Charges now served on Premium Flowers for Illegal Imports.

It was in July 2013 that the NZ Flower Growers Association record they first became aware of allegations that ‘Premium Flowers’ of Auckland had illegally imported 6 large boxes of Asters from Malaysia labelled and documented as another flower type.

According to NZFGA, an investigation into the allegations was launched by MPI and during 2014 the Association claims representatives requested progress updates from MPI on the investigation.  Finally on the 18^th December 2014 in reply to a letter sent by the association on the 3^rd of December 2014, an answer was received from Andrew Coleman Chief Operations Manager for MPI confirming that the investigation was complete and that the file was with the MPI legal team awaiting review and a decision to prosecute or not. The NZ Flower Growers Association received a letter on 18^th May from Dean Baigent, Director of Compliance at MPI, confirming that charges had been formally laid against Premium Flowers.

Association executive members reflect that the above seems to have been an excessive amount of time required by MPI to get to the point of serving charges:

• As results were unknown for such a long time, it was suspected by many that the illegal importation may have been continuing. This according to NZFGA caused concern for those trading in flowers [and in other plant sectors] as to the intent or effectiveness of MPI in dealing with such cases. The idea that illegal trade continued has since been refuted and shown to be incorrect.

• The persistence of the NZ Flower Growers Association’s ‘watchdog role’ in continuing to pursue this matter with MPI over almost a two year period is likely to have been a contributing factor to the resolution and prosecution of the case.

To discuss any aspect of this report by NZFGA please direct correspondence to [email protected]