Richard Prosser MP
Spokesperson for Primary Industries

15 September 2015

PM quick to subsidise foreign firms but not kiwi ones

Confirmation Silver Fern Farms will seek foreign capital from Shanghai Maling, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned enterprise Bright Food, shows government bias towards foreign companies, says New Zealand First.

“The Prime Minister quickly found a $67 million ‘subsidy’ for Warner Bros and $30 million for Rio Tinto, but he’s not even interested in finding a cent for the New Zealand-owned company that is our biggest beef exporter,” says New Zealand First Primary Industries Spokesperson Richard Prosser.

“He is content to allow more foreign control. We should be protecting Silver Fern Farms and the export earnings they make for New Zealand, not an overseas company.

“The red meat industry’s own Meat Industry Excellence Group has come up with a solution – the Newco proposal - which the government is ignoring,” says Mr Prosser.

“New Zealand First has drafted a bill to keep the majority of New Zealand’s red meat industry in New Zealand ownership.

“All our farmers ask for is temporary assistance from the taxpayer for no more than five years and they will even provide a return on that investment unlike Warner Bros, which made more than a billion dollars profit last year but never repaid any money to New Zealand.

“Taxpayer investment in Silver Fern Farms is not rocket science, it’s just plain common sense,” says Mr Prosser.

ENDS

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