Meat Board Amendment Bill

I am happy to pick up the cause again with an explanation of the third reading of the Meat Board Amendment Bill. Members who were here on Thursday evening will recall that the issue regarding this bill was to make some clarification over the management of quota. In the two minutes I used last Thursday evening, I outlined the importance of quota and the importance of access into the European Union where this quota applies, and the fact that New Zealand is the largest player in that market is a great benefit to the economy of New Zealand and to the economic welfare of those people who produce lambs. That is certainly the case.

I also pointed out that the management of this quota is a significant issue in that it needs to be protected by legislation and this is what we are doing. In the quota rents, the value of that quota must come back to New Zealand. It is managed by the meat industry and the main beneficiary is the New Zealand economy through the New Zealand farmer. Some issues needed clarification: the issues around new entrants into the market and their opportunities. That is the sort of area we covered on Thursday night.

I wish to make one or two other comments that I think are quite salient at this time. The issues that surround the meat industry are not totally contained in quota management. There are some other things, and I alert Government members to a significant number of other issues. It is probably appropriate that we are debating this at the recommencement of a new cycle in the farming area and I ask the House to consider the plight of many of those sheep farmers throughout New Zealand—on the east coast of New Zealand, in southern New Zealand, and in significant areas of Canterbury—who have had a very inclement winter to get through and are now very busy in the lambing cycle. Those farmers out there, encouraging every single animal they have to survive, need to know that this House is serious about their viability. It is in that regard that I wish to make a few comments.

There are a number of challenges for our farmers today and they actually have the ability to meet the on-farm challenges, not just the inclement weather, but they are constantly dealing with the presentation of new diseases such as salmonella brandenburg, the application of new technology, and new cultivars. There are some exciting things happening out there: I believe gene mapping will give an opportunity for another growth spurt in the productive curve of what has happened in the sheep industry. Certainly, in terms of the pastoral production in New Zealand, the sheep industry has made huge strides in the last decade or so, with significant increases in lambing percentage, in carcass weights, and in the yield quality of lambs. There is the challenge of meeting what the market actually wants. It would seem that that is a variable and changing market requirement that has to be met as well. There are other problems like drench resistance. Farmers accept the challenge of all of those things.

But there are things in the Government’s corner, and I would not like this Government to think it has fixed up the Meat Board Act—done the clarification so it is all tidy—and it can turn round and go away. That is simply not the case. The burdens that the Government must deal with are real and they need urgent attention. There is the cost of compliance. There are issues surrounding just what has to happen in the compliance of every single facet from the day the lambs are born until they are free on board on a ship getting to the markets wherever they be—and today we are talking about quota markets in the European Union. There are significant increases and this Government, through its generosity of ruling some new, very prescriptive, generous requirements in the Holidays Act, has cost every farmer in New Zealand $1 a lamb.

💬 Hon David Carter: Accident compensation is another one.

Accident compensation is another one. The cost of compliance is simply huge. But there are other things that this Government needs to wake up its ideas about as well.

The first point I raise is the issue of biosecurity. Out there, farmers are constantly fighting all the inclement weather. They should not need to worry about whether they will have bees to pollinate their clover because the varroa bee mite has now spread into the South Island and the lack of action over that. They should not need to worry about the fact that clover weevil has become endemic throughout New Zealand and has now settled itself in the South Island as well. There are a number of risks that just make farmers ask whether biosecurity matters are being managed. No, they are not. The real concern is if we get something very, very serious as an incursion, like foot-and-mouth. We have not got any confidence at all in the fact that these other things have just been allowed to happen. There has not been a process of clear and crisp decision-making. There has not been any action to eradicate. So if we got something serious, the farmers out there are asking questions about what would happen.

The second point in the Government’s court that it needs to step up its activity about is trade access. I, for one, was hugely disappointed that the Doha round fell over. I am not blaming that on this Government but I am saying it has a responsibility to pick up the issue and not let it die just because that round has fallen over. We need access. We need the countries that are producing competing product in the sheepmeat area to be on a level playing field. The kinds of subsidies, support, and non-tariff barriers that exist all around the world need to be dealt with. I just say to the Government that it must continue, with a great deal of energy, to fight the tariff barriers and difficulties we have in the trade round.

Another point that needs to be dealt with is for the Government to take seriously farming as a vocation. There are shortages of labour and shortages of practical and technical skills across all sectors in the pastoral industry. Our immigration system is based on points, and we cannot even get immigrants into the sector because they simply do not get the points necessary to do the very valuable, practical work. The Government needs to address that area, as well.

I conclude with these remarks. The Labour Government of the 1980s advised farmers to get out of sheep farming and grow something more profitable on their farms. We need to acknowledge that farmers stuck to their knitting. They changed their operation—they produced a product that has lifted itself in prestige, quality, and price. They have done their bit. They require this Government to step up to the mark and do its bit across the areas I have mentioned. This bill is not the completion of what needs to be done to make the meat industry a more viable and more productive sector of the New Zealand economy. The meat industry is one of the significant contributors to our foreign exchange but it can be bigger, and it will be bigger if we play our part in creating the landscape off the farm that allows those farmers to produce the products that the world demands.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa i te Whare. Up north we have a little town with a big reputation: Moerewa, or “tuna town” as we used to call it back in the day when the big AFFCO freezing works were up and running and every man and his dog from all over the north had some connection with the place, whether as a worker, farmer, cuzzy bro running a few shady meat raffles, truckie, or whānau. Everyone knew everyone, and Moerewa was a pumping little town. Then they shut the works down and Moerewa turned to dust. Over the years old “tuna town” became more and more run down, and fewer and fewer people stopped there. Soon people were going faster in order to get through the town and on to where they were really going.

Then, a few years back, a crazy, wild-eyed preacher man called Ngāhau Davis decided to move back to Moerewa and put it back on the map. I can remember him bailing me up on the street, and telling me that Moerewa was going to do this and do that, and that Moerewa sparkled and rocked. I looked at him and I remember saying: “Brother, stop. What are you on, man? Moerewa is dead—it is history. Moerewa ain’t going anywhere.” But with his raging enthusiasm, and a desire from some of the locals to rebuild the community, Moerewa has blossomed.

Moerewa ain’t quite the bustling metropolis that Kaitāia is, but boy it has changed. Now we can drop in at the world famous Tuna Cafe, go to Lori’s Cookery for its gourmet garlic chicken and kumara pies, and get a beer at the Klondike Tavern. Moerewa has a skateboard park, an art gallery, a weaving workshop, a surf shop, and an inland Northland work trust, He Iwi Kotahi Tātou Trust. Ngāhau Davis and company are building a multimedia production house to graft on to their little radio station. As Ngāhau says: “The tools have changed. We do not have knives any more, and now instead of making money for somebody else, we own our own tools and we are building our own future.” It is a long way from the bad old days after the works closed, when violence, crime, alcohol and drugs, unemployment, youth problems, social problems, and low levels of achievement suffocated the town. Welfare dependency was rife, and powerlessness and anger dominated the town.

All over Aotearoa, little towns and communities suffered the same fate as Moerewa as the big corporates, like AFFCO, Borthwicks, and the rest, bailed out. In Wanganui, the Wairarapa, Hicks Bay, Tokomaru Bay, and Pātea the derelict remains of old freezing works are sad reminders of good days gone by. The closure of the works was the catalyst for many of the social problems suffered in those communities. Some, like Moerewa, bounced back, and with amazing community resilience have injected vitality back into their worlds. But, for most, the radical downsizing of those industries has led to massive deprivation, dislocation, and depression.

It is against that background that the Māori Party comes to this bill, asking exactly how Māori will benefit from the amendments to the Meat Board Act 2004. As the independent Māori voice in Parliament, we take seriously our role of defending Māori rights and advancing Māori interests for the benefit of the whole nation, and we want to make sure our communities are not dragged through the despondency of those days gone by this legislation, or by any other legislation. This bill means the New Zealand Meat Board can grant access to quota markets to meat exporters, whether registered or not. We support the intention of the bill, because the financial benefits of preferential access to quota markets will still be available to the wider New Zealand meat industry, and that in turn should mean positive economic outcomes and jobs here at home. Yes, that may be a little optimistic, but we have to be. Our history in the meat industry is not one of stability, so mindful of the risks we still strive to improve our whānau’s future job security.

Back in the heydays of the 1960s and 1970s, Māori were the predominant workforce in the works, and the works benefited from cheap, skilled Māori labour. We were there in large numbers, and with the 21st century agribusiness sector we want to be there in big numbers, as well. But this time we do not want to be just the drones who carry out somebody else’s decisions. Like Ngāhau Davis and the people of Moerewa, we want to have plans in place and to build on the experience and expertise of Māori from the Māori meat industry association, and of meatworkers, AgResearch, the Federation of Māori Authorities, and Māori meat producers.

The sudden closures of both the Hawke’s Bay Farmers Meat Co. works at Whakatū in 1986 and the Weddel Tōmoana freezing works in Hastings in 1994 figured in the study Mauri Mahi: Does Being Made Unemployed Affect Health? The Closures of Whakatū and Tōmoana. It was the largest study of its kind in the world. Since then Ngāti Kahungunu and Te Roopu Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare have been conducting another study, Mauri Tanga: Long Term Effects of Involuntary Job Loss on Mortality and Morbidity. It involves around 6,000 people and looks at hospital admissions, cancer registrations, and deaths among freezing workers who lost their jobs. Such are the massive impacts of forced unemployment on communities that both studies have been keenly watched by world experts.

But it is not just communities that have suffered from the effects of freezing works; it is also the environment. In one case the Waitangi Tribunal reported the disastrous environmental damage of the Borthwicks freezing works in Waitara, which used to dump its sewage straight into the Waitara River and discharge its waste 500 metres out to sea without any treatment. The river-mouth area and surrounding coastal reefs became badly polluted and no shellfish could be taken.

In the second reading of this bill, we ask that any financial returns from meat quota allocation also be considered in light of possible environmental impact. We know that the annual contribution of Māori primary sector producers to GDP is now very significant. Māori agribusinesses are performing well commercially, and the AgResearch Māori strategy aims to help Māori farms to double their productivity, so we are talking big bucks here. But, even so, the very significant stake that Māori now have in this sector must still be balanced against practices such as environmental damage, health impacts, and the possible threat of economic downturn.

The report of the Primary Production Committee noted that many submitters took the opportunity to raise concerns about the current quota allocation system, although it is outside the scope of this bill. In the same way we need also to consider how the long-term projected outcomes in the primary sector can be measured alongside other costs and benefits, because this emerging economy is not just about economic performance but about social responsibility, as well. Along with the promotion of markets in the meat industry, Meat and Wool New Zealand is supporting a series of governance workshops to help Māori farmers to achieve their production potential. We welcome these initiatives, because they help us to plan for future wealth and to take seriously the need for succession planning.

Although the focus of this bill is to ensure participation in, and access to, quota markets, the Māori Party is also aware that there were no submissions from anyone representing Māori interests in the industry. That is hugely important, because this House needs to consider how Māori may be affected by opening up the access to quota markets, along with training and recruitment strategies to enable more Māori to benefit from the industry.

During the passage of this bill through the House we received a letter from a Māori landowner who told us that Māori involvement as freezing workers—some 80-plus percent of them—was a huge economic contribution to the success of the meat industry. He suggested that the quota allocation should reflect that contribution, by awarding meat industry quota to Māori in the same way as fishing quota was allocated to Māori, based on prior involvement in the industry. That is an interesting idea, and is one we would hope that the Minister, along with the Minister of Māori Affairs, will consider.

Māori primary sector producers, land trusts, and incorporations would benefit from improved business certainty. On that basis, the Māori Party will support this bill. But we will forever hold the symbolic association of places such as Pātea, Hicks Bay, Waitara, Wairarapa, Moerewa, and other places like those uppermost in our minds, as we look to properly count the cost of progress.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Meat Board Amendment Bill in its third reading today. I will take a relatively brief call because I am aware that my deputy chair, Dr Ashraf Choudhary, is also keen to take a call so that the matter can be tidied up before 10 o’clock. It is good to see a bill such as this go through Parliament with support from everybody, particularly when we have been such an acrimonious Parliament over recent times with the issue of corruption and bribery. So I am pleased to support something that we are all in agreement with.

What led to the introduction of this bill is a little unclear. The first point that needs to be made is that the original legislation was not about Parliament determining how quota could be allocated. We passed legislation in 2004 that gave that responsibility to the Meat Board and clearly, over recent times, there has been some acrimony and displeasure in the way some participants in the industry feel the board is undertaking a particular and very responsible job. Suffice it to say that the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Jim Anderton, was concerned about the difficulties associated with the allocation, and he perceived that there may have been some threat of legal action because of a possible ambiguity in the original legislation.

I want to make it clear to the House that the Primary Production Committee did not spend time investigating whether the original legislation was in any way ambiguous. We did not consider that to be our role. Suffice it to say we had been presented with the legislation, the Minister and the Government clearly thought there may have been some ambiguity, and it was our job to tidy that up and present the bill back in its current form. I take this opportunity of thanking all my colleagues on that select committee for their work.

There will inevitably be tension in the way quota is allocated. It is of value to those within the industry, and the Meat Board Act of 2004 was quite specific in defining that the allocation of quota was to be for the benefit of the whole industry. The industry—as the committee was well aware—is for the farmers, for the exporters, and very much for the processors.

What I find interesting today, as we debate this legislation, is that there is now an idea being floated by some members of the farming community suggesting a major merger, or megamerger, between the two dominant players in our export industry—namely, PPCS and the Alliance Group. I make the following comments as a National member of Parliament and as a shareholder in both of those companies. I cannot see that any good would come out of such a megamerger. What this bill does is to ensure there is active competition in the industry amongst all players, and that competition ultimately reflects on the price that farmers receive for their livestock. That is to be fostered and admired.

The last thing this industry wants to see now is the debate that is occurring after the recent drop in schedule—which, thank God, was a relatively brief drop in schedule—that occurred at the peak of the export season for the farmers of New Zealand. But we now see that some people are concerned about, and are looking to blame and apportion reasons for, that sudden drop in scheduled meat prices. They are, therefore, coming up with the idea that all problems would be solved by a megamerger of those two major players.

I say to those proponents promoting this idea—they do not seem to be very large in number—that such a megamerger would, in my mind, inevitably lead to a pseudo-monopoly in our major meat industry. As anybody who has studied recent agricultural reforms will know, such a mega-monopoly would do nothing to introduce the efficiencies that are absolutely vital to this industry.

In various contributions that have been made throughout the debate on the meat industry, it has been pointed out how vital this industry is to the New Zealand economy. Farmers continue to claim that they are the backbone of this economy, and I suggest to the House tonight that the way the economy has performed over recent years because of relatively good commodity prices is absolute proof of the paramount role the agricultural industries play in the livelihood and standard of living of every New Zealander.

It is with pleasure that the bill is back before the House and has kept to the timetable of the Minister of Agriculture. It is with pleasure that all parties have signed up to support it. I hope this legislation now allows the Meat Board to get on with its very important role without any threat of legal dispute as it moves to allocate this quota, which is of value not only to the people who participate in and receive that quota, but to all in the meat industry. I stand here to say that that benefit must be delivered to the ultimate producers—that is, the sheep farmers up and down this country.

I want to take a very brief call to acknowledge my colleagues across the Chamber and, in particular, the chairman of the Primary Production Committee, the Hon David Carter. The committee works very well and I am delighted with his chairmanship. He has been a good chair. I also acknowledge my other colleagues opposite, some of whom were my students, actually. I am very pleased to say that they worked very closely on this legislation.

This is a very small technical bill that clarifies issues around the allocation of meat quota to non-producers. Agriculture is very important. As has been said before, it is the foundation of our economy. We have to make sure that we achieve efficiencies where possible, and this bill is certainly an important step towards that, so that we can sell every bone and piece of meat to the international market. Basically, the bill clarifies the intent of the 2004 Act. I will stop there. I support the bill.

Bill read a third time.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.