Ashburton pushing for sugar beet industry to create jobs

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 13

Ashburton pushing for sugar beet industry to create jobs

By

FRANK VEALE

Any hopes that may be harboured in Wellington that the sugar beet lobby from Mid-Canterbury will wither and die, as has been the experience from other areas, would have been crushed at a recent meeting of Ashburton's Business Development Committee. The committee voted to help the Canterbury Sugar Society which is seeking access to the New Zealand market for 40.000 tonnes of sugar produced from sugar beet to replace some of the 160.000 tonnes imported annuallv.

• The society received its latest knock-back from the Government in its eight years of searching last November, when the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Adams-Schneider) told the society that he could not assure it that contracts from traditional sources would not continue to be renewed.

Attempts to replace imported cane sugar with sugar beet in New Zealand are far from novel.

Napier. 1935; Bay of Plenty. 1937; Taranaki, 1938 and 1962; South Canterbury. 1941; South Otago, 1963 and 1976-77: are some of them. Mid-Canterbury's effort began in 1973. The Canterbury Sugar Development Society was registered in 1975. so it has proved to be the longest lasting effort so far.

The enthusiasm of its chairman, Mr F. W. Newton, shows no signs of abating and his enthusiasm seemed

to infect the last meeting of the 8.D.C.. which he attended to brief members. And the latest attempt to swing the Government into a more favourable stance is likely to be the strongest so far. The desire for more jobs in Canterbury has won support from further afield than Mid-Canterbury and has produced. in some cases, rare bedfellows. The Canterbury District Trades Council late last year wrote to Mr Newton asking for fresh information about the industrv.

Two years before, such an industrv was among a list of proposed schemes promoted by South Island trades’ councils to provide more employ-, ment. It was now renewing its effort and Mr Newton duly supplied the required information.

Employers are keen too. The Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association has lent similar weight, and the project is to be taken up again by the Canterbury Promotion Council.

A sugar beet industry was promoted by the promotion council's forerunner, the Canterbury Progress League, of which the Business Development Committees chairman, Mr D. S. McKenzie, was then a member.

The Business Development Committee with its Enterprise Board was set up by the Ashburton Borough Council last year under the guidance of the Otago-based

Business Development Centre.

The aim of the committee is to foster business and employment in Ashburton and to attract new enterprises to the area in answer to unemployment figures, the latest of which reveal 350 persons without work.

The sugar beet issue is the first major project it has put its weight behind. Mr Newton estimates that 250 fulltime jobs would be provided at a sugar beet processing factory, which would probably be sited in or near the borough. Because of sugar beet's

growing cycle, another 250 seasonal vacancies would occur at a time when unemployment peaks each year. More jobs would be created from such activities as beet seed production, lime and coal supply and the maintenance of sowing, harvesting and transport equipment as well as the processing factory. Mr Newton says the S6OM needed to set up the plant has a better money input to job creation ratio than the planned second smelter; even considering only the 250 permanent beet factory jobs. The beet processing factory, if it was built from scratch, would create one job for every $240,000 of capital cost, compared with one'job for every $600,000 in the case of the smelter. The construction of the factory is one of the factors that has brought interest in the project from outside Ashburton.

Most of the work would be beyond the scope of local engineering companies and would provide a much needed shot in the arm for bigger companies based elsewhere.

Ashburton's business committee is convinced that the project should be pursued. Conscious of its non-politi-cal stance, the committee decided that submissions would be prepared with Mr Newton’s help and supplied to each of the three political parties represented in Parliament.

The society has been caught in a Catch-22 position with the Government’s attitude. It wants an assurance that it would receive a 40.000 tonne share of the market simply so that it can embark on a full feasibility study. While Mr Newton has been confident of the project’s viability in his statements in the past, and studies have been done on it. a full study would be required before the industry could be floated in earnest.

The 40,000 tonne mark is seen as a reachable goal by the society and a final tonnage is needed on which to base a feasibility study. The cost of a full feasibility study could not be justified if there was no likelihood of the society gaining entry to the market, Mr Newton says. However, if the Government did accede to that, it would still hold a trump card at the other end. What New Zealand • actually pays for its sugar remains the secret of the Government and C.S.R., which wholly owns the New Zealand Sugar Company, the sole domestic supplier. That price needs to be known, Mr Newton has maintained. but repeated attempts to secure it have failed. It is believed that an approach has been made to the Ombudsman in an attempt to have it revealed. Mr McKenzie, at the Business Development Committee meeting, pulled no punches over what he sees as

•another nation meddling with the future of Mid-Canter-bury. C.S.R. is Australian owned and Mr Adams-Schneider has made no secret of the fact that sugar is being used as barter in the Closer Economic Relations talks. "I would say that New Zealanders are being held to ransom by C.S.R. They are the importers of cane sugar and operators of the Chelsea refinery,” said Mr McKenzie.

The Canterbury Sugar Development Society had repeatedly asked the Government. not for money, but for access- to the market, he said. " The committee would no doubt agree that'C.S.R. is applying pressure to protect its interests.” The society has already received another set-back this year at the hands of the Government. After the society’s request

was refused in November, representatives of the business committee were told by the. Minister that he would meet with the society again in the new year. February was mentioned, but a check of the Minister s office last week revealed that he would not have been available until at least March. Mr Newton says the Government is "playing for more time.”

For Mr Newton it is an old battle, but still one that he considers worth fighting. The Business Development Committee will breathe fresh life into the fight, but it could hardly have chosen a more difficult task historically. The scheme has not been rejected by the Government on the grounds of viability and Mr McKenzie hopes that it will become a political issue this election year. ■'