Ewen-Street Ian: New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9607] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I rise to take a very brief call in the debate on the second reading of this bill. I start by thanking the officials as some of my colleagues have also done. I appreciate the quality of the advice they gave us. I would also like to pay testament again to the collegiality amongst the members of the Primary Production Committee. I believe we work very well in a non-partisan way. We may take our own political views outside the committee room but when confronted with a problem inside the room we deal with it in the best and most practical way possible. 
I would like to address one aspect of this bill very briefly which is that of export to Australia. Despite the comments of my learned colleague Mr Eckhoff who obviously failed Marketing 101 the influx of low-quality kiwifruit into Australia has resulted in a loss of about $5 million per year to our kiwifruit industry. It was a loss but as I understand it that is exactly what he is advocating. One of the problems the industry has had is that kiwifruit exported from New Zealand to Australia have then been re-exported for a profit from Australia to Asian countries in particular. It is obviously to the disadvantage of New Zealand growers that growers are getting a low price in Australia while some entrepreneur in Australia is on-selling for a profit. 
It is clear to me that the idea of having an organised single-desk seller is still effective. Like my colleague Mr Woolerton I believe that the single-desk concept is not a bad one despite it being very unfashionable. Kiwifruit sellers have decided that that is the best way for them to go. They have also decided that their market both in Australia and in other parts of the world is very much dependent on quality. That is a very similar message to the one we debated on the Wine Bill last night. The wine industry is also heavily dependent on quality. A lot of our markets are dependent on quality. 
One thing we have to bear in mind is what the wine industry and the kiwifruit industry have in common other than their obsession with quality. They are both market-driven and they both state that they need to be GE-free. They cannot embrace genetic modification because markets will collapse. It is not rocket science that we are talking about. Even Gerry Eckhoff could probably get Marketing 101 if he got his head around that. If we have a market in which people do not want to buy our product we will have very low prices. What we want is to have a high-quality product that people want. At the end of the day our markets are unequivocal. They say that a premium will be paid for our product if it is of high quality and guaranteed to be free of any kind of genetic contamination. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr O’Connor that that is the way it is. 
The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill. Obviously the Horticulture Export Authority is a very learned body. It is one that— 
Richard Worth 
: Learned? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: It is very learned. It is concentrating on quality. That is what New Zealand export is all about.