Carter David: Hop Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Procedure Third Reading 
Carter David: Hop Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4846] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (NZ National) 
: 
 The National Party of course supports the third reading of the Hop Industry Restructuring Bill and in fact will facilitate the Government’s progress today and make sure we complete the third reading as quickly as possible and save the particular member leading the debate any further embarrassment. The position the poor member finds himself in whereby he has changed his point of view completely has been outlined well in the House in the last half hour or so. But I want to take the opportunity of congratulating the member. He clearly acknowledges now that the damage that he threatened would occur to other industries that were deregulated has not occurred and he is prepared to be mature enough to acknowledge that and therefore see the benefit of now moving to also help the hop producers in New Zealand achieve greater wealth for themselves and therefore for the country. 
I guess in supporting the bill I just want to pick up on the latter comment of Damien O’Connor and certainly the comments of Doug Woolerton in his second reading contribution. Doug Woolerton said that what we are doing here in effect is all but creating a producer board under another name. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: I didn’t say that. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: That is exactly what Doug Woolerton said because I wrote his words down word for word: it is all but creating a producer board under another name. He went on to say that that is not what National proposed. I say to the member that what we have here is exactly what National proposed. As Damien O’Connor has said what we have here is the ability of the 26 hop growers to belong to a company that happens to be a cooperative company. This legislation does not force any of those hop growers to be part of that company—it is up to their free will which is as it should be. If they decide they want to be part of that company they have the ability to set the rules under which that company will operate. Again I tell Mr Woolerton that that is how it should be. In other words there is a huge amount of choice and flexibility available to the people who are involved in the industry. 
It is nothing like what we have had in the past. I tell Mr Woolerton that it is certainly not a producer board in disguise. Mark my words: as this industry settles down and further develops those producers will have the ability to remain in the company if it continues to produce results for them as individuals. If the company fails to do that then I do not see any move by the producers that would cause them to be restrained by the cooperative company—the company will not be able to do that. I have little doubt that in an industry as small as this which clearly is run in a cooperative way with issues being debated amongst the 26 members—who incidentally are all confined to a very small region of New Zealand which is the electorate of my colleague the Hon Nick Smith—the growers will arrive at the ability to make decisions and company rules that advance their particular case. 
Finally I question again Damien O’Connor’s earlier contribution. He said he would give the House the benefit of an explanation as to why this remarkable renaissance has occurred and if I understood his explanation it is because the hop industry has matured and developed since 1999 and now exports about 80 percent of its product overseas. The reason Mr Damien O’Connor is now comfortable supporting the deregulation of the hop industry is that it has grown to a stage where it exports 80 percent of its produce overseas. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: They have asked for it. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I accept that they have asked for it but that is the explanation Mr Damien O’Connor gave. I remind the member that when he was so opposed to deregulation calling members on this side of the House “traitors” for advancing the cause we were dealing with the dairy industry which at that stage exported in excess of 90 percent of its produce overseas. I leave it to the next speaker from the Labour Party to have a brief discussion with Damien O’Connor to see whether that obvious inconsistency can be clarified for him. 
Debate interrupted.