Dissatisfaction with drill duties spreads

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 12

Dissatisfaction with drill duties spreads

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, thinks a Government decision to reinstate duties on imported airfeed seed drills was unsatisfactory. In reply to a questioner at the annual conference in Christchurch of the Town Milk Producers’ Federation, Mr Moyle explained that the reinstatement was necessary in a transitional period before reform of the taxation system. “With the imposition of goods and services tax many sales taxes and duties will be substantially reduced," he said. “We are in a transitional period that has to be managed very carefully to make sure that local manufacturing is not unduly upset.

“When the new system is in place I expect to see a wider range of equipment and machinery available to farmers at competitive prices. "After all, that is what this reform is about,” he said. But arable farmers are not happy with being told that tariff reform will have to await the introduction of GST.

“Arable farmers in North Canterbury do not accept that any duty or tariff should be placed on equipment essential to the pro-

duction of their crops when the Government has been so swift in demanding that their products be subject to international competition from the coming harvest,” said Mr Bill Thompson, chairman of the agriculture section of North Canterbury Federated Farmers.

Mr Thompson was writing to the Minister of Customs, Mrs Shields, protesting about the reintroduction earlier this year of a 25 per cent duty on imported Vicon and Accord seed drills. The letter pointed out that the sales manager of a local seed drill manufacturer had claimed that imported drills would be significantly more expensive than local ones.

“This illustrates that local manufacturers have nothing to fear by the removal of duties,” said Mr Thompson.

“Farmers will buy the cheaper equipment provided it performs. “We suspect that the only reason duty is being charged is as a source of Government revenue to fund non-productive sectors.

“We believe each farmer is paying a net of $12,000 a year because of the protected industrial structure,” he said.

The past chairman of the agriculture section, Mr

George Hutton, said last week that it was unfortunate that farmers’ representatives and newspaper articles on this subject were not mentioning what he felt was the strongest element of the farmers’ argument.

It was that the duty had originally been removed from Vicon and Accord seed drills because they were air-feed drills, superior to anything produced locally and in fact not matched by any New Zealand-made drill.

But in her letter advising why the duty was reinstated after only a short time and upon a complaint from a local manufacturer, P. and D. Duncan, Ltd, Mrs Shields acknowledged that the imported drills were superior but argued that this did not justify removal of the protection afforded the local manufacturers.

Replying to Mr Hutton, Mr Thompson said his dilemma was whether to argue on the principle of how much farmers were having to support other sectors, through border protection, or to zero in on the particular decision over the Vicon and Accord drills.

Copies of Mr Thompson’s latest letter have been sent to the Ministers of Agriculture and Trade and Industry.