By Duncan Garner
28 business leaders are in India with the Prime Minister, but one he did not take is accusing him of free trade hypocrisy.
Turners and Growers say they were snubbed in favour of Zespri - the only company in the country allowed to export kiwifruit to the world.
The snub has produced a new round of back biting.
Lee Hoggard grows kiwifruit for Turners and Growers, who are banned from exporting to the world.
“It’s very frustrating - free trade is what New Zealand is all about,” says Mr Hoggard.
John Key's India trip is all about free trade, and Zespri is one of the handpicked businesses on the trip.
But Mr Hoggard says it is hypocritical to talk free trade while he is banned from exporting kiwifruit out of his own country.
Turners and Growers already sells fruit to 60 countries including India. Just not Kiwifruit.
It would like to be on the trip.
“It's stupid, it smacks of hypocrisy taking the world's last monopoly on a free trade trip to India,” says Turners and Growers Chairman Tony Gibbs.
But the Government is adamant the single approach through Zespri is best.
It has a third of the world's kiwifruit sales, but two thirds of the value - it gets great prices.
Trade Minister Tim Groser chimed in on the debate.
“You have to be brain dead not to think there's a connection between that extraordinary achievement of our kiwifruit growers and the degree of control they exercise over their future and marketing".
Mr Gibbs says Mr Groser does not know what he is talking about.
“Groser in the last decade has been strutting around the world telling people how good he is," says Mr Gibbs.
Mr Gibbs also accuses Mr Groser of misleading the World Trade Organisation by saying that Zespri is a state trading enterprise when it is a private company.
“It has deliberately misled the World Trade Organisation about its status and if anyone is brain dead it's Groser," Says Mr Gibbs.
Mr Groser said he would not get into a debate about World Trade Organisation laws with a “rank amateur”.
Turners and Growers has gone to court trying to break Zespri's monopoly. A decision from the court should be released soon.
Meanwhile the scrap between Tony Gibbs and Tim Groser is just getting more personal.
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