Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to in speaking to this bill reiterate what the Minister of Agriculture has just said in that it is good to be standing here with cross-party agreement on where we're heading with this piece of legislation.I'd also like to just note to farmers out there who are probably busy calving their cows at the moment rather than listening to us in Parliament this morning—and I hope it's going really really well out there—that the main part of this bill is in my mind about repealing the open entry for farmers. That in my mind has been a really important thing for a very long time because you know there has been this aggravation with farmers that people can leave the cooperative which is fair—people should be able to leave the cooperative any time they wish—but that they were able to come back in but leave the other shareholders holding the baby while they left and actually come back and decide to return on the same terms. So this actually gives Fonterra a level of ability to stop people taking advantage of the good nature of the cooperative by actually choosing when to leave but using it as a safety net to come back in. So I'm a great advocate that this has been a really good move.We've talked a bit this morning in the committee stage and we also talked about it in the Primary Production Committee about retaining that open entry for new farmers and while we did struggle to get absolutely the right wording around that—and it made it a bit of a difficult process—I'm really heartened with where we've got to in terms of the Minister stating a clear intent by this House of Parliament that that is the expectation that we all have on Fonterra which is that new entrants will be treated fairly. At the end of the day if we don't have new entrants and don't have sharemilkers and people like that being able to buy into our industry we're going to end up with a huge problem: we actually will end up without an industry so it's really critical that Fonterra goes down this path.What I will say about this bill—there's still a lot of good faith in this bill and I think that's why it's so important that today in this House we do state some things and some expectations of Fonterra. We talked this morning about cooperation with other companies. If it got to the stage where a company had to spill milk or throw out milk and Fonterra refused to take that milk in the interests of the reputation of the industry which should always come first then I would be really really disappointed. You know there's a level of trust going on here. We're saying to Fonterra We trust you. But you have to prove that that trust is worthy." So I wouldn't like to see any milk spilt with games being played.I'm concerned—well I had a concern around the appointment to the milk price panel. I'm still a little bit concerned and I'm heartened that the Minister talks about this person overseeing the process rather than being so fixated on the end price. I still do have a concern that there is a little bit of openness around this still and I wouldn't like to see the day where a Minister might nominate somebody and then Fonterra for whatever reason you know plays games around—perhaps turning that person down unless they had some absolutely valid reasons which they would probably put to the Minister beforehand before the nomination was made.I still do have some concerns in the space of Fonterra being able to stop supply of people around issues of environment and animal welfare and it's not that I don't think that that's the right thing to do—I absolutely think that if people aren't living up to the standards then Fonterra should have every right to do that—but currently they do have the right to do that in their terms and conditions of supply and I have seen times when Fonterra had the ability to do that and didn't actually operate their terms and conditions of supply.So you know there's a lot of trust in this about Fonterra getting the process right. Of course we would expect them to do the right thing but we would also expect them to get the process right. I have some valid concerns when Fonterra goes through that process that actually on a lot of farms we don't have one entity so we have owner-operators on some farms and on other farms we have farm owners who employ sharemilkers. Fonterra has to be very very careful to get their processes right when they're looking at issues of environment and animal welfare to make sure that they have the right process and they're actually targeting the right person when they start to make those decisions because they can get it very very wrong and have done.So with this piece of legislation we're giving Fonterra a bit more openness and we expect them to be open and transparent. I think there's not a high level I will say of trust in some parts around Fonterra. There are some really good people who work in our factories who process our milk who are our tanker drivers but what I will say is that you know sometimes I guess—I've been in the head office of Fonterra in Auckland and walking in there as a shareholder which I am—it sort of feels sometimes a bit disconnected from the farmers. So I think the onus is on Fonterra here to actually build that structure and actually build that level of trust back up which sometimes has been a bit lacking.So recently Fonterra made an announcement that the chair's successor going forward will be Peter McBride. He's got a strong reputation in the horticulture industry and I think this new level of trust that we're putting in Fonterra and this new level of good faith we would expect to be I guess rewarded with an openness and transparency building the strong reputation of Fonterra because it's still 80 percent of our industry and I hope it stays 80 percent of the industry. I have been concerned about dairy industry restructuring Acts in the past letting foreigners come in—we have no problem on this side of the House with foreign ownership but I do have a problem when they have been able to come in and set up under rules that disadvantage Fonterra's commercial operations.So there's some right moves going on here but I do really really want Fonterra to stay 80 percent of the industry and I believe that is in the trust of their reputation—the way they treat these shareholders the way they treat the general public and the way they move forward. And that is more about our global reputation so we can talk about these things but it is our actions that speak louder than words.The Minister spoke in his speech about the Goodman Fielder provision. Look I worry less about the local market. We need Fonterra to be strong in the global market. Over the last few months we've heard a lot about farming being the backbone of the economy. Look it's an essential part; it always has been it always will be—we're food producers in this country. It has really been disheartening over the last two or three years to find that farmers have actually felt like they've been targeted in so many ways over so many things. And then when COVID hits all of a sudden farmers are the people who are going to save the economy.So what I would ask every member of this House in the cooperative spirit that we're currently in over this dairy industry restructuring bill is that as we go forward—and we're all going to be out of this House in a couple of weeks and we're all going to be having very big discussions with each other about how we think New Zealand is going to move forward as we go into an election process—I don't want to see farmers be the targets in this election campaign like they were in the last campaign. So let's move forward in the spirit and the intent of what we're doing in this bill this morning: work cooperatively as a Parliament. I love now being the chair of the Primary Production Committee. We work well together and let's just work on behalf of farmers for ever in this country because they are the backbone. Thank you."