Woolerton R Doug: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First also supports the third reading of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) but it does so with provisos—our vote will not come with a proviso; one either votes for a bill or one does not—and with warnings. This bill is at the end of a very long chain which started with the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. To guard ourselves against the ramifications of that Act we had the formation of Fonterra which came after that Act. The farmers believed that they needed a bigger company in order to protect themselves from competitors. I was a very strong advocate for Fonterra. I was opposed to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act but once that had passed I was a very strong advocate for Fonterra. The National Party was not and many other people were not as keen on Fonterra as I was. My faith and New Zealand First’s faith in Fonterra has been realised. But members should make no mistake about it: we are now in a situation where Fonterra will be very different from what it has been and in our view it will be weakened because of proposals on the floor that are currently outside the parameters of this bill. 
Let me deal with a few of the issues that have been raised after my previous speech. One of those issues concerns the word “xenophobia”. Somebody was giving me a lecture about the dairy industry not being able to eat all its cheese and having to export. Well that is precisely what the proponents of the cooperative structure in the early days of the dairy industry understood immediately—that this was all about exporting. It was all about excellence and it was all about marketing. The farmers of the day hired people to do all those things and they did them successfully. I might say that they were not afraid to pay them. Right from the earliest days the salaries in the dairy industry outside of the farming operation itself have been very very good and the expertise has been at the leading edge of innovation in our country. 
The people who set the industry up knew that we had to export. We had to get into new products and we had to innovate. They did all those things through retained earnings and through borrowings to the degree that Fonterra now has a credit rating that has slipped since the announcement that it may list on the stock exchange but that is still second only to that of the Government. Fonterra does not have a credit rating of some third-tier meat company or whatever but one that is second only to that of the Government. Those people went after innovation at a rate seen nowhere else in our economy and it has been really really successful. 
So rather than looking backwards—and I note the talk of Rip Van Winkle and xenophobia—this is an outward looking industry that has always been at the forefront of innovation. This is an industry that is modern. This is an industry that has not gone to other places and begged. This industry has looked after itself. It has been a leading-edge industry and I have been a proponent of it since my earliest days. 
Nathan Guy 
: You are flip-flopping! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Oh no we are not flip-flopping. 
I might say that the retained earnings of myself my three brothers my father and many of our contemporaries are still in that company today because in the days that we operated—not the days of my brothers though one of them is still going—it was a dollar in and a dollar out for the share. In those days we did not allow other people to come in and get a chunk of the dairy industry. There was one motivation: to grow the company and to grow the industry. Every farmer knew that the result of that growth was a better milk price. Farmers knew what was happening in their company. They knew how successful the executives and the managers were by what was in that milk price. 
I tell members that farmers understand this industry like no other. They understand what the executives are doing and they understand the profits that come from the different profit centres within this industry. They are not just suppliers of milk but they will be if they let other people into this industry—they will become suppliers of milk. But at the moment they own a leading-edge company that from this little place New Zealand controls one-third of dairy produce available for market in the world. That is no mean feat. That has been mocked today by members of the National Party as being xenophobic and backward looking which it is not. It is leading edge technology and I support it. 
The difference comes when New Zealand First says that this industry should be protected as it always has been as opposed to what the National Party says which is led by ticket clippers and market people who just want a chunk of this industry. They do not want to do the graft they do not want to put in the work they do not want to take the risk and they do not want to put up the dough for investment; they want a chunk of this company. I tell members that if I were them and not involved in the dairy industry and if I were just a money man from wherever I would want a chunk of it too. But New Zealand First says: “Don’t let them have it.” We implore the farmers to keep control of it themselves as they always have. If they nurture this company and carry on as they have in the past they will reap the benefits through their milk price. They will not reap the benefits of this company through a share price because that is a one-off and they will not reap the benefits of this company from a return on dividend. Other people will reap the rewards of the company through those avenues. 
Farmers’ only avenue to a guaranteed result is through their milk price. The forefathers of this industry knew that. It is what they set up— 
Sue Kedgley 
: What about the foremothers? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: And the foremothers. Sue Kedgley is absolutely right to pull me up and I apologise to her for not mentioning them. In the farming industry it is the women who drive the finances and they always have. It is the women who have largely had control of the purse strings. I could relate to members many an argument over those matters but that is indoors stuff. 
This industry has been at the forefront and we are in danger of seeing it slip back. New Zealand First members will not stand by and keep their mouths shut and watch that happen.