Dairy Industry Restructuring

For many years my whanau and I lived in Taranaki. Every day as we passed the beautiful dairy farms of heartland Taranaki my wife, who is from Puniho from Parihaka in Taranaki had a range of emotions –none of them which are addressed in this Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill.

I believe the issues are of sufficient severity that it is impossible to consider this Bill WITHOUT thinking of the very original dairy restructuring which occurred from what the Waitangi Tribunal has called the “wrongful confiscation and subsequent bungled return of Taranaki land”.

It is a context which dates back to the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863; the two West Coast Commissions of 1880; the West Coast Settlement Reserves Act 1881 and 1892, and eventually the Maori Reserved Land Act 1955 which established a perpetually renewable leasing regime, with rents at five percent of the unimproved value of the land.

The imposition of an unjust leasing regime on the returned land has conclusively been determined as a breach of the Crown’s active duty to protect the rights determined in the Treaty.

And so, as we come to this latest piece of legislative change, a Bill which is promoted as allowing for greater participation and certainty in the dairy industry, let us remember to consider the concept of greater participation and certainty for Tangata whenua who were robbed of the opportunity to enter the dairy industry.
Mr Speaker, in doing some homework on this Bill, I understand that it removes export restrictions from some markets, and allocates export rights to dairy quota markets to a wider group.

In essence, in allowing a wider group of dairy processors to participate in export markets, we support the opening up of wider opportunities for growth within the dairy industry sector.

We are also supportive of the concept of future certainty for the industry being provided for, by the export rights becoming available during 2008 to 2010 for one quota year, and those that become available in 2011 and later, being allocated for terms of three quota years.

We are also mindful of course, that any interested parties on which this policy will impact most, will have another opportunity other than the consultation that occurred at the start of this year, to give feedback to the process through the means of Select Committee.

Amongst that we would expect the 18000 farming businesses represented in Federated Farmers will want a keen say; as I am sure will the Federation of Maori Authorities, FOMA.

Within that of course, the significant representation of Maori in primary industries will have a voice.

We know that as of the 2001 census, 6.4% of the dairy cattle farming sector were Maori – some 2232 – as well as roughly twenty percent of the population employed in services to agriculture.

Collectively, if you didn’t know, Maori are the largest client of Meat and Wool New Zealand, and also of Fonterra and fertilizer companies.

On a monetary basis, more than 50% of the nine billion dollars of commercial assets estimated to be owned by Maori are in the primary industries of farming, forestry and horticulture.

As I indicated in my earlier speech, Maori in the farming sector and Maori land based organizations represent enormous potential for the national economy.

So there is obvious advantage to sending this Bill to select committee to hear from concerned stakeholders, including Maori in the dairy farming sector.

But I return again to the large scale land confiscations that the Crown enforced in 1860s, in the process depriving many iwi of their economic base.

We recognize too, the enduring impacts of discriminatory land laws and pastoral lease-holding arrangements which took effect from the 1850s right through the 1970s, resulting in entrenched alienation of Maori land.

The impact of confiscation and alienation was that the prime land, the most fertile versatile land was the first to go, leaving only land that had limited potential.

It was because of the long-lasting effects of this limited potential that a case was taken by Edward Rongomaiira Tamati and others on behalf of the beneficial owners of land held by Parininihi ki Waitotara Incorporation –and that was known as the WAI 790 claim.

The findings of the Tribunal confirmed that indeed, the cost of the claimants entering the dairy industry on their land will only increase as ‘fair value’ shares increase in value.

The Tribunal found further, in their 2001 report, that:

1. Successive governments over more than a century have failed to respond to claims for relief;

2. That failure was in itself a breach of the Crown duty to protect Treaty rights; and

3. that had the Crown responded in a timely manner, the claimants would have been in a position to enter dairy farming prior to the effects of unbundling becoming apparent.

Mr Speaker, their conclusions were clear – that the claimants were prejudiced by the difficulties they will encounter in obtaining sufficient capital to buy shares to ensure a right to supply milk from resumed farms.

Mr Speaker, there may be some in this House, that will question of what relevance does what the Tribunal labels the “whole sorry business of the Crown’s breaches in Taranaki” have for a Bill in 2007, about a new dairy industry restructuring amendment Bill.

How do the principles of participation and certainty promoted in this Bill bear any relationship to the situation in Taranaki – or indeed any area throughout Aotearoa of prime farming land which was illegally acquired from tangata whenua?

Well I say it actually has everything to do with it.

Let me return to the WAI 790 claim for one last reference, which may perhaps make the relationship to this Bill, a little bit clearer.

The Tribunal summed up WAI 790 by recommending, and I quote:

“the claimants’ opportunity to become dairy farmers in their own right should not have been allowed to diminish but should instead have been actively protected”.

And there we have it.

What the Taranaki Dairy Farm land case study offers the House an opportunity to learn from, is that it tells us that the ability of Maori people to get back into the dairy industry is extremely limited.

Maori interested in entering the dairy industry is very limited. Crown inactivity over subsequent governments has meant that entering the dairy industry has become even more limited.

Maori would need access to enormous investment to be able buy shares based on milk solids and stock.

So in supporting the passage of this Bill, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill, we do so on two grounds.

Firstly, in wanting to hear how Maori farming interests will be affected by this Bill – how will Maori dairy farmers benefit from allowing greater participation and certainty in the dairy industry?

And the second, wider goal, is done so under the cloud of the latest bad report from the United Nations. The Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination concluded in their New Zealand report, that actions undertaken by the Crown, and I quote:

“tend to diminish the importance and relevance of the Treaty and to create a context unfavourable to the rights of Maori”.

Mr Speaker in the Maori Party, are very concerned about this finding as every other Member of this Parliament must be, and it is our absolute commitment to take every opportunity that we can to enhance and consolidate the status of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in every aspect of our work.

There is no place like the present to begin the pursuit of Treaty justice. And so, the Maori Party will be monitoring the reaction and developments of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill with a view to enabling a stronger, more confident implementation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.