Perry Edwin: Meat Board Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Perry Edwin: Meat Board Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14079] 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will obviously be supporting this Meat Board Bill. A very well-known motivational speaker from America said: “Its time has come.” and I think the time has come for the Meat Board to be restructured. Of course this will be music to the ears of the farmers in the Wairarapa and common sense will prevail. That is not like the National Party which obviously left the farmers alone in the 1990s and had to reconstruct its efforts to bring them back. 
The commentary on the bill under “Introduction” states: “The bill restructures the New Zealand Meat Board and makes management of meat export quota the Board’s primary focus. The bill provides for the meat industry to be the recipient of the benefits of the quota markets.” Just quickly as we do not have a lot of time I want to cover one or two very important issues. In relation to the definition of reserves the Primary Production Committee—on which my colleague Doug Woolerton is very well-known as a farmer unlike others on that committee who are “Queen Street farmers”; I must mention the name of Mr Gerald Eckhoff too and also at this stage Mr Connell—recommends an amendment. It is expressed by clause 4(1): “reserves means all the net assets of the Board other than—(a) fees collected under section 55 to meet the costs of exporter registration: and (b) fees collected under section 36 to meet the costs of quota management except to the extent that they are collected to fund past payments made by the Board that—(i) were made in relation to quota management; and (ii) were not themselves funded from quota fees set under section 36.” 
We note that Federated Farmers of New Zealand opposes the prioritising of reserves as a backup to the quota system or the use of reserves to settle liabilities arising from litigation relating to quota allocation. All I want to say to Federated Farmers is that I believe that is a safeguard for the future of the industry. 
Of clause 13 “Governance” of the board the committee in relation to the Minister appointments and size of the board said it did not recommend any changes in the requirements for ministerial appointments that resulted in a board of 10 or 11 people. Some submitters argued that the size of the board was excessive and some that ministerial appointments were inappropriate. In speaking to Mr Connell this morning I went along with his view in respect of ministerial appointments but after reading the bill I think it is appropriate that directors are appointed. However there are some key points which I think the Minister brought up: experience expertise and not being a bureaucratic handbrake that will pull us up. I am happy as long as there is no bureaucratic handbrake that prevents the industry from prospering in the future. 
The other aspect of that is the representation provision of clause 13(4) which I was very interested in. With the exception of the Green member we did not see the need for clause 13(4) which required the Minister to give consideration to the representation of women and Maori farmers’ interests on the board when making ministerial appointments. Can I say to the Minister and to this Committee that New Zealand First does not support separate representation but I do support Maori farmers. I want the Minister not to ignore the contribution that Maori make to this industry. I want him to make it quite clear that Maori farmers and incorporation blocks out there make up a large part of the income of this industry. 
I will just mention one or two figures. The value of Maori agricultural output is estimated to be approximately $700 million. It cannot be ignored; it represents almost 10 percent of New Zealand’s total agricultural income. Only 15 percent of the population provides $700 million in agricultural income. Considering that their occupation of farming land is very small I want to applaud those Maori farmers and incorporations for the direction they have taken. 
I listened to the National Party going on about how this should not happen and also about the representation of women. Do my colleagues know that today women play a very important role in administeringfarming operations?