Roy Eric: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Roy Eric: Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13746] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 As those listening may have ascertained there is a great deal of unanimity on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Bill (No 2) so I will not be taking a very long call. I think there are some salient things that need to be said and I will run through those. 
The first is that the Primary Production Committee under the chair of David Carter continues the tradition of looking for the best outcomes in solving whatever comes before it. There is always a great deal of goodwill and unanimity about what we end up doing and this bill is no exception. We recognise the significance and importance of the dairy industry to New Zealand and we gave earnest consideration to the issues raised in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Bill (No 2). This bill was quite specific. It was not wide ranging and as has been suggested some submitters wished to bring up matters that were not contained within the bill. Whether or not we are sympathetic to them we are limited in what we can and cannot do. 
When the Minister of Agriculture introduced this second reading he made a comment that I think we can identify with. He said that this bill is part of the evolution of the dairy industry. The dairy industry is New Zealand’s most significant exporter. Fonterra is our biggest company; it generates huge amounts of revenue through exports. But the dairy industry is an evolving industry and one of the interesting things is that we have seen that it does have the maturity to actually advance. It is not trapped in any kind of time warp. 
Besides Fonterra there are now seven other players even though their combined mass occupies about 5 percent of the dairy industry. The provision allowing those players to operate is what we actually had to deal with and the allocation of opportunity in the area of export markets. There are perhaps four conditions that come into decisions about this matter. There are the conditions and rules of the importing country the desires and expectations of the exporters the desires and expectation of the producers and the international rules that exist under the World Trade Organization. All those things kind of come together and we had to look at allocation of specific markets. Other speakers have outlined the issues surrounding that. 
As David Carter said one of the issues that perhaps has a bit of traction but is not within the bill is the way in which the core database is operated. His comment that price is access sums it up. I think an issue that the industry needs to address is whether what exists now is serving the industry in the best possible way. If the industry is to continue to progress it needs to have all the information in the database relatively available to other players; otherwise we are limiting the genetic resources the sharing of information and all of those matters. As I said this matter is outside the scope of the bill and therefore was something we could not consider. However it may well be addressed at a different time in a different forum. 
I am pleased that the Minister is prepared to accept all the amendments recommended by the select committee. We gave quite considerable consideration to how this measure can best operate and I think we are all pretty much happy with the bill as it is reported back in this second reading. As has been stated National will support this bill through all its stages.