Eckhoff Gerrard: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Wool Industry Restructuring Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7110] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT NZ) 
: 
 If the House is prepared to listen very carefully it will hear a huge sigh of relief throughout the whole of rural New Zealand this very morning because I believe that this is the day that the Wool Board is finally euthanised—the day on which it will meet its maker. It is appropriate in this second reading to reflect—and the Leader of the Opposition Mr Bill English did that—on where we have been and where we have come to on this very day in the year 2003. 
I personally think back to the days of the Korean wool boom which were the halcyon days of the wool industry—the days when the public from the towns and cities went out to the country to pick the wool off barbwire fences to sell such was the demand for that product back in the 1950s. Then both Australia and New Zealand went into times of having huge stockpiles of wool for which we could get virtually nothing. So we have gone round in many circles in this industry. In my days of farming in the early 1970s there was a great wool-acquisition debate in which it was determined that if some structure acquired all the wool and had an orderly marketing system things would be brilliant. The growers rejected it then and I suspect that if they had the same opportunity today they would reject it again. 
It is also appropriate that I give recognition to Owen Jennings the former member of Parliament who was responsible for drawing to the public’s attention—certainly he reflected in this House the views of the farming community—the inadequacies of the huge monolithic structure that the Wool Board came to be. Owen worked very hard at considerable personal cost to himself to ensure that the Wool Board was finally put to rest. This is a day he can take real pride in. 
As I said earlier the wool industry has lurched from crisis to crisis. Growers had the view that they were throwing good money after bad and that the auction system was a method whereby they just dumped their product on the auction room floor and hoped that somebody turned up to buy it. Essentially that was the marketing system we had and still have to this day. But major refinements to the wool industry have been made. I believe that the archaic attitudes that were displayed in the past are being whittled away very consistently and that we are now moving quite strongly towards a very commercially focused industry. “Marketing” and “research and development” are the operative words we use today when talking about the industry. 
We cannot help but reflect on the days of the Wool Board when farmers were very perplexed—which I think is a nice way of putting it—about the world trips its members took and they saw an attitude of “jobs for the boys” and so on. The board always talked about accountability. It said it could account for every dollar it spent but it was interesting to note that nobody ever accused the board of performance. What is required today in this very competitive commercial world is performance not just accountability. 
Report after report was done until finally the McKinsey report came through and recommended that a vote take place on whether the board should be retained or got rid of and replaced by some other structure. I agree with my colleagues from this side of the House that the vote taken on the McKinsey report was in essence purely on one issue and it was that the farmers wanted to get rid of the board. In my view they did not actually vote in favour of the structures that have been put in place by the board. With advice received during the select committee process I have with some reluctance come to accept that to protect the massive tax losses for example and to protect the intellectual property of the Wool Board and the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand it is necessary to ensure that other structures are put in place when the Wool Board is finally laid to rest. 
I think that is entirely appropriate just as a few years back it was entirely appropriate for merino growers to tell the Wool Board that it was not performing that they could do a better job and that they wanted the right of self-determination. It was with huge reluctance that the board finally relented and allowed Merino New Zealand to do its own thing and relatively speaking it has been very successful by comparison. 
Other individual growers have done the job that the board should have done. I can think of two highly successful growers in my region Jeanette and Russell Emerson who have contributed enormously to the development of the fine wool industry. They would go to Italy and knock on the doors of processors and sell their wool directly. They were vertically integrated—if one likes. There were people throughout the industry who wanted the opportunity to develop the industry the way it should be. They certainly challenged the fiefdom—and that is what it was—of the Wool Board and finally its hours and minutes are running out and that is great to see. 
Wool has been one of the great products of New Zealand—as a carpet a furnishing a suit or whatever—but we have to understand that in essence wool is a protein. Its base is pure protein and that is where the future lies for wool. I have no doubt that the real future will lie with organisations that can take wool and turn it into a product that the world really demands not just some sort of article to keep. That is why Canesis has been set up. The Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand is an incorporated society and cannot raise money. It needs those commercial organisations under the very capable stewardship of Richard Bentley—a very commercially focused and performance-focused individual. 
Although I accept that it is a huge article of faith to ask the growers of this country to yet again stump up with their money and invest in the industry I think the bill gives this industry and those woolgrowers an opportunity—and that is all it is—to invest in their own future with a pure commercial focus. Although I personally have very real doubts about where we are heading sometimes one just has to take that article of faith that giant leap and hope that one has appointed the right people. Surely the reality in this commercial world of ours is not the system but the individuals. It is the people who run the systems who will take any industry forward. It is absolutely crucial that we attract and retain the very best people and I think we have taken a giant step forward in that direction.