Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3550. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 Before I start to speak on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill I would like to take just a minute to pass on condolences from the Green Party caucus and staff to the family and friends of Dave Allanson. Dave Allanson was as many of you know a much liked member of the staff here in Parliament. He did 23 years in Parliament. I was one of the new people here but he was an important person already and I appreciated him a lot. So the Greens would just like to acknowledge Dave in this instance. 
The Greens oppose this bill and we have certainly stated that before. We do not believe that Fonterra or this National Government have a mandate to push it through. We have heard a little bit about the numbers and I want to go back to those numbers again. The Greens believe that it is likely that it may even be slightly under 50 percent of actual farmers who voted for this. The Minister for Primary Industries said it was 66 percent of the farmers who voted. Where are the figures? How many farmers actually voted for Trading Among Farmers? It is not how many votes. Fifty-three percent in terms of milksolids voted for Trading Among Farmers. This does not reflect how many farmers but how many votes the huge corporate farmers are carrying these days. My understanding is that 80 percent of that 66 percent may not have been the little family farmers. The Minister Fonterra and the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council need to front up with the real numbers. None of them are supplying the real numbers of how many actual farmers voted for Trading Among Farmers. This Committee needs to know how many actually supported Trading Among Farmers. 
Fonterra informed its members and the community poorly about redemption risk and we have heard it again from the Minister. This bill is not needed. The retentions that have been held by Fonterra in the past—significant retentions in sequential years—show that this redemption risk is not needed. Retentions cure that. So neither Fonterra nor the National Government has this mandate. 
I would also remind all those involved in primary industries how the poultry industry votes as well—by eggs or chickens not by the farmers. Individual farmers get affected and individual dairy farmers get affected and having big industry moguls dominating and pushing does not reflect what is needed for New Zealand family farmers. 
This bill is very much as we have stated before the cousin of the asset sales legislation which was passed with a similar push by the National Government. This Government is into selling out everything not just our power companies Solid Energy Air New Zealand and those sorts of things. Now we are selling out the actual fundamental dividend stream of one of New Zealand’s main export industries. This Government is selling everything it can to its mates and often enough to overseas interests. We already have a major sell-out of forestry in this country. We are having a sell-out of power companies and we are having a sell-out of dairy. What next—we need to ask the Minister for Primary Industries—does he intend to sell out of New Zealand’s primary industry which is the basis for the backbone of New Zealand? What else are we going to be selling off to overseas interests?