GARETH HUGHES (Green) : Kia ora. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is a real privilege to take a call in this debate in Parliament today. I do not know whether I am the right person to be taking a call on the National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill given that I am a vegetarian and have been for the last 11 years. So my interest is in the animals, not necessarily in eating the animals. But the Green Party welcomes this legislation and will be joining with other parties in Parliament to vote in support of it.
We do support greater information going to consumers. We believe that that will assist our export markets—that vital New Zealand brand—and we support the transition in New Zealand towards a sustainable agricultural sector. I will be taking only a brief call, because I am speaking on behalf of Kevin Hague, my colleague who heard the submissions and who was involved in the Primary Production Committee.
I will talk briefly about what the bill will do and what it can do, and I will look at the new quasi public-private organisation that will be enforcing the bill. Then, lastly, I will look a little at the opportunities of this bill—how we can really build that "clean, green" brand, that valuable brand to New Zealand's economy.
To begin with, the bill establishes a national animal identification and tracking (NAIT) system for cattle and deer. We have heard that it is too expensive, initially, for sheep. I am not sure of the status of pork products in the new body that is being established, but I think we would question why we are not doing it all at once—why we are not bringing those 30 million sheep in at once—because there will be greater costs down the line when we do that.
The bill will be setting up a system to follow the rapid and changing trends, be they in diseases or new methods, that affect animals from birth to death. It is sort of taking on that cradle-to-grave idea, or a farm-to-shop tracking system. We support the intent of the bill and the way it is being rolled out. We note, though, that what is essentially being established is a quasi public-private enforcement agency that will have significant powers in relation to compliance, searching for documents, and searching and questioning people. It will even have powers of detention. I note that the agency will not be subject to Official Information Act requests.
We know that the establishment of this body will be expensive. In earlier documentation, I understand, the cost was in the order of $1 per animal, but now I hear from the debate that we may be facing a $2 or $3 cost per animal, which will be a significant cost especially to livestock farmers or even to people with only a few livestock animals. But I think that the greater burden will be in the hassle of registering and engaging with this new administrative body. No doubt there will be a great number of questions, and I think we may see a number of problems in that area.
But the issue, of course, is an important one. We are dealing with human health issues, and we have seen some very large cases globally that have dealt with animal health and human health issues. In the UK about 10 years ago we saw an outbreak of mad cow disease—or bovine spongiform encephalopathy—which caused millions of animals there to be slaughtered. A £4 billion bill was faced by the UK Government at that time. Recently we saw a food poisoning outbreak in Germany—I think they understand it was from salad products—with 48 deaths. There were literally weeks when European authorities could not track what the cause of the illness was or where it was coming from.
I hope that a law like this, which will increase identification and tracking of New Zealand livestock animals, will assist if we ever see an outbreak in which New Zealand livestock face something like that. On the other hand, we have seen the economic costs associated with Turkey's export ban. So it is important that this Parliament is turning its hand to this legislation.
The Greens have some concerns about the new body that will be enforcing this law, but ultimately we support greater enforcement. That brand is vitally important to the New Zealand economy. We have a story to tell, and we should be telling it. I recommend that members go and look at Icebreaker's product-tracking guide for its website. The company calls it a baacode, and it allows its woollen products to be tracked anywhere in the world, from the farm to the shop. That is a good example of innovation by a vibrant Kiwi company, and it is the type of opportunity we should be taking from this bill in order to tell our story, because we do have a story that, on the whole, we can be proud of.
The important thing, though, of course, is making sure we have substance to back up our story, and to make sure we have good animal welfare standards. The Green Party is disappointed that this bill will not be dealing with the critical animal welfare issues we face in New Zealand. It is important that the substance of the bill focuses on the environmental impacts of our agricultural sector in New Zealand, in regard to water, to dirty dairying, and to climate change, and it is important also that worker standards on our farms are of the highest scratch, so that the story we tell is compelling. That means that we can charge a premium.
We do not want to be a low-cost provider. We are on a hiding to nothing if we are going to chase China or Uruguay to see who can degrade their environment faster in order to boost productivity. Our gain for New Zealand must be focusing on a niche, on premiums, on high-value and high-knowledge products, not on trying to race other countries to destroy our environment and to go for the lowest value products.
The ultimate irony of this bill, though, is that now, as a result of this bill, foreign consumers will have far greater information on New Zealand products than Kiwis do with our imported products. It has been a source of great disappointment to the Green Party that Sue Kedgley unsuccessfully championed country-of-origin labelling, as it is a simple right meaning that Kiwi consumers should be able to know where their food has come from. I think that most Kiwis support that. It is a simple right to know where our food is coming from, but both Governments—blue and red—have not acted on that.
It was disappointing that Labour through its 9 years in Government did not act on it despite constant campaigning by Sue Kedgley, although I understand that Damien O'Connor is drafting a member's bill, and I welcome that. It is great that Labour is coming to see the light on the need for Kiwi consumers to have proper country-of-origin labelling of their food. But the irony of this bill is that international consumers will have greater information than Kiwi consumers. I hope this will act as an incentive for us in our Parliament to work on country-of-origin labelling in New Zealand.
In summary, I say that the Green Party supports this bill, and we will be voting for it. We support the intent of greater tracking, but what we really want to do is make sure that the story we tell has a substance behind it. I note that Russel Norman, the Green Party co-leader, recently released one of our water priority election issues—that half of our rivers and streams are not safe to swim in. That is why, when we talk about our brand overseas, using this new technology and using Government support to establish it, we need to have a good, compelling story to tell. Kia ora.
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