Eckhoff Gerrard: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7119] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak on this part. I refer to a comment made by my colleague Mr Doug Woolerton. He like all the members on the Primary Production Committee took very seriously the submissions received from a whole range of people. At this late stage it appears there is a divergence of opinion about where we should be heading. In all honesty at one stage in the early formation of the bill I was opposed. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: As I recall I was reflecting on the fact that at the early stages and the preliminary hearings of the submissions I too along with Mr Woolerton and Mr Ian Ewen-Street believed that we just send the receivers in and they dispose of the assets of the board as the receiver sees fit. That seemed to me to be a pretty sound concept at that time. But I have changed my mind after listening to people like Richard Bentley who is now the chair of Wool Equities. I listened to him and indeed had a private meeting with him so he could better explain his thinking. I came away from that meeting thinking yes I could accept the proposal that the Government has come up with because I believe in the strength of that particular individual. 
The board has to divest itself of its assets. Some will go to the growers; and the information technology the technology that the board owns has to go somewhere. It is better if it is going to an organisation that is essentially controlled by the farming community. 
I make the point that the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand is an incorporated society and it has been the research vehicle for the wool industry. But it is an incorporated society and it cannot raise capital. There is a huge demand for the technologies and the new research and development that the organisation had come up with—for example Karatec is just one. New and equally exciting opportunities have been developed and there is a huge demand for capital to ensure that these developments take place. Mr Bentley assures me that with the structures now in place we will not have to go overseas to find capital that it can be financed in a local sense. That is something that should please us all. 
Under the new structures that Part 1 will authorise it is important to recognise that the Wool Research Organisation now has a new business plan and Wool Equities has rewritten the business plan for Ovita the biotech company. That company will be looking at ways of ensuring that the protein that is wool can be used in perhaps the pharmaceutical industry in a whole host of biotech ways. That needs money expertise and just as important it needs a business plan to ensure that those processes take place. 
I know there have been some real concerns about the “sudden” development of Canesis Network Ltd. We are confusing the two roles here. It is not the role of Parliament to get into the management of this industry. That is for the commercial arms to develop. There are very distinct roles here. One role is governance and one role is management. If we are to get into the micro-detail of determining in the Wool Restructuring Bill that this or that should happen to parliamentarians’ satisfaction then I think we are limiting the ability of these commercial organisations that will happen to best reflect the nature of the workplace and indeed the demands of the commercial world.