Damien O’Connor
MP for West Coast-Tasman
Spokesperson for Primary Industries

MEDIA STATEMENT

21 September 2016

Silver Ferns Farms decision a tragedy

The rubber stamping by the Overseas Investment Office of the Shanghai Maling buyout of Silver Fern Farms is a sorry day for the once proud New Zealand meat sector, says Labour’s spokesperson for Primary Industries, Damien O’Connor.

“Generations of Kiwis have worked and battled to ensure New Zealand farmers can benefit from their hard work in the dry stock farming sector.

“But the sad lessons of the past with foreign ownership in the meat industry have been forgotten by this latest bunch of leaders and managers of the cooperative Silver Ferns farms. It seems they were determined to seek an easy bail out by Chinese investors.

“I applaud the efforts of all those farmers who have been prepared to oppose this takeover, but unfortunately at the end of the day, the directors, the Chinese investors and the National Government have been determined to handover our single biggest single meat company to foreign owners,” says Damien O’Connor.

ends

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