Guy Nathan: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
Guy Nathan: State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10139] 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill. It is a complete nonsense bill—complete nonsense! I was here for the first and second readings and I sat here and listened throughout the Committee stage and I have heard all of the excuses from the other side of the House. Those excuses do not sit easily with us on this side of the House. When one thinks about it one realises that competition is a good thing. We should not be scared of competition; we should embrace it. I cannot see how this bill will actually achieve very much at all. Costs are going to go up at the farm gate. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh rubbish! 
NATHAN GUY 
: Yes they are. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: That’s rubbish! 
NATHAN GUY 
: They absolutely are. For the Minister to sit here and gibe at me yesterday that any potential redundancies will cause $10 million— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I wasn’t here yesterday. 
NATHAN GUY 
: The Minister for State Owned Enterprises. The contingency of $12 million is already sitting on Asure’s books so what a feeble excuse that is. I remind the House that the contribution of agriculture to this economy is huge. It is forecast to be over $9 billion next year yet red meat producers will cop the backlash of this bill—the dairy farmers the beef farmers and the sheep farmers who right now are really struggling. They are struggling against the high soaring Kiwi dollar and against costs imposed in this House that often affect their business. 
It is interesting to see that one of the big Budget bids of the Minister of Agriculture is a $1 million talkfest summit. I wonder whether that will solve the problems we have in the rural community. I will wait and see. When sheep farmers are up against it the big-spending Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton is out there proposing a $1 million talkfest summit. 
In thinking about this bill I say it is interesting that the Hon David Carter produced a document yesterday in the Committee stage that showed that the deal on this bill was done with the biggest union the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) back in July 2006. It makes a mockery of the submission process does it not when the deal on this bill was done with that union back in July 2006. 
This bill has also been a real rush job. There were nine submitters and most of them were against the bill. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You just said that the deal was done in 2006. That’s almost a year ago. 
NATHAN GUY 
: Bill Falconer the chair of the Meat Industry Association has been around this place for a long time—about as long as Mr Woolerton from New Zealand First has. He said that never before had the association been treated so shabbily by a Government. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Who? 
NATHAN GUY 
: The Meat Industry Association which will cop the backlash on this bill. It is absolutely hopeless. 
Darren Hughes 
: You gave this speech last night. This is the same speech as last night’s. 
NATHAN GUY 
: No it is not. 
Darren Hughes 
: Yes it is. 
NATHAN GUY 
: Not at all. What I want to highlight to that member who probably does not understand the true meaning of competition and may not have been— 
Darren Hughes 
: I do and I beat you! That’s when I worked out competition—when I kicked your butt! 
NATHAN GUY 
: Oh yeah yeah. Around the next election Darren Hughes will be giving an “Elections 101” lesson to all the new Labour candidates’ at their candidates’ college on how he lost a safe Labour seat— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a third reading debate as the member may or may not know. This is a rather serious issue and although there can be a bit of humorous banter— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Your point of order please without the speech. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
:—for about the last third of the time he has spent talking I have failed to see any relevance to the third reading. I request Mr Deputy Speaker that you think about calling him back to the bill. 
Eric Roy 
: I just wish to point out to you Mr Deputy Speaker that the member on his feet Nathan Guy responded to an interjector saying some competitive things in respect of Nathan Guy’s own patch. It would be only rational and reasonable for Mr Guy to respond in the way that he did. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I agree. 
NATHAN GUY 
: I was talking about competition. This bill is supposedly all about reducing competition. We heard from Maryan Street the same speech that she gave last night—that competition is all about cutting corners. Well let us think back a little bit because fewer than about 12 months ago the Minister for State Owned Enterprises wrote to all the chief executives of the State-owned enterprises that he wanted them to go out there diversify and make a greater return to the shareholders the Crown. He wanted them to diversify away from their core business. Now with the bill in front of us on the other hand he says he wants to reduce competition. Will the Minister for State Owned Enterprises be out there trying to create a merger between Genesis and Meridian Energy? I do not see any bill before the House about that if we are to talk specifically about reducing competition. 
This bill is all about red meat inspections and actually all about caving into the wishes of the PSA and we can prove that the deal was done back in July 2006. When we think about consultation on this bill we expect that the industry would have been consulted. The Meat Industry Association asked Jim Anderton for a meeting so that it could try to understand where he was coming from in respect of the bill. The Minister of Agriculture did not accept that offer and I thought that was absolutely pathetic. The Minister of Agriculture was not even in touch with the people at the coalface who will bear the brunt of this bill if it goes through this evening. National members will be voting against it. 
 It is also interesting to see that there has been no business case economic analysis. That will be done later. One would presume that the Government would do all the numbers and see how they stack up before putting the bill into the House but oh no this Government gets it into the House makes it a rushed job and rams it through and will do the numbers on it later. How daft is that? 
The most important thing around this bill is that with this merger if it ever goes through the costs of the Animal Health Board which now is able to go out and competitively pitch its products for TB testing to Asure and AgriQuality will go up by about $2 million. Who is going to pay those costs? It will be those people at the farm gate paying for the TB testing. We need to carry on with TB testing under the current strategy until 2013. Mrs Street mentioned mad cow disease. I could not quite understand her but I think she was saying that that if there was an outbreak we would be better off with just one State-owned enterprise. I cannot understand why she would even be suggesting that because we would need all the people on the ground if there was ever an outbreak—and let us hope there is not. 
I want to speak to new clause 14 which is inserted into Part 2 by the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 120. What is really interesting in this provision is that in the event of the merger of Asure and AgriQuality the new company will have to pay the Crown the levy prescribed—the Crown will prescribe it. And who will pay that levy? The industry will cop the levy on any sort of merger through the Commerce Commission. 
So to sum up the National Party feels that this bill has been a rushed bill. We feel it has been a rushed bill. We think there has been very poor consultation. Those people on the other side of the House have caved in to the wishes of the biggest union in the country and that is proved by a document showing that the deal was done in July 2006. Up will go the costs and who will pay the costs? You can bet that it will be those at the farm gate. That is why National is opposing this bill.