This paper has been prepared by ACIL Economics and Policy Pty Ltd (ACIL) and Tasman Asia Pacific Pty Ltd (Tasman) for the New Zealand Business Roundtable (NZBR). The paper is intended to provide further insights into the agricultural marketing issues raised by ACIL in an earlier report and subsequently developed through valuation work on dairy industry assets by Ireland, Wallace and Associates.

Those earlier reports argued that the types of agricultural marketing arrangements which have emerged in New Zealand — particularly ‘bundling’ and other forms of systematic cross-subsidies between the economic activities of industry marketing authorities Ñ have distorted production patterns and incentives for innovation in a way that is detrimental to the interests of those operating in the industries.