Less buzz around the Beehive as Enza relocates

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor

Apple exporter Enza will abandon Wellington for the apple-growing heartland of Hawkes Bay - a move further reducing the presence of the once powerful producer boards on the political and national landscape.

Enza chairman Tony Gibbs said a smaller head office would be set up in Hawkes Bay as part of making the company more efficient.

"It is imperative that the company moves closer to its supply base and reduces its costs," he said.

The company, which exports most of the $600 million apple crop, plans to strengthen services in the other big growing area, Nelson, where it employs 60 permanent staff, and in Hastings, where it has about a hundred.

A spokesman said the number of head office redundancies was not known but $2.1 million had been budgeted for the relocation.

Enza employs about 80 staff in Wellington and its shift from leased offices in the capital, likely to occur around September, follows the proposed formation of the dairy mega co-op which would mean the departure of 600 Dairy Board staff from the board's Agriculture House on Lambton Quay.

The new corporate office of the tentatively named Global Dairy Co, which would have 8000 employees around New Zealand as well as 10,000 people overseas, will be in Auckland.

Enza is the result of the partial deregulation of the apple industry. Its forerunner was the Apple and Pear Marketing Board. GlobalCo would inevitably bring deregulation of the dairy industry, and the absorption into the company of its marketing arm, the Dairy Board.

An Enza spokesman said the change from being a producer board had not prompted the Hawkes Bay move.

"We want to be close to our supply base, not further away from politicians," he said.

But changing times for agricultural business has removed much of the need for farmer representatives to be near the seat of political power.

It has also occurred in the once most powerful producer boards - the Wool and Meat Boards.

Since their pre-eminence over several decades before the 1980s, the Meat and Wool Boards have shrunk dramatically. The few remaining Meat Board staff occupy a few floors in Wool House, which the Wool Board is preparing to sell.

Meat Board chairman John Acland is the son of a former Wool Board chairman, Sir Jack Acland.

He recounted an example of the power wielded by the the Meat and Wool Board chairmen in the 1970s for the book Meat Acts.

"Sir John Ormond [chairman of the Meat Board] and my father were brothers-in-law. Uncle John was very charismatic, very definite, very thump the bloody table.

"Dad was much quieter, so they were an excellent combination. And when they really wanted something from Government, they went up together. Once they went to see Henry Lang, who was Secretary of Treasury, and [Finance Minister Rob] Muldoon was there. He was very rude and abrupt and John Ormond said, 'Sit down, Muldoon, sit down. You do not control this country, Jack Acland and I control this country.' And it was so."

This year, as a much depleted wool industry moves to salvage a future from the remnants of its past, only a plan for the two producer boards to unite is likely to see them continue into the 21st century.