Craig Norgate Speech Signing Of Agreement

Speech Notes

Craig Norgate
Chief Executive Officer

Remarks at Signing of Agreement with IUF and New Zealand Dairy Workers’ Union

Beehive Foyer
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
New Zealand
6.00 pm
Monday 8 April 2002
(New Zealand Time)

Honourable Margaret Wilson; Ron Oswald; Ray Potroz:

This evening is a very important one for Fonterra and our 20,000 staff worldwide. We are establishing a framework to govern our relationship with all of our employees worldwide and with the unions which represent them.

Fonterra is both a new company and an old company. On the one hand, we have inherited the relationships forged by our heritage companies. On the other, we are seeking to establish new standards that are appropriate for one of the first new multinational companies to be established in the 21st Century, and for our role as a true national champion for New Zealand.

Our company is focussed on the highest possible standards of performance. By that, we don’t just mean financial performance. We also mean environmental and social performance. We see no contradiction between these three measures of performance. They are entirely complementary – and the companies that recognise that first, will deliver themselves a significant competitive advantage.

This evening’s ceremony – and the ILO principles to which we are signing-up globally – are important milestones in delivering on our wider performance promise. Maintaining world-class employee relations – and committing to 21st Century standards of labour relations – is what our customers expect, our shareholders expect and our employees expect.

I have consistently said that our people are the key to our competitive advantage. And for that reason I am delighted to sign this agreement on behalf of Fonterra. And I would like to thank the IUF, the NZDWU and Max Parkin, Clinton Light and the team from Fonterra, for the constructive way in which you have brought this agreement together. It bodes well for the future development of our co-operative, for the benefit of shareholders, employees and all the communities in which we work. Thank you.

END

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