October 10, 2025 • 41 mins
Hamish McKay talks to Christopher Luxon, Laura Koot, Blake Holgate, Chris Russell, and Ele Ludemann.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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agribusiness experience.
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Grow with Rabobank.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good Morning, New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Welcome into the best of the country, brought to you
by Rabobank. I'm Harvis McKay. Yes, we will feature all
the best interviews of the week. Coming up on the show.
We chat to the Prime Minister Christopher Luxen and with
it being mental health Awareness week, we asked the PM
what he does to look after his top two inches
his mental health. Also coming up Black Holegate from a
(00:37):
Rabobank we talk a food spend and the like and
the wonderful Laura Coot of course Real Country, Fairlight Foundation,
her mental.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Health story, incredible story. It's all coming up.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
On the Country brought to you every Saturday morning by rabobank.
Got a bit of dag in the dickheads going on
the back ground today Rabobank.
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Speaker 1 (01:26):
Rabo Bank.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Well, the Prime Minister Christopher Luxan joins us now on
the country. Welcome Prime Minister.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Good to be with you, Hamers. How are you going
this week?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Oh yeah, not good, Thank you good, thank you. The
India Free Trade Agreement. We spoke to Todd McLay yesterday.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
What is the expectation there, I mean he said we're
three rounds in the fourth round will be a knockout.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Look, We've we close out our Queenstown round. I think
we've got another round in India and then yeah, we'll
look to see where we sort of get to the
all of that. But look, I mean there's been very
good commitment from Prominence Commotium, myself and also trade mister
Goyel who's counterpart, and the four of us have been
pretty detervened from the top to actually try and find
way to make this work.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So, you know, I've done a lot of.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Business in the area over the years, and you know,
they're really tough negotiators. They're really hard and we also
want to be we're good negotiators too, So we've just
got to make sure that we get the best possible
deal we can for in your talent, and so I
don't let that process run through. To be honest, home
missions to sort of it'll take as long as it takes.
But I think we're making pretty good. Having said that,
we're making good progress.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Government quarterly Plan the thirty three things the Government plans
to do before.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
The end of the year. Where are we at with
this and what's top of the list.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah, the big one is actually the new RMA system
going forward from here. So you might remember the RAMA
I think is the single biggest thing that's been really
holding New Zealand back. You see all the work and
the frustration that you've seen even over the weekend with
regional councils and consenting. It's just you know, impacts you
guys in the farming sector, but it's just everything right.
(02:56):
You want to get a road belt, you want to
get a wolf extended at bought, the things that actually
make New Zealand go faster. We have just wrapped this
country up in red and green tape and we're trying.
We've got one of our big five things. We've got
to keep dismantling as much of that as we possibly can.
So the RMA is the biggest thing. Obviously, we stopped
the labor changes when we first can the first few
weeks when we came to power. We've put in place
(03:18):
fast track. We've made a number of what's called RMA
amendments to signal what's happening and to make some dumb
stuff stop. And then as of at the end of
this year, we want to have already introduced our first
reading of the new RMA laws that are going to
be governing New Zealand going forward, and you know they
need to be much simpler, get rid of the bureaucracy,
and as much of the red tape, respect people's property
(03:41):
rights and enable people to get things done and built.
And so the way it works is that I think
some of it's the publics that doesn't quite fully understand
or that we have a first We basically have a policy,
which is what we've been working on for the last
year or so about what we want that RMA to
do and how we want it to work and function
and to make it easier to get things done. Then
we put it into legislation and which is where a
(04:02):
lot of lawyers get involved with what's called a bill
that then goes to Parliament for a first reading. It
then goes out to the public for up to six
months for consultation and feedback and they try and make
give us input that makes the bill better, and then
it comes back to Parliament for a second reading and
what's called a committee stage, and then into a reading
where it becomes then the law of the land, and
we don't need to wait ten years to get this
(04:23):
thing implemented. We just got to get things consented, sorted
and get people moving quickly onto stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Right, okay, job seekers.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Now, now there seems to be a little bit of
a discussion here between you and one or two in
the horticultural sector. You believe there are the screaming out
for workers. Is one or two in their sectors say
they aren't. What's your take on that?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Well, it's just interesting. I mean my point is a
bigger one, which is that we cannot have in twenty
years time the same conversations we're having today that somehow,
you know, over half our kids don't go to school regularly,
which is the position we inher it into labor. We've
made some good progress on school attendance, which is good,
and then you just drift off into welfare. And the
(05:07):
worrying thing is that if you go on to a
benefit under the age of twenty five, the forecast are
you going to spend at least eighteen years on a
benefit over your lifetime. So that is a pretty sobering
statistic when you think about that. And Labour sort of
have a view which is that there's jobs that are
just beneath people and as a result, actually people shouldn't
shouldn't work, they should be better to go on the benefit.
(05:27):
And the answer is that is not the answer. We
need people connected to work. That is a much better
life than being on welfare. And we actually care about
the people who not materialize their potential. So what we
can't have as an eighteen or a nineteen year old
coming out of school or even the schooling system, and
we've got fifteen thousand of them and then sitting on
the job seek unemployment benefit. The job secret benefit is
(05:49):
set up so that you are able to work tomorrow
or within the next two years. You know, that's the expectation.
So all I'm saying to those young people is, sorry,
you've got to get you thing to work. You've got
to get you need to training or further education so
that you will be ready for a job, to be
able to take on a job. So that's what that's
all about. And all I'm saying is up and down
this country. I go everywhere. You'll go into Kiwi fruit
(06:10):
pack houses and people say, yeah, there's lots of young
people that come. They might start one shift, they don't
show up on time the next day and then they're
not there for day three. And that's not always the case.
But I'm just saying there is opportunities for people. And
if you're just going to draw a mythical line and
say there's this type of job that's just as below
anyone and no one should be doing, I just don't
(06:32):
think that's fair. I think the problem why we want
young people and workers that you've got to show up
on time, you've got to work, build a work ethic,
you've got to make sure that you are a part
of a team. You learn a lot of a lot
of skill, and you add at your skills that you
become valuable. Then you actually can have a decent career
and a decent job path of prospects going forward.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yep. I agree with all of that.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Just on the school attendance thing, Prime Minister in the eighties,
in the early eighties at Palmerston North Boys High School,
if you were if you wagged, you were just about
on the front page of the old Evening Standard, the
matter would do say, you know, it was a big story, you.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Know, frusht boys. It was the same thing to me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, A partner store was.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yeah, no, it's funny. And when did it become optional?
I mean, how on earth we call ourselves the first
world country when fifty five percent of our kids were
not at school ninety percent of the time or more.
And the problem is this Hamish, is that if you
don't go to school ninety percent of a time or more,
by the time you reach age of sixteen, you've lost
one whole year of education. And then we've been trying
(07:33):
to retoolt our MCA so that we get back to
the old days of what I had, which was school.
See where I knew I'd got expercent for maths and
science and English and economics or whatever. And it's the
same thing we're going to be implementing there. So yeah,
we've fortunately, you know, if you look at the last
two years, I think we've lifted it almost I think
eighteen percent, not as I saw he stay for term two.
And that's good. But you know, we still have you know,
(07:55):
we still have fifty eight percent of our kids now
going to school regularly rather than actually, you know, eighty
percent is what what it needs to be. So you know,
that's the work that we're just every week. Every we
now publish the data weekly, we have it available. We
talked to the schools were putting pressure on parents to
get kids to school and it's not an optional thing,
and it never was that way. It was called compulsory
(08:15):
education for a reason. And it's necessary for our kids
to be able to come into a workforce and be
work ready. You know, a number of your people, you know,
farmers out there will be hiring staff. Sometimes they're reading
and the numerous these skills are pretty poor and that's
not giving him the basic skills that those young people need.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Go forward with absolutely. Finally, and just quickly to wrap up,
Prime Minister.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yesterday we had Todd McLay and we talked about Mental
Health Awareness Week and what he did for his top
two inches to relieve some stress. So I'm jokingly suggesting
he goes down to the dam at the back of
the farm, icy dam, dives and naked.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
What about you for the top two inches?
Speaker 4 (08:47):
What's your in thirty seconds, what's your sort of release
to give yourself a break.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
You crank up Post Malone if one trillion album and
you have it real out and you just have it
pumping through the house. That's what you do. And I
have it in the office. I have it, and I
actually have a speaker system in the shower. I have
had in my kitchen and throughout my house. And no,
that's what gets your fills things up. But look, you
got to stay balanced, right. I mean, when you get stressed,
it's because you're overworking one of your sort of energies.
(09:14):
You've got to have work on stuff that's important. You'
have good social relationships, you've got to do some physical exercisey,
you've got to be mentally stimulated. So I think when
you stay balanced on those things that helps. But for me,
it's just crank up the music.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yep, strike the balance. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, thank you
for joining us on the.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Country Great Hamish. We'll talk to you next week mate,
see hak.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
You the best of the country with Rubbo Bank, the
bank with local agri banking experts, passionate about the future
of rural communities.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Rubbo Bank.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Most of the uninitiated, we know you of course from
Real Country across social media. You're a farmstrong champion, feel
like foundation. You keep yourself pretty busy.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
What's you know? You tell us about an average week
in the life of Laura coop.
Speaker 7 (09:55):
Gosh, an average week, there is no such thing anymore.
And to yes, being super proud of running the Fairlight Foundation.
We're in fifty year, the year the interns and graduates
are doing well Real Country. We're going into the busy
season hosting farm shows for guests from around the world,
(10:16):
as well as continuing on with my confidence building workshops,
teaching people farm skills to earn confidence and their abilities.
I'm also a mum Hamers. Don't forget that one and
a half year old three and a half year old
now was busy in the day of a life, Laura, I.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Tell you the go go go right okay, underpinning everything
that you just talked about there too, in particular of
the growing the confidence and this would never have been
something that I would have imagined in one hundred years.
But there was a time where you didn't feel good
about yourself and had no confidence and was allowing others
to make decisions for you, and that obviously was something
(10:53):
that you needed to change.
Speaker 7 (10:57):
It is really hard to imagine now. It's even hard
to imagine myself now. But I had no confidence in
who I was as a person. I was battling a
pretty severe eating disorder. I was not living a life
that I was proud of. And because I didn't have
confidence in myself, I allowed everyone else to make decisions
for me.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
So I was.
Speaker 7 (11:17):
Doing work and performing really well professionally, and I was
very competent professionally, but I never sat myself down and
went what is it that I want? Who do I
want to be, and what is really important to me?
Speaker 9 (11:31):
So when I got to this place at.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Twenty nine, I was really really struggling, and I hit
a bit of a rock bottom, like I think a
lot of people do. And so getting to that point,
I really had to take ownership of that myself. I
wasn't good at talking about it. I wasn't good at
opening up to people about it. And so for me,
the start was volunteering at a horse sanctuary in Auckland.
(11:56):
That was the start of how I changed everything.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
So that was so you though, had to personally hit
rock bottom yourself. I mean, you had to feel the
jarring effect of that before you could turn it around.
Speaker 9 (12:10):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 7 (12:11):
And once I turned it around volunteering at that horse sanctuary,
like can you imagine I was suited and booted. I
was working in corporate living in Auckland, and that was
not who I was. And for me, going out to
the horse sanctuary and the smell of the horses and
working with horses and helping out and volunteering, I got
this little feel good And then that was what opened
(12:35):
it up for me to then draw a picture one
day of the type of life that I wanted.
Speaker 9 (12:39):
Dog with the four wheel drive.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
Truck, horse mountains my life in five years. And then
from there I changed my whole life to chase down.
Speaker 9 (12:49):
What it is that I wanted.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
And the reason that I think this is all so important,
it's because I've learned through my own experience that until
you understand what you're really capable of, and until you
have confidence in yourself, low confidence in low self belief
often does go hand.
Speaker 9 (13:06):
In hand with really poor mental health as well.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Is every choice along the way the recovery being a
good one, or is there do you have to sort
of you know, do you have to catch a few
frogs and you know to.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
Get it right.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
There is no linear path or progression at one step forward, learning,
adjusting the plan as you go, and being you know,
very forthright. It actually wasn't until I became a mother
that I actually thought the professional help that I really needed.
I drengthened a lot of my fortitude by doing things
(13:43):
that I didn't think I was capable of, like setting
up my own business, like changing my whole life and
pursuing and building something that I could be really passionate about.
And through that process I met myself. I then met
the love of my life, and you know, then we
got married and I was pregnant, and I was still
terrified because although I'd done all these incredible things, I
(14:06):
was still a people pleased at a high performer. I
would overwhelm myself regularly, and I was still battling a
pretty severe eating disorder. And it wasn't until my daughter
hit the ground and I went, I am not going
to be passing this on to her. I need to
get some proper help, and you know, seeking the help
(14:27):
for me it was a hypnotherapist in Queenstown, and she
helped me see that a lot of the struggles that
I was having. It wasn't about fixing the eating disorder
and the nail biting. It was about fixing the internal
subconscious traits that I had held with me since being
a really young person. And I just cannot say what
(14:50):
a weight off my shoulders it was to no longer
be living in You know, I still like to please people,
I still like to perform, but not to the point
where it's detrimental to my mental health. So it's been
a journey, a really really long journey where it's only
recently where I can sort of say, yeah, I'm in
a really good place.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Wow, so here knowing you as I do and having
spent a bit of time with you over the.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Years, those sort of the chinks in your armor. I wasn't.
I couldn't see. I couldn't see the trees for the forest.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
But now you say it, I actually start to do
in a few dots. Did anybody ever say anything to you?
Or was it you that had to primarily you with
the source of your recovery.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
I had to be the source of my own recovery
because like a lot of people, I don't I didn't
like to talk about it. I didn't know how to
talk about it. There was so much shame around what
I was doing, like who wants to admit that they
make themselves sick? Like that'stful and that's shameful. And I
didn't want to hurt my parents or my friends and
(15:58):
family around me, as I worried about them thinking gosh,
why didn't we see this? Or I didn't want pity,
and so I didn't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 9 (16:08):
And I really had to dig deep.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
And fix this and thought this out myself. But had
I not done that, I wouldn't be so aware now
of the fact that other people go through. I think
it's one in five years yeald adults will experience a
mental health challenge, and that presents in so many different ways.
It doesn't all look like my journey. But since I've
(16:32):
been opened up about my story, other people open up
to me. And it is the people that you least
accept And so because of what I've been through, a
lot of my focus and everything that I do is
about how you can help others to see the stones
and other people and to have that first conversation or
(16:52):
what do you do to reach out, Like a couple
of weeks ago, I have some really good friends who
have just gone into dairy farm. It's their first season
and they had a really high number of cars depths
and it's been terrible weather, and you know, they did
actually say to me, look, we are struggling. But not
(17:13):
everyone will do that, And so I didn't know what
to do. I don't know much about dairy farming. I
can't really be constructive.
Speaker 9 (17:19):
So what I did is I made some studo.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
I drove over there, I turned up, gave a hand
in the carving pens, made some lunch, had it down
over a cup of tea, and left. And knowing that
the way to show up for someone who was struggling
and how to have.
Speaker 9 (17:35):
Those first conversations is so important.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
But I wouldn't understand that had I not been through
my own stuff to start with.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
There was a lot like Ali Ludeman, who was on
the show with us yesterday, who lost two young sons
and was talking about grief and that don't ask what
you can do, actually just do something.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You know. It's like you did you cook over.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
Your win, you know, And you know, people that are struggling,
they don't want to be a burden, they don't want
your petty. They don't know how to talk about it,
and they a lot of like for me, I didn't
know what was going to fix me or what would
be right, and you do you want to push people
away because if you're not feeling good, it's not easy
(18:16):
to have someone.
Speaker 9 (18:16):
Else in your space.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
And so it's about just understanding how to show up
and how to have those conversations. And Catherine Wright was
an incredible counselor focused on the egg industry down here
in Tiano, and she ran a mental health first aid
program in Moscowne last year. And my dad, at seventy
two years of age, went along to this and he
(18:38):
got so much out of it because he grew up
in the generation of you just don't talk about these things.
You just you know, you just get on with it
and you do the work and you sort it out,
and you know, being able to identify whether it's your
co worker, your employee, someone on your sports and then
you make your family knowing how to support them as
(18:58):
just as important as richizing the signs and yourself.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Absolutely absolutely wonderful to chat Laura.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Thank you so much for sharing your story and keep
out the great work down there of real country, feel
like foundation.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That is Laura Coat joining us here on the country.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The best of the country with Rabobank.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
acribusiness experience grow with Rubbobank.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right Research should buy Rabobank and Kiwi Harvest has highlighted
some yeah, some all some amazing stuff really and how
Kiwi shop and go about preparing their food as well
as where and what they eat.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So we're going to delve into this a little bit today.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Blake Holgate from Rabobank joins us to look at this afternoon.
Speaker 10 (19:41):
Blake, afternoon, Hamish.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Great to have you with us. The first, well, let's
just deal with this.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
What people are spending on food Kiwi households and average
of two hundred and forty dollars per week. I don't
know how they do that, but that seems and that's
not much of an increase on twenty twenty three.
Speaker 10 (19:58):
No, yes, that's right, Hamish. So that was an increase
of two dollars over the last two years. Now what
we know is food price inflation has gone up by
significantly more than that. So Stat's New Zealand tells us
it's gone up by around six percent over that time.
So what that means is KEWI households have relatively less
purchasing pair with their growthries and are having to make
(20:19):
some decisions around what they do with that. And what
we heard was a third of them are buying less,
a third of them are downgrading the products or brands,
and half a keywis are actively more looking at those
promotions and specials.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
You just can't rock into the supermarket, can you with
the trolley and make those changes on the hoof?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Can you?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
There's a lot of thought gone into this to be
able to do two hundred and forty dollars a week
given the food inflation.
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yeah, exactly, hey marsh. And that's another behavior that came
through in the stats. So more key wes are saying
preparing meals that they're sitting down for the week and going, gee,
what are we going to be buying in cotton this week?
And preparing lists. So they're heading into the supermarket with
their mind up on what they're going to buy and
they tending to stick to that.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
The flower effect, of course, though, is the places that
we go to eat or get our takeaways from they
take a hit because of this and you can see
that it's cyclical right through the right through the community.
Speaker 10 (21:19):
Yeah, I mean you know, right through the supply chain, right,
So anyone that's producing food in New Zealand that goes
into the domestic food market will in some way be
feeling it. And different types of food and different supply
chains are more or less exposed to the domestic market.
But those that are, I suspect already feeling.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
It eating meat, I mean, meat isn't cheap. How are
we seeing what trends are we seeing there?
Speaker 10 (21:49):
Well, this is quite an interesting one, Hamish. So we
still get one in five key we saying that planning
to reduce red meat consumption going forward, but this is
actually a step that's trended down over the last three surveys,
so I've got less keiweeds saying they're going to reduce
their red meat consumption. And interestingly, when you dive into
the generational steps, it's that generation z so that that
(22:14):
young generation.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Have actually.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
The numbers that saying they're going to reduce red meat
consumptions dropped, so there's actually more of them looking to
consume red meat consumption, which is we found quite an
interesting stat.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, interesting isn't it their whole sort of fitness regime,
the run clubs, all those sorts of things and the
proteins and everything. I'm not surprised though, that gen Z
and that eight into twenty eight spectrum are looking at
increasing their meat consumption. There turning a few ideas on
their head. Right, food are provenance, This is increasingly important.
(22:49):
People want to know where it's been produced.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 10 (22:54):
Another interesting step that can to Hamish is kiwis want
to know where their food comes from and more willing
to purchase local food if they know where it's coming from,
which also ties into another stat that said, you know,
New Zealand's had a general high awareness around food production
(23:15):
systems and where food is coming from.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
There's some interesting stuff on here.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
And also we saw the rise and rise of the
likes of Hollow Fresh and uber Eats and the various
ways of getting pre prepared meals to your house. But
a bit of a drop off there, I guess.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (23:33):
So when we first started asking this question, you know,
five or six years ago, those home delivery services were
relatively new, so we started to see substantial growth. And
then obviously COVID came along with the lockdown and restaurants
and food service providers and really a real jump in
(23:55):
the use of those services that's actually dropped off substantially
over the last two years. As obviously restaurants have come
back online and normal eating up behaviors that have come back.
But also at the cost of living, as we touched
on at the start of the interview, people are looking
at how they can reduce their foods being costs and
(24:16):
I suspect this has thrown shown through through these steps.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Great research, very interesting and Blake good to chat. Thank
you very much for joining us here on the country.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
Thanks Aamus.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The Best of the Country with Rubbobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients.
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dot nzed on the best of the country.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
We crossed the ditch.
Speaker 11 (25:13):
Now to our man, Chris Russell, are.
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Speaker 4 (25:34):
Rubber Bank, Well, it is Boomtown Billio across the Tasman wall.
Prices a big rise over the last week and to
look at this our Australia corresponded Chris Russell, things are
going mad over there.
Speaker 12 (25:46):
Chris oh hamis had to said anything like it for
a long time. But you know, from when I spoke
to you last week, we've gone up one hundred and
twelve cents this week. We're now sitting at fifteen sixty
five cents. That's about forty percent high at the same
time last year. So everyone's still being very cautious, saying
maybe it's too early to say the sectors turned a corner.
(26:07):
But as I said last time, when the English.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Went to a Korean war and had all their uniforms made,
we had the wall boom. Well, the Chinese must be
preparing for something because they're buying uniforms, so that's obviously
stimulating this. Plus of course we're out of historic loads
for our flock size, certainly over the last thirty or
forty years, so that's not helping. We'll see where we go.
(26:29):
It's the time they made a few bob.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Hamish, absolutely, and speaking of making a few bob process
of cows now getting up close to that four dollars
of kilogram.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Yes, this well, this is a record, you know, for
three hundred and ninety cents of kilo. That's the first
time Australian process accounts I've ever gone there. And of
course US cattle prices are even higher because they have
gone any over there. Do you know Hamish that the
herd in the US is currently at the same level
it was in nineteen fifty one that's where I was born.
(27:01):
And in Canada it's sitting at the level it was
in nineteen eighty nine. So they're not coming back from
there anytime soon. So I think the price it's going
to stay right up there for cattle for a while.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Yeah, both sides of the Tasman should be able to
take advantage of that. Hey, look round up something new
at last on the horizon there.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Oh halle Elia, what a great story this has been.
You know, we're so excited. I think we've been. Everybody's
been looking for a new alternative for rounder because the
roundups had a bit of bad publicity I think unjustified
from far as the data is concerned. But nonetheless it's there,
and yet it's so key to our stubble in stubb
(27:43):
stubble sewing crops and reducing soil conservation issues and so on.
But Baya have just announced the release of a new
weed killer in Australia called ka Folan. Now it's the
first chemical of that sort of kills anything. It's green
type chemical in thirty odd years. Not only is it
(28:04):
something we can use instead of round up, it's also
more more sensibly something that will help fight resistance to
round up, because once you've got two chemicals, when it
gets to resistant the one, you can knock it out
with the other and you can keep oscillating about. And
resistance is such becoming such a big problem with roundup.
It's led to a lot of these round up ready crops.
Of course, so of course the lumplication has to go
(28:27):
through as process. Now it will be lodged with the
regulator in twenty twenty six, already been lodged in the
US and in Europe as well, and I think they're
hoping for having this product of ale from twenty twenty eight.
And all I can say is holy grail, Halllujah, hallelujah.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Indeed right, the new aboriginal rain stick technology that inspires
new seed germination invention.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
Well, as you know, I've always got a bit of
an eye for this sort of thing, having with my
television innovation program some years ago, and this really caught
my eye because it's based on I always like biomimicry,
but in this case it's aboriginal mimicry. And they've got
a new startup coming in Cairns which is combining the
(29:12):
sort of traditional indigenous knowledge of rain making where they
used to use rain stakes rainsticks to attract thunderstorms in
and create electric fields at the top of whatever they
were growing. So these guys have got hold of this
idea and they've got a secret technology which no one
knows what happens inside the black box, but you basically
(29:33):
put these seeds inside a box and you have a
thunderstorm creator inside the box, which I imagine is based
on lightning equivalents and so on, and that electric electrostatic
fields changing the molecules of the seeds in some way
so that they actually germinate more completely and more quickly,
(29:54):
that you don't have to handle seeds any differently after that.
But it certainly seems to be giving them bigger route growth,
more rapid vegetative growth, and so generally their early data
looks quite promising. Long way from being on the market yet,
but certainly spending some money on getting it up there,
and I think one hundred million dollars a year that
(30:15):
they're trying to say in the Canala industry particular with
this new technology with rapidly germinating the seed.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Amish fantastic talk about amazing things coming out of the
great Southern Land Australia and correspond Chris Russell, thank you
very much, No worries the.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
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Speaker 4 (30:41):
Ali, thank you so much for joining us. Look your story,
let's cut to the chase. Well, it's an incredibly tough story.
Just take us through that so we can sort of
set the scene for our conversation around grief.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
Okay, well, our son's common dan head to gush of braying,
to thill of Tom was born in nineteen eighty seven.
We were right in the middle of the egg sag,
and like a lot of people, we were technically bankrupt.
If the banks had decided to push us over, the
value of what we owned would have been less than
what we owed. And then we had this baby who
(31:19):
had this brain disorder. It took a while to diagnose it.
He was born in April, and in response to the eggzag,
we were supplying old use with the wind kill, which
meant sharing every fortnight. And that winter I looked back,
I was either in hospital with Tom, or at home
(31:40):
feeding sharers or getting food ready for someone else to
feed them.
Speaker 12 (31:44):
We were in.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Hospital, and in August we got a diagnosis that was
some sort of degenerative brain condition and he would die
soon or be profoundly disabled. And I mean, I didn't
know what was worse. I mean, obviously I didn't a
baby to die, but the thought of a child with
a profoundly disabled was no better. But of course we
(32:08):
don't have choice over matters like this. And a month
later he died. And at first there was some relief.
And anybody who has had a death when there's you know,
the life isn't ideal, knows that relief is a normal reaction.
But of course there was grief as well, because this
was a baby we'd loved and wanted and he wasn't
going to be part of our family. And there lots
(32:34):
of tests during his life, and a post mortem ruled
out all the known genetic conditions, and we saw a
genetic specialist who said, you know, barring one on a
million chance it's something medical science hasn't caught up with,
it'll be quite safe to have another. So two years
later Dan was born and he had the same condition
and he lived till he was five, and he could
(32:57):
do no more the day he died than he had
been able to the day he left the path. He
here the developmental milestones. So again when he died, there
was an element of relief, but of course there was
sadness and physical symptoms. And in the end I went
to my GP with this list of symptoms and he
(33:17):
examined me from head to toe and sat me down
and he said, well, the only thing I can rule
out one hundred percent of prostate cancer. But he said,
you know, I think you've got grief, and he said,
you know, did you feel this way after Tom died?
And I said no. But on the way home, I thought,
actually I did have physical symptoms as well, and I
(33:40):
started crying, and I cried from parana and I guess
the lives in there as you do have to grieve,
and you know, when the hopes and dreams you have
for a life, and it doesn't really matter what age
they are, but you know, children it's worse because there's
you know, when you're pregnant, you may not even be
aware of what your hopes and dreams are for child,
(34:00):
but when they're gone, you sort of thought, well, you know,
it's our daughter. Jane was two years older than Tom.
You know, none of that sort of siblings fun and
also they're not so good things that siblings do to
each other. But rather than if you're lucky, our clothes
and just you know, we've got a farm, and of
(34:22):
course we could have had any number of daughters who
wanted to be farmers and any number of sons who didn't.
Speaker 9 (34:27):
But there was that.
Speaker 8 (34:28):
Element as well, and just the awfulness of it's against
the natural order of things to lose the child.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
So how were people How did people approach you or
did they approach you, or how were those who had
the magic words or were those who just you know,
maybe shut off, because it's a hell of a hard
thing to front up to somebody who's lost children's loved ones,
like you say.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Yeah, And we were really blessed with our family and friends,
had absolutely wonderful support from them, and most were really
pretty good. And I think one of the things is
you don't know what to say. Just say, I don't
know what to say, and this is awful, and it
is And I guess the thing about grief is, you know,
if I had a broken leg, you'd see the plaster.
(35:17):
You wouldn't expect me to be swinging from the chandeliers,
But you don't see the grief scars. And you know,
that's harder because people talk about getting over grief as
if it's an illness, but it's not. It's a process
you go through and something you carry, and sometimes it's
heavier and sometimes it's lighter. And one of the metahors
(35:39):
I use is like a wound and you know at
first it's bleeding profusely, the pains in tense it's all
you can think of. And then gradually the bleeding will stop,
but it's slight knock and it will start again. And
then you know, as time goes on, you know, you
get a scab and a scar, and the scar will
(35:59):
always be there and sometimes you're not aware of it,
and then at other times it's incredibly painful. And then
and grief builds on grief too, because just to complicate matters,
eight years ago, our daughter was diagnosed with a rare
form of overhearing cancer. And you know, this was it
(36:20):
seems ridiculous, but I always felt that somehow Tom and
Dan would protect her from anything awful. But of course
life doesn't work like that, and you know, that's a
different type of grief, and and you know, as an
adult at handling that is different from what you know,
how we handled the boys because they were because their
(36:43):
brains weren't working properly, they didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
What was going on.
Speaker 8 (36:46):
But of course you know, we're faced with what Jane
was feeling as well as what we were feeling.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
You must have some incredible strategies then around grief, given
what you've been through earlier, that would be so valuable,
Like guess.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Too many.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Well, if you need help, ask for it. And we
went to a counselor after Jane was diagnosed, and when
he heard our story said, well, it's the wonder you're
still married. And I said, well, I knew Grant would
never leave the farm, so if I stayed on the farm,
he'd stay with me. And he knew I wouldn't go
quietly or cheap piece, so really it was left bother
(37:22):
to keep me.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I love the.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Way that you've got a sense of humor given your life,
you know, like that's great.
Speaker 8 (37:28):
Yeah, well that's important. One of my on the noticeboard
in my office, I've got the Storytellers creed by Robert Fulgham,
and the last two lines are the only self for
grief is laughter and love is stronger than death. And
you know, there's been among the sadness, there's been a
lot of laughter, and there's also been a lot of
love because because the thing is, you know why you
(37:50):
don't get over grief is because you don't get over love.
If you love someone, you love them forever, and so yeah,
it doesn't die. But as people are wondering what to do,
be guided by the person. And one of the things
if you're thinking of starting a sentence with at least
stop because children, you know, a place and a dinner seat,
(38:15):
your break one you can buy another. And it doesn't
matter how many good things are going on in your life.
If you're grieving because of a loss, then you're grieving.
And yep, you can be grateful for the good things
and the wonderful people around you and all sorts of
other things, but it doesn't stop the pain of the
(38:36):
of the grief. And practical things. There's a book called
There is No Good Card for This, and in it
they say, you know, do the practical things. Another thing
to avoid is there's anything I can do instead of that?
Speaker 12 (38:50):
You know?
Speaker 8 (38:50):
Can I mow your lawns? Can I bring you a meal,
or better still, just bring the nail? Can I look
after the other children? If there are the children? You know,
do you need to be taken somewhere? All those sort
of practical things, because you know, if I say to you,
with anything I can do, you don't know what I'm
able and willing to do. But if I say to you,
(39:13):
can I cop you a meal to whatever? You know,
that's something that I'm willing and able to do and can.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Do it.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Marvelous chatt all day about this, Ali, but there's some
wonderful stuff and what you've just said there and you know,
if you don't know what to say, just say I
don't know what to say, and I love that.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
If you need help, just ask for it. Ali Ludeman, thank.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
You so much for joining us and discussing the topic
of a grief much appreciated here on the Country.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
The Best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank old.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
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Speaker 4 (40:06):
Thank you for listening to some of the best interviews
from our week on the Country that was only lunamen
there from our series brought to you by Federated Farmers
with the Mental Health Awareness Week. Yes, the Best of
the Country brought to you by RABA Bank. We're growing
a better New Zealand together. Catch you next week on
the Country.
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Good Morning, New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Welcome into the best of the country, brought to you
by Rabobank. I'm Harvis McKay. Yes, we will feature all
the best interviews of the week. Coming up on the show.
We chat to the Prime Minister Christopher Luxen and with
it being mental health Awareness week, we asked the PM
what he does to look after his top two inches
his mental health. Also coming up Black Holegate from a
(00:37):
Rabobank we talk a food spend and the like and
the wonderful Laura Coot of course Real Country, Fairlight Foundation,
her mental.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Health story, incredible story. It's all coming up.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
On the Country brought to you every Saturday morning by rabobank.
Got a bit of dag in the dickheads going on
the back ground today Rabobank.
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Speaker 1 (01:26):
Rabo Bank.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Well, the Prime Minister Christopher Luxan joins us now on
the country. Welcome Prime Minister.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Good to be with you, Hamers. How are you going
this week?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Oh yeah, not good, Thank you good, thank you. The
India Free Trade Agreement. We spoke to Todd McLay yesterday.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
What is the expectation there, I mean he said we're
three rounds in the fourth round will be a knockout.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Look, We've we close out our Queenstown round. I think
we've got another round in India and then yeah, we'll
look to see where we sort of get to the
all of that. But look, I mean there's been very
good commitment from Prominence Commotium, myself and also trade mister
Goyel who's counterpart, and the four of us have been
pretty detervened from the top to actually try and find
way to make this work.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So, you know, I've done a lot of.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Business in the area over the years, and you know,
they're really tough negotiators. They're really hard and we also
want to be we're good negotiators too, So we've just
got to make sure that we get the best possible
deal we can for in your talent, and so I
don't let that process run through. To be honest, home
missions to sort of it'll take as long as it takes.
But I think we're making pretty good. Having said that,
we're making good progress.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Government quarterly Plan the thirty three things the Government plans
to do before.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
The end of the year. Where are we at with
this and what's top of the list.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah, the big one is actually the new RMA system
going forward from here. So you might remember the RAMA
I think is the single biggest thing that's been really
holding New Zealand back. You see all the work and
the frustration that you've seen even over the weekend with
regional councils and consenting. It's just you know, impacts you
guys in the farming sector, but it's just everything right.
(02:56):
You want to get a road belt, you want to
get a wolf extended at bought, the things that actually
make New Zealand go faster. We have just wrapped this
country up in red and green tape and we're trying.
We've got one of our big five things. We've got
to keep dismantling as much of that as we possibly can.
So the RMA is the biggest thing. Obviously, we stopped
the labor changes when we first can the first few
weeks when we came to power. We've put in place
(03:18):
fast track. We've made a number of what's called RMA
amendments to signal what's happening and to make some dumb
stuff stop. And then as of at the end of
this year, we want to have already introduced our first
reading of the new RMA laws that are going to
be governing New Zealand going forward, and you know they
need to be much simpler, get rid of the bureaucracy,
and as much of the red tape, respect people's property
(03:41):
rights and enable people to get things done and built.
And so the way it works is that I think
some of it's the publics that doesn't quite fully understand
or that we have a first We basically have a policy,
which is what we've been working on for the last
year or so about what we want that RMA to
do and how we want it to work and function
and to make it easier to get things done. Then
we put it into legislation and which is where a
(04:02):
lot of lawyers get involved with what's called a bill
that then goes to Parliament for a first reading. It
then goes out to the public for up to six
months for consultation and feedback and they try and make
give us input that makes the bill better, and then
it comes back to Parliament for a second reading and
what's called a committee stage, and then into a reading
where it becomes then the law of the land, and
we don't need to wait ten years to get this
(04:23):
thing implemented. We just got to get things consented, sorted
and get people moving quickly onto stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Right, okay, job seekers.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Now, now there seems to be a little bit of
a discussion here between you and one or two in
the horticultural sector. You believe there are the screaming out
for workers. Is one or two in their sectors say
they aren't. What's your take on that?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Well, it's just interesting. I mean my point is a
bigger one, which is that we cannot have in twenty
years time the same conversations we're having today that somehow,
you know, over half our kids don't go to school regularly,
which is the position we inher it into labor. We've
made some good progress on school attendance, which is good,
and then you just drift off into welfare. And the
(05:07):
worrying thing is that if you go on to a
benefit under the age of twenty five, the forecast are
you going to spend at least eighteen years on a
benefit over your lifetime. So that is a pretty sobering
statistic when you think about that. And Labour sort of
have a view which is that there's jobs that are
just beneath people and as a result, actually people shouldn't
shouldn't work, they should be better to go on the benefit.
(05:27):
And the answer is that is not the answer. We
need people connected to work. That is a much better
life than being on welfare. And we actually care about
the people who not materialize their potential. So what we
can't have as an eighteen or a nineteen year old
coming out of school or even the schooling system, and
we've got fifteen thousand of them and then sitting on
the job seek unemployment benefit. The job secret benefit is
(05:49):
set up so that you are able to work tomorrow
or within the next two years. You know, that's the expectation.
So all I'm saying to those young people is, sorry,
you've got to get you thing to work. You've got
to get you need to training or further education so
that you will be ready for a job, to be
able to take on a job. So that's what that's
all about. And all I'm saying is up and down
this country. I go everywhere. You'll go into Kiwi fruit
(06:10):
pack houses and people say, yeah, there's lots of young
people that come. They might start one shift, they don't
show up on time the next day and then they're
not there for day three. And that's not always the case.
But I'm just saying there is opportunities for people. And
if you're just going to draw a mythical line and
say there's this type of job that's just as below
anyone and no one should be doing, I just don't
(06:32):
think that's fair. I think the problem why we want
young people and workers that you've got to show up
on time, you've got to work, build a work ethic,
you've got to make sure that you are a part
of a team. You learn a lot of a lot
of skill, and you add at your skills that you
become valuable. Then you actually can have a decent career
and a decent job path of prospects going forward.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yep. I agree with all of that.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Just on the school attendance thing, Prime Minister in the eighties,
in the early eighties at Palmerston North Boys High School,
if you were if you wagged, you were just about
on the front page of the old Evening Standard, the
matter would do say, you know, it was a big story, you.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Know, frusht boys. It was the same thing to me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, A partner store was.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yeah, no, it's funny. And when did it become optional?
I mean, how on earth we call ourselves the first
world country when fifty five percent of our kids were
not at school ninety percent of the time or more.
And the problem is this Hamish, is that if you
don't go to school ninety percent of a time or more,
by the time you reach age of sixteen, you've lost
one whole year of education. And then we've been trying
(07:33):
to retoolt our MCA so that we get back to
the old days of what I had, which was school.
See where I knew I'd got expercent for maths and
science and English and economics or whatever. And it's the
same thing we're going to be implementing there. So yeah,
we've fortunately, you know, if you look at the last
two years, I think we've lifted it almost I think
eighteen percent, not as I saw he stay for term two.
And that's good. But you know, we still have you know,
(07:55):
we still have fifty eight percent of our kids now
going to school regularly rather than actually, you know, eighty
percent is what what it needs to be. So you know,
that's the work that we're just every week. Every we
now publish the data weekly, we have it available. We
talked to the schools were putting pressure on parents to
get kids to school and it's not an optional thing,
and it never was that way. It was called compulsory
(08:15):
education for a reason. And it's necessary for our kids
to be able to come into a workforce and be
work ready. You know, a number of your people, you know,
farmers out there will be hiring staff. Sometimes they're reading
and the numerous these skills are pretty poor and that's
not giving him the basic skills that those young people need.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Go forward with absolutely. Finally, and just quickly to wrap up,
Prime Minister.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yesterday we had Todd McLay and we talked about Mental
Health Awareness Week and what he did for his top
two inches to relieve some stress. So I'm jokingly suggesting
he goes down to the dam at the back of
the farm, icy dam, dives and naked.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
What about you for the top two inches?
Speaker 4 (08:47):
What's your in thirty seconds, what's your sort of release
to give yourself a break.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
You crank up Post Malone if one trillion album and
you have it real out and you just have it
pumping through the house. That's what you do. And I
have it in the office. I have it, and I
actually have a speaker system in the shower. I have
had in my kitchen and throughout my house. And no,
that's what gets your fills things up. But look, you
got to stay balanced, right. I mean, when you get stressed,
it's because you're overworking one of your sort of energies.
(09:14):
You've got to have work on stuff that's important. You'
have good social relationships, you've got to do some physical exercisey,
you've got to be mentally stimulated. So I think when
you stay balanced on those things that helps. But for me,
it's just crank up the music.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yep, strike the balance. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, thank you
for joining us on the.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Country Great Hamish. We'll talk to you next week mate,
see hak.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
You the best of the country with Rubbo Bank, the
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Speaker 1 (09:40):
Rubbo Bank.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Most of the uninitiated, we know you of course from
Real Country across social media. You're a farmstrong champion, feel
like foundation. You keep yourself pretty busy.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
What's you know? You tell us about an average week
in the life of Laura coop.
Speaker 7 (09:55):
Gosh, an average week, there is no such thing anymore.
And to yes, being super proud of running the Fairlight Foundation.
We're in fifty year, the year the interns and graduates
are doing well Real Country. We're going into the busy
season hosting farm shows for guests from around the world,
(10:16):
as well as continuing on with my confidence building workshops,
teaching people farm skills to earn confidence and their abilities.
I'm also a mum Hamers. Don't forget that one and
a half year old three and a half year old
now was busy in the day of a life, Laura, I.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Tell you the go go go right okay, underpinning everything
that you just talked about there too, in particular of
the growing the confidence and this would never have been
something that I would have imagined in one hundred years.
But there was a time where you didn't feel good
about yourself and had no confidence and was allowing others
to make decisions for you, and that obviously was something
(10:53):
that you needed to change.
Speaker 7 (10:57):
It is really hard to imagine now. It's even hard
to imagine myself now. But I had no confidence in
who I was as a person. I was battling a
pretty severe eating disorder. I was not living a life
that I was proud of. And because I didn't have
confidence in myself, I allowed everyone else to make decisions
for me.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
So I was.
Speaker 7 (11:17):
Doing work and performing really well professionally, and I was
very competent professionally, but I never sat myself down and
went what is it that I want? Who do I
want to be, and what is really important to me?
Speaker 9 (11:31):
So when I got to this place at.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Twenty nine, I was really really struggling, and I hit
a bit of a rock bottom, like I think a
lot of people do. And so getting to that point,
I really had to take ownership of that myself. I
wasn't good at talking about it. I wasn't good at
opening up to people about it. And so for me,
the start was volunteering at a horse sanctuary in Auckland.
(11:56):
That was the start of how I changed everything.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
So that was so you though, had to personally hit
rock bottom yourself. I mean, you had to feel the
jarring effect of that before you could turn it around.
Speaker 9 (12:10):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 7 (12:11):
And once I turned it around volunteering at that horse sanctuary,
like can you imagine I was suited and booted. I
was working in corporate living in Auckland, and that was
not who I was. And for me, going out to
the horse sanctuary and the smell of the horses and
working with horses and helping out and volunteering, I got
this little feel good And then that was what opened
(12:35):
it up for me to then draw a picture one
day of the type of life that I wanted.
Speaker 9 (12:39):
Dog with the four wheel drive.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
Truck, horse mountains my life in five years. And then
from there I changed my whole life to chase down.
Speaker 9 (12:49):
What it is that I wanted.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
And the reason that I think this is all so important,
it's because I've learned through my own experience that until
you understand what you're really capable of, and until you
have confidence in yourself, low confidence in low self belief
often does go hand.
Speaker 9 (13:06):
In hand with really poor mental health as well.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Is every choice along the way the recovery being a
good one, or is there do you have to sort
of you know, do you have to catch a few
frogs and you know to.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
Get it right.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
There is no linear path or progression at one step forward, learning,
adjusting the plan as you go, and being you know,
very forthright. It actually wasn't until I became a mother
that I actually thought the professional help that I really needed.
I drengthened a lot of my fortitude by doing things
(13:43):
that I didn't think I was capable of, like setting
up my own business, like changing my whole life and
pursuing and building something that I could be really passionate about.
And through that process I met myself. I then met
the love of my life, and you know, then we
got married and I was pregnant, and I was still
terrified because although I'd done all these incredible things, I
(14:06):
was still a people pleased at a high performer. I
would overwhelm myself regularly, and I was still battling a
pretty severe eating disorder. And it wasn't until my daughter
hit the ground and I went, I am not going
to be passing this on to her. I need to
get some proper help, and you know, seeking the help
(14:27):
for me it was a hypnotherapist in Queenstown, and she
helped me see that a lot of the struggles that
I was having. It wasn't about fixing the eating disorder
and the nail biting. It was about fixing the internal
subconscious traits that I had held with me since being
a really young person. And I just cannot say what
(14:50):
a weight off my shoulders it was to no longer
be living in You know, I still like to please people,
I still like to perform, but not to the point
where it's detrimental to my mental health. So it's been
a journey, a really really long journey where it's only
recently where I can sort of say, yeah, I'm in
a really good place.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Wow, so here knowing you as I do and having
spent a bit of time with you over the.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Years, those sort of the chinks in your armor. I wasn't.
I couldn't see. I couldn't see the trees for the forest.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
But now you say it, I actually start to do
in a few dots. Did anybody ever say anything to you?
Or was it you that had to primarily you with
the source of your recovery.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
I had to be the source of my own recovery
because like a lot of people, I don't I didn't
like to talk about it. I didn't know how to
talk about it. There was so much shame around what
I was doing, like who wants to admit that they
make themselves sick? Like that'stful and that's shameful. And I
didn't want to hurt my parents or my friends and
(15:58):
family around me, as I worried about them thinking gosh,
why didn't we see this? Or I didn't want pity,
and so I didn't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 9 (16:08):
And I really had to dig deep.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
And fix this and thought this out myself. But had
I not done that, I wouldn't be so aware now
of the fact that other people go through. I think
it's one in five years yeald adults will experience a
mental health challenge, and that presents in so many different ways.
It doesn't all look like my journey. But since I've
(16:32):
been opened up about my story, other people open up
to me. And it is the people that you least
accept And so because of what I've been through, a
lot of my focus and everything that I do is
about how you can help others to see the stones
and other people and to have that first conversation or
(16:52):
what do you do to reach out, Like a couple
of weeks ago, I have some really good friends who
have just gone into dairy farm. It's their first season
and they had a really high number of cars depths
and it's been terrible weather, and you know, they did
actually say to me, look, we are struggling. But not
(17:13):
everyone will do that, And so I didn't know what
to do. I don't know much about dairy farming. I
can't really be constructive.
Speaker 9 (17:19):
So what I did is I made some studo.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
I drove over there, I turned up, gave a hand
in the carving pens, made some lunch, had it down
over a cup of tea, and left. And knowing that
the way to show up for someone who was struggling
and how to have.
Speaker 9 (17:35):
Those first conversations is so important.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
But I wouldn't understand that had I not been through
my own stuff to start with.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
There was a lot like Ali Ludeman, who was on
the show with us yesterday, who lost two young sons
and was talking about grief and that don't ask what
you can do, actually just do something.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You know. It's like you did you cook over.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
Your win, you know, And you know, people that are struggling,
they don't want to be a burden, they don't want
your petty. They don't know how to talk about it,
and they a lot of like for me, I didn't
know what was going to fix me or what would
be right, and you do you want to push people
away because if you're not feeling good, it's not easy
(18:16):
to have someone.
Speaker 9 (18:16):
Else in your space.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
And so it's about just understanding how to show up
and how to have those conversations. And Catherine Wright was
an incredible counselor focused on the egg industry down here
in Tiano, and she ran a mental health first aid
program in Moscowne last year. And my dad, at seventy
two years of age, went along to this and he
(18:38):
got so much out of it because he grew up
in the generation of you just don't talk about these things.
You just you know, you just get on with it
and you do the work and you sort it out,
and you know, being able to identify whether it's your
co worker, your employee, someone on your sports and then
you make your family knowing how to support them as
(18:58):
just as important as richizing the signs and yourself.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Absolutely absolutely wonderful to chat Laura.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Thank you so much for sharing your story and keep
out the great work down there of real country, feel
like foundation.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That is Laura Coat joining us here on the country.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The best of the country with Rabobank.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
acribusiness experience grow with Rubbobank.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right Research should buy Rabobank and Kiwi Harvest has highlighted
some yeah, some all some amazing stuff really and how
Kiwi shop and go about preparing their food as well
as where and what they eat.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So we're going to delve into this a little bit today.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Blake Holgate from Rabobank joins us to look at this afternoon.
Speaker 10 (19:41):
Blake, afternoon, Hamish.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Great to have you with us. The first, well, let's
just deal with this.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
What people are spending on food Kiwi households and average
of two hundred and forty dollars per week. I don't
know how they do that, but that seems and that's
not much of an increase on twenty twenty three.
Speaker 10 (19:58):
No, yes, that's right, Hamish. So that was an increase
of two dollars over the last two years. Now what
we know is food price inflation has gone up by
significantly more than that. So Stat's New Zealand tells us
it's gone up by around six percent over that time.
So what that means is KEWI households have relatively less
purchasing pair with their growthries and are having to make
(20:19):
some decisions around what they do with that. And what
we heard was a third of them are buying less,
a third of them are downgrading the products or brands,
and half a keywis are actively more looking at those
promotions and specials.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
You just can't rock into the supermarket, can you with
the trolley and make those changes on the hoof?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Can you?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
There's a lot of thought gone into this to be
able to do two hundred and forty dollars a week
given the food inflation.
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yeah, exactly, hey marsh. And that's another behavior that came
through in the stats. So more key wes are saying
preparing meals that they're sitting down for the week and going, gee,
what are we going to be buying in cotton this week?
And preparing lists. So they're heading into the supermarket with
their mind up on what they're going to buy and
they tending to stick to that.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
The flower effect, of course, though, is the places that
we go to eat or get our takeaways from they
take a hit because of this and you can see
that it's cyclical right through the right through the community.
Speaker 10 (21:19):
Yeah, I mean you know, right through the supply chain, right,
So anyone that's producing food in New Zealand that goes
into the domestic food market will in some way be
feeling it. And different types of food and different supply
chains are more or less exposed to the domestic market.
But those that are, I suspect already feeling.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
It eating meat, I mean, meat isn't cheap. How are
we seeing what trends are we seeing there?
Speaker 10 (21:49):
Well, this is quite an interesting one, Hamish. So we
still get one in five key we saying that planning
to reduce red meat consumption going forward, but this is
actually a step that's trended down over the last three surveys,
so I've got less keiweeds saying they're going to reduce
their red meat consumption. And interestingly, when you dive into
the generational steps, it's that generation z so that that
(22:14):
young generation.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Have actually.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
The numbers that saying they're going to reduce red meat
consumptions dropped, so there's actually more of them looking to
consume red meat consumption, which is we found quite an
interesting stat.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, interesting isn't it their whole sort of fitness regime,
the run clubs, all those sorts of things and the
proteins and everything. I'm not surprised though, that gen Z
and that eight into twenty eight spectrum are looking at
increasing their meat consumption. There turning a few ideas on
their head. Right, food are provenance, This is increasingly important.
(22:49):
People want to know where it's been produced.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 10 (22:54):
Another interesting step that can to Hamish is kiwis want
to know where their food comes from and more willing
to purchase local food if they know where it's coming from,
which also ties into another stat that said, you know,
New Zealand's had a general high awareness around food production
(23:15):
systems and where food is coming from.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
There's some interesting stuff on here.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
And also we saw the rise and rise of the
likes of Hollow Fresh and uber Eats and the various
ways of getting pre prepared meals to your house. But
a bit of a drop off there, I guess.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (23:33):
So when we first started asking this question, you know,
five or six years ago, those home delivery services were
relatively new, so we started to see substantial growth. And
then obviously COVID came along with the lockdown and restaurants
and food service providers and really a real jump in
(23:55):
the use of those services that's actually dropped off substantially
over the last two years. As obviously restaurants have come
back online and normal eating up behaviors that have come back.
But also at the cost of living, as we touched
on at the start of the interview, people are looking
at how they can reduce their foods being costs and
(24:16):
I suspect this has thrown shown through through these steps.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Great research, very interesting and Blake good to chat. Thank
you very much for joining us here on the country.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
Thanks Aamus.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The Best of the Country with Rubbobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Rabobank, it is your Saturday morning, the best of the Country.
Would you like to better understand the process of passing
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Banks are free one day succession workshop. I'll improve your
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The Rubberbank website dub dub dub dot Rubbobank dot Co
dot nzed on the best of the country.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
We crossed the ditch.
Speaker 11 (25:13):
Now to our man, Chris Russell, are.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The best of the country with Rubbobank, the bank with
local acribanking experts passionate about the future of rural communities.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Rubber Bank, Well, it is Boomtown Billio across the Tasman wall.
Prices a big rise over the last week and to
look at this our Australia corresponded Chris Russell, things are
going mad over there.
Speaker 12 (25:46):
Chris oh hamis had to said anything like it for
a long time. But you know, from when I spoke
to you last week, we've gone up one hundred and
twelve cents this week. We're now sitting at fifteen sixty
five cents. That's about forty percent high at the same
time last year. So everyone's still being very cautious, saying
maybe it's too early to say the sectors turned a corner.
(26:07):
But as I said last time, when the English.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Went to a Korean war and had all their uniforms made,
we had the wall boom. Well, the Chinese must be
preparing for something because they're buying uniforms, so that's obviously
stimulating this. Plus of course we're out of historic loads
for our flock size, certainly over the last thirty or
forty years, so that's not helping. We'll see where we go.
(26:29):
It's the time they made a few bob.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Hamish, absolutely, and speaking of making a few bob process
of cows now getting up close to that four dollars
of kilogram.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Yes, this well, this is a record, you know, for
three hundred and ninety cents of kilo. That's the first
time Australian process accounts I've ever gone there. And of
course US cattle prices are even higher because they have
gone any over there. Do you know Hamish that the
herd in the US is currently at the same level
it was in nineteen fifty one that's where I was born.
(27:01):
And in Canada it's sitting at the level it was
in nineteen eighty nine. So they're not coming back from
there anytime soon. So I think the price it's going
to stay right up there for cattle for a while.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Yeah, both sides of the Tasman should be able to
take advantage of that. Hey, look round up something new
at last on the horizon there.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Oh halle Elia, what a great story this has been.
You know, we're so excited. I think we've been. Everybody's
been looking for a new alternative for rounder because the
roundups had a bit of bad publicity I think unjustified
from far as the data is concerned. But nonetheless it's there,
and yet it's so key to our stubble in stubb
(27:43):
stubble sewing crops and reducing soil conservation issues and so on.
But Baya have just announced the release of a new
weed killer in Australia called ka Folan. Now it's the
first chemical of that sort of kills anything. It's green
type chemical in thirty odd years. Not only is it
(28:04):
something we can use instead of round up, it's also
more more sensibly something that will help fight resistance to
round up, because once you've got two chemicals, when it
gets to resistant the one, you can knock it out
with the other and you can keep oscillating about. And
resistance is such becoming such a big problem with roundup.
It's led to a lot of these round up ready crops.
Of course, so of course the lumplication has to go
(28:27):
through as process. Now it will be lodged with the
regulator in twenty twenty six, already been lodged in the
US and in Europe as well, and I think they're
hoping for having this product of ale from twenty twenty eight.
And all I can say is holy grail, Halllujah, hallelujah.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Indeed right, the new aboriginal rain stick technology that inspires
new seed germination invention.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
Well, as you know, I've always got a bit of
an eye for this sort of thing, having with my
television innovation program some years ago, and this really caught
my eye because it's based on I always like biomimicry,
but in this case it's aboriginal mimicry. And they've got
a new startup coming in Cairns which is combining the
(29:12):
sort of traditional indigenous knowledge of rain making where they
used to use rain stakes rainsticks to attract thunderstorms in
and create electric fields at the top of whatever they
were growing. So these guys have got hold of this
idea and they've got a secret technology which no one
knows what happens inside the black box, but you basically
(29:33):
put these seeds inside a box and you have a
thunderstorm creator inside the box, which I imagine is based
on lightning equivalents and so on, and that electric electrostatic
fields changing the molecules of the seeds in some way
so that they actually germinate more completely and more quickly,
(29:54):
that you don't have to handle seeds any differently after that.
But it certainly seems to be giving them bigger route growth,
more rapid vegetative growth, and so generally their early data
looks quite promising. Long way from being on the market yet,
but certainly spending some money on getting it up there,
and I think one hundred million dollars a year that
(30:15):
they're trying to say in the Canala industry particular with
this new technology with rapidly germinating the seed.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Amish fantastic talk about amazing things coming out of the
great Southern Land Australia and correspond Chris Russell, thank you
very much, No worries the.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Best of the country with Rubbobank.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agri business experience grow with Rubbobank.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Ali, thank you so much for joining us. Look your story,
let's cut to the chase. Well, it's an incredibly tough story.
Just take us through that so we can sort of
set the scene for our conversation around grief.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
Okay, well, our son's common dan head to gush of braying,
to thill of Tom was born in nineteen eighty seven.
We were right in the middle of the egg sag,
and like a lot of people, we were technically bankrupt.
If the banks had decided to push us over, the
value of what we owned would have been less than
what we owed. And then we had this baby who
(31:19):
had this brain disorder. It took a while to diagnose it.
He was born in April, and in response to the eggzag,
we were supplying old use with the wind kill, which
meant sharing every fortnight. And that winter I looked back,
I was either in hospital with Tom, or at home
(31:40):
feeding sharers or getting food ready for someone else to
feed them.
Speaker 12 (31:44):
We were in.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Hospital, and in August we got a diagnosis that was
some sort of degenerative brain condition and he would die
soon or be profoundly disabled. And I mean, I didn't
know what was worse. I mean, obviously I didn't a
baby to die, but the thought of a child with
a profoundly disabled was no better. But of course we
(32:08):
don't have choice over matters like this. And a month
later he died. And at first there was some relief.
And anybody who has had a death when there's you know,
the life isn't ideal, knows that relief is a normal reaction.
But of course there was grief as well, because this
was a baby we'd loved and wanted and he wasn't
going to be part of our family. And there lots
(32:34):
of tests during his life, and a post mortem ruled
out all the known genetic conditions, and we saw a
genetic specialist who said, you know, barring one on a
million chance it's something medical science hasn't caught up with,
it'll be quite safe to have another. So two years
later Dan was born and he had the same condition
and he lived till he was five, and he could
(32:57):
do no more the day he died than he had
been able to the day he left the path. He
here the developmental milestones. So again when he died, there
was an element of relief, but of course there was
sadness and physical symptoms. And in the end I went
to my GP with this list of symptoms and he
(33:17):
examined me from head to toe and sat me down
and he said, well, the only thing I can rule
out one hundred percent of prostate cancer. But he said,
you know, I think you've got grief, and he said,
you know, did you feel this way after Tom died?
And I said no. But on the way home, I thought,
actually I did have physical symptoms as well, and I
(33:40):
started crying, and I cried from parana and I guess
the lives in there as you do have to grieve,
and you know, when the hopes and dreams you have
for a life, and it doesn't really matter what age
they are, but you know, children it's worse because there's
you know, when you're pregnant, you may not even be
aware of what your hopes and dreams are for child,
(34:00):
but when they're gone, you sort of thought, well, you know,
it's our daughter. Jane was two years older than Tom.
You know, none of that sort of siblings fun and
also they're not so good things that siblings do to
each other. But rather than if you're lucky, our clothes
and just you know, we've got a farm, and of
(34:22):
course we could have had any number of daughters who
wanted to be farmers and any number of sons who didn't.
Speaker 9 (34:27):
But there was that.
Speaker 8 (34:28):
Element as well, and just the awfulness of it's against
the natural order of things to lose the child.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
So how were people How did people approach you or
did they approach you, or how were those who had
the magic words or were those who just you know,
maybe shut off, because it's a hell of a hard
thing to front up to somebody who's lost children's loved ones,
like you say.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Yeah, And we were really blessed with our family and friends,
had absolutely wonderful support from them, and most were really
pretty good. And I think one of the things is
you don't know what to say. Just say, I don't
know what to say, and this is awful, and it
is And I guess the thing about grief is, you know,
if I had a broken leg, you'd see the plaster.
(35:17):
You wouldn't expect me to be swinging from the chandeliers,
But you don't see the grief scars. And you know,
that's harder because people talk about getting over grief as
if it's an illness, but it's not. It's a process
you go through and something you carry, and sometimes it's
heavier and sometimes it's lighter. And one of the metahors
(35:39):
I use is like a wound and you know at
first it's bleeding profusely, the pains in tense it's all
you can think of. And then gradually the bleeding will stop,
but it's slight knock and it will start again. And
then you know, as time goes on, you know, you
get a scab and a scar, and the scar will
(35:59):
always be there and sometimes you're not aware of it,
and then at other times it's incredibly painful. And then
and grief builds on grief too, because just to complicate matters,
eight years ago, our daughter was diagnosed with a rare
form of overhearing cancer. And you know, this was it
(36:20):
seems ridiculous, but I always felt that somehow Tom and
Dan would protect her from anything awful. But of course
life doesn't work like that, and you know, that's a
different type of grief, and and you know, as an
adult at handling that is different from what you know,
how we handled the boys because they were because their
(36:43):
brains weren't working properly, they didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
What was going on.
Speaker 8 (36:46):
But of course you know, we're faced with what Jane
was feeling as well as what we were feeling.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
You must have some incredible strategies then around grief, given
what you've been through earlier, that would be so valuable,
Like guess.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Too many.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Well, if you need help, ask for it. And we
went to a counselor after Jane was diagnosed, and when
he heard our story said, well, it's the wonder you're
still married. And I said, well, I knew Grant would
never leave the farm, so if I stayed on the farm,
he'd stay with me. And he knew I wouldn't go
quietly or cheap piece, so really it was left bother
(37:22):
to keep me.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I love the.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Way that you've got a sense of humor given your life,
you know, like that's great.
Speaker 8 (37:28):
Yeah, well that's important. One of my on the noticeboard
in my office, I've got the Storytellers creed by Robert Fulgham,
and the last two lines are the only self for
grief is laughter and love is stronger than death. And
you know, there's been among the sadness, there's been a
lot of laughter, and there's also been a lot of
love because because the thing is, you know why you
(37:50):
don't get over grief is because you don't get over love.
If you love someone, you love them forever, and so yeah,
it doesn't die. But as people are wondering what to do,
be guided by the person. And one of the things
if you're thinking of starting a sentence with at least
stop because children, you know, a place and a dinner seat,
(38:15):
your break one you can buy another. And it doesn't
matter how many good things are going on in your life.
If you're grieving because of a loss, then you're grieving.
And yep, you can be grateful for the good things
and the wonderful people around you and all sorts of
other things, but it doesn't stop the pain of the
(38:36):
of the grief. And practical things. There's a book called
There is No Good Card for This, and in it
they say, you know, do the practical things. Another thing
to avoid is there's anything I can do instead of that?
Speaker 12 (38:50):
You know?
Speaker 8 (38:50):
Can I mow your lawns? Can I bring you a meal,
or better still, just bring the nail? Can I look
after the other children? If there are the children? You know,
do you need to be taken somewhere? All those sort
of practical things, because you know, if I say to you,
with anything I can do, you don't know what I'm
able and willing to do. But if I say to you,
(39:13):
can I cop you a meal to whatever? You know,
that's something that I'm willing and able to do and can.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Do it.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Marvelous chatt all day about this, Ali, but there's some
wonderful stuff and what you've just said there and you know,
if you don't know what to say, just say I
don't know what to say, and I love that.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
If you need help, just ask for it. Ali Ludeman, thank.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
You so much for joining us and discussing the topic
of a grief much appreciated here on the Country.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
The Best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank old.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
We are believable.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Thank you for listening to some of the best interviews
from our week on the Country that was only lunamen
there from our series brought to you by Federated Farmers
with the Mental Health Awareness Week. Yes, the Best of
the Country brought to you by RABA Bank. We're growing
a better New Zealand together. Catch you next week on
the Country.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
The German Street War Musty kids were believable
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