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

Tank yu tumas. The Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill was introduced by Steffan Browning, who happens to be one of my constituents, a former Green MP and certainly a man who stood on his principles. He’s a guy I know very well, and I sent him a text to tell him his bill was coming up, so he assures me he is watching the bill go through the House. While he’s not able to shepherd it through now himself, I know he’ll be very justifiably proud.

This bill is really important, actually, and I had quite a bit of difficulty, I think, with a number of people across the House not understanding the importance of this bill and why it is so important. Coming from a wine industry background, I think what people misunderstood was how people do connect with where their food comes from, and the difficulties that have been alluded to before are actually with the drafting of the bill in its original state. However, the Primary Production Committee did do a lot of work on getting the drafting to a point where it was pared back to quite the minimum to allow the Minister to actually, through regulation-making powers, add foods as they go along, as seen fit. Where the bill has come in at the moment, it is at its simplest form, being single ingredient foods such as fruit, vegetables, and, of course, meat. But where the difficulty came was around things like bacon, which has, in fact, been cured, and those sorts of issues where it did in fact have another ingredient. Those things can and will be worked through with the benefit of the Minister’s regulation-making powers now that the bill has been pared back a bit.

Pork, of course, as has been mentioned, is a major benefactor of this, and in my electorate I certainly have the largest pork farm, in Patoa Farms, and the Sterne family run a fantastic operation there. It’s great that they and other pork producers now have a way of identifying their product on the shelf so that consumers can make an informed decision about what they buy.

As I said, coming from a wine industry background, I’ve always struggled to see why people saw this as a difficult thing to do. In fact, we have passed through this House in my time the Geographical Indications Act, which allows—in fact, requires—rules around identifying the area in which a wine is grown in New Zealand. That, of course, also goes with a country of origin. All of this goes back to—in fact, the wine industry and the cheese industry are really good examples around the world where the location of where those things are produced is very, very important. For example, champagne: you can’t make champagne or claim champagne on a label unless it’s been grown, made, and actually bottled in Champagne, the region in France. We’ve also got burgundy and Bordeaux, and they are two different regions in France as well, and gouda, in the case of cheese, in the Netherlands, and then Saint-Marcellin in cheese, and also Livarot, which is another cheese—all of those things relate to an area where they were grown and produced.

Of course, some on the other side don’t have the understanding of what happens around the world in terms of food and wine, but I’m quite happy to help educate them outside of the House.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: You give it, I’ll eat it.

As long as you pay, I’ll go through the wine list for you—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Ha, ha! Typical Nat.

—and we can have a good little experience. Dr Webb is a very enthusiastic supporter of that idea, I can see.

But, back to the bill. I think when we went through all this in select committee, it was quite clear that there was a real will for this to go through. There were only a couple of minor objections from industries that didn’t seem to understand the benefits that New Zealanders will get out of this. I congratulate Steffan Browning for bringing the bill to the House and Gareth Hughes for taking it over. It’s fantastic to have a bill pass in your name, and I think that while Steffan’s name won’t be on the bill, it will be known by those involved that he was the person who brought this bill through, and we’ll all be the better for it. So it’s with great pleasure I commend the bill to the House.

This is a split call—five minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Fakalofa lahi atu. I am very pleased to speak at the second reading of this bill. It really is captured in the title: the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. I’m pleased that I was a member of the Primary Production Committee, which considered this bill, and I too want to acknowledge the member Steffan Browning, a former member of this House—a resident of the great province of Marlborough and also part of Te Tai Tonga—who brought this bill to the House. Whilst this bill was not in Gareth Hughes’ name when it was brought to the House, I do want to acknowledge him as well, as he has adopted it. We know its genesis, we know where it came from, and I do want to acknowledge Mr Steffan Browning for his contribution. Even though he may have had a limited time in this House, this is a piece of legislation that he can put down as a legacy of his work in this august place.

I support this bill. I too acknowledge all of the work that went on as a committee, but also the officials that we really tested through the examination of this bill. I know Mr Smith said that we all wanted this bill to go through, and whilst that is true, it’s fair to say that it was all around the scope of the bill where we had differences of opinion. But I’m pleased that, as a committee, we’ve come to a very sensible piece of legislation now.

The key change, as has been outlined, is that this is not a stand-alone bill. This bill will be amending some key provisions in the Fair Trading Act, and that provision, in particular, is section 27, which will now give the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the power to put in place regulations around implementing a country-of-origin food labelling regime.

In regards to the scope of this bill, yes, we are starting with single component foods, but we have included all those foods in their various forms—whether it be fresh, frozen, semi-processed, or in a raw state—and across all major food groups. So it is quite broad in its application, and this is a very good start.

It’s all about giving consumers the right to know where their food comes from. As Mr Smith said, we, as an exporting nation, want to ensure that all of our consumers and customers around the world know that their product comes from New Zealand—our location, the origin of our food, means it commands a premium. Likewise, the consumers that go to the supermarkets, or retail outlets, to buy their food should have the right to know where their food is coming from. So this is a really helpful start.

There is scope in the future for the Minister to make further regulations in this area, but we’ve started at a very common-sense place: single component foods. We’re not getting too technical; we’re keeping it simple. But single component foods, whether they be in various forms, across all those major food groups, will, in time, have country of origin. That’s why we’ve also staggered the implementation, under the regulations, of the time frame for which the industry will be required to put that labelling in place. So there’ll be plenty of time. This will be implemented in a very staggered and common-sense way over the coming years.

I’m very pleased and proud that I was part of the Primary Production Committee which considered this bill. It’s making good progress thus far through the House, and I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

It’s my pleasure to speak to this bill, the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. I do so coming from what I call the food bowl of New Zealand—slightly further up from the Wairarapa, Mr McAnulty, but, you know, you produce some good food as well.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: That’s right.

That’s right. But this is really about our future. Coming from a place which has exceptional food and wine, there have been lots of conversations in Hawke’s Bay over the years about how we protect and preserve the value in those products. So even in the wine industry, there have been changes to pretty much the origin of where wine comes from and the labelling resources, and in a place like Hawke’s Bay, if you look at our wine industry, there are unique parts. Gimblett Gravels, as an example, produces some of the best wine in the world. We need to make sure that we look after—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Not as good as Martinborough.

Well, Martinborough’s got some not bad stuff, but not quite in our league. So we need to look after our products and, importantly, our value.

Last night, in Hastings, I attended the Hawke’s Bay Wine Awards, and it was packed. Those people are there because they believe, they work hard, and they are exporting to the world and supplying New Zealand consumers. And that value needs to be protected. We also know that in an international market—and I remember this vividly in Hawke’s Bay once. There was a glut of onions. You couldn’t give them away—a glut. You couldn’t give them away. They were in storage sheds all around the world. All of a sudden, the American crop failed, and the whole lot were put on ships and went to Europe. So we shouldn’t underestimate how much the global trade of food products occurs, particularly with multinationals, and particularly in today’s world, where so much is over the internet or online. So the National Party is happy to support this bill. It provides value to us and to our consumers in an ever-changing world.

If you look today in supermarkets and if you look at people doing their shopping, or if you look at a farmers market on a Sunday morning as an example, people are way more interested in their food products than when I was a young boy. When I was a young boy, my mum bought food products often around what was the cheapest, and often around way less choice. Today, if you go to a supermarket—and there are specialist supermarkets: some that specialise in Indian food, Asian food. There are even companies that specialise in bringing food-based products from the UK. We need to give consumers enough information and confidence that they can make informed choices and that the value of New Zealand - based products can also be enhanced, because it’s my view that if people actually know where the product is from—if you have pork from Canada or Australia and it’s sitting on a supermarket shelf and there is a New Zealand product there and there is a Canadian or Australian product there, unless there is a massive price differential, Kiwis will always buy Kiwi-based products. This bill is simply about ensuring that continues and that value is retained in New Zealand.

I also think it’s important—and there have been some changes in the Primary Production Committee, and I agree with those—that the compliance costs for failure get to a level that discourages people from trying to rort the system. There have been people in my own electorate, companies in my own electorate, that have, effectively, changed weights and done all sorts of other things. They don’t do it now, but they used to, and they are out of business, largely. So the consumer in New Zealand needs to know that what they are getting is the fair deal, where it comes from, that it’s weighed properly, and what its value is.

Don’t underestimate where this country-of-origin labelling will go in the future. I have been to Europe. I have been to Asia. Smart codes, barcodes, little implants—all sorts of things are on the agenda for people to be able to show where that product was grown. You put it up on your phone and you’ll see the farmer, you’ll see the country, you’ll see the mountains, you’ll see the grass, and you’ll see the products. That is our value. So anything we can do to enhance our value internationally and to protect our consumers at home should be encouraged, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Now, it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill, because it really is time that we beefed up this area of the law. It’s very important that people do have an ability to know exactly where their food comes from, and I congratulate Gareth Hughes for having this bill progress through the House. He does look somewhat like the cat that got the cream.

The way food is produced is very, very important, and whilst there’s room for improvement in New Zealand—and I know Minister O’Connor is doing that—we have some of the highest-quality food production standards and animal welfare standards in the world. So if you are buying New Zealand pork, you know that it has met minimum welfare standards, minimum hygiene standards, minimum packaging standards, and so on and so forth. Those standards simply don’t necessarily exist in other countries, so that’s simply one reason why this is such an important bill. It hasn’t yet expanded to some of the more complex products—the products that include multiple ingredients—in a substantial way, but it is clear, and the bill itself makes clear, that it’s open to the Minister to expand it in that way. So, hopefully, the Minister won’t simply cherry-pick the odd product here and there but will have a much more comprehensive approach to regulation of country of origin.

As I said, it is very important, and the fact of the matter is that for some of our foods in particular, country of origin is a quality mark. Where something comes from tells you something about those goods. Apricots are a good example: without wanting to disparage Turkish apricots, we know that New Zealand apricots and Central Otago apricots are a different product altogether to some of those apricots from overseas. And so, when we go to the shops, we don’t want to simply know they’re dried apricots; we want to know exactly where they come from, because it’s a different quality. It’s a different item and, as Stuart Smith was saying, location is part of the product and, in some ways, part of the brand. He mentioned French wines and Dutch cheeses that he might be familiar with; I’m more familiar with South Island lamb myself, which we know is the best lamb in the world. When you come to New Zealand and you look at it, you see it there, you know that it’s New Zealand lamb and, what’s more, hopefully, South Island lamb. Here in New Zealand, it’s going to be better than any other lamb there can be. And, of course, we are a bit behind the eight ball, because many overseas jurisdictions are well ahead of us on this. We don’t want to buy something that’s as cheap as chips and think that it’s a New Zealand product. We’re usually happy to pay that little bit more for something which is a New Zealand product.

Of course, the other aspect of this is the fact that in New Zealand we can usually identify the food chain—the farm to plate idea. We know there’s been security in it. We know that, in terms of all of those standards, it’s met those standards, whereas overseas food—and there was, not that long ago, an example of grapes having a venomous spider found in them. Now, if they’d been marked as being from, I think, South America, then at least you would have known that that was a possibility, whereas here, if you know they’re New Zealand grapes, you know they’ve got a full secure chain of supply, including biosecurity. So sometimes the systems overseas clearly don’t cut the mustard and you have to take their quality standards with a bit of a pinch of salt.

So what’s been done with this bill here is that we’ve really picked the low-hanging fruit by going for single-ingredient items, but I do think the Minister will soon have an opportunity to go further than that. And, also, it’s useful to have an ability to exclude some items, because, obviously, you don’t necessarily need to know the country of origin of a bag of lemons that you’re buying on the side of a country road. You pretty much know where they’ve come from, and other items. I see fundraisers are excluded as well, so your raffle down at the pub.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: What about a National Party fund-raisers?

Yeah, even the odd bottle of high-quality wine at a National Party fund-raiser—you probably don’t have to label that, because sometimes it will be unduly onerous to label those foods. It’s important to note, of course, that you don’t have to mark everything; you don’t have to put a sticker on every apple. It’s going to be enough simply if you put, next to the price of the apples, a sign there.

It’s an interesting piece of legislation in some ways, because the Minister is, essentially, instructed to make these regulations and then the legislation expires within 18 months, and I must say it was the first time that I’d seen a sunset clause quite of that nature where the Act is repealed 18 months after its commencement, but that’s the mandate—that’s the indication to the Minister that the regulations have to be in place by that time. But it’s an absolutely appropriate thing to do, and I do think that this is the first step of a journey to improve our country-of-origin labelling so that people will know where their food comes from. We do have this broad ability to regulate anyway under the Fair Trading Act. I myself have been involved in litigation involving country of origin, and at the moment it’s simply not clear to people what those rules are. So even when you do put a “made in New Zealand” sticker on something—because it is a quality sticker—what we need is good guidance so that people know not only exactly when they can do that but also when they must do that.

Now, I hope that that guidance will be expanded so that when people are putting that “made in New Zealand” sticker on a packet of biscuits or a tin of goat’s milk or whatever it might be, they know exactly the kind of composition—that it doesn’t have to be 100 percent made in New Zealand, perhaps, but at least predominantly made in New Zealand. And, of course, it’s not just a manufacturing process; a lot of this stuff is simply grown in New Zealand, or sourced in New Zealand, or fished in New Zealand, and so on and so forth. So those kinds of thing are going to be important as well.

There’s a lot of food for thought in there, and it’s good to see that the National Party has come on board and has made a workable piece of legislation. There are no sour grapes there, and we’re not playing any pork-barrel politics, but, rather, we’re just getting on side with it and actually making something that is going to work. It is really a value proposition, and it’s great for New Zealand producers that they can now expect, on these items, not only to put their own sticker on their own food, or whatever it might be, saying that it’s made in New Zealand, but to not be at that disadvantage where someone thinks that the pork or the apples or whatever it might be are also sourced in New Zealand and that information isn’t given clearly and accurately.

When you think about it, it’s not that hard. Consumers do have a right to know. And, look, in many cases, consumers can find out, but it’s so difficult. So what we have here is the ability of the Minister to say, “Yes, you’ve got to label these foods, and here’s how you do it.” You do it prominently, you do it accurately, and if you look at the Australian framework, I think there’s plenty to be learned from there, where the ACCC, I think it is, has given a pretty good indication of how you might go about it, including a nice little bar that tells you what kind of proportion of the goods is made in Australia. Now, we don’t have to do that here because it’s mainly single ingredient goods, but when we do come to look at multi-ingredient goods, to know that it’s 75 percent New Zealand ingredients is a really helpful thing to know.

So if you’re a New Zealand producer now, the world really is your oyster. You can get out there. You can make sure that your goods are properly compared—that people aren’t under some misapprehension; that they’re not thinking they’re buying one thing and then they’re not. They can compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: That’s right.

Exactly—actually and literally. So that’s a really good thing. So, look, I really commend this bill to the House because it is a real leap forward for consumers in New Zealand. At last, they can look at something, know what it is, and purchase something with full information.

💬 David Seymour: Thirty seconds. The member can do it! A few more thoughts?

Mr Seymour there, don’t look at me like that. I know you’re a bit sour about this, but don’t worry about it.

💬 David Seymour: About what?

Don’t go nuts. Just hold your noodle. But this is a good piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

Are you seeking the call, Mr Scott?

💬 Alastair Scott: I am.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Alastair Scott.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’ve got a very short contribution. I do also want to commend Mr Browning on his contribution. I’m sure it’s not enough for him, but it is a start, as many speakers have said tonight. And I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a tremendous honour to stand here and speak in favour of this, the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill, which, as has been mentioned by many contributors tonight, is about establishing a very simple principle: that consumers should know what it is that they are buying.

I want to commend Steffan Browning for introducing this bill originally, and of course Gareth Hughes, a comrade from the Green Party, for carrying this through the select committee stage, when it wasn’t all that straight forward. The principle at stake here—I would have assumed that it would get universal support across the House right from the get go, but it’s not as straight forward as one might imagine. The idea of ensuring that single-origin food is adequately labelled so that consumers know where that product has been manufactured or grown is pretty straight forward. What took the select committee’s time, of course, was when it became complex in the sense that there was more than one ingredient. How do we go about that? That was certainly the issue that dominated the discussions around the select committee process. And I suppose it’s only right that we look to acknowledge the approach that the select committee took. By and large, the National Party members, the Labour Party members, and the New Zealand First member in Mark Patterson—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it has come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I hope you had a marvellous dinner break, as did I. I enjoyed it very much. I caught up with both One News and Newshub, which I found very entertaining this evening.

It is, of course, a tremendous pleasure to resume this speech on the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. I was only a minute and a half in to my speech when the dinner break started, and I was just commending the members who have introduced this bill and have seen it through the House. Steffan Browning, of course, introduced this bill with an eye to ensuring that consumers were fully informed at the point of purchasing food so that they understood where their food was grown and produced. There have been some amendments and, throughout the select committee process, Gareth Hughes has steered this bill through that. He’s not a member of the Primary Production Committee, but, of course, he joined that committee when this bill was up for discussion, and he’s done a marvellous job.

It’s been a difficult road, actually, because, of course, this is not a clear-cut issue or situation. Perhaps you might think it would be. It’s simply ensuring that consumers know where the food has come from, but all the food that we eat is not always single origin, of course. With a bit of meat, it’s pretty clear-cut. You’ve got some meat, tell the consumers where it’s from—easy. What about a tin of tomatoes? What about if those tomatoes are from Italy, but the basil’s from New Zealand—how do we go about that? What about those other food types that have got more than one particular type of food within them? It does get complicated.

So this bill and the amendments that the select committee have made allow the responsible Minister to bring in regulations after a period of probably about 18 months. After some consideration, they can bring in some regulations so that other food can be considered under this particular regime alongside those that are included. Just for those at home who are interested, those that are included are only those of one particular type of fresh or frozen “fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, or seafood”, and are “fresh (even if previously frozen) or frozen and is not, for example, dried, cured, or pickled;”. So perhaps you might start to get an understanding of how complex this became in discussions at select committee. You know, it wasn’t expected, but it was an engaging process none the less.

There were a lot of submitters—they were keen to have their say—of which, probably the most enthusiastic were representatives from our pork industry. Although they may not necessarily be completely satisfied with how this bill has come about from the select committee, I’m sure they are buoyed that as a result of the powers that this bill gives the Minister, they will then be able to look at bringing in regulations that do benefit them.

Take bacon, for example. Now, under the current law as it stands, a company could bring pork in from overseas, cure it here, and label it “Product of New Zealand”. Now, with the New Zealand pork industry, just like any other primary industries in this country that want to market their own products, I imagine for most consumers in New Zealand, if they buy bacon or ham or salami or whatever, if it says “Made in New Zealand”, they would assume that it was a product that was farmed here, because we are a world leader in primary production, and yet if you were to go and buy a steak from the supermarket, you’ve a pretty safe bet that it was farmed here. The same could be said, certainly, for lamb; perhaps not so much for seafood and fish, but for pork it is not necessarily the case. I think consumers in this country, given our love of bacon and ham, etc., would like to know if what they are eating was grown here or if it was simply manufactured here. In the eyes of the consumer, I believe that that is significant.

Another example might be fish. Now, the fish could be caught anywhere in the world, brought to this country, and crumbed, and, as it currently stands, it could be labelled a product of New Zealand. It’s slightly misleading, and I think if consumers were aware of that and if the price of the product was not necessarily a factor—we do want to perhaps at this point acknowledge that for a lot of people, it’s not necessarily a big deal where the food was made. It’s just what is the cheapest and most nutritious for their family, and we absolutely appreciate that. But when price is not a factor, if consumers thought they were buying fish that was caught in this country, under a system where they can have faith in the processes that are in place in the food safety regulations and regime that’s currently in place, then they would do so assuming that that was a safe product. Potentially, if a consumer was buying a product under the guise of “Made in New Zealand” but it was actually farmed or fished or grown or produced overseas and that consumer was not aware of that, then that is not an informed decision, and that is simply all this bill looks to introduce.

It does also create offences so that this regime and this system that’s going to be in place can actually be enforced. This is the sort of thing that in a voluntary system could not necessarily be effective, because we want to make sure that our integrity as a food-producing nation is also intact.

Primarily, the point of this bill is to ensure that people are aware of what they’re buying. But also, as a country that exports our food and looks, under this Government, with a vision for primary industries, where we’re not just leaving things like perhaps the previous Government did and just hoping that the market might deliver, but actually having a vision where we can strive towards extracting the highest value and targeting the most discerning consumer—doing that in a system where the New Zealand product is duly recognised, particularly when other countries have similar systems in place, is, I think, a right step.

I acknowledge submitters like Federated Farmers, who, whilst at an executive level agreed with the principle behind this bill—the red meat sector were concerned about potential retaliation from other countries. If we’re making them label their products so that Australian producers could sell their steak in New Zealand supermarkets and not be required to label it as Australian meat, then they might make us do the same over there. But I say, good—bring it on—because our products are better than theirs. Ours are more nutritious and more environmentally sustainable, and we have really quite high animal welfare standards that we should be proud of as a nation. We should be wanting to sing it from the rooftops when we are selling New Zealand products overseas, and I don’t think it’s anything to be scared of if other countries want to bring in a similar country-of-origin labelling regime like we are proposing here.

It is good news for our exporters, it is good news for our brand as a primary-producing nation, and it is certainly good news for consumers. I for one do not want to be buying meat, assuming that it is New Zealand grown and finding out that it’s not. I don’t want to do that with fish. I certainly want to be informed if I was purchasing any other product of a single origin. This bill, under the leadership of Gareth Hughes, provides that certainty for consumers, and I have no hesitation in commending it to the House.

Bill read a second time.