Moroney Sue: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3831. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. It seems I am going to be talking about milk quite a lot this week in Parliament. Tomorrow I will be speaking about breast milk but for today I am talking about the milk that keeps this country strong. Yes that probably is breast milk as well but with regard to this bill the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill we are talking about the future of our dairy industry. 
The future of our dairy industry is something that we must take very seriously indeed. I am very concerned to hear the reports although I was not on the Primary Production Committee of how rushed this legislation was through the select committee. After all this is the industry that is the backbone of our nation. The legislation ought to have been taken seriously by all sides of the House. 
For Labour’s part we feel very strongly about the hugely successful cooperative model that has actually seen Fonterra become one of our few international success stories. In New Zealand we do not have many companies that can actually compete in the international market in the way that Fonterra does and it is a huge success story for something different from the corporate model—the cooperative model. It is a model that has been owned successfully now for many many decades by New Zealand farmers. I guess the rest of us also feel that we have shares in Fonterra because it is such an important part of our economy. It is such an important part of everything that happens in our country and for those of us who live in the provinces—and I am from the Waikato area—it is such an important part of how our local economies operate. 
So this should not have been a piece of legislation that was ever rushed through select committee. I believe that it was rushed through for entirely the wrong reasons. There was a bit of a panic going on. There was a panic going on from Government—and have we not seen that? It is a bit of a theme for this Government as it panics its way through a number of political mishaps at the moment. I sincerely hope that this does not become another one of those political mishaps but it certainly could easily do so. 
This bill does open up the opportunity for our successful flagship cooperative model company to have shares sold off overseas. Again it is a continuing theme that is happening through this Government as we are also dealing with the State assets sale issue at the moment as well so there are themes running through. I know that Fonterra was deeply concerned about this issue. 
I talked about farmers and the rest of us as if I do not fall into that category myself but I actually fielded a phone call from Fonterra as it got a bit panicked about how the vote might go on Trading Among Farmers. I received one of those phone calls at home as a Fonterra shareholder asking me to participate in a survey in the days leading up to that vote. I think Shane Ardern looks like he may have participated in such a survey as well. Perhaps there was a high proportion of MPs who actually got asked the survey questions from Fonterra but the phones were running red hot as Fonterra did urgent surveys to try to find out whether it would get that slim majority—which in fact it ended up getting—to get this Trading Among Farmers through. But it is very controversial and I know that there are deeply held concerns within the farming community and more broadly the agricultural community. Farmers are part of that but the entire community which relies on this very important industry as the backbone of what we do in this country has a concern about the lack of protection in this bill to ensure that we keep that very successful and very important cooperative model. 
I am very proud to say that I am with my Labour colleagues in opposition to this bill. I think it has too many risks. We have a very successful model in Fonterra. I want to keep that very successful model in place. It has been sustainable in the past. I do not accept the arguments coming from the Government and I oppose the third reading of this bill.