Labour’s agricultural spokesperson, Jo Luxton, has a hard job in politics. She has to win friends in a farming community that often tends to be Tory almost by default. She has to do as much as or more than her predecessor, Damien O’Connor, who had 30 years in parliament and two separate stints as cabinet minister to learn the tricks of the trade.
And she has to somehow move on from a drawn-out battle between farmer groups and the previous government, which ended in stalemate.
But she has the advantage of a temporary “blank slate” on rural policies, a recognition of the vital role of the primary sector in the economy at large, and a readiness to learn what farmers want.
“I think you just have to be willing to listen and be open to the conversations that they have with you around the pressures that they face,” she says.
As a small business owner in the early childhood sector, Luxton is not exactly a daughter of the paddock. But she lives in rural Mid Canterbury and has had two stints in farming, once as a child on a farm at Ngakuru, near Rotorua, and five years as the wife of a dairy farmer in the Bay of Plenty and the South Island.
“I didn’t get up at 5am every day to milk the cows – my husband did – but I certainly understand the pressures and the different requirements when you are out on the farm,” she says.
“For example, it’s calving time, and it’s late at night, and you have to go out into the paddocks to check the cows to make sure they are not having any difficulties. I think this gives you an understanding of the challenges farmers face.”
Luxton has another advantage. Around 90% of all primary production is exported, and Labour supports trade deals just as much as National. Luxton says she would be delighted if current negotiations for a free trade agreement with India are successful.
“We are all supportive of doubling our exports in 10 years,” she says, referring to a National Party pledge.
Luxton has approached Agriculture Minister Todd McClay to try to smooth out some policy differences. The context for this is deep public resentment at three-year flip flops in parliament, which can be damaging to ordinary members of society who are trying to develop long-term plans.
“I approached him a couple of months back … and asked if we could have a conversation about areas where we might be able to agree and provide some certainty and longevity of policy and regulation for farmers,” she says.
“He seems open to it and thought that we could just start off with some small things, and I said to him I think that’s great.”
Luxton admits, though, that this process is in its early stages.
Before it lost power, the last Labour government was bogged down in conflict with farmer groups on several fronts. One area was government opposition to new irrigation schemes. Another was the empowerment of local councils to curtail farming on land that was deemed a significant natural area.
There was an extra problem with tough winter grazing rules. Farming groups said these would penalise careful farmers who need to protect grass growth on vulnerable slopes in winter, on the basis of highly publicised mistreatment of animals by a neglectful few.
There was also the threatened inclusion of farmers in the Emissions Trading Scheme. Then there were stock exclusion rules under freshwater regulations, which were condemned as unworkable. There was also a requirement for a lot of paperwork, which could make the pen and the desktop important pieces of farm equipment, like a tractor or milking shed.
There is some resentment in the Labour Party as to just how adamant farm groups were in opposition to all this. Party members argued many of these reforms were necessary for environmental reasons. They would have an extra benefit in protecting New Zealand products from being undermined in foreign marketplaces by disingenuous attacks from commercial rivals.
But at any rate, many of these changes brought in by the last government have been either reversed or put on hold by the current administration.
Luxton is keeping her powder dry on the merits of these arguments, or perhaps the party as a whole is keeping it dry for her.
“We don’t have policy in the agricultural space at the moment and we’ve got time to develop policy over the next 12 months or so. I guess since we’ve come into opposition, the focus is around building relationships and listening to farmers and finding out what they might want from us when we’re next in government.
“From there, we will look to develop our policy on things that we can work together on.”
Luxton won’t be drawn on why she was chosen to replace O’Connor, who had been the face of agriculture for Labour for much of his three decades in parliament. That was a matter for the leader, Chris Hipkins, she says, though she adds she let Hipkins know she would be interested in the job.
Meanwhile, aged 51, she is a decade and a half younger than O’Connor, and is far more likely to be a potential cabinet minister after the next election or the subsequent one than O’Connor would be,
She entered Parliament in 2017 and is a list MP. She is an active member of the Primary Production Select Committee, which she formerly chaired. She also works hard to get fellow party members better acquainted with agriculture.
“The last government did get a bit of a bad rap from some farmer groups, such as Federated Farmers. Perhaps it was wrong to say we should not have all those irrigation schemes, when some farmers thought they needed to keep their productivity up.”
So, does that mean there should be more irrigation?
“I am not saying that, we don’t have a policy at the moment. I am open to having those conversations and discussions with people, but I’m not committing to anything at this stage because we don’t have any policy, we’ve pretty much got a blank slate now.”
Luxton has been seen by some commentators as being on the right of the Labour Party spectrum. National MP Miles Anderson actually declared she was really a National Party supporter but had been captured by Labour and had “shown signs of the Stockholm Syndrome”. Luxton laughs off that suggestion, saying she is neither Labour left, right nor centre.
“I just describe myself as Labour … I am just a person who is genuinely interested in other people’s points of view … I am not holding onto any way of thinking.”
