Locke Keith: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — First Reading 
Locke Keith: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8565] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports the essence of this State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill which merges the two organisations and creates a non-competitive model for such things as our meat inspection services. But we do have some concerns about the bill which is why we will be abstaining. We think there is a problem with the merger in that the system may become too bureaucratic. 
We would prefer that the merged entity was not a State-owned enterprise which is not really a very transparent model and not terribly accountable. It could be a bit too bureaucratic and repeat some of the problems that have accompanied Asure New Zealand over the years. Asure New Zealand was in a terrible mess particularly in terms of relations with its staff. It laid people off and there was all kinds of skulduggery a few years ago. Apparently that has been largely sorted out now but if this bill creates just one organisation using an State-owned enterprise model without more transparency we could find that the organisation is not efficient and that there are other problems associated with that model. So we would favour some more transparent form of Crown entity rather than a State-owned enterprise. 
I see two problems in using a competitive model in this area. I have some experience in this area. I was at one point in my career a meat grader at the Gear meatworks. I worked closely with the meat inspectors who at that time worked under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. So I am pretty aware of what they do at least in terms of operations on the mutton chain and beef chains. 
I can see two problems with the competitive model. The first is that if firms are competing for a contract and want to get their costs down the easiest way to do that is to employ less qualified staff—they do not have to be paid as much—and to push the meat through a bit quicker which is quite easy to do. Of course mistakes follow and the product can create problems for New Zealand when it is exported and the mistakes are discovered overseas. We are talking here to a large extent about an export industry. I know from the way things work that if firms are put into that competitive model to get costs down what suffers is quality and that is something we want to protect at all costs. 
My friend Shane Ardern has talked about the fact that on the farm different inspectors come in to check for TB. Even there the competitive model may have some problems. But I think that with TB either it is there or it is not and with a bit of quality testing it can be worked out whether each contractor is performing its duties. But with the sorts of things that meat inspectors do on the chain in a meatworks there is a fine line often between what is acceptable as a disease and what is not. 
For example pleurisy is one of the common diseases that comes down the chain and whether the animal is deemed to have pleurisy depends on the amount of pleurisy. There is a shifting dividing line; it is not an exact science. A lot of meat inspection and meat grading is not an exact science. I can imagine that under a competitive model to try to please the farmers or the meatworks the inspector might put that line of where pleurisy exists more in the direction of the meatworks and the farmer—at the cost of our overseas markets. That could easily be done if we got too much into this competitive model. 
My experience with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries model in the past was that meat inspectors did not have any pressure on them to push the line in the wrong direction or to push the meat through too fast. They were just doing their job to the best ability they had. So the Green Party certainly thinks that a non-competitive model is best but we just do not want it to be too much of a bureaucratic model or an inefficient model. Thank you.