inquiry to examine wheat importation

Press, 23 April 1987, Page 3

inquiry to examine wheat importation

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

An emergency protection authority has been appointed by the Government to inquire into the need for emergency measures against the importation of wheat Last month United Wheatgrowers N.Z., Ltd, asked the Government for such an inquiry on behalf of wheatgrowers' This was on top of action already being taken by the Customs Department to inquire into the alleged dumping and subsidy of Australian wheat imports.

It was clear that New Zealand wheatgrowers were facing a particularly difficult time, said the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill.

This was the result of the combination of the deregulation of the wheat industry, low world wheat

prices, and adverse domestic economic conditions. The case wheatgrowers had put to the Government was a complicated one. It raised a number of important issues, and the Government agreed that these should be considered by an independent advisory body. Mr Caygill said he would recommend to the Governor-General that Mr John Bull, of Christchurch, be appointed the emergency protection authority. Mr Bull was a member of the Industries Development Commission and a former president of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association. Under the Industries Development Commission Act, Mr Bull would have 30 days to report to the Government on action, if any, that it should take to

protect wheatgrowers. One of the difficulties Mr Bull and the Government would face, Mr Caygill. said, was the constraint on New Zealand’s freedom of action on products imported from Australia. There were now no tariffs or quantitative restrictions placed on wheat imported from Australia. Articles 4 and 5 of the C.E.R. agreement prohibited either country from imposing restrictions on the other country once such restrictions had been removed.

This was a fundamental principle of C.E.R., he said, which it was certainly not in New Zealand’s interests to breach. But New Zealand was at liberty to consult Australia to see whether any other avenue of redress might be available.