Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor defends Shane Jones' attack on Fonterra

Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor speaks to dairy farmers at Federated Farmers' annual conference. Photo / Lucy Bennett

Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor has defended his Cabinet colleague Shane Jones' attack on Fonterra, telling dairy farmers that if they don't speak up, the Government will.

O'Connor spoke to farmers at Federated Farmers' annual conference in Wellington today.
He told the roomful of dairy farmers that Fonterra needed to "step up to the mark and be a little more astute in some of their management and investment decisions".

Taranaki farmer Mark Hooper told O'Connor it was "pretty unique" that shareholder issues such as management, investment decisions and governance structure of a company were debated in political and public forums.

"Is that not, in normal circumstances, the responsibility of the shareholders to discuss those issues?"

"If you don't discuss it, we will," O'Connor responded.

"This is a company that's too important to New Zealand.

"We'll make comment as we do on lots of companies. It happens, most of us have opinions."

Jones' comments on the leadership of Fonterra two weeks ago were not uninformed, as some had suggested.

"Like hell it was. It was a very informed comment by my colleague Mr Jones. He comes off a small dairy farm up near Kaitaia. He's been around, he talks to people," O'Connor said.

"What's the counter? Is he right or wrong? What do you think? Haven't heard anything."

O'Connor also questioned the membership of the Fonterra board, noting that it included two former staff of PwC, the company that audited Fonterra, and one from First New Zealand Capital.

"If you're comfortable with that, that's fine. I'd be uneasy if was a shareholder in Fonterra in thinking of the direction."

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones had a go at the leadership of the dairy giant at a Fieldays event on June 13, calling for chairman John Wilson to follow chief executive Theo Spierings out the door.

"They should focus less on interfering in politics and more on justifying the money they've lost overseas. I believe that they have become disconnected from the farming community.

"The leadership of Fonterra, I believe, starting with the chairman, is full of its own importance and has become disconnected."

He said there was an absolute absence of accountability for the "enormous amounts of dough" that the current chairman had presided over.

Jones said later that farmers backed him and had left messages of support on his phone.