Harawira Hone: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10138] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker kia ora tatou e te Whare. Me moe tatouiteneiwa! 
[ 
Greetings Mr Deputy Speaker and greetings to us in the House. We should go to sleep now 
!] 
It is interesting to hear what some of the other parties think about this bill. Some have called it pandering to the Public Service Association (PSA) hush money for supporting political power and a reward to the unions for helping to pay off Labour’s overspending and others say all it will do is to destroy competition. All of that seems to be worlds away from the reality of meat inspection and from the working lives of—there used to be thousands; I do not know whether there still are—people who work in the meat industry and from major iwi interests in many successful sheep and cattle farming enterprises. Today the Maori Party would like to focus on the impact this bill will have on the Maori farming sector on the implications of a possible merger of AgriQuality and Asure New Zealand and on whether opening up the meat inspection services to competition will actually enhance their quality. 
We know that only people employed by the Crown can be meat inspectors and we have to ask what is wrong with that. Does is really matter if there is no competition for meat inspection services? There is a suggestion to open up tendering for the inspection services to the private sector. I have to ask why we would do that when nearly all of our trading partners insist—for obvious reasons—that any of our meat is Government-approved and when the inspection services are set up in that way. 
We are happy that the Commerce Commission is to review the cost of those services and that the commission will report on whether their prices are in line with the Commerce Act. But I would signal a note of caution about that because last week we saw an excellent example of what happens when independent bodies report back to the Government on things that it may not want to hear. I am talking here of course of the Waitangi Tribunal. It tabled two reports that were critical of the Government’s flawed processes incompetent officials and divisive tactics to which the Minister responded with typical ministerial non-enthusiasm. That was hardly the proactive response the tribunal was looking for so we are not holding out very much hope that the reaction will be any different here. That is not to take anything away from the quality of the work being done by the Commerce Commission chaired by the excellent Paula Rebstock the  
New Zealand Herald 
’s 2006 New Zealander of the Year. We have no doubt that the commission will not shirk from the challenge of reviewing the cost of the services. But as with the tribunal the issue is not about how good its reporting is how sound its recommendations are or how substantial its findings are but about whether the Government wants to hear the message. 
 We also note a submission from the chairman of the Meat Industry Association which stated that it was stunned that the Government could take such a profound decision without consultation with it and that the PSA should have been given or assumed the task of briefing the industry. So we are happy to see that the association will have a say as to whether the investigation and review procedures will take place. 
This is an important bill and this is an important industry which markets more than $5 billion of meat exports each year—fully 17 percent of all our exports. Maori are key players in this industry and we believe that it is in their interests and in the best interests of the nation that key quality controls assurance processes and standards are adhered to in the meat inspection services. On those grounds the Maori Party will be supporting this bill.