Street Maryan: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
Street Maryan: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10136] 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate and hopefully to inject a few facts into some of the discussion. It seems to me that in terms of the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill the National Party is bent on defending the idea of competition even though currently there is no competition in the area of meat inspection services. 
Why is there no or little competition in this area? It is because our major trading partners who receive our meat products require the Government guarantee of quality and standards that is provided by the Food Safety Authority’s accreditation of Asure New Zealand. That is how the process works. Our major trading contracts—and I cite the United Kingdom and the United States in particular—absolutely require a Government guarantee of quality. That guarantee has been vested in the Food Safety Authority which is the accreditation body for Asure New Zealand. 
I want to make two points about the fact that the shareholding Ministers wish to prevent competition from occurring between two State-owned enterprises—two State-owned enterprises that may merge at some point in the future if that is considered to be the most efficient thing to do. First of all as the previous speaker said there was concern about a net cost to the Crown. An earlier speaker said that this liability was already provided for and therefore should not be of concern to the shareholding Ministers. This side of the House takes a different view on how taxpayers’ money ought to be spent. Because there may be provision for liability does not mean that that provision should be squandered or expended where such expenditure might be avoided. I would have thought that most taxpayers would get some kind of relief from the fact that the Government was behaving responsibly with their money and was not incurring additional cost if it could be avoided. 
A second issue arises in respect of the admission of competition in this area. In the explanatory note that the previous speaker Eric Roy referred to he will see that one of the reasons given was that it could result in a weakening of New Zealand’s overall biosecurity response capability. What does that mean? Well let me put it really simply for the Opposition. In the last decade or so we have seen outbreaks of such things as mad cow disease. There have been concerns about how nation States might best protect their biosecurity arrangements and make sure their response to biosecurity threats could be as swift and effective as possible. If that capability and that response are to be spread across two organisations rather than one then there is a further risk of complication which will slow down a response— 
Nathan Guy 
: Why? 
MARYAN STREET 
: Because I say to that member opposite if we have two systems operating it stands to reason that it is likely to take twice as long to respond adequately and to ensure that the processes surrounding the inspection of our meat products are as pristine and as comprehensive as they possibly can be. Why would a country have two ways of doing things if it could have one way of doing things? Why would we have two ways of protecting our biosecurity and the quality of our export product if we could have one? That one way of doing things has been proven to be perfectly efficient and more than acceptable. In fact it is in the higher ranks of these kinds of provisions and protections in the world and therefore New Zealand’s reputation in producing meat products of this kind has been second to none. It has been extremely high because the quality of our inspection services is high and is not threatened by the idea that competition will produce a better result. 
Quite frequently we have seen in other areas of endeavour examples of competition producing the cutting of corners; competition in order to drive down the price of something causes corners to be cut. This is one area where New Zealand cannot afford to have that happen. So on two counts the introduction of competition between two State-owned enterprises does not stack up. It does not stack up and it makes no sense. 
Secondly I want to address the issue of consultation with the New Zealand Meat Industry Association. Certainly as the Hon David Carter said earlier the Meat Industry Association spoke in very strong terms to the select committee. I was present. I am not sure that that member was but I certainly was present at the select committee when the Meat Industry Association appeared before us and the issue was certainly spoken of in very strong terms. 
But I draw the attention of the members opposite to Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of Trevor Mallard which was passed by the Committee last night. It specifically allows for consultation between the Minister of Commerce and the Meat Industry Association on the examination of services provided by meat inspection services—currently provided by Asure New Zealand. That is now written into the legislation. So the Meat Industry Association now has a legislative function in agreement with the Minister of Commerce in the provisions that allow the Commerce Commission to investigate and report on examination services. 
The Hon David Carter has been throwing wild assertions around and I think we need to come back to the facts and the words on the pages of this legislation which obviously provides a role for the Meat Industry Association. The National Opposition has been opposing this legislation on the absolute slimmest of pretexts. I would love to be in front of an audience where the Hon David Carter tries to explain why the National Party opposed providing the most efficient and the most secure system for the retention of quality meat inspection services and the maintenance of New Zealand’s reputation among its trading partners in the supply of meat product.