Cosgrove Clayton: Meat Board Restructuring Bill — Second Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Meat Board Restructuring Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14069] 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I rise as a member of the Primary Production Committee to support the Meat Board Restructuring Bill. I say in a charitable way that that was not a bad speech from the Opposition member. I am sure that Mr Woolerton who is also a member of the Primary Production Committee would back me in saying that after the last election we had hoped that Shane Ardern would end up chairing that committee. A bill like this is close to that member’s heart. He is a real farmer—one of the few left in the National Party. 
Darren Hughes 
: Phil Heatley did the numbers. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: With all his fingers and toes Phil Heatley did the numbers. Unlike the present chairman who is a Colombo Street farmer out of Christchurch we know that Shane Ardern is a real farmer and a good bloke. He has a lot of support around the place as a bloke—a real farmer. He is not even on the committee but has been sent down to the House for this second reading to put the boot into the bill because David Carter refuses to take a call. I rise to support this bill. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: He wasn’t even on the committee. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Yes he is not even on the committee. A good bloke like Mr Ardern a good substantial farmer in our community is not even on the committee. 
I rise to support this bill. This bill follows what occurred in the wool industry and the dairy industry. The farming communities the growers held a referendum and came to the Government. This bill meets our criterion which is that if there is substantial overwhelming grower support for the measure then we will move to deregulate. That is unlike the previous Government which had one crack at deregulation with the fruit legislation. Fruitgrowers wanted a certain scheme of arrangement and the then Minister Mr Luxton corporatised the fruit industry and blew it apart and now the industry has collapsed around our feet as we have seen in the last couple of years. This bill does what the industry itself wants. 
The other interesting thing about this bill is that it allows the Meat Board to retain its reserves of around $100 million for the purposes of assisting the industry. I think that is quite substantial and is a very good safeguard. But of course we know—and I will refer to a quote from the chairman of the Primary Production Committee Mr David Carter who will not take a call but stuck poor old Shane Ardern out on a pole today. David Carter said that if he had his way those hundred-million-dollar reserves would be gone—they would be sold. He stated in the  
Rural News 
 of 8 June 2004: 
“We indicated before the last election that we would sell for instance Landcorp if we got into power and I don’t see that changing.” It means that a National Government would sell assets. It would do away with the Meat Board—flog the lot. As with the apple industry the poor old grower the hard-working grower with the intellectual property and all those assets would be left out in the cold. 
I pity Shane Ardern in a lot of ways. I reckon from the speech he made that he knows that the Primary Production Committee is the most depoliticised committee in this Parliament. Poor old Shane Ardern has been stuck out on a pole this morning on his own. He is the only real farmer on the Opposition side of the House. He was told to ramp up the debate and politicise it. What a shame that was. I think Shane Ardern should have said to the chairman of that committee there was no way he would do that and the chairman should do his own dirty work. But the chairman has refused to come to the House to take a call. 
As I said this bill will assist the industry. It will give some synergies and some cost efficiencies. It has the support of growers as demonstrated by a substantial referendum in August last year. But let me also point this out: the committee made a unanimous report on the bill. Again I say this is not a political issue. I think that even our ACT colleague our New Zealand First colleague and our other colleagues on the committee support this legislation as a good way to go forward for the meat industry. I just say to the Opposition members that they should look at their own legacy from the time they were in Government in terms of what they did in the agricultural sector. The only crack those members had at a restructuring was in the fruit industry. Shane Ardern will not stand and agree with me now but I know even he will agree with me in the lobbies that National blew that industry apart. The growers came to us on wool and on dairying and we have ticked those requests off. Now they have come to us on meat and we can tick that one off. We have done what the industry wanted in putting a substantial bill and a substantial entity together. More especially we are ensuring that the $100 million of reserves are kept out of the hands of the Opposition members and out of the hands of this Parliament to ensure that the industry is protected and the money is used to benefit it. 
I tell the Opposition members to give it all a break to support the growers and the industry and not to politicise this legislation because all that that will do is to send the wrong message to the industry. The industry knows that we have backed it. The industry knows the real speech that Shane Ardern really wanted to make this morning but was not allowed to because Mr Heatley over there on the Opposition benches put the axe into him so that he could not chair the Primary Production Committee. I thank Mr Ardern for the speech that he could not make. The speech that he did not make was a very good speech and I agree with the speech that he could not make. 
Let us just get on with it. This is a good bill. It is non-partisan it supports the industry and it is good for this country.