Latest / Best of Business / Jamie Mackay: The Country host on New Zealand Merino investigating alleged animal welfare violations

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Jamie Mackay: The Country host on New Zealand Merino investigating alleged animal welfare violations · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about rule issues. Jamie mackay as the host
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: of the Country. How is it being back at work?
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  Speaker 3: Jamie, Oh, I'm looking. I got I needed a holiday
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: from the holiday. Andrew it's been good.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Good, good good. But it's Onnly Thursday. This week's gone
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: on forever. But there we go. So we've got two
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  Speaker 2: farms that have been suspended from the New Zealand Marinos
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  Speaker 2: Q quality standards. A play program which is a long name.
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  Speaker 2: Some undercover videos appeared to show animal welfare breaches.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is from Peter, the animal activist group. So
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  Speaker 3: look at New Zealand Marinos launching an independent investigation, as
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  Speaker 3: is MPI, as is the New Zealand Sharing Contractors Association.
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand Marino chair Kate Mitchell said. The footage, and
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  Speaker 3: we've seen it on the news, shows people standing on
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  Speaker 3: sheep's next, grabbing sheep or dragging sheep across the floor
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  Speaker 3: or the board of the sharing shared sewing up a
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  Speaker 3: bloody wound without painkillers. We used to do that all
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  Speaker 3: the time, but times have changed and Basically, she's saying
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  Speaker 3: these aren't up to the values and practices of the
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  Speaker 3: six hundred farms that are part of this is z
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  Speaker 3: Q program. Look, the best commentary I thought came from
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  Speaker 3: a woman by the name of Jills Angus Bernie. Hello Jills,
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  Speaker 3: if you're listening. She's a lawyer, was once held the
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  Speaker 3: world women's world sharing record five hundred and forty one
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  Speaker 3: lambs and nine hours, so she knows what she's doing.
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  Speaker 3: That's a lot, Andrew, you just tried dragging that many
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  Speaker 3: out and shucking them down the porthole. So she said, Look,
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  Speaker 3: she's not surprised Peter has targeted New Zealand sheep sharers
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  Speaker 3: because it did the same thing in Australia. But what
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  Speaker 3: she's saying, and it's true, is that behavior or standards
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  Speaker 3: have improved drastically over the recent decades. And once again
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  Speaker 3: I can speak to this with a bit of experiance. Andrew,
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  Speaker 3: forty years ago I was sharer, and they're certainly the
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  Speaker 3: standards are much better than they were back in those states.
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  Speaker 3: And she points out that when it comes to marinos
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  Speaker 3: as opposed to our crossbread sheet, you know, the Romney's,
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  Speaker 3: the Coopworths, or whatever. Look, they're wrinkly creatures. They've got
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  Speaker 3: fine wool. Nick st happen. They have three times as
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  Speaker 3: many capillaries as the British breeds, the likes of the Romneys,
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  Speaker 3: so you do occasionally get more cups, even with the
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  Speaker 3: best of will. So look, I think you know the
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  Speaker 3: industry itself polices this. If I've seen the footage. If
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  Speaker 3: a farmer was in the shed when that happened, the
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  Speaker 3: sharer or sharer's concerned would be sacked. They'd be they'd
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  Speaker 3: be out the door straight away, and a good contractor
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  Speaker 3: would sack sharer's behaving like that. So I think they've
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  Speaker 3: cherry picked some of the worst behavior. You know, there's
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  Speaker 3: bad eggs and every basket.
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  Speaker 2: But going forward, we hope for an outbreak of common sense,
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  Speaker 2: which is rare these days, but there we have it.
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  Speaker 2: Some shareholders of the Alliance Group are worried about what
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  Speaker 2: might happen if the cooperative fails to raise you capital.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the Alliance Group's been in the news obviously
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  Speaker 3: in recent times. They've suffered a couple of big losses.
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  Speaker 3: They need to raise two hundred million. They announced it
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  Speaker 3: last month's annual meeting down in South and that they
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  Speaker 3: paused their capital raising program through livestock production and the
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  Speaker 3: issuing of new shares. Look, I'm not saying they're running
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  Speaker 3: out of rope. The sheep meat industries on the improve
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  Speaker 3: this year, but if they can't get someone to front
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  Speaker 3: up with two hundred million dollars, and I'm not sure
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  Speaker 3: the banks will, they may have to look at a
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  Speaker 3: hybrid farmer cooperative cooperative ownership model, a bit like silver
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  Speaker 3: Fern Farms, or just put the whole shooting works on
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  Speaker 3: the blocker and sell it. Whether there would be a buyer,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think so. The other players in the market
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  Speaker 3: would like to pick up their shares or their plants,
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  Speaker 3: perhaps through attrition. Andrew Morrison's leading the group. He's the
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  Speaker 3: former chair of Beef and Land New Zealand. He raised
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  Speaker 3: a good point the most successful co op in this
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  Speaker 3: country is Tatua Dery in Morrinsville. Forty four percent of
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  Speaker 3: a farmer's total enterprise is and shares Fontera It's ten percent.
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  Speaker 3: Alliance at the moment is only sitting at zero point
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  Speaker 3: six percent. So he's arguing if you want a strong cooperative,
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  Speaker 3: you've got to put your money where your mouth is
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  Speaker 3: and invest in it.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff Daie McKay from the Country, dot co dot
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  Speaker 2: ed z.
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