NEW ZEALAND-DAIRY FARMING.
It’s getting increasingly lonely out here in the rural sector. Almost daily we can read about more money for Auckland, more motorways for the cities, more money for city broadband users but, correspondingly, no money or recognition for farming.
It gets worse with our key to the future, the Fast Forward Fund being wound up, no doubt to pay for Auckland motorways or Wellington broadband.
When Fast Forward was announced it had several partners, DairyNZ, Fonterra, Meat and Wool NZ, PGG Wrightson, Zespri and the Meat Industry Association all joining up to make their contribution. The then Minister of Agriculture, Jim Anderton envisaged the fund topping $2 billion.
While not being able to comment on the latter figure the start-up$700 million was firmly ensconced in MAF coffers, alas, no longer. What has it been replaced with? Nothing.
It gets worse. We had the Trade Minister, Tim Groser in Masterton recently. He gave an interesting speech twice telling the rural audience that tourism was our greatest export earner. While not wishing to detract from the tourism industry they claim an annual contribution to the economy of $6.2 billon and that is not an audited figure to the extent farm earnings are.
Dairying alone earns $10.4 billion and, according to the MAF website, meat, dairy, wool, horticulture and forestry earn $23.5 billion and that’s in hard, audited dollars, not "contribution to the economy". For all that tourism gets a government subsidy, farming gets nothing. Of further interest is that with last year classified as a recession year agricultural production actually increased from $21.7 billion to $23.5, not an insignificant feat albeit unheralded and unrecognised.
Further, in the recently released GDP figures agriculture increased 4% in final quarter of last year with manufacturing declining by a similar amount. When manufacturer Fisher and Paykel’s share price stumbled we had lots of soothing words from the government about saving "iconic" companies. There was nothing for the productive sector that is working its butt off. Someone should tell the clowns in Wellington that people will eat long before they travel or buy new dishwashers.
We also hear that the government is going to invest $1.5 billion in super fast broadband to 75% of the country which means, again, the rural sector will miss out. On Rural Report of April 1 (appropriate) we heard the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce tell us that he’ll be improving rural back-haul because that is the problem. Rubbish. In Wairarapa we have wireless broadband, which we paid for, and fibre from Masterton. That’s an initiative from a farming family, the Cannings, no government largesse anywhere.
Then our research and development tax cuts get wiped as an "unaffordable luxury". Minister of Finance Bill English’s excuse was that "no business he talked to wanted it". He obviously hadn’t talked to the rural sector.
Sadly, what that’s telling the community is that Auckland counts, rural NZ doesn’t. Columnist Matthew Hooton commenting in NBR claimed: "The new mayor, (of Auckland)’ will rival the Prime Minister for political power in NZ and it is to the government’s credit that it so speedily endorsed the proposal."
We’ve already had Auckland saying it needs a taxpayer subsidy to complete the so-called reforms and they’ll be getting a further six cents a litre on my petrol bill as well which I believe is an unwarranted tax on the productive sector. And this was from a city that wouldn’t put money to the Rugby World Cup because NZ would get the benefit. As I’ve previously written, the "super city" is bad news for the rural sector.
The Fast Forward Fund told our scientists, business people and school leavers that we had a government prepared to invest in our future and that agriculture was the way of the future. We now have a government with an opposite view. Reality is that agriculture will lead us out of recession; no other sector has that capability.
What irritates me most is that there’s no-one standing up for rural NZ. Feds’ Donald Aubrey did stand up for rural broadband but what about the Fast Forward Fund, tax credits, subsidies to manufacturing, further subsidies to tourism and the planned mega-city of Auckland?
There’s been a dearth of rural leadership on the current goings on in government and that has enabled the government to trample over us and support others to our detriment.
