Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Speaker. Today is a good day for the New Zealand dairy industry because the biggest political party in this country has stood up for farmers and has stood up for the dairy industry and is making a pathway forward for that industry. This is time as my colleague Todd Muller has said to put the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) away. We have achieved the purpose of creating Fonterra and competition in the market. That has happened. They are down to 80 percent of the market and falling and that will continue as more operators come in. But we do not need the hand of Government to determine what our biggest co-operative and company has to do. We need that company to be able to unshackle itself from this room and to go out into the markets and perform. And the Labour Government—the essence of what the Minister of Agriculture said in his speech was that the Government does not trust that company and that the Government knows better than that company what should happen to farmers their assets and their future generations. I disagree completely with that. The New Zealand farmers have proven themselves over generations to be the best in the world. And Fonterra may have its good and bad points and it may have its detractors but the fact is it is the only flagship we have on the world stage and go to any other primary producer in New Zealand and Australia and they will tell you they want exactly the same thing. Go to the kiwifruit growers. They're not going to give up Zespri tomorrow are they? Go to Australia and look at their dairy industry where Murray Goulburn went under last year. There is no other co-operative that is world stage and it does not need this room to tell it what its future is. That is the first point. The second point is that Fonterra and the market have come of age. In the market we have competitors that are out there. And as Mr Todd Muller said many of those competitors have gone straight for the export market. They haven't gone out there trying to reduce the price of milk for ordinary Kiwis. They've gone where the highest value is. And they haven't gone out there and created a new vision of value-added products. A lot of the products they make are pure and simple milk powder and a lot of the way they sell their products is going around following around Fonterra trying to pick up its market share. That's the reality of what's been happening to our New Zealand dairy industry and we've competed long enough in that sphere. It's time we let that company go.There are some points where we need to help. And there are some points where you know—there is that point around the domestic supply that is there for Goodman Fielder. And we don't see that that is a problem and Fonterra itself does not see that that is a problem. But we don't need to have DIRA to achieve that purpose. We can achieve that in other ways in other legislation. The concept of having DIRA legislation where the co-operative is controlled by this Parliament is no longer needed.This Parliament should not be dictating whether people can supply or not supply Fonterra. If the Government truly believed what it said about environmental outcomes and sustainability and wanting to have value-added products it would let Fonterra set those signals and it would let Fonterra go out there and make the decisions about who supplies. But with having DIRA legislation there it constrains Fonterra from being able to do that. It constrains them from meeting the market because effectively they have to pick up milk that goes to another company and has to come back to it. Take away that and then Fonterra has much more power to go out there and put in those extra things that the Government says that they value: those environmental those sustainability requirements. By doing what we do now we take that away from Fonterra.Another issue that is in there will be the milk price and how that's set and also the Government involvement in that. There is no need for the Government to put its arm and to put its hand into the management and direction of the milk price in New Zealand as it is doing in other legislation around National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT). It is the hand of Government wanting to control our primary industry and they are doing that because they are wanting to be able to tax that industry long term. They want to be able to control by knowing all the information around that industry. Fonterra is a co-operative but it is in a corporate world. It does not need Government's hand in there. There is no need for that and it is purely ideological from the Minister.We're going to come back after dinner and talk about this some more. But New Zealand First I see sitting there. They've got a choice in this room here now—in the next hour. Do they come back and support a Labour-Greens Government that is against farmers against the wishes of farmers or do they join with National in sending a signal to the Government that this is the time to stand up for rural New Zealand? This is the time to actually do a deal with us with them so that we get the right result for Fonterra shareholders for the New Zealand industry and for the future of our productive sector. This is an important debate that comes around in this Parliament far too often. This country does not need to constrain its biggest economic player that's in the private sector. We are a Parliament here that is devised to help people to support people and to look after people. We are not a Parliament that is designed to be a corporate watchdog to make decisions on economic decisions that private sector individuals do. Farmers should have that responsibility and they should take that upon themselves. And the day we take DIRA off the New Zealand dairy farming sector will be the day that New Zealand dairy farmers feel like they can actually go out there and do their own thing. They will feel that they can actually be achieving.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon DAVID BENNETT: I'd just like to carry on where we left off before the dinner break and that was around the DIRA. When we had the Minister do his opening speech tonight he said that the purpose that the Government had in having this Act continue through and to control Fonterra was that the Government wants to have regulation over New Zealand's biggest company—those were his exact words. My argument is that we have now reached a stage in the New Zealand dairy industry where farmers need to have control over their biggest—Hon Damien O'Connor: Well they could if they'd made the bloody effort. Hon DAVID BENNETT: —company and cooperative not that Minister. This room has been a constraint on New Zealand industry for far too long and we do not need to have that continue through this revamped DIRA legislation. Another part he said was that generally setting prices are on the terms of reference of those companies and not following Fonterra but that is simply not the case. The other companies that are out there as my honourable colleague Todd Muller said earlier have been using Fonterra's pricing as their basis to enable them to go into the market places. They do not wildly change their prices from that that Fonterra has. They are very much there trying to take advantage of the lead Fonterra has and the Minister wants to put a hand of Government into the corporate decision-making of that organisation like he is doing with NAIT. It is something that is not necessary. DIRA has achieved its purpose. Fonterra is now only 80 percent of the New Zealand dairy market and there will be questions in the future not about new stainless steel being built around this country but about what stainless steel has to be closed down. That will happen in the next decade and this is time where Fonterra needs to be given the chance to create its own future now for the issues it's had in the last few months and in the past—they are really only a symptom that it needs to be able to take control and not be shackled by this Parliament. So—Andrew Bayly: But Damien knows best. Hon DAVID BENNETT: The Government does not know best. Farmers are the people that know best what to do with their assets and their control. This gives us the opportunity here today to wrest back control for the people that are actually our producers. So I would encourage all parties in this House to support the National Party in looking beyond this bill and to work out how we can look after the Goodman Fielders of the world but at the same time let's give up on trying to have this room constrain and dictate the future of the New Zealand dairy industry.