The current law regarding firearms isn’t working. I’m aware of many firearm owners who don’t have a current arms licence for a variety of reasons. Discussing this with a Police friend, he made the comment that they were breaking the law, which is correct – they are. My response to that was to ask what the Police are going to do about it and the answer was “not much we can”.

We do need credible, workable and respected firearms laws in New Zealand and that must involve change. The current system isn’t working.

The minister responsible, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, has grasped the nettle and is proceeding to reform the legislation. She’s paying a heavy price for that.

The current Act goes back to1983. That’s over 40 years ago. Life has changed and the introduction of 3D printers capable of manufacturing firearms would be one example.

Minister McKee has four phases with her reform process.

The first was to go after criminals and their guns and that’s been completed. Kiwis are safer now as a result of that process.

Phase Two was to reform the law involving the excessive and pointless bureaucracy over clubs and ranges. It had no impact on public safety.

Phase Three is the Registry review, which is underway. I’m pleased the Ministry of Justice is conducting the review and not the Police.

I’m cynical of the Registry for several reasons. For a start, the Police told me they needed a Register to be able to monitor those firearms stolen from legitimate owners. The reality is that of the 6500 firearms seized over the past three years, only 123 were legally imported or manufactured in NZ. A Register is a complete waste of time on that front alone.

The second is to ask if we need such an expensive and elaborate process when, as I’ve stated, a large number of firearm owners don’t even trust the current licensing system.

Finally, friends who do have a licence don’t want to be part of the Register. They just don’t trust the security of the Police system.

Phase Four is to rewrite the Arms Act and the minister is hoping for a draft by the end of the year. At this point she hasn’t received any advice on the Arms Act rewrite despite all the hysteria over the reforms.

Gun licensing will be going from Police, but no final details have been decided.

I support that. While I have considerable respect for the Police, gun licensing isn’t their stock in trade and as the awarding of a licence to a terrorist showed, they weren’t infallible.

In addition, their current system is farcical. It takes a one-page questionnaire to renew a driver’s licence and four to renew a liquor licence. Why then do you need 39 pages to renew a gun licence? It is a huge disincentive and just another reason why people don’t get licences.

For all those reasons I totally support Minister McKee’s reform process. If it gets cabinet approval we’ll have for the first time in decades a process that firearm owners will support as being workable and credible.

Her aim is to “develop good firearms legislation that will last for decades and keep the public safe”. 

What has disappointed me most is the inaccurate portrayal of the McKee position combined with the personal attacks she has suffered. 

For a start the only thing the opposition politicians, the Police Association and sections of the media have concentrated on is semi-automatics. Semi-automatics that our criminal elements are importing with impunity, a fact known to both the minister of police and the Police Association.

The classification of allowable firearms is recommended by the minister of police under section 74A of the Arms Act. In addition, any change of classification needs cabinet approval, not that of individual ministers as claimed by the hysterical. When in government, Labour used that section with impunity.

I’ve also been disgusted by the personal attacks on Minister McKee and am reminded of the old adage which suggests that if you can’t win an argument by using fact and reason, your only remaining option is to get personal.

The accusation that Minister McKee is an arms industry lobbyist is farcical. Yes, she was spokesperson for the Coalition of Licensed Firearm Owners over the previous government’s rushed and botched legislation. No one has added that the minister has spent a lifetime teaching firearms safety, is a NZ shooting champion and a communicator of the year in 2019. She knows what she is talking about, which is refreshing in a politician.

The anti-McKee cacophony coming from Labour’s Ginny Andersen and the Police Association’s Chris Cahill is just that, meaningless noise from Police lobbyists who should know better.

They would be better working with the coalition government to get workable, credible and respected firearms legislation instead of merely sitting in the wings throwing bricks.

Earlier this month Farmers Weekly reported on the China-EU trade tensions and how they could create further opportunities for New Zealand dairy.

Written by Nigel Stirling, the article started by telling us that “an anti-dumping probe by the Chinese government could sideline European dairy producers and create new opportunities for New Zealand in the world’s biggest dairy import market”.

That’s good news for New Zealand as increasingly we’re living in a volatile world with a volatile trading environment.

China is the world’s biggest importer of dairy products and our largest trading partner. We need to keep them on side for the good of the country. Without China our economy would be, charitably speaking, toast.

It was, therefore, with some concern that I viewed recent statements by our prime minister concerning the new direction of our foreign policy.

I’ve been a proud supporter of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy and believe it has served us well.

We’re now told by the prime minister that “New Zealand is undertaking a foreign policy reset”. That was followed by his statement that “the days of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy are over”.

I don’t remember any discussion of that change in foreign policy direction either during the election campaign or since. It is a major issue. It needs to be publicly debated and not dictated from on high.

It seems what that reset means is cuddling up to the United States. The two current international flashpoints, Ukraine and Gaza, have the US’s footprint all over them and NZ shouldn’t be involved.

Sadly we are. We’re training Ukrainian troops in the United Kingdom. That was, in my view, a mistake by the previous government. The Ukrainian crisis will be solved by talking and not by getting involved in the military operation.

Currently Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening war if the US and UK supply Ukraine with long-range missiles. Do we want to be involved?

Stupidly, in my view, we’re also tied up in the Middle East and, again, on the side of the US and UK. We’re involved in a force that is undertaking airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis claim, right or wrong, that they are targeting ships assisting Israel.

What that means is that in the two major conflicts currently affecting the world we are on the side of the US and I can’t understand why.

The argument revolving around traditional allies doesn’t wash. Yes, we fought with the US in World War II and in Vietnam. We went to Vietnam because we were promised a free trade agreement with the US, which never eventuated. 

With Ukraine it seems to me that all the US and to a lesser extent NATO are doing is upping the stakes, to the tune of US$380 billion ($613bn) since January 22. The US contribution to that was US$58.5bn.

They are huge sums and have they achieved anything? I’d suggest not, except navigating us ever closer to a nuclear conflagration.

Then in the believe-it-or-not category, the US has ordered India and China to stop supplying munitions to Russia. I fail to see the difference with the US supplying arms to Ukraine and China supplying them to Russia.

Indian companies have been hit with the US reprisals and remember it is part of BRICS, the coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

If we really do want an FTA with India, backing the US isn’t smart.

Then, idiotically, we’re considering joining AUKUS pillar 2, the nuclear agreement between Australia, the UK and US aimed at China. The Chinese advised against the move.

Again, stupidly in my opinion, we’re joining a US-led space initiative that “aims to deter threats in space from hostile countries”. For hostile countries read China. Defence Minister Judith Collins then told me that we “will retain operational sovereignty”. Spare me.  

Then Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said that “NZ is keen to be part of the broad US-led rules-based international order”.

How? I’ve discussed Ukraine, and the Gaza conflict has been described by the United Nations as “American-sponsored genocide” to the tune of US$158bn.

That promises the same potential of a nuclear war as the Ukraine conflict.

Mr Luxon also told me he was “deliberately deepening our relationship with Five Eyes”. For the reasons I’ve outlined, why would you?

I don’t believe the US is serious about creating a rules-based world order. Look at how it’s broken the rules-based World Trade Organisation.

Another complication with the government’s move is the pending US presidential election. The Trump-Vance team has promised to raise tariffs on all imports. That won’t be good for New Zealand.

In addition, heaven only knows what that team will achieve for world order and world peace.

NZ is a trading nation that has successfully relied on an independent foreign policy. We should continue to do so.

I’m certainly over all the experts and politicians telling me what a great product wool is. I’m also over reading about our representatives going to international trade shows and conferences, rapturously selling the advantages of using New Zealand wool. 

Wool is a magnificent product, we all know that, but my approach would be to develop a strategy to promote wool that goes back to basics.

We should be thinking outside the square and not continuing with the failed policies of the past.

We all know that wool ticks all the boxes regarding the environment and sustainability but that hasn’t been enough to encourage the purchasing of wool products and that needs to change.

For example, while researching this article I came upon a report from 2022 telling me that the United Nations Environmental Agency had agreed to develop a plan aimed at ending plastic pollution. The competition for wool is plastic in its many forms. 

I read that “Heads of state, ministers for the environment and other representatives from UN member states endorsed the resolution to proceed with the plan.”

Our Ministry for the Environment (MfE) said in June this year that we were “working with other countries on an international treaty on plastic pollution”.

It went on to outline the problem that “every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic systems alone, harming marine life and ecosystems”.

The cynic in me would suggest that if that pollution came from the agricultural sector it would be front page news but because it comes from the oil industry that’s fine.

The prime minister’s Chief Science Adviser, Professor Juliet Gerrard, has been concerned about the amount of pollution that plastics have created and published her views on our options to reduce the problem.

They include wanting a National Plastics Plan, rethinking plastics in the government agenda and the need to mitigate environmental and health impacts of plastics.

According to the UN, microplastics have “infiltrated our oceans, soil and even the air we breathe”, and “humans constantly inhale and ingest microplastics”.

Microplastics “are linked to serious health issues such as endocrine disruption, weight gain, insulin resistance, decreased reproductive health and cancer”.

In addition, 8 million tonnes of plastic flow into the oceans annually with a correspondingly toxic effect on fish. These include severely affecting marine life and microplastics residing in tissue waiting to be consumed by a third party. Plastic is also a problem with our soil as the product in landfills can “take up to 1000 years to disintegrate”.

In the United States, 32 million tonnes of plastic goes into the landfills annually and will remain there for 1000 years.

Microplastics can also have a major effect on our flora and fauna and can be present in tap water.

Imagine for a minute if that amount of pollution had been generated by farming pursuits? There would be riots in the streets.

There has been much hue and cry about nitrates in waterways but the reality is microplastics are much worse. People wring their hands about glyphosate but it is more environmentally friendly than plastic.

We need to front-foot the issue by strongly arguing for the environmental friendliness of wool versus the environmental degradation caused by plastics. 

We tax fuel, why not tax plastics? Synthetic carpets would be a good start. We limit nitrogen application, why don’t we limit plastic use?

We were going to tax food production. Why not tax plastic pollution?

We tax alcohol and tobacco because of the harmful effects on health. Why not tax plastics for the same reason?

The only reason I knew about the proposed UN policy on plastics was from personal research and not from mainstream publications. I only figured we were a signatory by going through the MfE website.

Again, it was private research that showed me how environmentally destructive plastic was, how it was a major risk to our land, oceans and human health. Those stories need to be shouted from the rooftops.

As an aside, we shouldn’t pursue the issue on our own but should present it as a campaign from the wool-producing countries. Like what used to happen before New Zealand decided to go alone.

In the current debate rankings I’d give the oil companies 10 and the conservation and farming lobbies zero.

How I came onto the story was from a Greenpeace missive asking me to sign a petition opposing plastics. It called on the NZ government “to support a strong Global Plastics Treaty at the UN”. At the time of writing it had over 73,000 signatures, which should tell us that there is strong support for a move away from plastics.

That also tells me that we need to tell the story of wool a lot better than we are currently doing.

Maybe even a visit to Greenpeace to tell them what’s missing in their debate.

I recently received a statement from ACT MP and Primary Production Select Committee chair Mark Cameron.

Cameron is a Northland dairy farmer and an extremely busy MP who is committed to the primary sector.

He’s drafted a Private Members Bill that stops regional councils using the Resource Management Act (RMA) to restrict farming activities.

I read the legislation thinking that on the one hand ACT wanted local communities to make their own decisions but on the other here was a Private Members Bill that was telling them what those communities through their local councils could and couldn’t do.

On reflection my view is that regional councils are out of control and anything that restricts their excesses has got to be good.

Cameron makes the point that currently councils can use the RMA “to impose a patchwork of restrictions on the way Kiwis use their land all in the name of reducing emissions”. He felt that “previously property rights were sacrificed to the climate gods, in a way that wouldn’t even reduce net emissions”.

As you will have read in my previous articles I don’t have a lot of time for many of our regional councils. I’d further suggest that some are out of control.

We’ve had the most bizarre statements come out of the local council’s well-resourced spin doctors telling me that central government isn’t taking climate change seriously and that the regional council is. As such it is planning tougher regulations than those proposed by the previous government.

Understandably I have considerable problems with that approach and I’m no fan of many central government agencies, the Ministry for the Environment being one.

The difference between central and local government is that there is some rigour given to the central government’s scientific arguments, which are inevitably discussed at length in the media. 

In addition, central government politicians are more accountable for their decisions. With local government the majority of electors don’t even bother to vote.

So local government can get away with a lot central government can’t. Having said, that some of the absurd situations that have arisen lately could well have been part of a Seven Days skit.

First out of the blocks would be the Otago Regional Council (ORC), which genuinely appears to have a Canute-like approach to freshwater rules.

It’s going hell for leather to install the old legislation involving Te Mana o Te Wai or the mana of water. There is no scientific backing for the proposal, more folklore in my view.

The issue is it creates some major bureaucratic hurdles along with considerable costs to ratepayers. Not that the ORC seems remotely concerned.

Local ratepayers would be well advised to canvass the various councillors’ views and vote accordingly in next year’s local government elections.

The ORC isn’t the only council creating costly bureaucratic idiocy but currently it is in the hot seat.

While unrelated to water, the Gore District Council’s attitude to significant natural areas (SNAs) is difficult to understand.

Unbelievably, in my opinion, the Gore council has suggested turning its entire geographical area into an SNA for Māori.

That strikes me as unbelievably stupid. I just wonder if the entire council was asleep when the officials gave their recommendations.

I would further wonder if anyone had given any thought to the cost to ratepayers or the massive barriers to progress that the Gore council was planning.

I was also totally unaware that the entire Gore area was significant to Māori. Further, if Gore is that significant, the Taranaki and Waikato councils are going to have a real fun time of it. 

What irks me considerably is that Mark Cameron’s Private Members Bill shouldn’t have been necessary if the regional councils had an ounce of common sense.

There has been a change in government and the councils were told that many of the regulations would change with it. That’s called democracy.

Why then are some of those councils racing against time to install the old regulations knowing they are about to be changed?

I would argue that they are not competent to make some of the judgements they are and that they are actively trying to pervert the democratic process.

Yes, the councils are operating under existing laws. Yes, the new government has said those rules will change and sooner rather than later. So why not just sit on your hands for a few short months until the new rules can go through the system?

Why rush through old legislation at a massive cost to ratepayers when new legislation is on the horizon?

The only way I can describe it would be sheer bureaucratic bloody-mindedness, all exercised without any care as to the impact it will have on ratepayers.

Consequently I hope Cameron’s Bill is drawn from the ballot and debated in full. 

The front page of Farmers Weekly of August 19 was of major concern. Under the headline “Energy costs slice into sector yields”, Richard Rennie detailed the crisis affecting the sector.

He quoted Open Country Dairy CEO Mark de Lautour as saying that “dairy processors are unable to continue to absorb the increases coming at them from all key energy suppliers”.

He added that the company was having its hand forced “to spend capital that should be instead spent on the likes of a new cheese plant, which actually adds value”.

What an appalling state of affairs. Our primary industries manufacturing companies are being effectively screwed by venal power companies.

Open Country Dairy isn’t the only company affected by the greed of the electricity organisations.

Two timber mills in the Central North Island have had a 600% power price increase since 2021. How can you justify that?

During the week leading up to August 19 the power price increase was 33%. That was on top of a 50% increase in the spot market a week earlier.

Fonterra has said that it has aired concerns about the lack of energy resilience “for some time”.

Silver Fern Farms (SFF) has seen energy prices double over the previous 12 months and ANZCO is in a similar position.

It all makes me wonder if we are actually a developed nation or rapidly languishing towards developing nation status.

I realise the situation is compounded by the previous government banning oil and gas exploration and the current government canning Lake Onslow, but it is surely an indictment on politicians of all colours that we don’t have a cost-effective and resilient electricity supply system.  

For a start it is no use politicians blaming the weather. The generation capacity just isn’t there and all a dry winter has achieved is to compound the problem. 

In 2023 60% of electricity was generated from hydro. Why can’t that increase? We let over 90% of our water run out to sea. Why not use it to generate power and, dare I say it, irrigate land to produce additional income for the country?

Then there’s geothermal (18%), and gas at 9%. Courtesy of the previous government, we’re going to have to import gas. Wind sits at 7%.

Next was coal, all 270,000 tonnes of it. That coal-fired pollution is equal to the burps and farts of a whole lot of cows.

Since 2021 wholesale electricity prices have quadrupled.

On top of that we’re being called on to conserve electricity. Why, in a country with the natural resources of New Zealand, would we have to do that? Why don’t we have an efficient and reliable energy system? 

We’ve had politicians huffing and puffing, blaming the power companies, so let’s consider that.

The NZ Electricity Authority comes across to me as a toothless organisation. It tells me that we have a “world-leading electricity market”. I have a different view.

Then we have Transpower overseeing the sector for better or worse. Both organisations are government controlled with the government appointing board members.

Following on are the power companies, which we taxpayers used to own but over 2013 and 2014 the Key National government sold off 49% of Genesis Energy and Mighty River Power, now Mercury Energy and Meridian.

The government still has a controlling interest in those companies. The government appoints the directors and can remove them. The government approves the long-term planning and direction of those entities. The government receives the dividends from those organisations.

The cynic in me suggests that power company dividends boosting the governments’ coffers are more important than an energy-efficient productive rural sector or warm housing for all of us.

To me politicians, certainly government ministers, criticising the power companies is, simply, hot air. They have the ability to appoint or remove the directors of the five high-priced energy organisation boards and should do just that. 

We had the prime minister telling us the power companies need to make profits to be able to re-invest. There have been a lot of profits but not a lot of new investment.

The harsh reality is that we need to generate more power either by dams, large-scale solar or, dare I suggest it, nuclear power. The alternative is to burn coal.

Last week’s government announcements will help, especially as regards gas, but opening the market up for exploration now won’t achieve much in the short to medium term. In addition, we seem to be lurching into the “hui rather than doey” mentality.

A simple solution would be to close the smelter at Tiwai Point, which uses 12.5% of our electricity.

I’m only humbled that the government saw fit to put the interests of Rio Tinto, which earned a profit of US$43 billion, ahead of local companies like Fonterra, Open Country Dairy, SFF and ANZCO.

I was really pleased to hear Science Minister Judith Collins tell me that laws prohibiting the use of gene editing technologies would be relaxed in New Zealand from next year. 

It’s been talked about for years and I applaud Ms Collins’s courage in actually making a decision.

Past governments of all colours have refused to make that call. They let the rest of the world pass us by.

Speaking to politicians over the decades I’ve heard a lot of excuses as to why we shouldn’t allow gene technology into NZ. Most of the excuses I would describe as idiotic, irrelevant and in several cases, stupid.

Mind you, the anti-GE sentiment had been fanned by zealots of the likes of Greenpeace, who never let a solid fact get in the way of a money-earning position. It seems to me their anti-GE stance would have been a real cash cow for the organisation.

Last week after the government’s announcement Greenpeace was quickly out of the blocks with a media statement below the headline “GE not the solution to NZ’s dairy pollution”. I was blissfully unaware it was, but the Greenpeace focus was on GE nitrogen inhibitors. GE is much bigger than that. 

They also claimed that “GE techno fixes” are a risky distraction. Unsurprisingly, I disagree.

For a start, genetic engineering isn’t new. It was first mooted way back in 1934. Putting that in perspective, GE was talked about before computers, cell phones, space travel or Elvis Presley.

In the United States the first GE lab was functioning in 1973. That’s over 50 years ago. Field trials in the US were started in1994, 30 years ago.

There are 422 million diabetics in the world, all needing insulin. That insulin has been produced using genetic modification since 1978.

Australia started laboratory trials in 1976 and then passed the Gene Technology Act in 2000. Our legislation is going to be loosely based on that but the reality is that Australia has almost a quarter of a century lead on us.

That further highlights, in my humble opinion, the blinkers that were worn by our politicians over the decades.

Our biggest trading partner, China, was growing GE crops in the field in 1992 and progressed to genetic modification for disease control in humans in 2015.

By the mid 1990s there were genetically modified crops available for human consumption. They included squash, soybeans, cotton, corn, papayas, tomatoes, potatoes and canola.

I remain totally ignorant of anyone’s bollocks falling off for having consumed any of those GE crops at any time over the previous 30 years.

Over 30 years ago the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organisation worked together to develop international guidelines and standards for genetically modified organisms.  

In 2007 bread made from genetically engineered wheat was 25% cheaper to produce and that is considerable.

Lincoln University outlines four benefits of genetic engineering and they are: reduced production costs, increased yields, reducing environmental damage and the production of food with extra benefits.

Why wouldn’t you?

It has been estimated that 75% of processed food in a supermarket, “from soda to soup, from crackers to condiments” contains genetically engineered ingredients.

So what’s the problem?

Talking to prominent academic and farmer Professor Jacqueline Rowarth was interesting. As always she had some pertinent points to make.

“Time has passed, education has improved and the need has increased,” she told me. “The original concerns about genetic modification, which in New Zealand prompted the Royal Commission investigation in 2000/2001, have not been proven to be grounded in reality. In contrast, predictions of increasing hunger and difficulties in producing food have come true.

“What the world needs is a pragmatic adoption of all precision tools that allow increased food production, with minimal inputs, from current land.

“The new Gene Technology Bill proposed by Minister Collins will allow New Zealand to join in the scientific challenge of reducing hunger while protecting the environment and the biodiversity it holds.” 

Professor Rowarth is a scientist, I’m not. As a layperson, however, I have no argument with any of the points she makes.

It also seems to me that ethical science has always been on the side of GE. 

I desperately tried to find any reason for us not to embrace GE. I googled the countries that “banned GMO imports and cultivation” and there are eight.

Among the countries are Algeria, Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, Madagascar and Peru. I’m unaware of any significant trade or trade potential with any of them.

The politics have been interesting. It was a cornerstone of the ACT party’s negotiations. National promised, pre-election, to reverse the ban on GE. Labour’s Deborah Russell urged caution and wants proper consultation, which is fine.

That tells me the legislation will be passed and stay passed no matter who is in power.

Minister Collins made the point that introducing GE will provide “massive economic gains” for NZ.

We need them.

Ideas That Grow Podcast | Nuffield insights from across the globe

I’ve recently been visiting Australia’s far northern Queensland, and the challenges facing that area and Australia in general are the same as many of those facing rural New Zealand.

My reading of the Australian livestock industry is that it is facing a crisis similar to what is occurring here. The country’s dairy and cropping industries are thriving, particularly on the larger farms.

Generally when you drive either north or south of Cairns you see a frenetically busy sugar industry at this time of year. Currently there is no activity at all. The railway tracks carrying sugar cane to the mills are overgrown, many crops are past harvest date and the freight cars carrying the cane to the mills are in a state of decay.

Investigating further we are told via the media that “politicians are stopping work on a crop that may never be harvested”. The Mossman Sugar Mill closed last year and any cane harvested needs to be trucked south. No cane trucks were obvious on the roads despite warnings to expect one every eight minutes.

On the broader agriculture front, Aussies tend to like their farmers more than Kiwis do. The media coverage of farming issues is generally both informed and supportive. 

I read in The Australian that the local cattle industry is facing “its greatest existential threat from activists peddling green ideology and spreading misinformation about the industry”. 

The article went on to quote David Harris, the head of the 200-year-old Australian Agricultural Company. He made the point that “Australian beef producers were ‘fighting for [their] very existence’ against global forces pushing agendas on climate emissions, animal welfare, the environment, water use and diets.”

Where have we heard that before?

So from an agricultural perspective the issues facing Australian farmers are similar to those facing you and me. The major difference is that Australians have a greater respect for their farmers and the mainstream media is infinitely better informed on rural issues.

Those similarities continue to the general economy with the Australian cost-of-living crisis as big an issue there as it is here. As in New Zealand, there is a lot of talk but little real action. It is the same with inflation.

There is also major conflict between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the government over the state of the economy. As with NZ, one would hope that hard economics will rule over political expediency.

The energy issue does have differences. Australia doesn’t enjoy the hydro capability NZ does and it has many coal-fired generators it is trying to retire. 

That has brought some major issues to light. A large problem is that when you close down a lot of smaller coal-fired plants for a bigger, more central solar generator, the reticulation of that electricity becomes a challenge.

There’s only one solution and that is power lines over private property and that is causing major ructions. It has also created much media coverage with the only solution I can see being the heavy hand of the government. It will be an interesting debate, coming up as it has just before a Federal election.

While the current government is talking solar, which makes sense in a country like Australia, the Opposition is talking up nuclear power. It will be an interesting discussion as both solar and nuclear are considered renewables.

It will have ramifications in NZ as well as in my opinion we have the choice of either building more dams, burning more coal or investigating nuclear power.

What I did find iniquitous is that on one hand there is considerable media coverage of the need for renewables when it comes to electricity generation while on the other it is exporting coal by the shipload. Coal mines that were destined for closure are now up and running with a vengeance.

The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on the Victorian Farmers Federation, which waded into the fray with a passion claiming that farmers are forced to carry the burden of the renewable energy targets. They claimed the government is “blatantly ignoring concerns that its transition plan will compromise food security”.

Where have I heard that before?

Reading all the fine print, it seemed to me that bureaucrats decreed from on high what was going to happen without any practical on-the-ground knowledge.

As I’ve said, Australia has similar problems to those we have.

On the lighter side, going onto the media and trying to find an Olympic competitor that wasn’t Australian was incredibly difficult. One Ocker boasted to me that Australia had more medals than NZ. My simple response was to ask him to consider the difference in the population and the medals per capita, and NZ was well clear. The debate ended there. 

One positive is that Australian limes, certainly those in northern Queensland, are a lot juicier than ours.

The downside is that gin is more expensive.

The news last week that INGKA Investments, part of the company that owns furniture retailer IKEA, had purchased Waikareao Station in Hawke’s Bay for just over $13 million is of concern. 

The 1000 hectare “breeding and finishing farm” brings INGKA’s total forestry interests in New Zealand to almost 24,500ha.

That is a lot of land taken out of food production. It also represents a loss of control for NZ.

It comes on top of a recent Statistics NZ report that tells us that from 2011 to 2023 the total area of grassland excluding tussock fell by 12% or a massive 942,000ha. In my view that is unsustainable. Over the same period the total number of sheep fell by 22% or 6.8 million to a total of 24.4 million. That’s a far cry from the heady days of 1982 when we had 70 million sheep. 

The number of beef cattle fell by 5% or 192,000 to 3.76 million. The total number of dairy cattle peaked in 2014. Since then the numbers have fallen by 12% or 813,000.

The land loss over that period of 942,000ha is equivalent to 15 Lake Taupōs. That loss can’t continue.

In addition, if you consider the loss of productive land between 2002 and 2012 the figure is 800,000ha, so in the past 21 years we’ve lost far too much productive land. Land that supports our economy.

If we add the number of sheep and beef cattle lost over the period 2011 to 2023, counting beef cattle at five stock units then we’ve lost 25.3 million stock units. Averaging a farm at 5000 stock units, that’s over 5000 sheep and beef farms. For dairy my estimate is 2500, so in a 12-year period we’ve lost around 7500 farms.

That’s around 7500 families plus farm workers, shearers, fencers, stock and merchandise agents, truck drivers, teachers, vets and doctors. It isn’t a complete list but it does outline the problem.

In addition we hear that between 2002 and 2019 land counted as highly productive but removed from food production increased 51%, from 225,394ha to 340,764ha. In Auckland the increase in urban sprawl into productive farmland increased 81% to 77,971ha.

Amazingly, in my view, Pukekohe horticulturalists aren’t able to afford to keep farming, such is the price of land there. That will have a major effect on the price of vegetables, particularly in Auckland.

If the crisis I’ve outlined is bad enough in itself, the reality is it’s worse when you incorporate the land purchased for forestry, specifically for carbon farming.

According to a Beef + Lamb report the amount of sheep and beef country lost to forestry over the past seven years is a staggering 175,000ha. I believe that figure is conservative.

My position is simple: New Zealand can’t continue to be the prosperous nation it is if we keep removing good land from food production. Our economy survives largely on the primary sector, which requires that land to support food production.

My concern is that the horse may have bolted. Once land has been removed from food production it is gone forever.

So what needs to be done?

There is a National Policy Statement (NPS) on Highly Productive Land that came into force in October 2022. Simply it covers Class 1, 2 and 3 land.

While the intention is good, however, I don’t think it will practically make a lot of difference for two reasons. The first is that it is up to local government to administer and, as we know, those processes are fraught.

The second is that you can drive a truck through a lot of the NPS.

For a start the areas where local government can take productive land for housing includes “if rezoning is required to provide sufficient development capacity to meet demand for housing or business land”. It then suggests that land can be rezoned if there are no other practical or feasible options for development.

It then suggests that “the environmental, social, cultural and economic benefits of rezoning outweigh the status quo”. That’s just crazy.

Hardly cast-iron guarantees that good land will remain in food production. In addition, according to my reading, Māori land is exempt from the NPS restrictions.

Further, as the pork industry pointed out, the NPS talks about land-based production. It believes that the Ministry for the Environment and local councils are saying that pig farming doesn’t qualify, which is ridiculous and confirms the ignorance of those institutions.

The problem I have is that the issue is here and now and must be fixed immediately for the good of the country. A woolly NPS, loosely administered, isn’t going to achieve that.

What we need is for our politicians to look at NZ’s long-term future, which is well past the next election. 

I’m not holding my breath.

Farming today needs chemicals, be they for animal health, disease and worm control or in fertiliser. The problem is that when it comes to agricultural chemicals the debate seems more about fiction than fact.

There’s the reputable science, which seems to come behind emotive tirades from the likes of Greenpeace and SAFE. Then there are the lawyers who see an easy buck and do what they can to exploit that prejudice by fair means or foul.

For example, we’ve all read dozens of stories about the evils of glyphosate. It seems that there was no limit to the damage exposure to the chemical could do.

Until last week we kept hearing glyphosate caused cancer. Now we have scientific proof it doesn’t.

In New Zealand the Environmental Protection Authority tells us that “glyphosate is a hazardous substance and is regulated”.

For the record, on November 23 last year the European Commission approved the use of glyphosate across the European Union for another decade. It said “there is a complete lack of evidence to prove it’s cancerous”.

I’d agree, but recently there was a court case in the United States over a product very similar to glyphosate causing Parkinson’s Disease.

The reality is that if it was proved the compensation would be in billions of dollars, not millions. One such court case involving Bayer cost the company $11 billion for the presumption that glyphosate caused cancer. As we know it doesn’t.

It’s big business in the US and elsewhere, with lawyers making a fortune out of class actions. The process is described as predatort. The playbook has four steps: pay scientists to create your evidence, pay activists to create public outrage, create drama on the court room stage and collect US$200 million. That all sounds familiar.

In the recent case in the US a team of lawyers fronted up to prove that paraquat, a rival product of glyphosate, caused Parkinson’s.

They had an “expert witness”, a Professor Martin Wells from prestigious Cornell University. They formed an Environmental Working Group to expose the problem. Headlines mysteriously appeared claiming “we all know what causes Parkinson’s and these companies will have to pay for it”.

Predictably, the manufacturers fronted up in court. 

The “expert witness”, Wells, claimed that “occupational exposure to paraquat can cause Parkinsons disease”. 

Surprisingly, given past experience, the judge decided to question the so-called science.

She suggested that Wells only presented data to support his conclusion and that the research wasn’t credible, and that the evidence lacked scientific rigour. That the criteria for occupational exposure had not been met. She added that the claim that occupational exposure to paraquat resulted in a “near tripling of Parkinson’s disease” was unproven.

The issue is that Wells was presumed to have been paid US$500 an hour for his “evidence”.

The case was thrown out, which was a victory for common sense. There was a judge who decided to question the science. Many don’t, which would, in itself, make manufacturers nervous.

The saga does, however, provide some valuable lessons for the primary sector.

The first is that a rumour or even a hint of problems with a chemical can immediately create a media frenzy.

The second is that there’s so much scientific “evidence” out there that claimants can cherry-pick.

Then comes the predictable nervousness of chemical companies about litigation and compensation.

Finally with venal lawyers and academics for hire you can claim anything.

All that sounds depressingly familiar. 

We have similar issues in New Zealand with the most recent involving genetically modified ryegrass.

A recent article in Farmers Weekly by Dr Nick Roberts from AgResearch highlighted the problem. Roberts is a highly experienced scientist with considerable international experience. He knows what he’s talking about.

High Metabolisable Energy (HME) ryegrass is genetically modified causing an increase in fats. That increase is predicted to reduce methane emissions. Ridiculously, in my view, outdoor research had to be developed in the United States courtesy of our outdated rules here.

Again recently in Farmers Weekly the president of GE Free NZ, Claire Bleakley, came out swinging.

For a start she claimed that the GE ryegrass trials in the US “were so poor they failed to yield enough dry matter for the animal feeding trial they aimed to conduct”.

The fact was the yields were as expected despite the climate difference between the US and here.

Bleakley added that the trials were a “commercial failure” and that “the plants were riddled with unknown diseases and failed to grow”.

Again, there’s no truth in the claims yet she received considerable publicity.

That in itself is a problem.

Greenpeace, GE Free NZ, SAFE and a host of other groups can make any statements they like and receive extensive media coverage. It’s generally sympathetic and there’s no checking as to the veracity of the “facts” presented. 

That’s wrong.

I was most impressed to read in Farmers Weekly about Federated Farmers hosting a group of Labour politicians for two days in Hamilton. They reported that the meeting was “worthwhile”, which it certainly will be. That Labour’s primary industries spokesperson, Jo Luxton, went on social media in support of the Feds initiative proved how worthwhile it was. 

It was a big call from Federated Farmers as I can remember a previous Labour minister of agriculture, Jim Sutton, labelling the organisation “the National Party in gumboots”. At the time it was an apt description.

That the levy organisations, Groundswell, Rural Women and others were involved is also positive.

In the last government the Labour MPs I was aware of with a detailed knowledge of the intricacies of the primary sector were Damien O’Connor, obviously, and Luxton and Kieran McAnulty. That was a small voice in a large caucus. 

Now, thanks to the Feds, there will be many more Labour MPs understanding our challenges. As importantly, the MPs will know who to go to for honest opinions of rural issues.

We had a pile of ill-thought-out legislation and regulation from the previous government that foisted massive costs on the primary sector for little practical benefit.

My view is that happened as the result of a caucus largely ignorant of the intricacies of farming combined with an over-zealous and blissfully ignorant bureaucracy, certainly as far as the Ministry for the Environment was concerned. 

In future, thanks to Federated Farmers, hopefully that won’t happen.

I was also pleased to receive a statement from Climate Change Minister Simon Watts, who is forming a cross-party committee to develop an “enduring framework” for climate change adaptation.

I certainly support his cross-party inquiry. Climate change is here and we’re going to have to adapt. Having all political parties agreeing on one direction means that the job will be done properly. There is unlikely to be political posturing and any change in government should not affect the plan.

It will be the powerful Finance and Expenditure Committee that will be tasked with developing recommendations, which is appropriate in my view. It has good representation from all parties.

We should get a definitive, costed strategy from the committee.

The time frame is tight with the committee required to provide recommendations in September for incorporation into legislation that can hopefully be introduced early next year.

Watts made the point that damaging weather events will only become more severe and frequent over time and that an “enduring and long-term approach” is needed to provide people with certainty.

I agree.

The previous climate change minister, James Shaw, announced an Environment Committee inquiry some months before the election but nothing had been reported back. The committee did receive 150 submissions that Watts said would be considered. In addition he intends to call for further submissions from the public.

The risks associated with climate change are clear and present for rural New Zealand.

For example, the increased risk of drought in both the northern and eastern parts of both islands will not only limit farming as we know it but increase the risk of fires.   

It will also increase the demand for fresh water.

The change to our coast will create further problems. For a start there will be many coastal areas that are uninhabitable and the residents will have to move elsewhere. I read that the previous one-in-100-year climate event on the coast could occur every year.

Internationally, climate change will also have a major effect on NZ.

The Royal Society tells me that all aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change including food access, utilisation and price stability.

Long haul tourism is expected to decline.

Commodity prices are predicted to increase.

The key findings of the Royal Society study into climate change are that we’ll have more frequent hot extremes coupled with less frequent cold. There will also be increased extreme rainfall resulting in floods. 

So we have a problem and we’re going to try to solve it in a non-partisan way, which, in my opinion, is the only enduring solution.

The Green Party is supporting the government’s move, which is positive.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick commended Watts for progressing climate adaptation work in “a cross-party manner”.

“It is imperative we build enduring and long-lasting policies that outlast any one government,” she said. 

Climate change is and will be a major issue for NZ both now and far into the future. It has been estimated that 440,000 sheds and dwellings are in flood risk areas with a replacement value of $218 billion.

The issue must be addressed and developing a cross-party solution is, in my view, by far the best way of moving forward.

Watts is to be commended for his initiative, which I only hope can move into other areas that are important for our future.