Chris Luxon addressed farmers and Dannevirke business owners about rural issues. Photo / Leanne Warr
Farmers have been painted as villains, but that couldn't be further from the truth, Christopher Luxon said this week.
The National Party leader was speaking at a meeting in Dannevirke on issues affecting the rural sector.
Agriculture was a fantastic sector, Luxon told those gathered.
"This is an industry that employs 350,000 people, that generates 80 per cent of our export earnings for every man, woman and child in this room."
He said the country needed to get out of the glass-half-empty mindset and back farmers "like we back the All Blacks".
It was not just turning the rural mindset around, but also making the case to urban New Zealand in the cities, Luxon said.
"I think people in the cities kind of get it. They understand that agriculture got them through Covid because tourism fell over."
He said the narrative had to be turned around.
Farmers had many "irritants" in the sense of a lot of regulations.
"It's like hitting 10 tennis balls at the same time."
There were issues regarding wetlands, new taxes, water supply, freshwater and worker shortages that farmers were spending 30 per cent of their week dealing with which involved costs, compliance and regulations "that are disjointed, not connected and often at cross-purposes with each other."
Luxon said National would be working its way through what should be junked, what actually made sense and what should be improved or managed so the pace was right.
One property owner asked about carbon farming, saying it was "ripping the guts out of the Tararua district."
He said he had done a case study on a farm that had been thrown into carbon forestry and calculated that over 20 years it was going to cost the country $52 million in lost production and carbon credits.
"That's when it cost $25 a tonne.
"If we put that money into renewable energy projects and didn't just cover up good farmland, $100 million would solar-power every home in the Tararua district.
"Will you put measures in place to stop carbon farming destroying heartland New Zealand?"
Agriculture spokesman Todd Muller said one of the things the party was reflecting on was local councils having the ability to be able to change the permitted activity status for land use.
He said there should be a partnership mentality.
"Where's the energy and excitement to focus on solutions, as opposed to having a Wellington-centric view that's all about tax and cost and compliance?"
A local business owner also asked what National would do for small businesses.
Luxon said small business owners now had to deal with minimum wage increases, national awards and job tax for every employee.
He said National would unwind that by getting rid of the national awards and the employment insurance, as well as reinstating 90-day trials.
"If you've got 15 workers in your company and you have that kid you think could be good but you're not sure, you don't want to be lumbered with them if they don't work out or haven't got the right attitude."
Luxon recalled being in the House last year debating a commercial bill.
"I looked across the other side of Parliament, and there was not one out of the 65 people there that had ever run a company; ever run a business.
"They all are academics, career politicians or union organisers. What they do is, they sit there and dream up these lovely theoretical ideas, and then they throw them over the fence for businesses to implement - and now small businesses like farmers are dealing with endless amounts of regulation, rules and compliance and stuff, and that just adds cost, and cost leads to higher prices, higher prices leads to inflation."
Luxon talked about the various challenges the country faced, including the poor outcomes for education as well as housing, health and the wasteful spending he saw happening with the current Government.
"I feel totally and utterly convinced that we are heading in the wrong direction. I think what we need is a total turnaround. The first part of it is to face up to the brutal facts of reality, and then you have to hope, because you've got a proper plan. I feel very hopeful we can do that."