Flavell Te Ururoa: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2368] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Hopefully it is no secret to those of us gathered in the House today that Maori tangata whenua have earned their livelihoods through the spilling of blood on abattoir floors throughout the country over many years. Indeed my first holiday job was at Gear Meat Processing at Petone feeding the chain and picking up mountain oysters. Minister Horomia would no doubt confirm that they are delicacies in his area of Tolaga Bay on the East Coast. My honourable colleague from the north Mr Harawira also did his training in the freezers and on the gut floor of the now-closed Moerewa freezing works. He considered himself at that time not a freezing worker but a meat processor and now of course he is a parliamentarian. Our co-leader Dr Pita Sharples prepared the sheep for slaughter. He was in the shearing gangs that produced fodder for the works. Our other co-leader as this House will well know was an amateur vet. She was involved in the artificial insemination of her dairy herd the bobby calves of which ended up in the meat-processing industry. 
 So for the record the Maori Party has 100 percent involvement in the meat sheep and dairy industries. Almost 32000 are employed in meat processing and manufacturing many of them tangata whenua. What I am saying should not in any way diminish the contributions of other people—the farmers and former meatworkers who are also present in the House. I mihi to them all. Tena koutou. 
The industry operates major plants in Dargaville Karaka Waitoa Paeroa Te Kauwhata Tirau Te Puke Horotiu Te Kuiti Taumarunui Waitotara Waipukurau Takapau Oringi and other locations—locations where coincidentally there is a Maori workforce to support the kapata kai the food cupboard of Europe. Of course there are all the other locations where meatworks have been closed. They exist no longer and we must never forget the impact of the devastation of the closure of the meatworks such as Tomoana and Whakatu in which hundreds of families felt the impact of poverty unemployment and alienation. 
Meat industry products account for about 17 percent of New Zealand merchandise I am told. The figures are astounding really. Between 1998 and 1999 91 percent of lamb 83 percent of beef and 79 percent of mutton were exported overseas. In real money terms as I understand it New Zealand exports more than $4 billion of beef sheepmeat and goat meat with 65 percent of it going into quota markets that rely on country-specific tariff quotas. 
This bill is another example of legislation being posited as standing as a model for Aotearoa meeting its international treaty obligations relating to quota markets. The question must be again asked in this Chamber about how the Meat Board Amendment Bill honours the obligations the Crown has to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This House should be aware that both the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal have determined that the principle of partnership includes the obligation on both parties to act reasonably honourably and in good faith. Indeed the courts have also found that an aspect of the obligation to act in good faith is the duty to make informed decisions through consultation. The Waitangi Tribunal has emphasised the value and appropriateness of consultation in upholding and strengthening the Treaty partnership. 
Yet what do we have here? Maori meatworkers we have contacted in the very recent past—in fact this morning and yesterday—about this bill have absolutely no idea that it is even on the Table. But it gets worse. It seems that the bill which the Minister is promoting as “optimising positive economic outcomes in the domestic market” has not even been passed through the hands and by the eyes of stakeholders in the industry. Meat Industry Association of New Zealand policy adviser Dave Harrison said that the bill had taken the organisation by surprise. The media reports him as commenting: “ ‘The bill’s been a bolt out of the blue for us … It was done without consultation—we haven’t had a chance to form a view on it.’ ” So the Maori Party has to ask whether this is another case of policy change by stealth. 
Although we were told that access to quota markets will be kept open to all registered meat exporters regardless of one’s previous export history the question has to be asked as to why the Meat Industry Association did not know about something of such fundamental importance to its core business. More important why did Maori meat producers not know about this change? Maori produce 15 percent of New Zealand’s total meat for goodness’ sake! Multiple-owned Maori incorporations also tend to be among the country’s biggest farms in stock-number terms. Collectively Maori are the largest natural grouping of pastoral farmers in New Zealand—farming an effective area of 720000 hectares and growing. Some impressive initiatives have also been pioneered by Maori in the meat industry. We recall a group of Maori entrepreneurs who bought a third of the shares in the Richmond meat plant from the Meat Board. They subsequently sold two-thirds of their stake to Dunedin-based PPCS. 
Maori meatworkers have traditionally formed part of the backbone of the meat industry itself. They are men who because of the conditions they worked under aged before their time. However within the industry itself important steps have been made to demonstrate consultation with tangata whenua and I make particular mention of the Federation of Maori Authorities which almost a decade ago lobbied for and won legislative changes laying down voting procedures for the Meat Board and the Wool Board in order to encourage greater Maori participation in those two industries. The one farm one vote system was changed to a system based on production that recognises the greater size and productivity of Maori incorporations. The Federation of Maori Authorities says that this new system has generated greater Maori participation in the sense that more people are registering voting and attending board meetings. 
This determination by the industry is a very positive move that we would like to see replicated in the Meat Board. We recognise the contribution that Maori professionals such as Wayne Walden and Gina Rudland had in their membership of the Meat Board. 
The bill amends the 2004 Act to clarify that the Meat Board may allocate access to quota markets to meet industry participants who hold an export registration certificate whether or not they currently export meat products. I want to raise here the possibility that an opportunity could exist if Maori meat producers take advantage of it to form an entity to enable them to enter the meat export market. Is this an opportunity for indigenous marketing in relationships with countries such as Bolivia Colombia and Venezuela? It seems slightly ironic that while as I understand it AgResearch is currently right in the middle of a 12-stop tour of the North Island to encourage Maori dairy meat and wool farms to realise their potential and increase productivity here today we have a timely and significant opportunity to do exactly that. One wonders whether AgResearch is talking to the Minister. 
The whistle-stop tour is aimed at doubling Maori farm productivity from its current $800 million to $1.6 billion by the year 2020. We are not happy that yet again a significant piece of legislation is being processed on the shop floor as it were without the robust consultation that we suggest is desirable for any policy change. 
We will however support this bill through to the select committee to enable the Meat Industry Association meatworkers the Federation of Maori Authorities Maori meat producers AgResearch and other key players to have a say about how to strengthen the historical backbone of our primary industries.