State Owned Enterprise Bill 3rd Reading
21 June 2007
State-Owned Enterprise (Agriquality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill 3rd Reading
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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.