While being supportive of an open global economy, the NZFGA said it does not support any change to the status quo and would again raise the question: If competing imported product has to be sold at below cost, or are subsidised by the government of the country origin, where is the need to tilt the playing field in their favour against local manufacturers or producers and local jobs? 

Currently, there are 38 NZ national bodies supporting the ‘CoOL’ concept, and NZFGA contends that it is contradictory to be undertaking a ‘Bounded Public Interest Test’ on anti-dumping and countervailing which is bound to harm sections of the economy and reduce local employment when what many would see as a basic right to have Country of Origin Labelling is denied to the public of NZ. 

Additionally, it suggests that if duties were not applied during periods of ‘public interest assessment’, it would provide a perceived gap in the legislation allowing dumped or subsidised goods onto the market for periods of up to 60 days or more without penalty. 

In its submission, the NZFGA said one of its main concerns was that local consumers are denied access to a lot of key information because NZ does not have ‘country of origin labelling’, saying that it is one of only eight countries globally who do not have Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL). The industry body added that this country’s own food and drug administration is done jointly with Australia, yet is out-of-line with Australia on Country of Origin Labelling. 

The industry body suggests that MBIE consider that, should a bounded public interest test be introduced and administered at the discretion of the Minister, smaller producers of products would suffer. Small groups of manufacturers and producers are generally not able to present a strong voice to the relevant government departments and could be easily set aside by Crown Ministers for any opportunity to build political points with the consuming public of NZ.

Ultimately, the NZFGA believes the NZ government should do as the Australian government did and reject the concept of a bounded public interest test into the anti-dumping and countervailing duties regime and again, as the Australian government did, streamline, make it easier and where possible reduce costs so that more NZ producers take action against dumped and subsidised goods.