Undercutting denied by Dairy Board

Press, 30 November 1982, Page 27

Undercutting denied by Dairy Board

PA ' Wellington The Dairy Board has denied that it under-cut Australia’s butter exports to Hong Kong. “There is. no substance to the claim,” said a spokesman for the board, Mr Neville Martin, commenting on an assertion by a Victorian Labour senator, Mr Cyril Primmer. Senator Primmer asked in the Canberra Senate that the matter be investigated by the Australian Trade and Resources Minister, Mr Doug Anthony, on the basis that New'. Zealand action to increase its market share would prejudice the agreement reached in both dairy industries, pending the closer economic relationship. ■ “The fact is that, in Hong Kong, the Australians have been leading the market down but we have never gone lower than the Australians,” said Mr Martin. "One major Australian

brand was sold under the New Zealand price. It is not true we have been underselling them,” he said. He also disputed Senator. Primmer’s allegation that New Zealand butter sold at sAustlsl4 ($2014) under-cut Australia’s price by sAustsoo (¥665). New Zealand’s butter price could be $5OO under the Australian pool price, but it was ludicrous to say that that was the case in Hong Kong, said Mr Martin. Australia had been forced out of the Hong Kong market by drought and lack of production in the last few years, and New Zealand had made nd secret of the fact that it had sought to increase its share in the market.

“In the last year, Australia had (butter) production, and tried to get back into the market.

“One gathers they have been underselling to get back into it,” he said.