Woolerton R Doug: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Meat Board Amendment Bill because we believe in exports and we believe in making right everything that will assist our farmers to export to foreign countries where every single barrier—both tariff and non-tariff—that can be put up against our exports is put up. We must make sure that we have the legislation right to enable our people to go about their business because there are men and women who work their butts off around the world on our behalf to make sure we gain entry into these countries. It is all very well to be talking about getting the beef off the farm and about what should happen with shipping and all of that sort of thing but unless we can make the regulations work that enable us to enter these countries on favourable terms we are fighting against the weather as we say in farming. It just will not happen. I was going to use another colloquial term but I thought I had better not. 
I think it is also right to remember as this legislation is passed through the select committee that this industry is constantly changing. As previous speakers have said the industry has gone from being a commodity industry—mainly carcasses shipped overseas—to being an industry dealing in all sorts of finer meats packaged meats fancy cuts etc. I am absolutely positive that the select committee even without my presence will make a good job of this. I am alarmed to hear that only Labour and National are represented on it but nevertheless I am sure that under David Carter’s able chairmanship this bill will be progressed quickly. 
I personally do not think it will be quite as easy as one would imagine it should be. I think that this will be shall we say an unexpected chance for people who did not think they were heard properly the first time to come along and have a second bite of the cherry. I am sure the experienced members of the committee realise that. When we take meat into another country or any produce into a quota market in another country that is seen as a privilege enjoyed by members of meat-processing industries and so on. There are always new entrants to the processing industry—and Mr Carter referred to this earlier—who want to push the barriers. They say we should be able to export without going through this bureaucratic nonsense without going through the Meat Board and without having to rely on these sorts of regulations. 
 It is very difficult but necessary to keep those people in some sort of order and to say: “Hang on sunshine first these criteria must be met then we will look at your applications.” Again as the Hon David Carter said one does not want to stifle enterprise but that has to be balanced against—excuse the language—stuffing up the markets that have been put in place by previous generations. 
There is also a change down on the farm in this industry led from the markets to have what we can call “from the pasture to the plate” tracking. Great sophistication is entering the farming and production chain in the way of tagging and electronic tagging in order to follow one single beast from a farm right through to the supermarket counter and on to the plate. I commend the industry for that because it is a huge undertaking. I must just say being a little bit controversial that that is one reason why I cannot understand the outrage of farmers towards the so-called chipping of dogs. In every other part of their industry the chipping or electronic tracking of animals is right at the forefront of what the market is wanting. It wants those animals tracked from the paddock to the plate so it is rather naive and quite unbelievable for farmers to say that there will be a big industry built around tracking dogs. That is nonsense because the whole industry is involved in that process as we speak and the chipping of dogs will be seen as just another addendum to that as time goes on. 
As mentioned by Shane Ardern this is a huge industry and it is one that we in New Zealand First take a great deal of interest in. If we are looking to address our balance of payments problem in this country—brought about by too much consumption and not enough exporting—industries like this are the only places we can look to for the sort of bulk money that we need to address those balance of payments deficits. 
Everybody knows that a small percentage increase in a big industry will be what produces the dollars rather than rushing around looking for the silver bullet as in the new industries that have years and years of start-up time and are simply incapable of doing the job. So it is the land-based industries that will help this country with its balance of payments deficit it is the land-based industries that sustain our standard of living and it is those that we must protect. 
I do not have much time like many farmers—or in my case ex-farmers—for ticket clippers. Mr Ardern mentioned those. We see far too often people who are to one side commenting and involving themselves in discussions on this industry. They are not directly involved in the industry they do not take the risks and they do not put up the money but they have all sorts of ideas about how these things should work. In my experience they are very big on talking about getting a share of the industry. They always want to get their foot in the door. They always want to take a percentage of the profit without taking a percentage of the risk. It is bills such as this that are designed not necessarily to keep those people right outside of the door but certainly to make sure that they serve their time before they come in the door. We certainly understand that aspect of the industry. 
I just close by commending the Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton. Like Shane Ardern and the Hon David Carter I well remember when perhaps the Minister was on the other side of the fence from where he is now. I commend him on a speech he made in England—I think it was in Birmingham. I do not know how many farmers there are in Birmingham but that is where the conference was held. He made the point that within a few hundred kilometres of that conference centre were something like 80 percent of the serious customers of the British market who ate that sort of produce. In our case we are many many thousands of kilometres away yet we are still able to compete with them unsubsidised by the good efforts of our mum and dad farmers who have been spoken about before. I commend those people. New Zealand First supports this bill. It is essential that it be passed.