Clark David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18548. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):AgResearch is mismanaging public funds and at the same time it is losing some of our top scientific talent. It is proceeding with a $100 million restructure despite evidence that shows that it is a waste of taxpayer funds. The sheepmeat industry has fallen victim to an ideologically driven board a plan that is off the rails and a lame duck Minister of Science and Innovation who has seen the evidence but proven completely unable or unwilling to hold the board to account.Let us have a look at the history. In October 2012 Mr Joyce received the AgResearch business case. It sat on his desk for 5 months—for 5 months it sat on Mr Joyce’s desk while he considered whether or not this document was worthy for him to sign off. We know he then signed it off and subsequently out came the statement of corporate intent which Mr English also signed off. On 30 July 2013 the proposal was put to staff. Submissions closed in August and subsequently an internal report reviewed the restructure plan and advised on the way forward. That restructure plan said that many of AgResearch’s changes were indeed good ideas but that one part made no sense. That was the part that was about disbanding the Invermay Agricultural Centre about pulling apart a successful hub a successful commercial model that has generated productivity gains that amount to pretty much the doubling of sheepmeat productivity in the last 30 years in order to start from scratch—ditching all the commercial partners shifting cities losing all the scientists and starting from scratch. That is the case. The internal review which received no less than 245 submissions found that the case for shifting Invermay did not stack up if AgResearch wished to achieve its goals of improving science improving productivity and improving on-farm returns.Then we have a number of intervention points that have arisen since then. The Minister Steven Joyce has been aware of all of these. There was a Public Service Association (PSA) survey that found that most members would not shift; that top talent would leave the organisation and would return overseas from whence they came or would go to other institutions in New Zealand. There was a financial review that was held where the senior management was unable to answer questions and was deceitful in its responses about the business case. Subsequently a full business case was released but that was not the impression given early on in the process. There has also been a vote of no confidence from one of the most significant breeding bodies in the industry the Texel breeders of New Zealand. PSA staff at Invermay have unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in the board and senior management. And then we have the industry—92 percent of the top ram breeders in New Zealand have opposed this shift and have said that this makes absolutely no sense at all and 6 percent abstained. The industry knows that this is not good for productivity in New Zealand.But Mr Joyce in all of that time has failed. He has failed to intervene on behalf of farmers he has failed to intervene on behalf of science in New Zealand and he has failed in his duty to the taxpayer as he sees hundreds of millions of dollars thrown up in the air for a case that promised only marginal returns. It promised only marginal returns on its original optimistic assumptions but those assumptions as we know have gone by the by. We know that the assumptions were that staff would shift in greater numbers than is currently likely. We know the assumptions were that farms would be sold off; now the timetable has been pushed back by a year. This is a no-hope case and the Minister has failed to intervene on a board that has failed to manage the key risk identified in its own business case which is managing the risk of staff loss of those key scientific staff who are important for productivity improvements of 1 percent per year ongoing into the future.Labour has said that we will save Invermay. It is an easy decision to make. It costs nothing and it improves New Zealand’s on-farm productivity. It improves exports for New Zealand.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I didn’t hear Iain Lees-Galloway say that. You go to Palmerston North and say that.Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Woodhouse opposite is of course interjecting. He has toed the party line. He has abandoned the case. He has abandoned logic. He has let the economic pace—