No meat funds to save Southdown

Press, 20 October 1980, Page 12

No meat funds to save Southdown

Wellington reporter The Meat Board will not use tnonev from itsj $lOO million plus meat industry reserve account to keep the Southdown meat works in South Auckland open. . The suggestion hacr been made by the former national secretary of the Breezing Workers’ Association (now! part of the Meat Workers’ Union), Mr H. G. Kilpatrick. 6 The board says it accepts the. decision of the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Company that Southdown is in thq wrong place for a meat pro-> cessing works, and that needs $2O million spent tq maintain it as a works able to export to Europe under the E.E.C. hygiene regu-j lations.

Indeed, if the board- did help the company to i.kecp Southdown open, it -would set a precedent for, approaches from other meat exporters for similar -help. The meat industry reserve account .would not long: survive such demands. Further, when seeking permission from the Miniister of Agriculture (Mr. Maclntyre) to spend account funds, the board has to show _the investment potential of th? funds. To spend S2O million; on Southdown would simply keep it going, as at present, and 'would return nothing on the investment because as a going concern Southdown is losing money. , '

The company is - already the board’s biggest single debtor. It owes the meat industry reserve account $6.3 million now, a sum which

'covers all its works. 16 has; not approached the bioard for more money to save Southdown. , i The Meat Board itself i has ifto draw on meat industry reserve account funds most i years to fund the deficit! be- , Itween its own levy income ; from export meat and ■ its stotal expenditure. t Mr Kilpatrick had argued that the board was set up in i 1922 to protect the producera* and national interest in I the meat industry.' Now >vas rtthe time to use- ressrve ; funds to . help the people ; who helped create and sfcis--1 tain the funds, he sa>d. ■ “It is time we did rrnich Smore for the industrial and social refugees in our own ' —M—— —II Il ■»» II

I country,” he said, “Why waste skills' it nas taken years ito acquire?" The# executive of the meat and wool section of North' Canterbury' Federated Farmers opposes any propping-up of uneconomic freezing works. . “We would very strongly oppose any action that would inhibit the efficiency of Ithe freezing industry.” sai<j the chairman of the section, Mr E. W. Turrell, referring to discussions that thei Government will have over the closing of Southdown. (Keeping uneconomic works open must reflect in the return to farmers, Mr iTurrell said.