Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill

This is the title debate, and we are very pleased that the title debate now comes at the end. I can remember being in this Chamber and continually having title debates. They were often very amusing, especially to members of Parliament, but did not have a huge amount of relevance to anything that had gone before. Now that we have the title debate at the end, it means we can do a little bit of a summary of what we feel about the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill.

It was interesting listening to my colleague Brian Connell saying he grew up on a dairy farm, and to the member from New Zealand First talking about how he had had to milk two cows. Well, when I grew up in the Marlborough Sounds I boarded on a farm. One thing that my mother said to me was: “Lynda, never learn to milk the cows.”, which I thought was quite good advice. It was not so good when, at the milking competition at the last A and P show—my having entered it for many years, and having got into the finals a couple of times—I had an Ayrshire, which managed to kick me in the face and give me serious bruising. That was not such a great event!

This bill is supported by all members in this Chamber. As the Minister said, it is about making sure that all dairy processes, from the milking shed and the farm dairy until the dairy product is exported and sent to retail, operate under a risk management system. I do hope the Minister’s assurance that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority will continue to work with industry to try to reduce compliance costs, and to make businesses in New Zealand more viable, will hold true, and that we do not see that body becoming just another self-serving bureaucracy, rather than being part of the Ministry of Health. The fact is we are an exporting nation, and we should think about the fact that we can have year after year of excellent and safe products, but it would take only one serious contamination of our products to damage us worldwide. That means that continual vigilance is very important in risk management.

This bill has been around for a long time, since the first public consultation in July 1999. I think that shows how slowly things move through the parliamentary process—

Dr Paul Hutchison: Under the Labour Government.

Dr LYNDA SCOTT: —especially under the Labour Government. But we are trying to get this bill through tonight so that it can become law, and so that the industry, which is all geared up for this legislation, is able to move ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the title of this bill, particularly after the very fine speech from my colleague Dr Lynda Scott. I think she was absolutely right when she pointed out how vital it is to have continued vigilance with risk management, because there is no doubt that it is the quality of our exports and our vital export industries that is so important to New Zealand. I recall that it was a Labour Prime Minister, none other than David Lange, who, some 10 years ago—it might have been a few years longer ago than that—said that the dairy industry was a sunset industry. Shame on him! Shame on him and on the Labour Party for that awful prediction.

Hon Annette King: Look forward—grow, man, grow!

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: The Minister of Health is saying “Grow, man, grow!”, and indeed that is exactly what the industry has done, despite the Labour Government and its reflex ability to set up hurdles for the industry. But it was good to hear the Minister of Health actually take a call on this bill, which has taken so long.

Hon Annette King: Actually, I’m the Minister for Food Safety.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Sorry—the Minister for Food Safety. And that brings up another point. Why do we have a separate ministry, when this matter could surely be dealt with by the Ministry of Health, if only the Ministry of Health under this Minister were much more efficient and effective than it is. Nevertheless, I make the comment that in schedule 3, it points out that it is important to include such things as alcoholic beverages. Many of us are not aware that some of the by-products, or the value-added products, of the dairy industry are 100 percent alcohol, formulated caffeinated beverages, and ice creams. What I really want to point out is the emerging number of value-added products that the dairy industry is now producing. They include nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and all sorts of goods with high value that, through research and development, the dairy industry has been able to bring up to market, and those products have been extremely important for New Zealand.

What I am concerned about, though, is that the regulations of this Labour Government, particularly in biotechnology, have made it extremely hard for that research to take place in New Zealand. It is a very, very important problem to researchers throughout New Zealand. It is common to Crop and Food Research, AgResearch, and HortResearch that unnecessary regulations brought in by this Labour Government have meant that much of that vital work has to be done offshore.

It is an indictment on the Labour Government that only several months ago, one of the very important trials on transgenic sheep to do with Huntington’s chorea was done offshore in Australia, because the verdict was that it would take too long and cost too much to be done in New Zealand.

But like Edwin Perry, I also recall being involved in milking cows myself. On this occasion it was in Ireland where the uncle in County Cavan had the largest dairy farm in that county—26 cows. We hand-milked them, popped them on the donkey and carriage, and went down to the dairy, but next door happened to be an excellent hostelry, where there was a considerable amount of wonderful Irish brew. Six hours later, one would come back to the farm and the cows would be all ready to have that excellent cycle repeated. What is remarkable though is that the Irish dairy industry has been bolstered by absolutely massive subsidies—€190 billion in direct subsidies—and that is what the New Zealand industry is having to compete against. That is why it is so important that we must have an efficient and effective system here in New Zealand.

I thank the Minister for Food Safety for taking a call. I thought she made some fair points and her contribution was reasonably balanced. I have to ask her a question, though, in relation to her saying that a part of this bill is to facilitate entry of products into overseas markets. That does pose a question about what we have been doing in the last 30 to 40 years in this industry.

Hon Annette King: There could be new markets.

BRIAN CONNELL: The Minister says there could be new markets, but I have tried to build an argument that the expertise in this industry is such that it has the ability to get into new markets. I have already said in a previous call that Fonterra now operates in 42 countries around the globe.

The Minister made a second point, and I thought on balance it was also fair, when she talked about the need to balance the standards we want with those standards imposed by overseas countries. I find myself agreeing with that, somewhat, but I wonder how hard we work in Government to convince particularly our European markets just how exacting we are in the standards we impose on our dairy industry in this country. That industry is not subsidised, unlike the ones the Minister is comparing it with. It is very hard to get more blood out of a stone, when the industry is already performing to very exacting standards.

I pose the question, and I posed it before, of just how necessary some of this stuff is. I go through the bill and see that we are putting definitions into legislation, and members of the Committee might be interested to know that under clause 5(2) “dairy material” is now “milk extracted from a milking animal;”. That is one definition of it; the second is “any material derived or processed from milk extracted from a milking animal,”. I know that Mr Perry said that he had milked cows, so he will be interested to know what a “dairy processor” is. Under the definition, “dairy processor means a person who, for reward (otherwise than as an employee) or for purposes of trade, carries out dairy processing; and—(a) includes—(i) a farm dairy operator:”.

Edwin Perry: How do you work that out?

BRIAN CONNELL: I do not know, but I thought that might bowl the member over. In the following subparagraph, a “dairy processor” is also “(ii) a transporter of dairy material from a farm dairy to a place of processing or manufacture:”. This is an industry, as I have said, that contributes something like $5.5 billion to New Zealand’s export earnings, yet we thought we had to tell the industry those things! I found the definition of “dairy product” quite interesting—one lives and learns. Under the definition, it “(a) means animal product that, having originally been dairy material,—(i) has been delivered to the place of sale for consumption, or for end use for purposes other than consumption; or (ii) has left New Zealand’s territorial waters in the course of its export:”.

I have one last point that I thought was worth mentioning for the benefit of people like Dr Hutchison, Mr Mark—in his capacity of having owned a number of dairy farming estates—and Mr Perry. I thought they might want to know what a “farm dairy” is. It is “a place where milking animals are milked”. Just for the sake of clarity, the definition goes on to state that it is a place where they are milked on a permanent basis or on a temporary basis. But the key is that it is a place where dairy animals are milked, and its surrounds could include stockyards, milking yards, or feedlots. I ask the Minister in the chair whether we really need to tell an industry that operates in 42 countries around the world, and that contributes $5.5 billion to our export earnings, how to suck eggs. Because that is what we are doing. That is the very issue I was bridling against before, when I said that what we are being threatened by here is unnecessary legislation and red tape.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Annette King to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to, and clause 2 as amended agreed to.