McKelvie Ian: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McKelvie Ian: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3564. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I have found this process fascinating; it is the first time I have had an opportunity since becoming a member of this House to follow a bill through its entire process. The Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill is a very important piece of legislation. It is a very complex piece of legislation and it takes a considerable amount of understanding and some comment has been made in the Committee today on the fact that a number of people in the dairy industry took some considerable time to understand it. I think the dairy industry took a lot of time to understand it and I think in the end it understood it pretty well. 
It is actually an exciting piece of legislation for the dairy industry if there is such a thing and it will continue to develop Fonterra as a new-generation cooperative. I think it is very important that we note the fact that it is a new-generation cooperative and if we do not create these new-generation cooperatives so to speak cooperatives always run their course. So it is very important that Fonterra has the opportunity through this legislation to reinvent itself. 
I am disappointed with what I guess can be described only as the scaremongering of the member for Wellington Central. Wellington Central I reinforce is a place where a lot of dairy farmers are residing obviously! 
Colin King 
: They’ve got their lattes. 
IAN McKELVIE 
: I guess they do need the latte there. His view was that the Government wants to float Fonterra. I find that extremely disappointing because this is clearly not the aim at all. Had he attended the Primary Production Committee he would have understood that his own members and indeed the members of the Government on that select committee questioned this topic at length. I think we were all comfortable that we got to the right position with regard to Fonterra and how it might go forward. 
Fonterra has a very large parliament. Dairy farmers have spent years discussing the redemption issue. After at least the last 3 years they have come to the conclusion that it is satisfactory for the industry and satisfactory for the company. This cooperative and its predecessors have been attacked by experts in an effort to gain a piece of the action. I for one am pleased to see the co-op and the Government via the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill and its amendments making the running here. Through their initiative they have pre-empted what may have been otherwise manipulated by others. 
We have heard the Greens on this topic throughout this debate. They do not support this and that is no surprise. They have yet to get their heads around progress and now they want to send the industry back to where it was pre-2001. This would be good for the sheep industry. We would get a little of our own back as we witness a swap-back to the sheep industry. My own intelligence tells me that contrary to the Greens’ allegation many of my small dairy farming families support the Trading Among Farmers scheme and support the amendments to the Act. The reason they had difficulty with the Act is that if you go back to 2001 it was legislation put through Parliament in order to establish a modern dairy industry. Many of our farmers had difficulty with that because it changed the structure and the nature of their cooperative. If we do not change the nature of this cooperative the cooperative will certainly in my view be derailed in the future. So it is most important. The other reason that small farmers look forward to the opportunity to support the bill and I am sure will vote resoundingly for it at the next opportunity is that it provides an opportunity for intergenerational transfer and for continuance of strong family-owned farming businesses. 
One of the factors that I find really important in the course of this is that we are taking the opportunity to change the legislation slightly to ensure that companies taking a piece of the 5 percent of the milk available to other companies have to do it in a structure and a form that is understood. In other words they cannot set up subsidiary companies to take a share of that milk. This provision will be well supported by the dairy industry. I am sure that it will give great security to the dairy farmers who currently supply Fonterra. 
I will be brief. The last thing I want to say on this topic is that this industry was restructured in order to give Fonterra and the dairy industry an opportunity to grow and to diversify. It is designed to create efficiency around the activities of Fonterra. It is designed to create efficiencies around the activities of any other companies participating in the industry.