Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill is a bill that National should have left for a major rethink. This bill is being introduced at a time when farmers are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with the Fonterra board’s direction and decision making. This bill should not have been introduced when 10 percent—and increasing—of Fonterra’s members have signed a petition asking for another vote on Trading Among Farmers. These farmers are an important part of the 80 percent who voted in good faith who voted in principle for something that Fonterra said would ensure 100 percent New Zealand farmer ownership and control of their cooperative.  
The system now promoted and supported to this House by the Government is something quite different and is much closer to the partial float that farmers rejected outright in 2007. The June 2010 vote was not for a vehicle that would allow for overseas investors to gain dividends at a cost to themselves the New Zealand dairy farmers. This bill will drive lower farm-gate milk prices while supporting profits for non-farmer investors. We want New Zealand family farmers to get a good return on sustainable production not to be encouraged by the need for dividends for overseas or outside speculators or to have to intensify their production management systems to satisfy those dividend needs.  
The co-op model suits New Zealand very very well. It has developed well as a proxy for the past producer boards that developed buffers for their highs and lows of production and price. Fonterra itself is an example; Zespri is another one—both very good examples of successful co-op models. Our issue here is that the Government is supporting a rush of blood to the Fonterra executive’s head as Fonterra becomes increasingly distant from the family farmer member base. The demise of ENZA and the Apple and Pear Marketing Board and the loss of that single-desk approach to pipfruit marketing and industry management has cost family farmers and rural communities dearly. This Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill appears to be geared more to beginning the demise of the strong cooperative structure of Fonterra and will ultimately benefit only the Government’s friends competing processing companies and possibly those near Fonterra’s executive or the overseas interests which are all waiting in the wings for some unearned dividends.  
We need to keep any profits for developing sustainable family farms. There is no need for Trading Among Farmers. Fonterra has the capacity to create the level of seasonal and entry and exit buffers that Fonterra says it needs. It has its own capacity already. Modest retention can quickly achieve that. That has been proved by the hundreds of millions already retained in last year’s figures even. This concept needs to go back to the very farmers who will be hit negatively by misguided and potentially greedy for some legislation. We want New Zealand family farmers to be producing sustainably. That needs optimum returns to them not to some speculator. Transparency of milk price setting is fine but the real driver from the New Zealand public in discussion on milk price setting was the retail price and a separate bill busting open the supermarket and full supply-chain pricing mechanisms is probably needed.  
ACT clearly loves this bill just as it may have enjoyed Zespri being busted open. But Zespri thankfully is still intact. We need to make sure that Fonterra stays intact in the way that was intended. This Parliament needs to protect New Zealand family farmers. Price transparency—certainly. Price and exit and entry buffers—definitely. Sustainability—always. New Zealand is looking to Fonterra and this Parliament to get farming right. Selling a co-op’s dividend system and milk pricing by this bill does not achieve this. The Greens oppose this bill in this form because of that.  
New Zealand’s sustainability issues that we keep bringing to this House—especially in terms of rivers and fresh water stopping nitrate leaching and concerns about animal welfare nitrous oxide emissions and methane emissions from farming—can all be achieved by keeping family farmers with good incomes for themselves not for somebody else taking that gain. 
 If we want our New Zealand farmers to be producing the best and to be branded the best we have to make sure that they get a good income that it goes to no one else that it stays there and that they will be meeting those needs that more and more they are being asked to meet.  
The Greens oppose this bill in this form if it gets to the Primary Production Committee. It would have been fantastic if the Minister for Primary Industries had pulled this bill today or yesterday before it got to this stage. He heard the voices of the farmers. He has ignored the voices of the farmers. This needs— 
Hon David Carter 
: 80 percent of the farmers want it.  
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: They do not. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! Can I just remind members on the cross benches that they should realise that because of the close proximity it can cause the microphones to muffle and make it difficult for the Speaker and it is out of order. 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: We want those New Zealand farmers to be doing their very best. We have to support them doing their very best. ACT and National going down this path of supporting a runaway Fonterra executive who seems to want to have outside investment into that organisation is a mistake. The Greens will oppose this. As I say the Minister should have listened to the farmers and should have pulled this out. If this bill goes through to the select committee we will be doing our best to look at it in such a way that we can get improvements that would make it meaningful and fair. As it stands it is not to be supported. Thank you.