Goodman Fielder should be entitled to buy Fonterra milk for domestic purposes only, the submissions said.
Council chairman Duncan Coull also called for all other dairy companies to be required to publish their milk prices in a standardised form.
Fonterra publishes the average milk price paid to suppliers while other processors publish the maximum price achievable if farmers meet all the incentive conditions.
“Transport costs, milk composition, demerit payments and other deductions and incentive pricing mean that the price each competitor publicises is not usually that paid to the majority of their suppliers,” he said.
The dairy industry is calling for a clear sunset signal and transition towards DIRA expiry.
“There is deep frustration within the Fonterra farmer base around the continual shifting of the goal posts around the sunset provisions.”
So milk market share thresholds for DIRA expiry should be set regionally and not nationally because Fonterra’s competitors can eat away at the New Zealand dairy heartland.
The submission ended with quotations from frustrated farmers:
“Leaving DIRA the same encourages nothing new or better.”
“Should this be the Fonterra regulatory act or the dairy industry regulatory act?”
“Goalposts keep shifting and I have no confidence that the Government will implement deregulation.”
