Robertson Grant: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3547. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Well was that not an interesting contribution from the Minister in the chair the Minister for Primary Industries? It was an incredibly disappointing one too because the Labour Party—and in particular the Hon Damien O’Connor—has gone to considerable lengths on this bill the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill to try to find an outcome that assures New Zealanders and assures farmers and Fonterra’s shareholders that this will be a robust process by which New Zealanders and farmers will know that the value of Fonterra remains largely in the hands of New Zealanders. To have the Minister stand up and say that this is something that should be dealt with only by the Fonterra shareholders and should be dealt with only in the constitutional process ignores the fact that this whole bill is before Parliament because Parliament is making the acknowledgment that we need to look after our largest company and that farmers fundamentally want to see the cooperative status of Fonterra retained. That is what farmers want and the concern that is out there is that this bill is in fact a precursor to saying that Fonterra should be floated on the stock market. It is all very well for the Minister to say: “Well that’s not going to happen.” Well John Key said he thought it would be great—he said he thought it would be great if Fonterra was floated on the stock market. So farmers will not be assured by the Minister standing up today and dismissing the notion of a legislative statutory limit around what can be onsold in terms of shares within the newly established cooperative. 
A constitutional limit is all well and good and that may or may not be the outcome of a future vote among the Fonterra shareholders. What Parliament gets to do is make a law that ensures what New Zealanders and what farmers want—that the cooperative status is retained and that New Zealanders know that the interests in Fonterra will remain largely in New Zealand hands. At the moment that assurance is not here in this bill and I think it is perfectly legitimate for members of Parliament like Damien O’Connor to propose as he has proposed in his Supplementary Order Paper 85 a limit of interest in terms of cooperative shares. It is perfectly legitimate. It also comes from discussions with Fonterra and from discussions with farmers. 
The Minister likes to make a lot of the mandate question. The problem is that what we do not know for sure today is how many actual farmers support this—not the vote in terms of interests in milksolids but how many actual farmers. It could be as little as 50 percent. We could have half of the farmers involved in Fonterra actually not supporting this proposal. So why not then give some assurance to the people of New Zealand? Why not give some assurance to the farmers? Why not give some assurance to everybody who cares about protecting the cooperative status and support the Supplementary Order Paper? Why not do that? That would give the assurance that New Zealanders are looking for but instead what it does is leave open the suspicion that this Government wants to float Fonterra. That is what John Key said. He thought it would be great. That is why it is deeply disappointing to hear from the Minister that he does not intend to support the idea of some kind of legislative cap. 
We know that there are farmers out there who do think this is the thin end of the wedge in terms of demutualisation and New Zealanders overwhelmingly—and we would have thought the Government would pick this up in recent months over the asset sales debate—are concerned about the idea that the value in our primary sector is going to go overseas the idea that the value of what we own and what we control as New Zealanders is going to disappear and the notion that a cooperative that has served our country incredibly well over the recent decades will now lose that ability because there is no cap because we cannot be absolutely certain about where this will go. 
Damien O’Connor has proposed in his Supplementary Order Paper a cap that is 3 percent higher than what Fonterra is looking at in terms of its own constitution. That is wise because it gives Fonterra the ability to manage what may or may not happen in terms of the movement of shares—the changes that might happen at random that would push it over the 20 percent cap. We think National can support this. We think National knows that it is a good idea. The Minister is shaking his head but National knows this is a good idea because it provides assurance. If it does not support it and if the Minister says: “No we are not going to do that.” then all that does is open up the suspicion— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: He’s told you that—if you’re listening. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well Nathan Guy says the Minister has told me that. What the Minister is telling New Zealanders is that there will be no legislative guarantee about the interests of Fonterra staying in New Zealand hands. That is what the Minister has said. That is what the Minister is telling New Zealanders—that there is no guarantee and that this Government is not concerned about whether the value of Fonterra stays in New Zealanders’ hands. It is not concerned about whether half of farmers may not actually support this. 
So it is deeply disappointing from the Labour Party’s point of view that this Supplementary Order Paper that Damien O’Connor has put forward which actually has been worked through with Fonterra is not being supported. This is not something that the Labour Party is doing as the Minister might allege because we do not understand the bill or we are trying to curry some kind of favour; it is because farmers around New Zealand are worried about this. All the Government needs to do is support a Supplementary Order Paper like this which will bring the Committee together behind our largest company. We do want to be able to support Fonterra in what it does and support it in retaining its cooperative status. 
It is quite clear from the Labour Party’s point of view that the Government does not believe that it has an obligation to provide certainty for New Zealanders. It does not believe that it needs to protect those billions of dollars in assets that are in cooperative hands inside New Zealand but rather to open this up without assurance for the future control of those profits. It is deeply disappointing and unfortunately from the Labour Party’s point of view this puts in danger our support of this bill when a simple agreement to something that Fonterra itself wants would enable Labour to support the bill.