As highlighted in my previous blog post, palm oil has major environmental and social impacts. This heart wrenching photo of an orang-utan clinging to the last tree in a rainforest being cleared for a palm oil plantation highlights just how dire their plight is.

It is the widespread use  of palm oil in many of the everyday products we consume that drives this destruction of rainforests.

At the moment palm oil hides behind as many as  200 different names, including the generic label “vegetable oil” making it very difficult for consumers to know what they are purchasing.

At that workshop I countered some of the arguments that have been raised against mandatory palm oil labelling

The current status quo where companies can voluntarily declare palm oil in ingredients means that it is only honest companies that face consumer backlash, which is neither fair on these companies nor does it help protect rainforests as consumers often unknowingly just switch to another product containing palm oil.

Only a mandatory system will create a level playing field and allow consumers to choose products without palm oil.

Cost arguments are a red herring. Some people have argued that if companies switch to another ingredient the price of food will go up, therefore we should not expect companies to declare that their product contains palm oil.

This ignores the fact that if cost is the main factor driving consumers’ decision making then they will still purchase the cheapest products even if it contains palm oil.

The issue here is choice. Currently a consumer that wishes to priotise ethical concerns in their decision making and avoid products that doesn’t contain palm oil is not able to do so.

Companies update labels all the time. As long as you have a fair phase in time, a change in labelling standards need not impose excessive extra costs .

The other argument against palm oil labelling is “it will be unfair to people who use palm oil from sustainable sources”. The simple answer is that there is nothing to stop a company from declaring that information on the label, albeit with the proviso that under the new consumer law reform bill that any claims around sustainability must be substantiated.

We are looking forward to McDonald’s New Zealand making similar commitment here and will keep you updated with their response.

Open letter to McDonald’s New Zealand Managing Director

I am writing to you about the recent announcement by McDonald’s United Kingdom to source 100 percent of their pork products from Freedom Food’s producers certified by the RSPCA. This is such an exciting move and comes on the back of their June 2012 announcement that they would set welfare standards for their pork producers.

When they made that initial announcement I put out a press release asking McDonald’s New Zealand to follow their lead. That is how we initially came into contact and so this time I am writing directly to ask you again if you will consider making a similar commitment in New Zealand.

McDonalds United Kingdom has said that ethical sourcing, such as this, is very important to them. Warren Anderson, the vice president of supply chain at McDonald’s UK, was quoted saying:

Not only will our move to Freedom Food pork make it easier for people to make affordable, ethical choices on the high street, we hope that more of Britain’s pig producers will have the confidence to invest in the future and adopt the RSPCA’s higher-welfare standards on their farms.

The Green Party and many New Zealanders feel strongly that animals that provide us with food deserve a good life. The pork that McDonald’s currently uses is imported from countries that have animal welfare standards lower, even, than New Zealand’s basic standards. New Zealand recognised the suffering caused by sow crates by putting in place a ban on crates by 2015. Our producers have to compete with imported pork produced using these cruel methods from countries with lower animal welfare standards than our own.  Wendy’s in New Zealand have also made a commitment to using 100 percent New Zealand sourced pork for their products as well as only free range eggs.

I am not aware of any reason why New Zealand customers would care less about animal welfare than customers in the United Kingdom. Will you follow the lead of your international counterparts and set animal welfare standards for the pork products you use? Our equivalent to Freedom Food in New Zealand, as I am sure you are aware, is the Blue Tick from the SPCA.

I look forward to your response,

Yours sincerely,

Mojo Mathers.

The Green Party have always called for good food information for consumers to help them make informed choices.  We believe that you have a right to know what is in your food and if it is healthy or not.

Of course we believe that any health claims have to be truthful – which they will now finally be – but equally importantly we believe that unhealthy foods should be labelled as such. Why is that second part so important? Because it works, and because shoppers want to be able to see at a quick glance which foods are healthy and which foods should be eaten only sparingly.

Anyone trying to claim that there is no need for labelling unhealthy foods is ignoring the truth about shopping for food in today’s environment. People have limited time to become detectives in the supermarket isles and there is a huge amount of misinformation and confusing messages out there.

Opponents to full labelling assume that everyone has a nutritionist’s level of knowledge, and that they know all of the foods and ingredients that lead to ill health and how much unhealthy stuff is a safe amount to eat. But that’s just not the reality of our world. Many people, including me, are shocked to see how much sugar is in a fizzy drink and are unaware that some cereals contain so much sugar they should be classified as confectionary.

I don’t know about you, but when I am shopping I don’t have time to check the nutritional content of every product, count all of the calories, and the calories my kids are eating, and do the maths to make those decisions. I want labelling that is simple to understand, truthful, and tells the full story not just the good news. I think many New Zealanders agree with me on that front.

For people to be able to make stress free decisions about what to eat and what to feed their kids, our labelling system needs to identify unhealthy foods that should only be eaten infrequently, not just the good foods.

Industry resists any scheme that identifies foods that are bad for people’s health, because that’s bad for sales. But our Government is not in the food retail business. It has responsibility for managing our public health service and so if we want to get real about improving public health outcomes we need to provide real information.

When the editor at the Herald says that we shouldn’t label for unhealthy foods is he really saying that New Zealanders don’t want good information? Is he saying that people don’t want to know about what they are eating?  Is he saying that everyone knows which foods should only be eaten infrequently? That’s not my experience, it’s not backed by the evidence, and it’s not what people tell me.

So yes, we are congratulating the Government on their first step. I am also really looking forward to congratulating them on finishing the job and will keep pushing until that is done.

• Anything containing the words “Palmitate” or “Palmate”
• Elaeis guineensis
• Hydrated Palm Glycerides
• Hexadecanoic or Palmitic Acid
• Vegetable oil
• “stearate, stearyl”
• Anything containing the words “cetyl, cetearyl”
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS)
• Sodium Laureth Sulphate
• Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)
• Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
• Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate
• Steareth -2 and Steareth -20
• Emulsifier 422, 430-436, 465-467, 470-478, 481-483, 493-495, 570

If you don’t think you’re quite up to committing all of those to memory you’re a bit stuck at the moment because this Government is not going to consider mandatory labelling of palm oil.

The tearing up of rainforests that comes hand in hand with palm oil is just devastating. Rainforests’ importance to the world can’t be overstated and yet we are seeing palm oil being used in everything from biscuits to soap.

I asked the Minister about his views on mandatory palm oil labelling. He said:

“I have considered this issue but do not consider mandatory palm oil labelling is the best approach to concerns about palm oil. Labelling would not state how palm oil is produced and therefore would not provide sufficient information to allow consumers to choose between sustainably and non-sustainably produced palm oil. In addition, the intent of information on consumer food labels is to inform people of safety information and the nutritional content of food. Finally, I believe consumer pressure is often the most effective way of persuading businesses to behave in an appropriate manner.”

The Minister’s point about consumers needing more information to choose between unsustainable and sustainable sources is a complete red herring as there is nothing to stop responsible businesses who use sustainably-produced palm oil from declaring that information on their labels, provided they have independent certification to that effect.

Quite how the Minister thinks that consumers will be able to put pressure on businesses when there is no requirement for upfront labelling I don’t know, unless he expects us all to become full time detectives for every item on our supermarket shelves.

That’s why we are supporting the Unmask Palm Oil campaign to put in place mandatory labelling of this ingredient. You can sign the petition on their website and I am looking forward to this petition arriving at Parliament later this year.

In the meantime, to avoid destructive palm oil in the products you buy look for the ones on the Auckland Zoo’s palm oil free shopping guide.

One of the best outcomes of this bill is that it ensures that New Zealand retains control of setting the rules around natural health products rather than handing that control over to a  heavy handed trans-Tasman regulator as was originally proposed .

I would like to acknowledge the hard work that my predecessor, former Green MP Sue Kedgley,  did to get this bill underway in the house in the previous term, and for her steadfast commitment to establishing  a low risk regulatory scheme that is appropriate to the low risk nature of natural health products.

Currently natural health products are unregulated, meaning that there fewer rules for these products than for food products. Clearly this is an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

We need sensible rules that  protect both consumers and manufacturers so that consumers know what they see is what they are getting and  our reputation as a producer of quality natural health products is maintained.

A major goal of the bill is to ensure that the rules balance the need for protection with the risk of the products involved (which in general is low) and don’t reduce consumer choice because of excessive compliance costs. We are pleased that the government has agreed to cover  the costs of policy and regulatory advice and enforcement as well as the capital costs of setting up the scheme.

Some submitters expressed concerns that the bill would affect  their ability to make their own herbal remedies.  These concerns are unfounded. The bill does not apply to products prepared by individuals for personal use, so people will still be able to prepare home remedies.  It also does not apply to products made by practitioners specifically for an individual on request (which includes many traditional preparations including Rongoā.)

We are particularly pleased  that at our request a  schedule of approved pharmacopeia has been included  in the Bill. This schedule will  make the process of approving traditional claims for low risk conditions  very straightforward for many natural health products and help keep compliance costs down.

Homeopathic products are also exempt from product notification, though they will not be able to make claims of health benefit, because of the impracticality of auditing these products where the active ingredient is less than 20 parts per million.

It has been an interesting experience working on this bill. The government have committed to ensuring that  detailed regulatory work will be undertaken in consultation with the industry, and public.

As part of our  memorandum of understanding agreement , the Government has also agreed the Green Party will be involved at every stage of the development of these regulations.  I am looking forwards to being part of  this process and working towards the best possible outcome for consumers and producers alike.

Late last year we highlighted the issue of party pills potentially being tested for safety on dogs. This came as part of the Government’s process to regulate party pills, legislation for which has just been introduced to the House. We are really supportive of better regulation to make sure party pills are safe but we need an ethical safety testing regime to make sure they are.

The science is clear that there are alternatives to animal testing in many, many cases of research.

There is a whole host of options to test new party pills before they need to be tested on live humans or animals. The technology has certainly come a long way. We now have computer models that can predict how chemicals will impact human health, and laboratory analysis and cell experiments that can rule out a lot of the more dangerous substances. There are also amazing microchips and models made to mimic the operation of human organs like lungs, livers, or bone marrow to understand what effect certain substances will have.

These can do a lot of the work just as well as, or even better than, testing on animals would.

Last week we saw the final phase of the European Union (EU) Cosmetics Directive come into force, meaning that no new cosmetic products and ingredients on sale in the EU can be tested on animals anywhere in the world.

What a great example of how animal testing is fast on its way out.

New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (NZAVS) has joined forces with SAFE and the New Zealand SPCA to launch a petition to prevent the testing of party pills on animals and I hope you will join me in supporting this campaign.

The ITM fishing show host Matt Watson spoke out about his concern for yellowfin tuna stocks saying that Sealord is being irresponsible by marketing and selling this fish which is on the brink of being overfished.

A big part of the problem is that the particular fishing method used to catch the fish makes a huge difference. Pole and line caught avoids bycatch of other animals that you get with trawling or longline fishing methods.

You can read a great explanation of the different fishing methods on the Greenpeace website.

Matt Watson said that it’s up to consumers to drive change. We also agree that consumers have huge power and many New Zealanders want to support more sustainable business practices with their supermarket choices. But they can’t do so if the labelling regulations are letting companies get away with confusing, misleading, or just uninformative labels.

We support Matt Watson’s calls for compulsory labelling of fish so that consumers can have the information they need to make sustainable purchasing decisions. But while we wait for that labelling what can we do in the meantime?

Of course going vegetarian or catching your own fish are options that consumers can take, but if that step is not for you, then making a choice to choose sustainably caught fish will make a big difference.  According to Greenpeace:

“In New Zealand pole and line caught tuna is sold under the Pams and Fish 4Ever labels. Greenseas and John West have committed to phase out unsustainably caught tuna by 2015. Sealord, which is New Zealand’s largest canned tuna brand, is refusing to change.”

So that’s the tinned tuna, but what about the fresh stuff?

A great tip is to download this wallet guide or iPhone app from Forest and Bird that helps you choose the more sustainable fish while you are standing at the fish counter.

You can see on there, for example, that if you want tuna for dinner, go for skipjack over yellowfin.

There were a number of speakers from overseas, including an excellent keynote speech by Colin Allen, president of the World Federation of the Deaf  on “Equality for Deaf people: How do we get there?“  which gave me and others much food for thought.

There were several key themes that came out of the conference for me, the centrality of sign language to the identity of Deaf, the need for Government to step up and implement it its commitments under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including article  21, “to recognise, facilitate and promote sign language,” the need for our Government to sign the optional protocol to the convention, and the importance of working in partnership with other disability organisations to achieve common goals.

Following the conference, Colin Allen visited me along with representatives of Deaf Aotearoa in my office to discuss some of these issues further:

Antenatal screening programmes, such as the national screening programme for Down syndrome are controversial, because if they are not carried out appropriately, they contribute to reinforcing negative attitudes towards disabled. All too often, instead of being supported to care for a child with a disability , parents face structural pressure to terminate their pregnancy, which sends a strong message to children and adults with Downs and other children with disabilities that they are not valued.

The Green Party strongly believes that parents must be given full support to continue their pregnancy if that is their choice, and that this attitude needs to be reflected by the public health service.

That is why we are thrilled by the new guidelines that have been formally issued by the National Screening Unit, which have made a number of important changes, including a move away from theroutine offering of screening to all pregnant women to simply advising them of the availability of screening.

I congratulate Saving Downs who have worked hard for this outcome and took a successful case to the Human rights Commission.

In common with myself and other elected representatives around the world with a significant sensory impairment, he needs appropriate support to be able to carry out his job effectively, and we shared our experiences of how to work around our respective impairment in order to do our work.

Mojo and Dennis Robertson

What I was particularly impressed by though, was the practical and straight forwards funding arrangements that the Scottish parliament has made to provide for access for people with sensory impairments who work there, with a separate budget provision that funds not just access needs of MP’s like Dennis, but all people who work at or use the parliament premises.

This was in place years before Dennis was elected, so the whole fiasco around the funding of the electronic note-takers that accompanied my election to parliament just didn’t arise for Dennis. Any access needs Dennis has are provided for and funded separately to the base funding that every MP gets to do their job.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our parliament stepped up and made the same provision for access to everyone.

Last year I tabled a petition in parliament from Lyn Polwort calling for more funding for adult cochlear implants to enable parity with other disabled NZ.

I sat on the Health select committee when the NZ Cochlear Implant Consumer Group made a very powerful submission, well supported by research and evidence,  in support of the petition.

We heard from a couple whose relationship came under significant stress when one of them lost their hearing, and how, with an implant their quality of their relationship had improved significantly.

We also heard from a young woman describing how she had been able to get a job following an implant.

All adults who will benefit from a cochlear implant should be funded to receive an implant.  It enables these people to re-engage in the community and access employment opportunities.

Sadly, there are more than 180 people on the waiting list. So while the (one off increase in funding) from 20 to 60 adults is great, we are still a long way from meeting the need that is out there.

The main win for consumers in my mind is the restrictions on making ‘unsubstantiated claims’ – so that businesses have to be able to back up the things that they say with evidence. I met with the Commerce Commission to discuss if they are confident they have the tools they need to enforce this new provision and they assured me that they did.

_____________________

The Green Party is pleased to be supporting the Consumer Law Reform Bill.

We are supporting this bill, which proposes the most significant changes to consumer laws in more than 20 years, because it increases protections for consumers and provides for more effective enforcement of these laws.

We all know someone who has been ripped off or exploited in some way to buy a product or service under pressure that they didn’t need, was quoted a misleading price, or the product didn’t perform as expected .

This bill will help address some of the more significant gaps and loopholes.

I would like to mention here that I was impressed with the level of engagement with this bill by committee members who put political differences aside and worked for the best possible outcome. I also want to acknowledge the high quality advice that the committee received from the Ministry who seemed to be able to produce a swathe of experts for different aspects of the bill, from consumer goods to auctions, from unconscionable conduct to third party payments. The submissions process was interesting as there were very few submissions from individuals: the bulk of submissions were from businesses, energy companies, retailers and the like as well as community  and consumer groups, reflecting in part the detailed and complex nature of this bill.

We are pleased that the bill makes explicit that that the Consumer Guarantees Act applies to internet sales sites and requires all traders selling goods or services to consumers on internet sites to identify themselves as such. The Green Party is also particularly pleased that the bill significantly expands the powers of the Commerce Commission which will enable it to be more effective in carrying out its work. The committee has recommended compulsory interview powers for the Commerce Commission. We strongly support this move as these compulsory interview powers are needed to assist the Commission with obtaining documents and information that will allow them to properly investigate a company in a timely and cost effective way.

Some people have raised concerns that these powers are too heavy handed. We are satisfied that there are adequate safeguards in the bill in that:

• The powers only apply to investigations of serious offenses
• The person being interviewed is protected from their statements being admissible (except for perjury charges), if the case was to proceed to a court.

In addition to the increased powers for the Commerce Commission, there are a number of areas in the bill that the Green Party is particularly pleased to see in this Bill. Including:

• Tripling the penalties for breaches of the Fair Trading Act
• Provisions preventing unfair contract terms in standard form contracts

The change that the Green Party is most pleased to see in this bill is the proposed prohibition on making “unsubstantiated representations”. This provision will help address an area that the Green Party has been concerned about for a long time. Many consumers base their purchasing decisions around claims such as having a reduced impact on the environment, 100% renewable energy, being biodegradable, resourced from sustainably managed forests and so on. Such conscious consumers will often be willing to pay a premium for a product or service making such a claim. One of the really frustrating things for conscious consumers is the difficulty in sifting through these claims to separate the greenwash or misleading or untrue claims from the valid claims. Effectively consumer groups or consumers either become detectives, cross-checking claims, or we have to cross our fingers and hope that the claim is true. We consider it fundamental right of consumers to be confident that claims made on a product are based on truth. Unsubstantiated claims also disadvantage businesses that do make the effort and do the research to ensure that their claims are based on fact.

Currently the difficulty with the law as it stands is that it can be very hard to prove a claim false, a situation which has proved time consuming and costly for the Commission to investigate. The crucial aspect about the proposed change is that the onus of proof about a claim will shift from the Commerce Commission onto the business instead. Just imagine! Businesses will have to prove the claims that they make about their products are true. It was disappointing that a significant number of businesses, such as Meridian Energy, argued that it would impose “significant compliance costs” and be too expensive to require them to provide evidence for their claims.

The solution to this is simple, if you don’t have good reason or evidence to believe that the claim is true – don’t make that claim!

However the Committee did take on board concerns about the possible impact on advertising creativity by recommending new clauses that it clear that the provision does not cover representations that a reasonable person would not expect to be substantiated. I am sure that the promoters of a certain high profile product will be relieved that they do not have to provide evidence of wing growth!

The Green Party did have a concern that the Commerce Commission would not have sufficient powers to effectively enforce the prohibition on unsubstantiated representation, a point made by Consumer NZ. We considered moving an amendment to give the Commerce Commission the ability to issue power of substantiation notices, as is the case in Australia. We sought advice from the Commerce Commission on this issue and have been reassured by their view that the substantiation provision in this bill is superior to that in the Australian Consumer Law because it is simpler, more easily enforceable and a better education tool.

They have also informed us that they do not feel they need specific substantiation notices powers because they expect to be able to use existing information gathering powers in the Fair Trading Act along with (if necessary)  the new compulsory interview powers to support the new prohibition on unsubstantiated claims. We are happy with this reassurance from the Commerce Commission that they are confident that they will be able to enforce the prohibition on unsubstantiated representation and are pleased to be wholeheartedly supporting this bill.

The report is disappointing and its proposed labelling scheme will do little or nothing to improve our high rates of diet related diseases, which are highest in disadvantaged groups.

There is plenty of research which shows that to be effective with these groups, front of pack nutrition labelling needs to be simple, easy to understand, and equally importantly, and importantly, have saturation of the market so that the label is on the majority of food products and it becomes very familiar.

The very point of front of pack labelling is to help people make healthier food choices in order to improve public health outcomes.

But any scheme based on this report won’t achieve better health for the people who need it the most, despite some very good principles. The reason for this is pretty simple; from the outset, the Minister limited the scheme to being voluntary.

If you are a food manufacturer of a particular product and look at the criteria and find out that your product will get a zero for health (the lowest score possible proposed in the report), would you still say “yes! Sign me up, that will help sales”?

No, you wouldn’t.

So a voluntary scheme will just end up on the healthy foods, and consumers who don’t currently read the back of labels will still not know which foods they should think twice about before purchasing.

There is no public health reason why unhealthy foods shouldn’t be clearly labelled as such. The food industry wants to use front of pack labels as a marketing tool and are understandably opposed to anything on a label that could put people off buying their products.

Yet a meaningful shift in purchasing decisions is the very action that we need in order to improve public health outcomes. Which is why, to be effective to the groups who need it most, the scheme would have to be mandatory.

The last thing companies want to see is a red warning mark on their products, but let’s get real about the fact that some products are unhealthy for you. This doesn’t mean you can never eat these products but to be effective, we need clear, consistent messages about healthy and unhealthy food choices.

We have a serious crisis in public health; both obesity and type 2 diabetes are preventable diet related diseases. We  need to be doing everything we can to make it easier for consumers to make healthy eating choices, and that will mean identifying that some food is not good for you.

But instead, what it looks like we will have is effectively just another glorified tick scheme, and we do not need another one of those.

That was great,  but we what we really need to see is a more systematic approach to reducing animal testing, not just for party pills, but also for all drugs.

Yesterday I asked Dunne about it in the house and he assured me that he has “directed the Ministry of Health to develop a regulatory regime consistent with international best practice and avoiding animal testing wherever possible.”

For the sake of the animals involved, I am relieved that he has made this commitment, but concerned that that this approach was not taken from the start. You can read the original advice documents here and here.

I hope that the Ministry’s look at best practice will use resources from places like the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s centre for alternatives to animal testing. I also hope that it will take into account the UK ban on animal testing on alcohol and tobacco. That sets a great precedent that we should not cause considerable suffering to animals in order to get products on our shelves that are recreational at best, and dangerous at worst.

This is a complex argument which Peter Dunne didn’t help by saying that the Green Party has an “unrelenting pro-drug history” and that we “have never met a drug they didn’t like and attempted to support through Parliament”.

He should take a long hard look at his own stance towards alcohol and tobacco control compared with ours. We are very supportive of strong regulation for these drugs, including tough alcohol control, just as we will support good regulation for party pills.

The Greens have a commitment to provide a voice for animals in Parliament, and as the animal welfare spokesperson it was my responsibility to bring this issue up. I am glad that it looks like we are going to achieve a better, more ethical testing regime as a result.

Since picking up this portfolio,  I have been working hard in Select Committee, and through the MOU process, to ensure we get the best outcome we can.

Along the way we have made some good wins including:

• A list of approved pharmacopoeia that can be used as a source of traditional evidence for health benefit claims. This will make things much easier for product notifiers to provide evidence to support their claims as will now be required under the bill,
• Exemption for homeopathic products from product notification,
• Clauses to guide the authority’s setting of fees,
• Natural Health experience and expertise on the advisory committee,
• Government funding to help with the initial set up and post-market costs.

National has agreed to keep the Green Party closely involved in the regulation making process. This will enable us to keep working to ensure we get good outcomes that fairly balance consumers right to access natural health products that are safe, accurately labelled and true to claim without being overly onerous on the industry.

Despite intensive lobbying from big businesses, our committee  recommended further substantive changes to the Bill:

• Tripling the penalties for breaches of the FTA
• Compulsory interview powers for the Commerce Commission so people have to answer their questions
• Provisions preventing unfair contract terms in standard form contracts
• Protections that will now cover all transactions between traders and consumers including auctions which were previously excepted

Most significantly for conscious consumers, the Bill proposes a prohibition on making “unsubstantiated representations”. This is a biggie as it means that the onus of proof about a claim will shift from the Commerce Commission onto the business instead. Businesses will have to prove the claims that they make about their products are true. We think this is really important so that consumers can be confident that their decisions to buy products for environmental reasons for example, are based on the truth.

Fairtrade demonstrate what greenwash is pretty cleverly with this image.

Unsurprisingly this change was strongly opposed by many businesses who basically argued that it would be too expensive to require them to provide evidence for their claims – a weak augment that the committee rightly rejected.

However we did take on board concerns about the possible impact on advertising creativity by making it clear that the provision does not cover representations that a reasonable person would not expect to be substantiated. I am sure that the promoters of a certain high profile product will be relived that they do not have to provide evidence of wing growth!

In the committee stages I will be pushing hard to ensure that the Bill retains all of these clauses, and for the prohibition on unsubstantiated representation to be strengthened by giving the Commerce Commission the ability to issue power of substantiation notices, as is the case in Australia.

The cooperative model brings people together to achieve common needs and aspirations in a democratic way. It’s a fundamental part of the fair trade movement and choosing fair trade products is a good way to support cooperatives and help ensure better returns for growers who get a fair price for their product. Not all fair trade producers are cooperatives but many are.

Fairtrade certification is an independent product certification system that enables consumers to choose products that that meet agreed environmental, labour and developmental standards.

However not all products that claim to be “fair” trade or “ethically” produced have independent certification to support these claims.  Without this it hard for the consumer to know whether there is any basis to their claims of “ethical” production.  Recently Dole have come under heavy criticism for their “ethical choice” label that the Commerce Commission warned was “misleading”.

Under current consumer law it is difficult and expensive for the Commerce Commission to prove claims like “ethical choice” as false. Which is why I am  pleased that the Commerce Select Committee, of which I am a member, has supported the proposed new provisions on “unsubstantiated representations” (that means claims with no backing) in its report back to the house on the draft consumer law reform bill.

These provisions target traders who make claims about their products without reasonable grounds, and will make it easier for the Commerce Commission to follow up on greenwash and other misleading product claims.

In the meantime, if you want to support fairly traded products, the best way is to look for the Fairtrade logo.

You can get some awesome products from fair trade cooperatives here in New Zealand, including People’s Coffee from Ethiopia and All Good Bananas from Ecuador.

As  NZ’s first deaf MP I am thrilled to see the number of people entered this year whose ‘thing’ is focused on the Deaf and Deafblind communities in Aotearoa.

While the following applicants cover quite different areas, they all contribute to the enhancement or inclusion of Deaf and Deafblind people.

I hope that you will be motivated to vote for one of the following candidates in the People’s Choice Award.

Elinor Cuttiford

Elinor’s  ‘thing’ is to provide specialist Deafblind communication & technology advice.

I will travel to Deafblind organisations in Asia, Europe & America to find the best methods of Deafblind communication & technology available”

Jared Flitcroft

Jared’s  ‘thing’ is Deaf filmmaker

“I want to continue to make compelling films that tell stories from a Deaf point of view, in collaboration with other Deaf, and hearing filmmakers.”

Nicola Clements

Nicola’s ‘thing’ is making theatre & arts events more accessible to the Deaf Community.

“Have you ever been denied access to theatre or an arts event? Deaf people are every day. Odd Socks will enable Deaf people to access theatre & the arts”.

I’d like to encourage you all to vote (it only costs a click) and I wish the applicants well in their endeavour to do their ‘thing’. Remember voting ends on 30 September 2012.

“If you eat a little less meat and a little less dairy you’ll dramatically reduce the impact of your diet on the environment. Just think: one 1lb (or 500g) of ground beef for your family uses over 28,000 cups (or 6,810 litres) of water to produce – that’s enough to fill 20 bathtubs to the brim, and then some”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have just released a book of articles and presentations that examines how to make sure that everyone has the food they need to be healthy and happy – also known as being ‘food secure’.

It talks about the more than 900 million people in the world who suffer from hunger and the 1.5 billion who are overweight or obese – and it examines what a sustainable diet would be that could feed everyone in the world properly.

On a practical level, in terms of what that means for us in Aotearoa, there are changes that we can make in our diets to contribute to global food security.

• Oxfam’s Grow Method gives you lots of good tips on cooking and eating sustainably.
• Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming in the UK has 7 principles of sustainable food which are really great and have been adapted by the Sustainable Business Network for the New Zealand context.

This step means Deaf New Zealanders can now learn more about Green Party policies and values in their first language.

The Green Party has undertaken this step  as part of our wider commitment to improving access to political information which we believe to be essential to a healthy democracy.

On the topic of improving access to our democratic processes, I am thrilled to see that the Electoral Commission is now accepting MMP Review submissions in NZSL

And you can make a submission here.