Ewen-Street Ian: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — First Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4258] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I regret that I have to strike a little note of dissonance in this otherwise unanimous debate. I have some reservations about this bill. 
John Carter 
: We have some about you so what does it matter? 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Some of that member’s best friends are sheep. While I accept that there is a need for industry reform I am yet to be convinced that this is the right answer. It is clear to me that the Wool Board has not performed as well as it could have over the last 20 years. It is also clear to me that it has become increasingly dysfunctional as an organisation and that change is necessary but is this format the right answer? I am yet to be convinced of that. 
We heard from the Minister—that well-known sheep farmer Dr Michael Cullen—about the intentions of the bill and I will not repeat them. David Carter also spoke very fulsomely about them. We have a plan for structural change and in many ways that had to happen. 
My objections fall into two categories. The first is a philosophical one. I am still a member of the old school that believes in the single-desk seller. That is no longer fashionable; I accept that. I believe that having a combined front for our foreign buyers and competitors is a good thing. It is a concept whose time will come again but at the moment we are going through all the privatisations and corporatisations just like we did with ENZA. But I will not argue the merits of that tonight; I accept that it will be a fait accompli. 
My second class of objections relates to the detail of the bill itself. First I want to look at the referendum of farmers. The board claims that it consulted widely and it proudly stated that 97 percent of the people were in favour of these changes. That sounds overwhelming but it was 97 percent of the voters and less than 40 percent of growers actually voted. I want to know what the other 60 percent want to do. Are they simply sitting at home and saying they acquiesce? Has there been any attempt—and I ask this genuinely—to find out what that 60 percent actually wants? What do those people feel about the changes? Are they supportive of this bill? 
Phil Heatley 
: There was a vote. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: No I am talking about the 60 percent of the growers who did not vote. 
Shane Ardern 
: They missed their chance. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: OK they missed their chance. But the point is this: were they consulted? Was it the result of apathy? Are they sitting at home feeling disempowered? Are they sitting at home quietly fuming and being totally totally opposed to this measure? Are we going through with this bill for a minority of growers? I do not know whether that is the case but I think we should find out. Does anybody know? No nobody knows. We need to find that out. 
Whatever way we look at it we see the consultation with growers has been inadequate. I really question whether there was consultation. Was there really dialogue? Did people actually go out and ask every grower—or every class of grower anyway—what growers wanted from the restructuring? No I do not think they did. I think that the McKinsey report was put to growers and they either accepted it or rejected it because anything had to be better than the old system. It was not good consultation. 
Another area of the bill that I feel uncomfortable about is the requirement that only farmers who are registered will be eligible for disbursements from the Wool Board’s assets. That seems fine on the surface but we have to look underneath. We see that in order to register to be eligible for those disbursements a person must have had at least 250 sheep and have been farming on 30 June 2002. Those two figures seem entirely arbitrary to me. They seem to be based on administrative convenience rather than on fairness. What about smallholders and hobby farmers—those people who have fewer than 250 sheep? Did they pay levies to help the Wool Board to create its assets? Yes of course they did. So why treat those people unfairly and deny them disbursements? 
John Carter 
: Because this is Parliament. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: It is too hard yes. The system proposed in the bill is convenient. I accept that trying to sort out a refund for somebody with a couple of lambs that are just keeping the lawn of the house block mowed is too hard. It is simply crazy to try to go around everyone like that. But why not use another measure? What about the weight of wool sold through a registered wool buyer or the number of carcasses that went through an abattoir? That would be a pretty simple process. I am not talking rocket science; I am talking about fairness. There have to be fairer methods than this method. If people pay their levies surely they have to receive their disbursements. The fundamental message I want to get across is that I do not believe that matters of administrative convenience should override fairness and justice. Things simply should not happen like that. 
What about the date of 30 June 2002? It is a nice date; it has a nice ring to it. It is the middle of winter so we are talking about wintering stock and all that sort of thing but it is just an arbitrary point of reference. I accept that because it is a date in the past there would have been a limited amount of prior knowledge of that date and so there would have been limited jockeying. At least it is better than choosing a date in the future. But the current state of assets in the Wool Board did not come about overnight. It came about over a very long period of time. Those assets accumulated gradually so why should we pick one specific date and say that the people who were contributing at that date should get all the assets? That simply does not make sense. Surely everybody who has contributed over a period of time should be entitled to a disbursement. 
Having said that I accept that if we go back too far the whole thing becomes a nightmare. We cannot possibly track down everybody. But what about the person who has had say 10000 sheep on his or her farm and who sold them on 29 June 2002? Let us suppose that the person has been farming for 50 years and has done everything right—except for picking the wrong date to sell. That person gets absolutely nothing. But what has that person contributed? One heck of a lot! What about the converse situation where somebody—a Queen Street farmer like Dr Cullen for instance—might have bought a flock of 10000 sheep on 29 June 2002? That person will get a huge disbursement for having done 1 day’s work and has probably not even got his or her fingernails dirty yet. Do either of those examples—the person who had a farm for 50 years and sold it on 29 June or the person who bought a farm just before 30 June—represent fairness or justice? No of course they do not. 
So how should we go about resolving that? It is not very difficult. I propose that we have a 10-year phase-in period that the Government can finish off on 30 June 2002 if it wants. We would go back to 1 July 1992 and we would say that anybody who had owned any sheep in that 10-year period would be entitled to a refund. If a person bought or sold sheep or bought or sold his or her farm during that time then that person would be prorated on the number of sheep he or she had. One could use 30 June each year as the date for measuring that because it is a nice convenient date as I said for the wintering of one’s stock. Again I make the point that I do not think that administrative convenience should override matters of fairness and justice. We are not talking about rocket science; it is a very simple mathematical formula. It is a sliding scale and I am really at a loss to understand why we cannot institute it. Yes it is a little more complicated that the proposal in the bill and yes it will take a little more time. But surely that is a small price to pay on a one-off basis for saying that people deserve to get some reward for the money they have put into a board that has become increasingly dysfunctional certainly but has accumulated assets. I think that we should distribute those assets as broadly and as fairly as we possibly can. 
I say as a consequence of that that the Green Party will abstain from voting on this bill. We do not want to stand in the way of progress however that progress may be defined. But we do have reservations about some of the detail of this bill as I have explained. I look forward to consulting in a genuine dialogue-based manner with my colleagues on the Primary Production Committee when we come to debate this bill. I look forward to some significant changes being made to it.