Anderton Jim: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Anderton Jim: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17476] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 I must rise to thank the member Dr Ashraf Choudhary for raising the issue of the Fast Forward scheme. I gave an interview on Radio Live this morning. The interviewer asked me what I had to say about Mr Carter the National Party spokesperson on agriculture who said that Fast Forward was a big con job. Last week we had cornerstone stakeholders in Fast Forward including Dairy New Zealand which is in on the con; Meat and Wool New Zealand which is in on the con; the Meat Industry Association which is in on it too; New Zealand Aquaculture which has been conned as well; Zespri which is easy to con—it is pretty small beer and one can deal with them—Fonterra which is in on the con too; and PGG Wrightson with Craig Norgate who is in on the con! All those groups have been conned by me; I must be really good at this! Even better than that I have conned them to the point where they are putting $10 million in as cornerstone shareholders—$10 million each—and the arable industry is all lined up including Horticulture New Zealand. This is the con job that the National Party would have us believe has happened. 
You know all of the sectors of this $22 billion industry think that the Fast Forward scheme which invests $2000 million in research science and technology market development and branding New Zealand is the biggest initiative that has ever been taken for the primary sector industry in New Zealand. They are all very credible but one sector which has no credibility at all opposes it. That sector is over there—the National Party. Wherever we go in New Zealand to speak to farmers those farmers ask what is up with National and why it will not support this initiative. I tell them that they had better ask National. The answer is that it is a con trick! 
Now $700 million is sitting in the account and waiting for the interest to accumulate. The private sector is putting up its money—$1000 million over the next 10 to 15 years. So that is $2000 million yet this is a con job! How does that work? National members are the people who claim that they want to run the country in 3 or 4 months’ time but they cannot even recognise the biggest initiative that has ever been taken in scientific research and development in the primary sector. And when National members come here to ask questions about it having said that it is a con job to the rest of the country what are those questions about? They ask one question about a project in the Sustainable Farming Fund and one other question about Timberlands. One could buy and sell the whole lot of that with one of the cornerstone shareholders’ deposits yet they are all in a con! Really that should embarrass Mr Ardern it should embarrass Mr Carter and it should embarrass Mr Key—although it is “almost certainly likely” that it will not. That should tell members everything about the commitment National has to the agriculture sector of New Zealand. 
Let me give credit to my Labour colleagues. What did they really gain after putting up $700 million going to $1000 million for the primary sector in New Zealand which they know is not their core constituency? Labour did this because it is absolutely the right thing to do for New Zealand and for the economic and social well-being of New Zealanders. That is the principle that this Government operates on. I do not have the faintest idea what principle that lot on the other side of the Chamber operates on.