22 April 2008
Creech Way Off The Mark - Woolerton
New Zealand’s dairy industry is the one shining light in the current climate of exporting gloom and any moves to
increase competition in the New Zealand market to reduce high domestic prices will put that success at risk, says New
Zealand First primary production spokesperson Doug Woolerton.
Mr Woolerton’s comments follow statements this morning by former cabinet minister and director of independent dairy
company Wyatt Creech, that the Government should open Fonterra up to more domestic competition to alleviate high
domestic prices for dairy products.
“Retaining Fonterra’s size and co-operative structure is essential if we are to continue to extract good prices from
world markets,” said Mr Woolerton.
“My concern is that moves to further increase domestic competition would result in more small companies being snapped up
by overseas investors. As we have seen with the takeover of independent producer New Zealand Dairies Ltd by Russian
company Nutritek, this is already happening, and would only accelerate if more companies were encouraged to compete
domestically.
“It is a bit rich for a director of Open Country Cheese, which sources a lot of its milk supply from Fonterra, to be
talking about the need for competition when he was interviewed on television this morning. Mr Creech is a beneficiary of
legislation that was passed by a government he was a part of.
“It was also hypocritical of Mr Creech to complain about the effects of high domestic prices only to then admit that
most of the cheese from his company was exported.
“Ultimately, if such moves were made, more of our industry would be lost to foreign control, removing any benefit from
such competition,” said Mr Woolerton.
ENDS