Fonterra is maintaining its opposition to
the Government's proposed dairy industry law changes, saying they're senseless
and won't bring down the price of milk.
Primary Industries Minister David Carter
on Tuesday announced draft law changes which would force the giant dairy
co-operative to sell more raw milk to independent processors, disclose more
information about the way it sets the price and give the Commerce Commission a
regular monitoring role.
Mr Carter is acting on recommendations
which came out of a review held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
after widespread concern about the high price of milk.
But Fonterra chairman Sir Henry van der
Heyden says it's not in New Zealand's
interest, or the interest of farmers, to provide another 200 million litres a
year to independent processors - an increase of about a third.
Sir Henry says six independent processors
are currently provided with all the milk they want and they export most of it.
"They can get more money out of the
export market than they can out of the domestic market and there's already
competition in the domestic market," he said on Radio New Zealand on Wednesday.
"This package the Government has put
out doesn't make sense ... it will do absolutely nothing to bring down the
price to domestic consumers."
Sir Henry says Fonterra can live with
increased scrutiny of the way it sets the milk price but doesn't think it's
needed.
"The Commerce Commission already has
oversight and magnified transparency won't have any impact on the milk
price," he said.
"It's already very transparent,
there's hundreds of pages on our website about the way the milk price is
set."
NZN