Jones and Fonterra

I respond to Shane Jones’ comments 13/6/2018: “He wants the company (Fonterra) to focus less on interfering in politics and more on justifying the money they’ve lost overseas”

Firstly, I would like to know what politics Fonterra is interfering in which they do not have a legitimate reason to, the same as any person does. Jones forgets that we live in a democracy.

I do ask Jones to get the politicians’ sticky fingers out of the dairy industry. He now wants to look at the restructuring of Fonterra. I remind him that Fonterra is owned by about 10000 dairy farmers and some unit holders.

It was the Government that did the testing that came up with a positive botulism test which was proved later to be incorrect. That mistake by the Government cost the New Zealand farmers that supply Fonterra $183 million, the Government washed their hands of that.

The Governments since the formation of Fonterra have put in place rules that force Fonterra (NZ dairy farmers) to supply foreign processing companies setting up in New Zealand with milk so their profits can go overseas.

The sooner the Government stops interfering in the New Zealand dairy industry the better. The way Jones thinks, I am sure he would be happier in North Korea and I am sure the poor NZ taxpayer would pay for the air ticket.

Jim Hedley, Fonterra supplier.