Meat Board to seek levy on domestic sales

Press, 18 August 1979, Page 7

Meat Board to seek levy on domestic sales

PA Wellington The Meat Board wants to improve its finances at the cost of a small rise in meat prices. Housewives would pay about 1c a kilogram more if the board’s proposal to levy meat killed for the domestic market is approved by the Government. The board intends to levy the farmer for the money, just as it does now for all export meat, but it accepts that the levy will be passed on. “It is an infinitesimal amount,” the board's chairIman (Mr Charles Hilgendorf) [has said. The board's promotion Avork overseas directly beneI fited all fanners but only I two-thirds of their stock I were levied to pay for it, he said. i Meat killed for the local

market had always had that slightly lower price advantage for the consumer. However, the Meat Retailers’ Federation opposes the board's levy proposal. The executive director (Mr Donald Fyfe) said yesterday that the board’s argument was not valid.

The Meat Act prohibited the board from entering the local market to promote meat. “The consumers will get no benefit from the price rise,” he said. Even though the rise would be tiny, the federation was still opposed to the principle that consumers pay the Meat Board more. The federation had been largely responsible for the rejection by the Cabinet of a previous attempt to extend' : the meat levy two years ago, Mr Fyfe said. Its stand had not changed.