Barry Maggie: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10002. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I rise to speak to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). This is very much a bill whose time has passed. It probably ought never to have been put into the ballot. It has been drawn up after events have already overtaken it. From what I can gather from talking to members of the rural community people are very happy with the status quo.The way things are working out now with the 25 percent cap is something that farmers are very happy with. Why should legislators get involved in something that 10500 dairy farmers who belong to Fonterra and its shareholders have already decided is a good cap at 25 percent? Let them be. What was the price today? It was $8 for milk today. They have had a huge capital injection. They are doing very well. They do not want this level of intervention. They do not need the legislation. This is not a piece of law that ever needs to be enacted. That is why National is not supporting it.Fonterra has been able to progress with its capital restructuring proposal. It was a long time coming. It was knocked back on many occasions. There were many dairy farmers who were suspicious of change. They did not like the direction things were going in. They took a lot of persuading actually to arrive at the place they are at now. They have arrived at it though—it is their decision and they are happy with the way it is. From my perspective as someone who does not live day to day with the dairy industry as some of my colleagues do—and they have shared their views with me—things are working very nicely. So to introduce a piece of legislation that requires a 20 percent cap when we already have a 25 percent cap which the farmers have arrived at themselves seems illogical and foolish and silly. I will not say that is typical of Labour but you know one is forced to draw conclusions where one does.There are a number of pieces of legislation that come before this House that are unnecessary and need to be knocked back. This is a bill that should probably never have been drawn out of the ballot and is not going to progress things very well. When I saw the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill go through in July 2012 I thought it was a bill that actually put a regulatory regime in place that settled things down a lot. The dairy industry has been through a lot of restructuring. Fonterra as New Zealand’s largest company has managed the change I think very well. The level of consultation that has been done has been thorough—even some farmers would say exhaustive. There have been meetings all around the country to arrive at some of the developments that were enshrined in that piece of legislation that was passed a year or so ago.When I look at this bill as a person who lives in an urban environment representing the North Shore as I do where dairy farmers do not generally proliferate—they come to shop and to visit the lovely Devonport heritage areas and a bit of tourism—Ian McKelvie: They might buy a house there.MAGGIE BARRY: That is right—if they do well enough out of their shares they will be able to buy a house in my electorate and come on holidays there. Would that not be fabulous? But generally speaking people on the North Shore look at these sorts of things and we think that if it is working well and the industry and the sector are happy with it why on earth would you interfere? Why would you as a legislator come down hard and impose a cap when farmers have already arrived at their own decision?As I look through this look at the background to it and consider the points—many of which have been made more eloquently than I am doing now by my colleague Ian McKelvie and others who know this stuff very well—I ask why we even bother debating this in the way that we are now. Damien in good heart no doubt has put this bill into the ballot but these things can be withdrawn without wasting Parliament’s time. Frankly I would suggest that might be the best course of action for this because it is a piece of legislation that is not needed by the people whom it is purporting to represent here.The only people who think that the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) makes sense are in New Zealand First which does not actually represent the farmers or the rural sector in any way at all—Hon Member: How do you know?MAGGIE BARRY: No indeed you do not.Richard Prosser: It’s cows we’re talking about Ms Barry not marigolds.MAGGIE BARRY: Well who amongst you are farmers Mr Prosser? “Wogistan”? I do not think there is much farming going on on that particular planet. Labour is introducing legislation that is not needed. These are typical things but they waste Parliament’s time. They waste the dairy sector’s time. This is not a piece of legislation that we would ever dream of supporting. So I sit down not commending this bill to the House.