Carter David: Meat Board Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Carter David: Meat Board Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4963] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Meat Board Amendment Bill in its third reading today. I will take a relatively brief call because I am aware that my deputy chair Dr Ashraf Choudhary is also keen to take a call so that the matter can be tidied up before 10 o’clock. It is good to see a bill such as this go through Parliament with support from everybody particularly when we have been such an acrimonious Parliament over recent times with the issue of corruption and bribery. So I am pleased to support something that we are all in agreement with. 
What led to the introduction of this bill is a little unclear. The first point that needs to be made is that the original legislation was not about Parliament determining how quota could be allocated. We passed legislation in 2004 that gave that responsibility to the Meat Board and clearly over recent times there has been some acrimony and displeasure in the way some participants in the industry feel the board is undertaking a particular and very responsible job. Suffice it to say that the Minister of Agriculture the Hon Jim Anderton was concerned about the difficulties associated with the allocation and he perceived that there may have been some threat of legal action because of a possible ambiguity in the original legislation. 
I want to make it clear to the House that the Primary Production Committee did not spend time investigating whether the original legislation was in any way ambiguous. We did not consider that to be our role. Suffice it to say we had been presented with the legislation the Minister and the Government clearly thought there may have been some ambiguity and it was our job to tidy that up and present the bill back in its current form. I take this opportunity of thanking all my colleagues on that select committee for their work. 
There will inevitably be tension in the way quota is allocated. It is of value to those within the industry and the Meat Board Act of 2004 was quite specific in defining that the allocation of quota was to be for the benefit of the whole industry. The industry—as the committee was well aware—is for the farmers for the exporters and very much for the processors. 
What I find interesting today as we debate this legislation is that there is now an idea being floated by some members of the farming community suggesting a major merger or megamerger between the two dominant players in our export industry—namely PPCS and the Alliance Group. I make the following comments as a National member of Parliament and as a shareholder in both of those companies. I cannot see that any good would come out of such a megamerger. What this bill does is to ensure there is active competition in the industry amongst all players and that competition ultimately reflects on the price that farmers receive for their livestock. That is to be fostered and admired. 
The last thing this industry wants to see now is the debate that is occurring after the recent drop in schedule—which thank God was a relatively brief drop in schedule—that occurred at the peak of the export season for the farmers of New Zealand. But we now see that some people are concerned about and are looking to blame and apportion reasons for that sudden drop in scheduled meat prices. They are therefore coming up with the idea that all problems would be solved by a megamerger of those two major players. 
I say to those proponents promoting this idea—they do not seem to be very large in number—that such a megamerger would in my mind inevitably lead to a pseudo-monopoly in our major meat industry. As anybody who has studied recent agricultural reforms will know such a mega-monopoly would do nothing to introduce the efficiencies that are absolutely vital to this industry. 
In various contributions that have been made throughout the debate on the meat industry it has been pointed out how vital this industry is to the New Zealand economy. Farmers continue to claim that they are the backbone of this economy and I suggest to the House tonight that the way the economy has performed over recent years because of relatively good commodity prices is absolute proof of the paramount role the agricultural industries play in the livelihood and standard of living of every New Zealander. 
It is with pleasure that the bill is back before the House and has kept to the timetable of the Minister of Agriculture. It is with pleasure that all parties have signed up to support it. I hope this legislation now allows the Meat Board to get on with its very important role without any threat of legal dispute as it moves to allocate this quota which is of value not only to the people who participate in and receive that quota but to all in the meat industry. I stand here to say that that benefit must be delivered to the ultimate producers—that is the sheep farmers up and down this country.