‘Meat moves not intended to hurt N.Z.’

Press, 13 November 1981, Page 2

‘Meat moves not intended to hurt N.Z.’

NZPA staff correspondent Washington A United States congressman who has led a drive for stricter meat import regulations said yesterday that he had no intention of harming the trade of New Zealand and Australia. However, Mr Glenn English said that he was determined to see imported meat subjected to the same hygiene standards as meat produced in the United States. “I want equity — that is all,” he told the NZPA in an interview at Capitol Hill. Fears expressed in New Zealand and Australia, the United States’ two biggest suppliers of foreign meat, that measures he was promoting would halt all imports were unfounded, Mr English said. “I do not think any New Zealand or Australian exporter who wants to ship meat to the United States would have any difficulty complying with the provisions of my amendment, even if it was carried out in the strictest of terms,” he said. Mr English, an Oklahoma Democrat, sponsored an amendment to the 1981 Farm Bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives last month, calling for a ban on imported meat produced with the use of chemicals or drugs which are prohibited in the United States. A similar amendment, although sterner in its word,ing, had previously been passed by the Senate. New Zealand and Australia, which use different farm chemicals from those used in the United States said the moves

could effectively halt their exports of beef, veal, and lamb to the United States. The architect of the Senate move, Senator John Melcher (Democrat,- Montana) last week agreed to a compromise proposed by the Agriculture Department at a joint conference committee of both houses of Congress. The committee is trying to reconcile differences in the two versions of the Farm Bill passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The compromise would leave the meat, import system virtually untouched, but Mr English will not agree with it, saying, “It is full of holes.” Late yesterday he talked with Senator Melcher and representatives of American cattlemen (who favour import restrictions) and meat importers (who do not) in a bid to find wording all could agree on. He indicated to the NZPA that he was prepared to drop his references to chemicals and drugs used in the “production” of meat exported to the United States, provided there were stricter- slaugh-ter-house tests for residues of chemicals banned in the United States. “I just want to make sure that whatever meat comes here is subject to the same standards as meat produced in the United States,” he said. The New Zealand Ambassador, Mr Frank -Gill, who has kept a watching brief at the conference committee for the last two days, told the NZPA that New Zealand should have no difficulty meeting requirements on residual testing.