Goff Phil: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3557. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 Mr Chairman might find that the price of his hay goes up! I want to speak to the amendment to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001. I was a member of the Cabinet of the Labour Government that put through the original Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. It is probably one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting the rural community and our dairy farmers. I say to the Minister in the chair the Minister for Primary Industries that what I remember about the passage of that bill was that we were very careful in how we passed that legislation through. We consulted fully we took our time we got it right and actually we won the support of every political party in this House. I want to suggest to the Minister in good faith that you do consider the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Damien O’Connor. Well I do not want you to shake your head; I want you to listen to my argument because I have listened to the Minister’s arguments against that. I understand that the Minister may be a little upset that he did not have greater notice of this amendment but I understand that the reason for that is that the member in whose name the amendment appears has spent time working with Fonterra to ensure that it fully supports this amendment and my understanding is that it does fully support this amendment. 
Hon David Carter 
: No they don’t. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Well the Minister can take another call and I would invite my colleague Damien O’Connor to because that is my clear understanding—that this amendment is supported by Fonterra. 
I remember that the biggest controversy about Fonterra was actually its name. We had solved the problems we had got a consensus in the House—and that was a good thing—but people were not sure that they liked the name. The real concern of the public about the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act was that the cooperative nature of farm ownership be protected. That was the first thing. The second concern was that the shareholding of New Zealand’s largest company in its most important area of the economy was a New Zealand - owned company and that its shareholding and its profits did not pass out of this country and overseas. That concern remains today. This bill the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill in my view does not provide that assurance. There is no limit on the amount of investment bonds that can be bought and therefore on the share of the profit of our largest company that can go overseas. There is no limit legislatively on that. 
The Minister raised the curious argument that this would be interfering with Fonterra. Well I have to say to the Minister that Fonterra is a creation of the very piece of legislation that we are amending. It is a creation of this House and because it involves 15000 workers because it exports $10 billion to $11 billion worth of produce out of this country each year because it is our biggest company in the most important sector of the economy then there is every reason why this House should make sure that the interests of farmers and of New Zealanders be protected. I want to see the interests of New Zealanders protected so that we do not start at the top of a slippery slope and see the ownership of this industry and this company go out of New Zealand and the profits flow out of this country. I know that does not matter to this Government. It is keen to sell our State assets—our electricity companies—it is keen to sell the land and Colin King says that the Opposition wants to put a cap on the number of dairy farmers. For heaven’s sake Mr King! Mr King will know that the number of dairy farmers in this country has declined in the last few years from 14500 to 10400. I think that was Shane Ardern’s number. The number is going down and if we keep on selling the farms as we have the Crafar farms more and more of those farms will be owned overseas and we will lose control and profits by a different avenue. But I want to ensure that in passing this legislation we protect the money that is made from our most important rural industry—our biggest export sector. I want to make sure that that money stays inside New Zealand. I see Supplementary Order Paper 85 in the name of Damien O’Connor as an effective way of ensuring that and a way that Fonterra itself is comfortable with. It may be that 23 percent is a little higher than what it has set or would set—