Southern Rural Life approached all the political parties fielding candidates in the Waitaki, Clutha-Southland and Te Tai Tonga electorates during this year's elections, and asked them the following two agricultural-related questions. All but one of the 11 parties approached responded by deadline.
Question: There is a shortage of young people choosing to work in the primary sector. In many of the primary industries the average age is increasing, while those retiring are not being replaced by younger people coming through. If elected, what would you and your party do to remedy the situation?Question: What type of initiative would you and your party like to see introduced that would reduce rural crime?
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE.
The Conservative Party is committed to reinvigorating Kiwis in agriculture. New seasonal work schemes, labour law reform, RMA compensation for property right interference, streamlined consenting and a more constructive plan for resources (including water) will all assist in better securing a strong future for our primary sector.
Where there are shortages of personnel, we want targeted assistance for training including apprenticeships. This includes primary industries so that we have the right set of skills to benefit the economy.
We will reintroduce Farm Ownership accounts to assist with land ownership and require Landcorp to once again make available farms each year to be contested by ballot.
Landless farm employees can apply and, where there are larger units for ballot, then partnerships will be invited to apply. We want more of our hard-working landless couples to gain farm ownership.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Garth McVicar, the former head of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, heads the charge on law and order for the Conservative Party. That is bad news for criminals. We want tougher sentencing for rural crime. That will mean a greater focus on stock rustling and farm theft.
In summary, we believe if you do the crime, then you do the full time.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
We would create a Ministry of Job Creation, and one role would be to lift skills and competencies of young people and existing work forces. There would be planned pathways to worker education and balanced trade training, and on-job apprenticeships brought back.
Another major role of the ministry would be to find job placements for over 50-year-olds. It is important to recognise that with new technologies rapidly replacing workers, a job for life is becoming a thing of the past. This is through no fault of the workers.
However, we were supposed to benefit from technology and our ministry would ensure that any worker made redundant would be kept in work, trained and upskilled for other job placements. This is as relevant to rural occupations as it is to urban.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
We need to fund the police to provide more staff on the ground doing police work, and also provide them with the tools they need to do the job. We would also look at de-merging police from traffic.
Most New Zealanders agree that some of the speed traps are just revenue-raising and do not encourage faith in our police force. We believe that we should give the police our greatest support and they should be out doing what they do best, which is fighting and preventing crime.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
Recruiting high-achieving young people into our primary industries is important to maintaining our position as a leader in agriculture, and to building a more competitive and productive economy.
Since National came to government, we have introduced six vocational pathways - one of which is for the primary sector.
The pathways list useful subjects for young people to take at secondary school to set them up for a career in the sector and were established with industry and employers to make sure they were relevant.
We introduced the Youth Guarantee Scheme, increased the number of trades academies, and restructured apprenticeships, to encourage more young people into further learning and building careers in our industries.
We also increased the tuition subsidy for agriculture qualifications at degree level or higher by 8.5% to encourage more young people into study.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Under National, we have the lowest crime rate in 35 years. We have more police, more foot patrols, and are focused on preventing crime before it happens.
We have invested in more resources for our police, such as smartphone and tablets, so they can spend more time out in their communities preventing crime, freeing up more than half a million police hours a year.
National will maintain its focus on giving our police the resources they need to do their jobs and to enable them to spend more time in their communities preventing crime.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
To solve this problem, there are several related issues. Firstly, our economy has become a debt-based financial system, effecting alarming increases in land values.
This has a trickle-down effect on the whole of the business structure, imposing ever-increasing costs.
Democrats for Social Credit's (DSC) monetary reforms eliminate much of the government and local body infrastructure debt burden which, along with banking reforms, will stabilise and reduce farm costs debt burdens.
This would allow increased capacity for wage rates to be offered along with better working conditions as demands on profit/returns are reduced.
In addition, we would seriously pursue policies in population shift incentives such as a guaranteed basic income and any other assistance measures to revitalise regions.
In addition, further promotion of the rural sector is required in education and assistance to the small and medium-sized businesses will be provided.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Rural crime is a by-product of factors such as alcohol abuse, unemployment, family poverty and lack of social cohesion and inequality in the regions.
Families and local economies are the linchpin and more support is needed for those who struggle with good parenting , lack good housing, incomes and cannot access community support programmes.
Our party's priority is real reforms as above, along with other programmes such as alcohol consumption/harm education, which will be more readily available because of the increase in funds available.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
The capability of the people in our primary sector is a key asset and one that will drive the industry's future. The wider industry must take a leadership role in engaging with schools around the country and Labour will facilitate and assist with this.
Farmers and producers, processors and suppliers of services to the industry need to collaborate to engage with schools and career advisers and work with New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) to review how primary sector issues can be incorporated more effectively into NCEA standards for science, environmental studies, history, geography, business studies, home economics, and arts and crafts.
There needs to be a more targeted funding mechanism and, again, Labour will look into how this might be achieved. Only about 1% of students graduate with agricultural-related degrees.
This is well below the number needed to sustain the sector, although the Primary Industries Capability Alliance (PICA) has gone some way to address this. The industry needs to ''make more noise'' about the opportunities it creates for people.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
The relative isolation of some rural communities means they have particular policing needs. Labour is committed to having a sufficiently resourced police service so all communities can feel safe and secure in the knowledge their local police are capable of responding to their needs.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
The promotion of the primary industries as a good career choice for young people needs to be an ongoing role and the industries need to work alongside careers advisers in schools.
The Maori Party is committed to supporting the improvement of careers advice in schools, particularly cultural competency of teachers and advisers along with doubling the current trade training and cadetships for young Maori and Pacific students.
The Maori Party is promoting the lifting of the cap on levels 1-3 training on Wananga so that more young people can lift their literacy and employment skills without student fees holding them back.
The Maori Party is also committed to its He Kai Kei Aku Ringa economic development plan, which would encourage groups like Federation of Maori Authorities to work with government to promote employment for young people on farms, cadetships and support for young people to move to rural jobs.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
The Maori Party also supports private-public partnerships and would support initiatives like genetic tagging and ''farm protect'' type products to stop rustling of stock.
Rustling is a serious issue for many large Maori landowners. Rural theft can only really be mitigated by good management of insurance policies and on farm stock and resources as well as good neighbourly relations to take care of each other in the community. I can vouch from my experience nothing much happens in Edendale Southland without everyone knowing about it.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
Rural communities are not what they used to be; family and community were the cement which bound together diverse interests and age groups.
Now, the dollar is the binding agent, transforming our rural communities into economic units and our primary industries into monotonous, soul-destroying factories or life and limb destroying career dead-ends. It does not inspire young people to stay and find their place in the rural scene.
Hemp could turn this around. Hemp can be made into an endless variety of products. The world is rallying for the restoration of hemp for industry and health and young people are at the forefront.
Realistically, we cannot have hemp without re-legalising cannabis.
ALCP are the only party talking about hemp.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Rural crime related to cannabis will disappear under our relegalisation policies.
People can grow cannabis/hemp at home without unreasonable restrictions.
Excessive alcohol consumption increases car accidents, opportunistic thievery and damage to property, abusive relationships and health problems.
The alcohol industry has an investment in maintaining the status quo re cannabis. The same goes for many other influential industries - both public and private - when you think about it.
Cannabis offers a safer (and, for many, preferred) alternative to alcohol. Only ALCP's policies put people, not profits, first.
The Green Party vision for agriculture is adding value not volume. We will ensure that more of the value of our agriculture exports is captured in New Zealand by New Zealanders, and finds its way back to the farm gate.
Investing $1 billion in new research and development funding is part of this solution. We will also protect the 100% pure brand that commands a premium. This means more opportunities for our children to stay on the farm, or in the sector.
We also need to look after our infrastructure. We will re prioritise transport funding so that the regions get a fair piece of the pie. Instead of building new roads for Auckland that will cause more congestion, we will ensure new motorway projects face a cost/benefit analysis as regional roads do.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Ensuring people do well at school and have a job they can be proud of is by far the best way to cut down on crime, and is much cheaper and better for the community than building new prisons. That's why we want to ensure all our children get a fair go, a full lunch box and a warm home.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
One of the attractions for young people taking up employment in the rural sector is that their employment often borders some of our most pristine wilderness areas, and the opportunities for recreation activities, including hunting, are a major drawcard.
The repeated, ongoing and increasing poisoning of these special places with aerial 1080 will detract from that experience.
Our policy is an end to the indiscriminate aerial application of 1080 and using people, not poison, for targeted ground control in areas where it is required.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Rural crime often stems from lack of alternative activities, [such as] hunting on weekends for fresh lean game meat, or getting possum skins or fur to supplement income, which is an activity that young rural folk have enjoyed for generations.
That right is now being denied this generation by the repeated and increasing use of aerial 1080 poison.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE
Act's view at a high level is that given the incentives of open markets, shortage or oversupply of anything remedies itself. Primary industry labour force is a ''supply''.
The past 30 years has witnessed an indoctrination by some political parties and education institutions of our nation's young that suggested the primary industry, and especially pastoral farming, was a ''sunset industry'', is a hard and dirty job and creates deleterious environmental effects including climate variation.
These elements have all added to a poor perception of primary industry opportunity among our young.
Act will get out of the way of business. We will reduce the amount of red and green tape plus push for lower and flatter tax regimes whereby any industry can regain its self-determination and make it attractive to new entrants on merit. Anything else will fail.
REDUCING RURAL CRIME
Act has a policy of three strikes for burglary and you are ''in'' - that is, in jail.
Because livestock theft is not dealt with in proportion to the hardship it creates, Act's three strikes policy will have an additional element for stock theft; the confiscation of weapons and vehicles used for livestock theft, in line with sanctions applied to fish poachers.
