O'Connor Damien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is subject to correctionO'Connor Damien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15073. Text is subject to correction.]10.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) to theMinister for Primary Industries: Does he stand by his statement “The opportunity and challenge for our meat producers now is to add value to different cuts of meat and continue to sell the New Zealand story”; if so why?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Yes. This Government has a goal of doubling our primary sector exports by 2025. I have just returned from a very successful trade mission with the Prime Minister to Thailand to support this goal. To reach this goal we will also need to continue adding value to what we sell overseas. That is why the Government and the industry have jointly committed $684 million in funding for the Primary Growth Partnership. If successful these programmes could add around $7 billion per year to our economy by 2025. Almost half of these projects are in the red meat sector including innovative programmes such as FarmIQ; the new Silere merino meat brand which was a hit at the America’s Cup; and the marbled grass-fed beef project. Change of course does not happen overnight but Labour did nothing in—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is now long enough.Hon Damien O’Connor: Does the Minister consider his investment of half a million dollars in the Red Meat Sector Strategy and the $350 million of taxpayer and farmer money in Primary Growth Partnership meat projects to be a good investment given that the Auditor-General is currently investigating each and every one of these projects?Hon NATHAN GUY: The member’s figures are inaccurate. They are not correct. The Government is investing just over $161 million in the red meat sector in very important innovative projects. I am relaxed about the Auditor-General having a look at these projects because there is very robust auditing already put in place by the Ministry for Primary Industries and external audits.Hon Damien O’Connor: How can the Minister justify his commitment to an $87 million Primary Growth Partnership project with ANZCO Foods a Japanese company that is so far not accountable for the money spent when the project to add value to meat carcasses is simply in the company’s own words “business as usual”?Hon NATHAN GUY: No I disagree with that. There are robust auditing processes under way. There are quarterly reports. The information is available on the Ministry for Primary Industries’ website. The member needs to understand that these are long-run projects. These are long-run projects and we are working very closely with the industry to return more money to the industry and to support our farmers. Labour does not care about our farmers and our rural communities.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table an email from the Ministry for Primary Industries apologising once again—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just describe the email precisely.Hon Damien O’Connor: The email is from the Ministry for Primary Industries apologising for not being able to deliver on time its obligation to an Official Information Act request for details on these—Mr SPEAKER: Order! And the email is presumably to the member?Hon Damien O’Connor: Yes it is.Mr SPEAKER: And the date?Hon Damien O’Connor: It is to our—Mr SPEAKER: And the date?Hon Damien O’Connor: It is to our research unit and it is detailed 18—Mr SPEAKER: The easiest way is for me to put the leave. It is over to the House to decide. Leave is sought to table this particular email to the Labour research unit. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There appears to be none.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Damien O’Connor: Does the Minister consider the $350 million - plus committed in Primary Growth Partnership meat projects to be making progress when farmers are converting land to dairying with an increasing impact on the environmentand meat carcasses are being exported to China for value-added processing while New Zealand meat workers remain unemployed?Hon NATHAN GUY: I refute some of those comments from the member. I think he needs to check his facts before he comes into the House because the China meat market is important to the red meat sector and to our farmers—so is the European Union and so is the UK. Yes there are some carcasses going there that are unprocessed but importantly there is a lot of processing and a lot of value-adding that is going on to support Kiwi jobs here. Importantly what we want to do is see greater returns flow through to farmers and that is why the member’s party should be supporting the Primary Growth Partnership water storage projects and the Trans-Pacific Partnership but it does not agree with anything.Hon Damien O’Connor: Supplementary question. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will call the member once I can get some decorum from his own side.Hon Damien O’Connor: Given the admission by his colleague the Hon Tim Groser that the Ministry for Primary Industries had inadequately resourced trade into the China market does he consider the increase in staff from one to three to be sufficient to develop and protect the growing meat trade into China?Hon NATHAN GUY: The important thing here is that the Ministry for Primary Industries is addressing the issues that came to bear with the certification and importantly resources are increasing in China from one to three. The resources are also increasing here in Wellington in the market access team and we are working across the whole of Government to ensure that we are supporting our exporters getting their products into the Chinese market.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table theRed Meat Sector Strategy Report—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can resume his seat. That is something that was sent to all members at the time.Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table the Controller and Auditor-General’s annual plan—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If it is an older document it will have been tabled in the House already.Hon Damien O’Connor: It is this year’s document.Mr SPEAKER: It will have been tabled in the House already.