Fruitgrowers fear proposed new laws

Peach growers and canner Heinz Wattie's are one of many possibly affected by proposed changes to anti-dumping taxes. Photo / File

The proposed review of anti-dumping laws threatens Hawke's Bay jobs, says Heinz Wattie's managing director Mike Pretty.

The legislation represented "a real threat to Hawke's Bay".

Cabinet has agreed in principle to introduce a "bounded" public interest test into New Zealand's anti-dumping and anti-subsidised goods duties regime.

A discussion paper, proposing automatic termination periods (ATP) and wider consideration of public interest before implementation of duties, follows the removal of duties and tariffs on imported building materials announced in last year's Budget. The taxes were lifted following a study of the residential construction sector by the Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment to identify barriers to improved housing affordability, with special focus on the competitiveness and productivity of the sector.

If the current regime was changed, fruitgrowers and processors in Hawke's Bay would be "particularly vulnerable" to changes with significant flow-on effects within support industries, Mr Pretty said.

"It is also likely that the proposed reforms, if introduced, would lead to significant job losses in the region.

"Wattie's and the fruit industry in Hawke's Bay believe the current anti-dumping legislation already provides mechanisms and significant discretion to impose new, or terminate, existing anti-dumping duties. In particular, the minister already has the ability to terminate - even retrospectively - the imposition of an anti-dumping duty and has done so in the past.

"Dumping is illegal under the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Anti-Dumping and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures."

An ATP would provide for the automatic termination of a duty after a set time period. A public-interest test, including one-off events such as an earthquake, would allow competition and consumer welfare elements to be considered before taxes countering dumped or subsidised goods were imposed.

"At the heart of our concerns and those of growers and the representatives of the Hawke's Bay community is the fact that by the time the measures proposed of in the ATP regimes are implemented, the damage would be such that the entities worthy of protection will most certainly succumb to illegally dumped products and ceased to operate," Mr Pretty said.

A discussion paper option has a maximum imposition period, which local industry could use to adjust to future competition from dumped goods.

In Heinz Wattie's submission to the discussion paper, Mr Pretty said proposed criteria "appears to be subjective and open to interpretation and the unforeseen nature of future events" and the proposal compromised the integrity of the current regime.

Hawke's Bay Fruitgrowers' Association president Lesley Wilson said that it supported competition "but we can't compete against people just trying to dump fruit".

"At the same time we don't have county-of-origin labelling, so the consumer hasn't got the option of saying they are going to buy New Zealand-made to dissuade people from dumping."

She said the current regime was sufficient.

"We have to be competitive with the rest of the world - that is the way everything has been set up.

"What we don't want is cheap fruit coming in left, right and centre.

"We wouldn't be able to compete with a few hundred thousand cans of peaches turning up on the supermarket shelves for a dollar."