Candidates from National, Labour, NZ First, ACT, the Green Party and the Opportunity Party have faced off in front of a live audience at the Morrinsville Rugby and Sports Club for a special Q+A rural issues debate, moderated by Jack Tame.
When asked about recent rural job losses from the shuttering of large industrial employers like the Kaitaia Mill and processing plants in Tokoroa, NZ First’s Mark Patterson, minister for rural communities, acknowledged these were difficult examples, “but I utterly reject the fact that rural New Zealand is not actually thriving the way that I haven’t probably seen in my lifetime.”
He pointed to primary industries, tourism, and a recent surge in mining and prospecting permits in New Zealand as a boon for the South Island.
“We’re going to bring our miners back from Western Australia to the Otago goldfields," Patterson said.
Steve Abel was the only candidate in the room to say he believed New Zealand is too dependent on dairy. Dairy is New Zealand’s number one goods exports earner, accounting for around 2-3% of GDP.
“Dairy is, unfortunately, the most polluting industry in New Zealand in terms of water pollution, soil compaction, climate emissions, marine-coastal pollution.”
ACT’s Andrew Hoggard and NZ First’s Mark Patterson said they would be prepared to leave the Paris Agreement, which would require New Zealand to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has stated that Paris is a bottom line for the National Party in coalition negotiations.
National’s Todd McClay said he did not want to see farmers made to pay for their emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“We’re committed to be net zero by 2050, but if all we’re doing is piling costs upon farmers by tax, the food the world needs will be produced in less carbon-efficient countries, we become poorer, and the climate is worse off,” said McClay.
“The way to get productivity is science and innovation, not just purely taxing people.”
Asked to name a policy from Federated Farmers that the government hadn’t delivered, Hoggard – a former president of Federated Farmers – said he couldn’t recall.
“It’s all common sense,” said Hoggard.
Hoggard said he was seeing more pest deer than ever before on his own farm and told the crowd that ACT would tackle rising pest populations by letting game animal councils lead the response.
The Opportunity Party is campaigning on a 0.5% annual land value tax on farms. Asked if this setting would artificially incentivise farmers to intensify their land use, Opportunity deputy leader Daniel Eb agreed he wanted to see productive land made more productive.
“What we want to see is marginal land use actually retired and put into something like a biodiversity credit market,” said Eb. He said Opportunity also wanted a tax exemption for privately held conservation land.
Labour’s Jo Luxton was asked for Labour’s position on freshwater standards on farms, and on whether agriculture should be included in the Emissions Trading Scheme, but declined to answer, saying that Labour would announce its policies on these areas closer to the election. Early voting opens in seven weeks’ time.
Luxton was firmer on Labour’s potential coalition partners’ tax policies: “Unlike the current government, the tail would not wag the dog in a Labour government.”
Luxton said if National kept on with their ‘nine new taxes’ line, she would want to hear how National would be paying for its purchase of BNZ – a policy from its likely coalition partner NZ First which is slated to carry a price tag in the region $7.5 to $24 billion.
Te Pāti Māori was invited to attend but were unable to due to conflicting commitments at Koroneihana.
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
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