Peters Calls upon Fonterra to Suspend Global Dairy Auction
new-zealand-first-party
Sun Aug 09 2015 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Peters Calls upon Fonterra to Suspend Global Dairy Auction
Sunday, 9 August 2015, 10:31 am
Press Release: New Zealand First Party
Peters Calls upon Fonterra to Suspend Global Dairy Auction
With the benchmark GlobalDairyTrade (GDT) price for Whole Milk Powder crashing, New Zealand First is calling on Fonterra’s Board to temporarily suspend Fonterra’s participation on GDT.
“It is high time Fonterra’s board comes down from Mt Olympus to act in the best interests of its farmer-owners and not some economic theory. We see that Waikato Federated Farmers president, Chris Lewis, is making the same call,” Mr Peters says.
“Auctions are great in bull markets like the Auckland property bubble, but it is a terrible way to sell when markets turn ugly, as the record low price for Whole Milk Powder indicates.
“This is a call to suspend Fonterra’s participation in GDT as opposed to leaving it completely. Something the big European dairy co-op,Molkerei Ammerland, did in April saying GDT “does not align with our newly defined sales and marketing strategy”.
“Fonterra itself ceased selling Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC70) through GDT in March 2014, so the co-op has form in doing what we suggest, albeit, with a small product line.
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“Any temporary suspension by Fonterra is not an end to GDT but says enough is enough. Since Fonterra accounts for some 30% of global dairy exports, this would act as an immediate price stabiliser, especially as Fonterra starts to clear stored inventory.
“Yet the government and Mr Key needs to do more than deliver tired rhetoric for our primary industries with a major El Nino drought in the offing and North Canterbury in a very bad way.
“Mr Key says the government is getting better market access for farmers, does he mean the permanent tariff of 176% on milkpowder exports to South Korea under the so-called FTA?
“Mr Key also says they are improving business conditions for farmers, but his government is ramming through stringent occupational health and safety “reforms,” it hasn’t made any meaningful reform to the RMA but has massively complicated water management.
“There are many things practical things a government could do if it has any backbone:
• Introduce concessional loans for farmers just like Tony Abbott’s Australian government, but here to be delivered through New Zealand owned banks;
• Adopt New Zealand First’s Receiverships (Agricultural Debt Mediation) Amendment Bill;
• Replace Provisional Tax with New Zealand First’s Business P.A.Y.E policy;
• Adopt New Zealand First’s Land Transfer (Foreign Ownership of Land Register) Amendment Bill before a Tsunami of foreign cash arrives;
• Increase funding to all Rural Support Trusts and enable them to get people on the road proactively visiting farmers, especially younger farmers and sharemilkers; and
• Urgently increase NZTE’s overseas market development to boost demand for our exports instead of having all of our cows in the one Chinese paddock,” Mr Peters said.
ENDS
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