Guy Nathan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Guy Nathan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 I think it is important that I make a contribution to this debate. I want to put it on the record from the start that the company I am involved with is a Fonterra supplier and a shareholder in LIC but the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) is going to enable greater competition in the dairy industry which I think is fundamental. The important point I want to make around those two companies is that there are seven players outside of Fonterra albeit they are small players in the overall dairy industry. But it is important that the markets are opened up and that Fonterra does not have a monopoly over them. I think that that is what this bill sets out to achieve. 
I also make the particular point that here we are at 20 to 12 during the day. We are in urgency—we do not normally sit at this time of the day—to put this bill through Parliament because it is important. But I say to the Minister and the other members over on the other side of the Chamber in the Labour Government and to those members who prop up the Labour Government that this bill has been lurking around on the Order Paper for about the last month. Yet here we are having to put this legislation through in a mad panic under urgency. It is important for the cornerstone of our economy that it goes through today—extremely important—and we will support it in going through. But I make the point that the Government has had to slam the House into urgency because it is so hopeless at managing the things on its Order Paper. This is a hopeless Government. It has had a month to get this legislation through but here we are today at 20 to 12 having to put it through under urgency. 
Another important point that I make on this bill—and I will probably make further contributions on it when we get into the Committee stage—is that it will allow export licences to be allocated on the basis of a proportion of the milk solids collected from dairy farmers with a minimum threshold of 0.1 percent of the total milk solids collected. Those export rights will become available between 2008 and 2010 on a yearly basis. That is a very important point to make there. Those rights outside that period will become available from 2011 on a 3-yearly basis. 
The other important point which has been touched on but which I think it is worth making a further contribution on is around the core database that LIC tends to have a monopoly over in the current regime. It was a little outside this bill to get into the nitty-gritty of that but I think that with Mr Carter’s chairmanship of the Primary Production Committee it may be something that the select committee seeks to have a further look at in 2008. It is not necessarily fair that price dictates the level of service for the other minority companies that are trying to get involved in providing a service and dealing with the core database. 
So those are some issues that I think we need to make a contribution on. I would like to get the Minister in the Committee stage to talk about the definition of milk solids because that would be an important contribution. I think the Minister should tell the House that whether “milk solids” is written as one word or as two words is significant because the words have a different definition. So it would be worthy of the Minister in the Committee stage to make a contribution and explain the definition and why that is so for the benefit of listeners. 
National is supporting the passage of this legislation through the House. We wonder why we need to be in urgency to get it through because if the Government were organised we would not need to be ramming it through under urgency.