Copeland Gordon: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Meat Board Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the first reading of the Meat Board Amendment Bill and immediately signal that United Future will be supporting this bill—I expect not just through the first reading but all the way until it becomes the law of the land. As I mentioned in my general debate speech yesterday my own involvement in the industry—peripherally it must be admitted—was in the early-1980s. It was not just in the restructuring of the meat industry but in its total reformation. 
Shane Ardern mentioned it was a 19th century industry. I tell him that it was actually a colonial industry. About the only thing that New Zealanders owned in the meat industry was the meat itself. The meat was grown here processed mainly in British-owned freezing works shipped on British-owned ships across to the other side of the world went through British-owned wholesale markets then sold through British-owned retail markets. 
Shane Ardern 
: Vestey’s. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: Vestey’s in particular and by the time it reached the British housewife there was a mark-up of over 90 percent on what the farmer back in New Zealand got. That is colonial economics. 
We have moved on and it has been a great success. As I said I was one who was peripherally involved as a consultant in those days on that reformation and I am absolutely thrilled that all these years later we have such a successful and flourishing industry. In fact meat exports are 20 percent of New Zealand’s total exports. 
I remember when I lived in London in the 1970s my wife would go to the supermarket and ask for New Zealand lamb. She was told it was in the deep-freeze and when she opened the deep-freeze inside was a piece of stocking net and all one could see through the stocking net was fat and that was a leg of New Zealand lamb. [ 
Interruption 
] Unprocessed. It was amazing to me that we sold much lamb because one had to be motivated to buy that stuff. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: There’s definitely been a transformation. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: The transformation now of course is enormous in the way in which our meat is packaged cut and marketed. It is just a brilliant success story and long may it continue. 
The reason we support this bill is that it will continue the principle of free and open markets for meat exporters from this country. Te Ururoa Flavell who has just resumed his seat speculated that maybe Maori could form a cooperative meat exporting company and I said straightaway “Why not?”. They should go for it because the opportunity is there and under the present rules according to which particular set of lawyers one talks to—and Te Ururoa may not be aware of this background—some legal opinion says that in order to get access to quota markets one has to be exporting meat whereas the clear intention of that Act was no one can register as a meat exporter and become a new meat exporter. When one thinks it through if we stuck with the present position we would be closing the market to new entrants. 
I recommend to the House that if members ever have a spare night they should take out a video called  
Tucker: The Man and his Dream 
. It is a true story that happened in the early 1950s in the United States where the motor vehicle industry excluded a new player a man who was a brilliant innovative person. Eventually that led to America losing its dominance in motor vehicle manufacturing and surrendering it to the Japanese and the Germans. Members will remember the days when people used to joke about Harley-Davidsons and that the only reliable thing about them was that they were good for spare parts. The whole industry went downhill in terms of quality and so forth because no new blood was coming in. It became a closed shop. The last thing we need in the meat industry is to have a closed shop like that. We must remain open to new people coming in with new ideas innovation and energy which will ensure that we continue the very successful run we have had over the last 20 or so years in developing this fantastic industry. 
The other thing we have to remember is that while many of New Zealand’s international competitors—that is meat producers in other countries—can rely on a large domestic market in New Zealand our small population does not give us that luxury. Therefore it is remarkable that we have done so well. In fact the figure I have here is that 83 percent of all beef and veal produced in this country is exported. I think the comparable figure for mutton is 88 percent. This is a New Zealand success story and one that we should celebrate and encourage. That of course makes it even more important that we ensure we do have free competitive markets and that is all about allowing new entrants to get a foothold in the door so that we can bring the new blood that I mentioned into the equation. This is a great bill and we are delighted to give it our support today.