MEAT SUPPORT PRICE PLAN

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27680, 9 June 1955, Page 12

MEAT SUPPORT PRICE PLAN

Draft Ready For Approval

EARLY LEGISLATION EXPECTED (From Our* Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, June 8. A meat support price plan is ready for approval by the Government. Some details of the plan are expected to be announced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr K, J. Holyoake) within a few days. It is expectcU that enabling legislation will be introduced in the House of Representatives when it resumes next month. The scheme has been by a committee jjet up by the Government. The committee consists of representatives' of the Qepartment of Agriculture, the Treiasury, the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, and Federated Farmers. It has taken months of patient work to produce efficient, practical proposals which the Government is preSared to accept. The committee has ad frequent consultations with the Government. It is understood that the scheme will be based on export prices. Although this will tend to keep up the retail price of meat in New Zealand, it is considered the only practicable way of assessing the necessary extent of a support price. A committee, which will probably have the same representation as the investigating committee, will fix the support price from time to time, and the administrative work will be done by the Meat Board.

The support price will probably be fixed weekly. Although this will mean a variation throughout the season in the support price, because of varying prices on overseas markets, it is considered to be a much more practical proposition than a lump sum payment at the end of a season. The scheme is much simpler than the one first suggested by the investigating committee. The original proposals envisaged support for a very- large range of grades of meat. It is believed that the scheme now worked out will have many fewer grades, and the system of payment will be much more streamlined. Finance for Scheme Technically, funds for the support price scheme will be provided out of the Meat Industry Reserve Account, at present containing about £40,000,000. In practice, the payment will come out of the Consolidated Fund. Details of the financial provisions of the scheme will, of course, be set out in the forthcoming legislation.

The scheme -will place an effective, buffer between the meat producer and wide fluctuations in overseas prices for

meat. It will restore to the industry a stability which disappeared when the bulk purchase contracts with Britain were ended. For the consumer of meat in New Zealand, however, it will remove what small chance there might be of a reduction in retail meat prices. • Because the support price will be fixed on export prices being received, all meat for home consumption will be bought at export prices. This means that a fall in overseas meat prices would not be reflected in retail prices in the Dominion.