Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford. Photo / RNZ / Carol Stiles
By Sally Murphy of RNZ
Federated Farmers has welcomed the initial election results, saying farmers turned out in force to effect change.
National and Act look set to form the next government based on preliminary results with a wave of electorate seats turning blue.
But the count of special votes could cause some seats to flip and the final results will not be known for some weeks.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford said farmers were feeling hard done by and that showed in the results.
“I think you can tell by the way that the provinces have moved that they were obviously looking for a pretty significant change and so the majority will be pretty happy with where it’s gone.
“And, now it’s time to get to work with the new government to get the rural sector cranking again.”
Langford said farmers did not disagree with Labour’s direction for the sector - including pricing agriculture emissions - but it was the pace of change that was concerning.
“We just couldn’t keep up. Federated Farmers surveys have shown that farmer confidence is at an all-time low.
“In fact, it’s never been so low ... so in a state like that, you can see why people would want a change of government and some new direction.”
Labour wanted to charge farmers for on-farm emissions by 2025.
National has said it will push that out to 2030.
Meanwhile, Act does not think farmers should pay unless our key trading partners are enforcing similar taxes.
Langford said the timeframe will enable the sector to get its numbers in order and for mitigating technologies to advance further.
“We’re looking forward to working with National... as a group, we put forward a list of 12 key priorities to build farmer confidence and National has agreed to all of them.
“Simple things, like getting rid of the ute tax and letting young farmers use their KiwiSaver to help buy their first farm.”
Federated Farmers was looking forward to holding the National Party to account, Langford said.
During the campaign, National released its Getting Back to Farming policy.
Here’s some of what the party wants to do.
The voice of rural New Zealand will be well-represented in the new government after a cohort of farmers has been elected.
Most notable of the new cohort is former Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard.
He did not win the Rangitīkei electorate, but Act’s 8.98 per cent result in the party vote means he is set to be part of the 11-strong Act caucus.
It is the same with the Green Party’s Scott Willis, who grew up on a farm in Otago and is number 12 on the party list.
There are also five new National MPs with farming sector backgrounds.
In Northland, beef and dairy farmer Grant McCallum comfortably won his seat.
Suze Redmayne, who has a sheep, beef and forestry farm, beat Hoggard in Rangitīkei.
Southburn-based farmer Miles Anderson won the Waitaki seat.
Masterton-based sheep and beef farmer Mike Butterick pushed Labour’s Kieran McAnulty out of Wairarapa.
And Dana Kirkpatrick, who also comes from a farming background, won East Coast.
The former Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor appears to have lost his West Coast/Tasman seat, which he has held since 1996.
Yesterday he was trailing Maureen Pugh by 915 votes before special votes were counted.
However he is placed at number 10 on Labour’s list, so his long political career looks set to continue.
- RNZ