Minister at last wheat meeting

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 17

Minister at last wheat meeting

As Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr AdamsSchneider was in Christchurch this week attending his last meeting as chairman of the Wheat Board. He is retiring as a member of Parliament and will give up his present office when a new Cabinet is appointed after the elections at the end of the month. Mr Adams-Schneider recalled after the meeting that he had been associated with the wheat industry for 14 years of the 15 years he had served as a parliamentary undersecretary or Minister. One of the most important developments in that period, he said, had been the introduction of the new pricing system for wheat, a very realistic one which enabled the New Zealand growers to achieve world prices as opposed to the old system under which the price was set in a rather ad hoc way with the government making the final decision, which was difficult to reach.

While the new system had the strong support of growers and appeared to be working very satisfactorily, he said that it had had the effect of putting up the prices of end products of the industry and for that reason the board was looking veryhard at quality aspects and transport costs and methods to try to combat that effect. One of the memories that Mr Adams-Schneider has of his dealings with the board was an occasion when Mr L. C. Dunshea was general manager. Mr AdamsSchneider was involved in a day of negotiations in Wellington over the wheat price. He was deputising that day for Mr N. L. Shelton, who had suffered an accident. Mr Dunshea was on his way to Wellington on the Wahine on the occasion of the storm that resulted in the sinking of the ferry steamer and Mr Dunshea did not finally reach the meeting until the following day. by which time a decision had been reached on the price.

Looking into the future of the industry, Mr AdamsSchneider thinks that the wheat industry in New Zealand, even under proposals for closer economic relationships with Australia, will still go along very much as it has in the past, but he added that it was hot possible to be categorical on that point. Certainly the aim was for duty-free and import licencefree trade between the two countries, he said, but for certain products agreement had to be worked out and in the case of the wheat industry he said he felt that there was a recognition in both countries that this was an industry it was desirable that New Zealand should have. Mr Adams-Schneider said that at this week’s meeting of the board tributes had been paid to the late Mr P. B. Marshall, for his work for the wheat industry. A former secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry, he served as deputy-chairman of the board.