Q + A
PANEL DISCUSSION 1
Hosted by SUSAN WOOD
In response to Nathan Guy Interview
SUSANWelcome now to our panel – political scientist Dr Raymond Miller from Auckland University, former Labour candidate Josie
Pagani, and former Labour MP and ACT leader Richard Prebble. And if I can get to you, Raymond, it sounds like we are
going to get some officials up to China, which has got to be a good idea, it seems, at this point.
Dr RAYMOND MILLER – Political Scientist
Yes, we’ve heard a lot of words of political spin and relief over the last few days, because, really, this should not be
underestimated. This has been a very very serious issue for New Zealand agriculture and for the New Zealand economy
generally. And the truth of the matter is, of course, that the blame will have to be shared around quite a bit because,
you know, we have these blazing headlines around the world about, you know, the botulism in relation to New Zealand
agriculture. And that was all very well, but now that we know that little if no harm is being done, those sorts of
headlines, if there are headlines at all, are on the back page of the newspaper.
SUSANExactly.
RAYMONDSo people are still associating New Zealand products with botulism, and that’s a serious thing. I think you’re right
that we must question the science that’s gone into this, and I think also the communications and PR that came out of
Fonterra when the scare was first broken – really incredibly incompetent, I might say, on the part of Fonterra. And
thirdly, I think the Government has to take some responsibility, because we haven’t been putting the effort into
research and development, both in terms of government spending and business spending over the last few years, and I
think we’re paying for that now.
JOSIE PAGANI – Former Labour Candidate
I think it’s more than just science. I mean, the way he should’ve answered that question is to say that back in March,
as I understand it, AgResearch spotted some sort of bacteria –Clostridium bacteria – that turned out not to be botulism,
that can spoil food.
SUSANI think it was Fonterra’s people found it first, they sent it out to AgResearch to check it out, and then they got this
finding.
JOSIEAnd they took ages to get the results, so—
SUSANWhich was ultimately not the right finding, and then we’ve got to send it off to the US to check it. Why don’t we have
that science here?
JOSIESo Fonterra— The science is one problem, and certainly it’s not coordinated. It’s all over the place. But in terms of
who does what— But the other problem, of course, is that back in March, I don’t know why Fonterra didn’t just quarantine
that 38 tonne of whey before it reached the market and say, ‘We’re just going to check.’ Now, that’s what Westland did
only a couple of weeks ago, which is a smaller dairy company. They acted by the book. Traces of nitrate – they traced
the product, they quarantined it, they told MPI, they told the public. Turns out there was no food safety—
SUSANBecause, Richard Prebble—
JOSIE…and they get brownie points for that.
SUSANThere is no doubt that the spotlight is on us now. We can’t get away. I was reading some history documents about
exporting. You know we used to put meat in sacks a hundred years ago – there was no refrigeration – and off we sent it,
you know, on ships. It was very different the way we did—
RICHARD PREBBLE – Former Labour MP and ACT Party leader
Never did my grandmother any harm, either.
JOSIERichard remembers that.
RICHARDHowever, we might not agree about anything else from now on—
JOSIEI hope not, Richard.
RICHARD…but I completely agree with you and so does Fonterra. When they have 38 tonnes of whey, which is not worth very much,
found there was bacteria levels above what it normally was, they should have just dumped it. And now they wish they’d
done that. That would have saved us hundreds of millions. But on the question of the scientific tests, it may well prove
to be the case that this is your— when you go to your own doctor and they do a test to see what’s wrong with you, then
they say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to wait a while.’ Why is that? Because they’ve got to grow it. And I suspect that they had such
tiny quantities of bacteria that in order to find out what it really was, they needed to wait and grow it, and that’s
why we’ve had these delays. But the real question is why was there bacteria in the first place? Shouldn’t have been
there. Doesn’t matter what it is – dump it. And I’m sure that in the future that’s what Fonterra is going to do. The
Government’s not going to get off this completely clean, because the recall was a mess, and part of the reason it’s a
mess is Fonterra was saying one thing and the Government was saying a different one. Remember those cans and they
couldn’t make up their minds which cans do we pull back—?
SUSANIt was confusing. It was a complete shambles, and—
RICHARDThat’s a shambles, isn’t it?
SUSANWhat will be interesting is the long-term damage. Thank you, panel. We will leave it there.
ENDS