Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. One of the strengths of the dairy industry over the years has been their effort to get consolidated and find answers to problems and it really isn't appropriate that you stand there and go We're going to do it for them." because there's all these things coming down the track—sorry Madam Assistant Speaker. The previous speaker—MP over there—talked about solving all the problems of the dairy industry. Well it's really interesting that this is going ahead tonight under urgency and you haven't had any—sorry apologies. The members and the Government have not given the farmers any opportunity to go through a submission process with this. This is a band-aid to get this piece of legislation through the House so all of a sudden these terms of reference can come out and we know—we've heard about the terms of reference today including for example environmental issues land use and how to achieve the best outcomes for farmers consumers and the New Zealand economy. Look it's a conversation that all of us have to have but we in here are not the people that know all the answers so I think it's really important that a submission process should have been taken with this. There has been a review. There is a lot of information out there from that review. All of this has just been ignored. We're going to start over again and we're going to do another review but at what cost? So a lot of information is already accessible.I think the other thing that's really interesting is the targets that are coming back to this side of the House. We heard it from not Minister O'Connor but Greg O'Connor before actually about this side of the House and the Morrinsville protest and the divide between rural and urban. Well I tell you what: it became a very big issue during the process of the election and it wasn't coming from this side of the House. And guess who had the biggest bus at the protest? So New Zealand First was very—so don't sit here Mr Patterson and tell this side of the House that we were engaged in inciting rural-urban divide because one of the reasons you stood up—[Interruption] No look we actually want to put this rural-urban divide together.One thing I do say—I want to issue a challenge to Gareth Hughes. I want to issue a challenge to Gareth Hughes to be as proactive as his leader James Shaw because I know that James Shaw does go out and he does go on farms and he does talk to people. When Gareth Hughes stood up before he talked about all this bulldust about what the farmers would be thinking about what we were saying. I haven't seen Gareth Hughes out and about on any farms. So Mr Patterson you might have been but I've never seen Gareth Hughes out there and I know that James Shaw does. I hope he listens because he's going to get a barrelling from this.So you talked—sorry Madam Assistant Speaker. Mr Patterson you talked before about the commodity trap so then this Government is wanting to delay this process for another year leave people out there with uncertainty about where it's going to end and then talked again about foreign owners that come in and turn farmers into price-takers. So tell me where the nexus is between that? You've got a cooperative that wants to—we've got a cooperative that wants to collect farmers' milk it wants to add value to farmers' milk and it's processing and adding value to a lot of milk. Up until now it's been coming at it faster than it could process it. Things are going to change. There are limits; I'm not stupid. We know there's going to be limits but the industry is working those things out and with a bit of conversation we can work it out. But the problem is we have a piece of legislation up here. It's two pages it's a band-aid and it's designed just to hold the process until we have another one of these inquiries that this Government is getting well known for. We don't need change for change's sake. Why can't we just pick up what we already have and go for it?There were a couple of other concerns that came up before. I can't remember who the member was but I can go back and look at the Hansard and find out. It was that the far-reaching shareholders of Fonterra had to be protected. Now Fonterra have already said that they would not be seeing their cooperative members put to one side and that anybody that was in the cooperative would remain in the cooperative because they had signed up to the process and they were all in it. So I think it's really important to realise that Fonterra's got no intention of actually getting rid of its own shareholders just to achieve a purpose. I'm sure that if you have the conversation—and I imagine that Minister O'Connor has had heaps of conversations with Fonterra. I'm not sure that many others have and I'm just mystified as to why this Government calls itself open and transparent and then won't give us the terms of reference but will write things in a press release that are going to put the wind up farmers. So look we've got a hundred submissions that came in in a prior review. They're the same people that will still put the submissions in. But I can tell you what if you go around this and try to add things to it that simply aren't related in the first place you are going to get your—sorry Madam Assistant Speaker again. This Government's going to get itself into some strife because I know that in the conversations we've had farmers say "We signed up to this thing. We've met the criteria. We made criteria that fitted for the South Island and for the North Island." They feel that they've done the deal they've gone through the process they've met all of the criteria that they signed up for and they understand that there has to be a process to work out whether the commercial realities are in the right place. They're going to be really disappointed when they find out that what's being reviewed around these commercial realities is actually opening up to a whole lot of things. They're going to say "The ballpark has changed and the goalposts have been shifted." and they're going to be very very disappointed. They are not shying away from their responsibilities but they've got a piece of legislation that they agreed to. Minister O'Connor you can argue all night—we've heard lots of debate over there about which Government actually did it and I know there was a huge amount of work that went into it—but I do know that there are farmers out there that know that it was the Labour Government that signed the dotted line. That was the agreement with farmers that said "When you get to this point you reach this level and then we will free Fonterra up." and I know we've got to make sure we've got all the right settings around that. But they're going to turn round and they're going to tell this Government that this Government has shifted the goalposts. So it's a very very disappointing day today in that we have not been able to have a select committee process where we would be able to have farmers put submissions in and we would be able to have producers put submissions in. We would have had submissions coming in from the processes from both sides of the fence because we know that some agree and some don't agree but I don't know why this Government is so scared to put the terms of reference on the table so that everyone in the dairy industry in this country knows what they're dealing with and so that people can have some input. Communities and industries—surprise surprise to this Government—have a huge amount of knowledge about their own patches their own industries and they would dearly relish the chance to come and talk to this Government about what their hopes and dreams are for the future of this industry. So—Hon Ruth Dyson: The microphone is working. BARBARA KURIGER: Yeah well we're wound up over here and I have actually been listening to some of the debate. People have been wound up—and it hasn't been only on this side of the House—because I think it's about a fairness of process. This process is flawed. No one minds having the discussion. We don't mind having the discussion but we do object to working with flawed process and I know that people around our dairy industry and our rural communities are going to be feeling pretty aggrieved at not having the chance to come in and go through a submission process. So I hope that in the course of the committee stage the Minister for this open and transparent Government will put some terms of reference on the table so we can understand what it's all about and then we can start having the real discussion about where this piece of legislation needs to go. So thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I apologise for bringing you into the debate more than once but I thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate that. Thank you."