Goff Phil: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3828. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 The Labour Party will be opposing the third reading of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill. I say we will be opposing it with a sense of regret because it did not need to be that way. Actually we well understand what Fonterra’s objectives are. It wants to expand its capital base and it wants to protect itself against redemption risk. The Labour Opposition through our spokesperson Damien O’Connor who actually is supported by every member of our caucus put forward an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 85 that would have provided a safeguard for the future of Fonterra as a mutual company and one where the shareholding and the dividends would remain predominantly within New Zealand. 
I deeply regret that the Minister for Primary Industries David Carter rejected that amendment and I deeply regret that he rejected it on the wrong basis. He rejected it he said because he had received it late and it was a political stunt. It was not a political stunt; it was something that Damien O’Connor had worked out very carefully with Fonterra yet the Minister said that Fonterra was opposed to it. That was his opening line in the Committee stage. Fonterra was not opposed to it; Fonterra helped to draft it and that would have provided the reassurance that many farmers and many New Zealanders want that this process was designed to strengthen Fonterra not to undermine it and that it was not the top of the slippery slope. I think Shane Ardern used the words “a slippery slope to oblivion”. 
I think that is the concern that is out there amongst many farmers. Shane Ardern is in touch with many farmers and he will know the truth of that. I get the farmers’ newspapers every week. There are three or four of them. I am amazed at how vibrant the farming sector’s newspapers are. I read about the concerns and I read about the dismay. I will tell you what I read this week: I read that a couple of Northland farmers are taking the first steps to set up a rural New Zealand party—a rural New Zealand party—based on the sort of thing the Government has done in steamrolling this through without listening to their concerns. You know those farmers do not like the shiny suits in the National Party. They do not like the fact that their party has been taken over by the currency speculators and the traders and the speculators. They have had a gutsful of that. They have had a gutsful of the sorts of people whom John Banks says he represents. John Banks the member for Epsom said he loves farmers. His electorate Epsom is full of farmers—Queen Street farmers! They are the guys who have never done a day’s work in their lives. They are the guys who would not know how to pull on a pair of gumboots. They are not the guys who are out there at 4 o’clock in the morning milking the cows or out there in the rain as I was last weekend helping to deliver lambs. They would not have a clue about that. That is what has happened to the National Party: it has been taken over by the Queen Street farmers. 
It is all very well—[ 
Interruption 
] They are excited now. You see there is a huge division within the National Party between the old National Party—people like Shane Ardern and Ian McKelvie who actually know what a farmer is like—and the I was going to use a term that I cannot use smart shiny-bummed people in the National Party who would not understand a sheep or a cow if they fell across one. 
I was concerned that David Carter talked about the lack of cross-party support. I was in the House and in Cabinet when the Labour Government passed the 2001 Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. We did that very carefully. Shane Ardern nods his head and he was right—and so was David Carter actually. We consulted we listened and we took the process carefully. We took all the time that it needed and we won consensus for that. It was worthwhile making that effort but not in the case of this bill. This bill if you read the minority report from the Opposition parties was rushed through the Primary Production Committee. The committee did not listen. It did not consult. It did not look at all the alternatives. It did not have answers to a lot of the questions that the submitters put to the select committee. It was a poor process and the result of that poor process is that this important piece of legislation is going through with the House as deeply divided as the farming community. 
I want to pick up the Minister on the other point he made. He said that 66.5 percent of the farmer vote was in favour of the bill. That is wrong. It was 66.5 percent of the milkfat production and it was the farmers who were responsible for that who voted for it. I am told and Damien O’Connor is told and Shane Ardern probably knows that the figure was actually closer to 50 percent. If it was not close to 50 percent I issue this challenge to Federated Farmers and the National Party—that is the Federated Farmers in gumboots—release the figures. Release the figures. We know that at least a third of the farmers in this country bitterly oppose this legislation in its current form. Actually I think the figure was close to half and I believe that because if it was not close to half the National Party would have released the figures or Federated Farmers would have done so. 
What we wanted from this bill was quite simple. We wanted a statutory cap on the number of bonds representing share value that could be sold from the fund. After consultation with Federated Farmers that was set at 23 percent. It will probably try to set the figure lower and I welcome that at 20 percent but it gave it a bit of room to manoeuvre. Why 23 percent? Because it is lower than that commonly accepted figure of 24.9 percent where a minority shareholder can nevertheless determine the future and the direction of the company. It was not too much to ask. It could have been done. It should have been done. It would have provided guarantees that we would maintain the cooperative nature of Fonterra and it would have given those guarantees to farmers and to New Zealanders. 
I spent a lot of my career as a Minister going out and fighting for Fonterra. It was a company worth fighting for. It provides 15000 jobs. It provided last year close to $11 billion worth of dairy exports. It is an efficient industry. It is a good company. I want to make sure that that company thrives but I am concerned when the Prime Minister of this country stands up and says that he believes that Fonterra shares should be floated on the stock market. I ask the three farmers sitting there in a row—I will not use the pun of three people sitting in a row there—I ask any one of them whether they support that as National policy. Do they support it as National policy? 
Shane Ardern 
: It won’t happen. They won’t get floated—don’t worry. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Don’t worry he tells me. John Key their Prime Minister said that it would be great if Fonterra shares were floated. Whom do I believe? Do I believe three backbenchers representing the diminishing support of the farming community for National or do I believe the currency trader John Key? I will tell you whom I believe: John Key. This is the top as Shane Ardern said of a slippery slope to oblivion of a cooperative enterprise and a New Zealand - owned and controlled enterprise. 
The truth is that this lot over there the National Government would sell anything it could lay its hands on—sell anything. It is already selling our basic productive resource: the land. Where was the concern expressed within the National Party about 8000 hectares of prime dairy land going to Shanghai Pengxin? Where was the concern about that? Where was the concern from Bill English about thousands of hectares of prime dairy land in Southland going to German investors? This Government will sell the land. This Government will sell the shares in our biggest and most important export company. This Government will sell the shares in our electricity companies and see the profits made from that fundamental strategic resource flow out of this country. It will even sell the prisons and it will sell the right to gamble or make profits out of gambling. It will sell anything. There is no principle underlying the National Government about controlling New Zealand’s future about owning our future about running New Zealand for New Zealanders by New Zealanders. 
That is what we would once have heard from the National Party but it has given up. It has given up on protection of this country’s future. It looks back to the past and it was not a bad past but what about the future for our kids? What will our kids own? What will our kids control? What will sovereignty mean in this country if our biggest and most important export industry ultimately falls into the hands of foreign investors? And how does it help our current account deficit up by $480 million in the last quarter which will be billions of dollars more within 2 years? This bill does not contain the clauses the safeguards that it needs to contain and that is why the Labour Party will be strongly opposing it.