Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3821. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 E te Rangatira o te Whakaruruhaunei te hungakokotataki me te kaupapa o te wiki te reo taketake o te whenua nei tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
To the Speaker of this House the quick-witted speakers and the matter relating to this week the indigenous language of this country acknowledgments to you all. 
] 
The Green Party opposes the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill. It is the thin end of the asset sales wedge; the setting up of the selling out of the Fonterra Cooperative and its family-farmer members. It is the dairy farmers’ poor cousin of the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. This Government is into selling out everything not just our power companies. Now we are selling out the actual fundamental dividend stream of one of New Zealand’s main export industries. This Government is selling everything it can to its mates and all too often to foreign investors. We have foreign ownership of our forestry and our fisheries and now we are into a sell-out of dairy. We need to ask the Minister for Primary Industries what he intends to sell out next of New Zealand’s primary industries which are the backbone of New Zealand. Who else is he going to turn into serfs? 
In this Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill the so-called Trading Among Farmers provision allows outside investors to trade on the dividend stream of Fonterra farmer members and begin an inevitable demutualisation of Fonterra and increased foreign control of New Zealand’s primary industry sector the sector that provides 70 percent of our export earnings and is the backbone of our country. Trading Among Farmers is trading against farmers—nothing less. We do not believe that Fonterra or this National Government has a mandate to push it through. 
We have heard a little bit about the numbers and I want to go back to those numbers again. In Fonterra it is not one person one vote. It is one share one vote. The amount of shares a farmer has is determined by how many milksolids that farmer supplies so the big suppliers hold the larger proportion of the shares. The Greens believe that it is likely that it may even be slightly under 50 percent of actual farmers who voted for Trading Among Farmers. The Minister David Carter reckons it was 66 percent of farmers who voted for it. Where are his figures? How many farmers actually voted for Trading Among Farmers? I bet that if we applied the Perito principle 80 percent of the 66 percent who voted were shares of big business. The Minister for Primary Industries Fonterra and the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council need to front up with the real numbers. 
Fonterra has said that it needs Trading Among Farmers to achieve the capital to allow offshore farm and infrastructure development. Then it said: “No no no that is not what we are saying. It is to cover redemption risk.” Many submitters to the Primary Production Committee pointed out that buffering for redemption risk can be achieved by other means such as a retention policy which has already been shown to be successful in acquiring significant capital. Figures show that the retentions taken from 2008 may have managed any redemption risk. In fact $438 million was taken in 2010 and it was retained and another $487 million last year. Effectively half a billion dollars a year can be retained and yet Fonterra was saying that it needs to do this smart thing by letting outside investors in to manage redemption risk. Rubbish! That is clearly not the case. Fonterra chair Mr van derHeyden and his friends seem to have taken a walk away from their members and are pushing the way for foreign investment. 
This Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill also missed an opportunity an opportunity to develop a smart green economy that will support the primary industry and family farmers. The focus of the bill on the efficient operation of dairy markets in New Zealand missed an opportunity and it fails to allow for gains through such value-adding systems as organics. “Efficient” is primarily a term used for volume-based production and marketing. It does not address long-term economic efficiency provided by sustainable production. 
The dairy industry has presented to me the suggestion that it wants a 10 percent lift in production while holding its environmental footprint to the status quo as though the status quo was OK. Well that is not such a fantastic outcome when the status quo in environmental outcomes is seriously way below par. This bill could have included drivers that could have focused on value-adding on farms through certifiable sustainable production such as organics not further commodification for outside and—all too often—foreign interests making New Zealand farmers peasants in their own land. 
There are those who suggest and have suggested today that the Green Party is opposed to farmers in New Zealand and that it is opposed to the growth of the primary sector. We are far far from that. We want more people on the land looking after the land and the provisions in this bill reduce that. We are concerned that there are actually fewer dairy farmers and more dairy cows. That is an indication that intensification has increased. We need more people on the land and we want to make that possible through intergenerational farming and through looking after a co-op that is going to give them the best deal. 
Primary production co-ops or single-desk collectives and initiatives work to the advantage of their members to ensure the best returns for their farming and for their sector’s production. But unfortunately this bill allows this co-op to take a walk away from supporting individual farming families. This bill is about supporting the big big companies and foreign investors instead of the traditional family-farmer supporters of the National Party. It is about supporting contestability and theoretical open competition. That is only going to damage the Fonterra Cooperative. It is not about helping New Zealand farmers. We oppose this bill. We look forward to a change of Government in 2014 and a smart green economy that supports a primary industry and its family farmers.