3. LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this
to the Minister of Agriculture
Has he received any further reports regarding the restructuring of the meat industry?
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Agriculture) Link to this
I have seen a report that the National Party leader, Mr Key, the finance spokesperson, Mr English, and the agricultural spokesperson, Mr Carter, met over dinner last Wednesday with the chairman of the meatworks company Alliance Group, Owen Poole. At this dinner Mr Poole requested, or suggested, that the taxpayer could provide half of the $200 million to $400 million that he says will be needed to form a megamerger meat company. The next day Mr Key announced: “National would look at a suspensory loan to provide capital for the establishment of a new company.” Before the day was out, Mr Key told his finance spokesperson: “I’ve just committed you to a suspensory loan.” This was not a light-hearted, throwaway comment, as has been suggested; this was a real response to a real proposition. We now have a political party in this House that holds dinner meetings with private companies and dishes out $200 million subsidies that would devastate our international trade reputation.
The sum of $200 million amounts to an investment of $50 for every man, woman, and child in New Zealand. It would be an export subsidy, in 1 year, of $15 per lamb—nearly half the average subsidy for a British lamb—in one single policy. It would be worth nearly $1 a kilo of export sheepmeat. The last time that National offered this kind of subsidy to sheep farmers, it bankrupted New Zealand.
R Doug WoolertonDoes the Minister believe that meat company amalgamations are a positive thing for meat producers; if so, does he believe that they can be accomplished by the industry itself, without outside help?
As a matter of fact I have seen a report on the effect of subsidies on exports, and it states: “What is obscene is that … agricultural subsidies in the developed world are two-thirds of Africa’s total GDP. … The protectionist policies of so many in the developed world are a stain on the morality of the world.” The report goes on to state: “I blame politicians, my own profession. Too often [politicians] abandon their historic mission. They abandon what they know to be right in favour of political expediency. The political power of protected interests too often wins the day.” The author of that report is the National Party MP Lockwood Smith. I wonder what he thinks of John Key’s proposed $200 million agricultural subsidy.
Madam SPEAKERPlease be seated. It is becoming impossible to hear. And any member who may make such a slip in this House should take some notice, for the same treatment could happen to them. The honorary Jim Anderton.
It proves that the Speaker is a human being, too! The answer to that question of whether the Government has been asked for a $200 million suspensory loan is no. This was a deal done entirely behind closed doors by the leader of the National Party one night, and announced the next day. As far as I know, it has not been through any policy review, or even been approved or costed by the National Party itself. If anyone did ask Ministers for a cash handout for meat exporters, the most dangerous thing a Minister could do would be to hold that meeting behind closed doors and agree to the policy without any public scrutiny.
Tim GroserGiven that in 1999 this Minister of Agriculture described National’s tariff and subsidy removal plan as “sheer idiocy”, but yesterday, in claiming erroneously that National wished to go back to tariffs and subsidies, he told the House that tariffs and subsidies were “the economic ruination of this country”, would the Minister like to share with the House the sequence of events that led to this happy, if remarkable, change of world view?
That seems, in the first instance, to be an acknowledgment that the National Party is going back to a policy of export subsidies, and if that is true, the member will have some questions to answer outside this House pretty quickly from the media, I suspect. Let me remind him that I was on record, and have been on record, as saying that the National Party’s then policy of family benefits for sheep, which is what this policy represents, was a disaster for New Zealand. It was a disaster for New Zealand, and so will any policy of this kind followed by any future National Government.