the history that this concept, I guess, has had within our domestic environment. Back in 2005, we had Australia—at that point they were legislating for their own country-of-origin labelling. Us, at that time, we had some concerns about the implications that it would have on our trade obligations if we were to do that, and there was some quite strong lobbying at that time. For a range of reasons, we determined that a voluntary scheme was going to be the best scheme. So companies or producers could label their produce, but it was voluntary, and the regulations have been relatively light.

But, over the years, there’ve been a number of studies. And I actually want to commend the work of Horticulture New Zealand, who have been very proactive in this area, actually; same with pork NZ—the New Zealand pork association—

💬 Mark Patterson: Pork board.

—the pork board; thank you very much for the correction in my terminology there—who have really provided strong industry support over many years to produce information that can give the Government surety that consumers really do want to understand exactly where their produce has been raised, what it’s been eating, and where it’s from. And we will pick up on the example of pork, because that there is a classic example where you’re buying fresh pork down at your supermarket and you see it’s a New Zealand product. What you don’t know is that it’s probably been semi-frozen—or it could have been; not probably, but could have been—and imported in from elsewhere, and at point of entry in New Zealand, it’s been cut up, packaged, and then sold to our supermarkets. We think that we’re consuming a domestically produced product, but we’re not.

So I saw some statistics that the pork board had put up in their submission to us. It was very informative. I saw a graph that showed that in about 2014 you started to see, at that juncture, that New Zealanders had started to consume more foreign or more imported pork products than domestic pork products. That came as a shock to me, because I think that most New Zealanders do have a strong association and affiliation for wanting to protect or to consume our local produce. So where we, as consumers—and like my colleague Mark Patterson and others, actually, from across the House—have the option to know exactly where that food is from, no doubt many of us will choose to support our locally produced products.

💬 Mark Patterson: New Zealand first!

Ha, ha! Aotearoa first; New Zealand first, that’s right. It’s all about our locally produced products.

Look, many of us from the regions, we harp on and on about how it is our primary producers that are the backbones of our regional economies. For example, where I’m from on the East Coast, in the absence of a thriving domestic and international market for locally produced produce, our economic backbone in the East Coast would be decimated if we didn’t have a fully thriving production across all aspects of it.

I had the opportunity recently to go over to Shanghai with some New Zealand kiwifruit growers. We went and had a good look at—well, actually, we went to a number of places in China, but what we were doing was looking at the way in which New Zealand produce was consumed by international consumers. What we are known for, whether it be honey, whether it be dairy, whether it be pretty much all of our horticultural produce—whatever it was, anything that was grown here was seen as a highly priced but also a highly valuable, healthy, and almost akin to organic product. The value of “Brand New Zealand” in an international environment—

💬 Mark Patterson: Beef and lamb.

Beef and lamb. Yes, that’s right—I give kudos to my friend there—but the value of the international brand of New Zealand to an international consumer, as well as the domestic consumer, is worth volumes. You could see produce on the supermarket shelves. They looked relatively similar, but where it carried that brand—that this was made and produced in New Zealand—that product would sell, I think, probably 9.9 times out of 10, for a premium. So I think that that requirement for us here at the domestic level and at the international level to really invest in “Brand New Zealand” is something that we can all be really proud of.

Look, we know that through the select committee process, a number of amendments to the bill were made—and, again, kudos to our colleague Gareth for his work in terms of liaising with the Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor, with the New Zealand First team, and with the Opposition to strike the balance to ensure that what we were doing was fit for purpose. So, basically, one of the key amendments is that we’ve, effectively, rewritten the bill to require that the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Hon Kris Faafoi, an outstanding Minister—it’s for the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to recommend that the regulations be made under the relevant provisions in the Fair Trading Act. That will do a whole range of things, but, basically, the bill’s going to apply to packaged or unpackaged foods that contain one type of vegetable, fruit, meat, or seafood—and we did have that extra addition of cured pork, and that came in at the later stages in the select committee process, and, again, actually it was the Hon Nathan Guy, from the Opposition, that was really supportive of that initiative. So I do really want to commend the Opposition for coming along on that ground, because, ultimately, it’s our industries and our consumers both that benefit.

Look, we do know that this bill does create an offence regime. It creates offences for falsifying or misleading labelling. Again, if we come back to that example of pork here in New Zealand—the fact that we need to know exactly where that product comes from and the whole journey of that product, and if we don’t, or if it’s mislabelled, then it comes with a fine of up to 10 grand for individuals and $50,000 for organisations. That’s a substantive disincentive measure—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: That’s right.

Thank you, Kieran McAnulty. I know this is a topic very close to your heart, and I commend you too for your work in stewarding this through, especially—yeah, no; I won’t go there.

So, look, I think that it does create a disincentive or a penalty regime that will require a heightened level of compliance—50 grand for any organisation is a fair chunk of cash that I think will act as an effective disincentive.

Look, there was a range of other food types that we did look to, and, like my colleague Mark Patterson said, those will be conversations for another day, but it didn’t feel like there was an absolute opposition to things like nuts and various forms of seed, but the regime does start to get very complicated. So that will be a conversation for another day. As a start-off bill, we’re very proud that we can endorse this. I commend it to the House.