Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has as we say a major concern about this bill the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill. What we have been led to believe through very good advice is that there is an actual risk of technical insolvency because of the way that this bill has been drafted. We have issues around the fair value share. We sought as a select committee independent and expert advice and then it appears that that was principally ignored. The Primary Production Committee worked very very hard on all parts of this bill to try to make some serious sense of it and to see how we could look after both “New Zealand Inc.” and the individual farmer families that were going to be affected by it. 
We get stuff from some of the Government members of Parliament and from the Minister for Primary Industries at times as well suggesting that we are opposed to farmers in New Zealand that we are opposed to the growth of a particular sector in New Zealand. We are far far from that. We want more people on the land and these provisions in here look to be reducing that. 
We heard some statistics before showing how many fewer dairy farmers there are. Fewer dairy cows—absolutely not. It is the intensification and farming management that has gone to—basically I was going to say to hell in a handcart—not where we are going with the growth in the number of farmers. We need more people on the land and we want to make that possible through intergenerational farming and through looking after a co-op that is going to give them the best deal. But unfortunately the co-op has gone for a walk and these provisions show that. They are not about supporting individual farming families. They are about supporting the big big companies that clearly Cabinet and others seem to be supporting over and above the traditional supporters of even the National Party. 
It was noted as well that these provisions would help contestability and theoretical open competition. Well that is a philosophical neo-liberal approach. It is not necessarily about helping New Zealand farmers. That went right through to what was going to be part of the milk price and the need to support independent processes. We note that in fact when the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act first started when Fonterra first got under way two smaller co-ops were basically dealing with 4 percent of the raw milk processed in New Zealand. That is now 11 percent. This bill is not needed to help independent processors at all. And why should it be? We need to be looking after the co-op the single-desk model that has worked so well for certain sectors of the primary industry in New Zealand. 
The Greens obviously will continue to oppose this bill. We look forward to hopefully a change of Government in 2014 when we can get in and address that and stop this sell-out of primary industry and family farmers by a party that we would have expected to support them to the nth degree.