April 18, 2025 • 39 mins
Jamie Mackay talks to David Seymour, Tom Young, Jane Smith, Peter Newbold, and Chris Russell.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Best of the Country with Robbobank.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agribusiness experience.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Grow with Rubbobank Man.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Ten thousand people, name people talking with speaking people here
with people riding sham Noster sun.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Looks so get a and good morning New Zealand. My
name is Jamie McKay. This is the best of the Country.
It's brought to you on a Saturday morning, in this
case Easter Saturday Morning by Rabobank. We're growing a better
News Zealand together. I gave this song a bit of
a whirl on Thursday show. It was a bit of
a disjointed week for me. I was only on the
Tools on Monday and Thursday, but I played this one
(01:09):
on Thursday's show. The old Simon and Garfunkel song are
remade a beautiful remake by Disturbed, So I thought I'd
give it another whirl because it was just sitting there
right on the Best of the Country this week only
from Monday and Thursday show. On Monday, I caught up
with David Seymour, soon to be Deputy PM. We talked trade, Trump,
inflation and Willie Jackson plus is he going to vacate
(01:32):
the naughty chair on the thirty first of May when
he becomes the Deputy Prime Minister. Tom Young we talked
red Mate, Red Mate, he's a good mate of the show.
We talked red meat with afco's National Livestock Manager Jane Smith.
North Otago Farmer Award winning environmentalist says she's hearing nothing
(01:53):
but the sounds of silence from the media on some
key issues. Thus this song newbold GM of PGG rights
in real estate, a monthly look at the state of
the rural market, how much your farm's worth. And we're
going to wrap it. With our Ossie correspondent Chris Russell,
we talked about a really boring leader's debate they had
(02:15):
across the Tasman the Sydney Royalist to show hundreds and
hundreds of thousands through the gate for that and the
state of Ozzie Rugby. It's all on the best of
the country and it's brought to you by Rabobank.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
The best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients Rabobank.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
David Seymour is the Act Party leader come the thirty
first of May. He'll be the deputy Prime Minister. Today
we're going to talk about trade, the treaty, inflation and
Willie Jackson. I'm not quite sure how we tie all
that in, but I want to start with the Deputy
prime Minister positioned David Seymour. Has Winston already started jostling
for petition for positions? Should I say condemning hysterical language
(03:05):
to quote them are used by Luxon and Trump trade
tariff talks or is this just a beat up by
the media.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Well, I don't have a good idea of what is
going on with the two of them. They're The only
thing I would say is that it's generally accepted and
respected that the Prime Minister is always the de facto
foreign minister. And when it comes to relationships with other countries,
(03:36):
whatever differences we may have within New zealand And, I
think we should have more debate about the future of
our country, but that's internal. When we front up to
the rest of the world, doesn't matter if your national
labor communist at party, we're all on Team New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I thought you were suggesting the Act Party was communist
there for a moment, David, I may have misard you
Now it's all about you, you being a naughty boy
in your eighteen months as not being Deputy PM, annoying
the hell out of the Prime Minister with your Treaty's
Principal's Bill. And now that Winston's nearly finished and he's
been on his best behavior and everyone universally is saying
(04:16):
he's done a good job as our trade minister, Is
Winston going to be the naughty boy?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Well, he's not the Trade Minister, as the Foreign Affairs
sorry minister. And you know, I think it's a shame
that people say that because the Treaty Principal's Bill, you know,
putting to the heart of our country's constitution.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Are we equal or are we not?
Speaker 5 (04:38):
To have that dismissed as being quote unquote naughty. I
think is really a sign of why we find it
so hard to solve problems in this country.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
David, you had three hundred thousand submissions. The previous record
was one hundred thy ninety percent opposing it. And I
know that you're appeasing your constituency, but sometimes a sleeping dog,
what's best left to lie?
Speaker 5 (05:02):
No, But a couple of things. First of all, anyone
who thinks select committee submissions are an indicator of public opinion.
Need only look at the end of.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Life choice or abortion.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
In both cases, ninety percent of submissions were opposed, and
yet the public overwhelmingly supported those law changes. Why is
that happening, Because whenever you put up an issue, people
come and object. If they don't like it, they're less
likely to submit on something that they actually support. That's
just a fact of life. Well, the number that's submitted
(05:35):
on treaty principle, I think shows that people do know
the question of what our treaty means matters to our country.
If you want to be able to do resource consents,
run local government, do education and health, everything is harder
when we're constantly divided by when our ancestors arrive so
far from being naughty or annoying, it's actually one has.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
To have right to us. I'm over the Treaty Principal's bill.
Now a poll out suggesting something that we already knew.
The cost of living is still the biggest concern in
this country. Supposedly, new data due out this week will
show inflation has risen for the first time in about
two or three years, but there is a solution, David Seamour,
(06:20):
It's sitting right in front of your nose, and Willie
Jackson was smart enough to realize this. All you need
to do is take the gst off meat.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Well, we're the start. I mean, first of all, I'm
a big fan of GDP Live. If you haven't checked
it out, try gurgling it. It's a guy called Christoph
Schumacher at MESSI and he takes real time data every
day from a whole lot of businesses to get a
sense of where GDP and inflation are at. Rather than
(06:52):
waiting three months but Statistics New Zealand to tell us
what it was doing two months ago. You can get
it in real time, so GDP Live And unfortunately I
just looked at it before this interview. In November, inflation
was down to two point h three. Now it's up
to two point four two according to this very precise
real time measures. So that would tell you that, you know,
(07:12):
when Stats New Zealand gets around to it, they two
are going to say GDP sorry, inflation has started rising again,
and that is a real concern. There's no question that
people have been doing it tough for a long time.
We crushed inflation down to two point two in the
official record, appears to have gotten a new lease of life.
All I can say is that, you know, there's things
(07:33):
you can control, there's things you can't. We can't control
the Americans, we can't control global trade. What we can
control is red tape and government waste and spending. So
all Act brings to the table is less red tape
and less government waste. Freeze people up to be productive
now when you and that means you've got more goods
for the amount of money, and that means slower prices
(07:55):
and better lives. So that's all we can do, and
that's exactly what we are doing right across the board.
I won't give you the whole gamut of red tape
cutting we're doing, but you know, people know it's a lot.
When it comes to Willie Jackson, I mean, what can
you say? I mean, this guy, you know it text
me all the time, but he never fronted up to
debate me. When TV three offered him the chance to
(08:17):
debate me on treaty principles, he had a whole year
to ask me questions about it. In the house. He
asked me one question and he got annihilated. So bad
that when we put it on YouTube, eight thousand people
watched him get annihilated. Asking me a question. Now he
pops up saying he wants to take GST off meat. Well,
here's a few things. One is that the GST savings
(08:38):
will go probably about half maybe more to the supermarkets
who are selling it, rather than to the consumer. The
money that gets saved by the consumer, we'll get mostly
of people buying I Phillip's, not to people buying mints,
because they'll get a bigger GST discount. It's a dream
for a tax account, and it's not a dream for
(08:58):
if you've got to pay them. The people paying will
be the consumer. So it's just about impossible to think
of a stupid or more complicated, less effective policy than
GST off meat if you want to help struggling families. However,
it's just about impossible to think of a stupider politician
than will they get all right, Well.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Leave it at that. David Seymour in the naughty chair,
but he's about to move to the responsible chair at
the end of May. Thanks for your time on the country,
David no worries Jamie.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The best of the Country with Rubbo Bank the bank
with local agri banking experts passionate about the future of
rural communities Rubbobank.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
One of the great success stories of the primary sector
this season has been red meat, well above expectations. But
how much of a threat is Trump and as tariffs?
Let's find out what's happening on the ground at the
coal face. Tom Young is a FCO's National livestock Manager. Tom,
how much of the ten percent tariff is going to
(09:58):
be paid for? Ultimately? Buy New Zealand farmers. Good afternoon by.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
The way, Yeah, yeah, hi Jamie. Look, we start out
with the intention of making the Americans pay the tariff themselves,
so we just we held onto our pricing at pre
tariff levels I guess for a bit. But we have
seen in the last few days or I guess a
week or so, we've seen probably the Australians of clawback
(10:24):
five percent, so half the teriff are you but it
still works? Okay, Like we're still keep you where we're sitting,
and we don't think at this point in time it's
going to have any adverse effect on schedules, so we're
comfortable with them.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Okay, that's the US. What about our biggest market, our
biggest trading partner, not for red meat, that's the US currently,
but China. There's going to be a lot of collateral
damage out of this trade war. It's going to affect
the Chinese economy ultimately that's got to affect us.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, what we
have seen, or what I can coming on now, is
we've seen a huge amount of demand come out of
China in the last week or two. So there have
been some sort of I guess, some big players talking
to us, questioning us whether they can have big volumes
of meat, and I'm talking hundreds of loads of meat,
and we don't have the product. So obviously we're going
(11:16):
into the time of the year we were shortening up
on product. Capacity is starting to get backed off, but
we simply don't have a heavy amount of meat that
the demand is therefore coming out of China. So they
sort of come out of nowhere and they're sort of
building it up and they're desperate to get some product.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Now I see an Aussie analyst I've just forgotten his name,
you might better fill in the missing pieces for me,
said that Lamb's going to be ten bucks of Quilo.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Happy days, Yeah, happy days.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
I mean I think his name was Simon Cruelty and
I mean nice to say, but probably doesn't really help
New Zealand, and that drives the price of stores stop
mad and can probably put expectations in people's heads that
might not be there. I think my personal view is
if you had, if you had a prediction from a
(12:05):
large company in New Zealand, a red meat company, and
they said, look, we think it might get to this level,
it's a bit more sort of believable than a third party.
He has no sort of vest of interest in the
New Zealand red meat sector.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
So we're getting near the end of the season. We're
all scrambling, or you guys are scrambling to supply enough
meat to these markets the US and China which just
can't seem to get enough of it at the moment.
Do you know what that sings out to me, Tom Young?
Procurement war.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, everyone talks about a procurement war. I think it's
it's already super competitive. There's enough you know, people looking
to buy red meat in New Zealand and processes that
you're never not going to get a competitive price week
on week at any time of the year. I guess
in the middle of winter, late winter, you'll see some
pressure on the price. You know that we're a long
(12:55):
way through the land cool now beef and lamb took
the land call sort of back a million lambs, so
there's no doubt we're going to have a shortage and
all out procurement war.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (13:05):
I think everyone puts the beast foot forward. Now, the
contract or a price, a weekly spot price, and does
the best to sort of buy some lambs that are
going broke. So yeah, our view will always be to
have a competitive price, but we're not going to take
it to a level where we don't exist in a
year or two s time.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
A sheep farm is ultimately going to win by being
the last man standing. If you've still got a sheep
farm and you're raising some lamb, if the pine trees
haven't invaded your sheep farm already, there's going to be
so few that they're going to be worth a fortune.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Well, I mean they've rebounded, the price is rebounded massively,
has it in the last six seven, eight months? So,
but it's always been a psychical business, hasn't a red
meat It goes up, it goes down. It's no different
dairy farming. I think if you've got a farm and
you've got a good system, and you've got a way
of farming and that works, you know, whatever your percentage
(13:58):
of sheep to cattle, you need to stick with it.
I think people that change stock classes and dive in
and out of markets and try and find Eldorado or
Tennessee somewhere generally come unglued. And the people that stick
with a good policy ten to come out of it
on a five year average and a better position than
those are in and out of different classes.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
To stop, we've heard how the US is going to
take several years more than one to build up the beef.
Does that mean that, like beef prices for the next
few years, tariffs aside are going to be strong.
Speaker 6 (14:30):
Well, you think so, wouldn't you. But I mean we
have seen times when you know, South America can turn
up with a lot of beef too out of nowhere.
So logically you'd say, if there's a global shortage of
price will be held up. But you know, there have
been times when we've seen that shortage has been shortened
in a hurry and all of a sudden, countries have
(14:51):
found a lot of beef that probably people haven't expected either.
So I would say, you know, looking out over the
next next six to twelve months, probably pretty healthy pricing,
pretty hard to see too much past. Then I would
have thought, let's.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Just finish on weather and track conditions as I like
to call them around the country. We know them. We
know the North Island's being particularly dry, the west part
of it, the dry part of it has received some
useful rain. You guys on the East Coast and Hawke's
Bay where you're based, have fared much better. But you've
headed into a typically dry autumn.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Yeah, we have, so we're probably a little bit too
dry now. But hopefully this Wednesday and Thursday is sort
of fifty tow one hundred miles predicted the black so
that it'll turn us round if it does arrive.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
It's called Easter Tom. It's a rain maker and a windmaker.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Hey, thank you very much for some of your time
today as the National Livestock Manager for AFCO onwards and
upwards for the meat prices bugger truck, Let's.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Hope say wonderful. Thanks Jamie, the.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Best of the country. With Rubber Bank.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
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agribusiness experience, grow with rubber Bag.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
So Jane Smith's a bit of a regular hair on
the country North Otago farmer coming to town for the day.
Also a former winner of the Balanced Farm Environment Awards,
and she's all about the sounds of silence today, Jane Smith,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Good afternoon, Jamie. I just think there's a number of
elephants in the room at the moment that the media
seemed to be sort of dodging and it just seemed
to be silent on. And one of those is, for example,
the Knight Tahoo the High Court taking the Crown to
the High Court at the moment, and that's for the
control pursuing the recognition and control over freshwater in the
(16:39):
South Island. I think they call it chiefly authority and
they say they don't want ownership, they only want authority.
So and just I guess they've disguised it as wanting
to improve water quality. Isn't that what we are all
working towards and doing and actually really gaining some really
good ground on. And it's interesting, Jamie that Chris Finlinson,
who's of course the ex Attorney General. He was the
(17:03):
Minister of the treaty negotiations that she did a pretty
reasonable job of that. But of course he is now
working for NATAH on this court case taking the Crown
to court, and good on Cederated Farmacist standing up and
doing a stellar job in that. It'll be a hell
of a pressure cooker situation. But this has set a
massive precedent for the country going forward, so I'd love
(17:23):
to see some more media coverage on that, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Well, I need to get my backside into gear and
go into back with Federated Farmers on that one. In
my mind, the water belongs to us all. What about
the ge bill? You reckon? This is going to slip
past the goalie in silence.
Speaker 7 (17:38):
Yeah, Well it's really interesting, Jamie, it really has been,
and it's a very short time frame, and I guess
it's really interesting that other I guess the opposition. I'm
really surprised the opposition haven't asked the more time, more
Select Committee discussion around this. And it's not whether we
should or shouldn't. And gene technology is not new. I
mean we've had gene technology in some shape or form
(17:58):
since the nineteen seventies. But what they're looking at here
is a pretty open ended process and control that there
will be no process and no control if this goes
through in its in its current form disguised as being
needed for egritech and I guess lux And has his
eye on Silicon Valley money. But if this does go through,
New Zealand will be the least regulated ge country potentially
(18:22):
in the world, far greater than Australia, etc. So rather
than just an unfitted sort of opening up. But surely
we should be having a conversation about that, Jamie. But
again silence.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I thought we were going to go to the same
standards as Australia.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
No, it certainly looks like we're actually going to be
opening up even wider than that, Jamie. And I guess,
as I said, is that because we're looking for some
new new money and new investment. And look, I certainly
do agree with some of the technology that we may
may need for peat and possibly weed control, but gosh,
some of it also has been sold as being needed, like,
for example, metha mitigation, and you know my thoughts on that, Jamie.
(18:58):
Pills and potions for no reas and at all. But
you know that is a great concern that it's just,
you know, there's no discussion. I think that at the
very least there should be good discussion, if not a referendum.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
Jamie.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
You mentioned Federated Farmers and they have done a sterling job,
especially when it comes to things like the banking inquiry
on behalf of not only farmers but business people in
this country. You reckon that's gone quiet as.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
Well well, it seems of Jamie, even though actually behind
the scenes it's really actually get up and I think
there was over fifteen hundred individuals have shed some pretty
harrowing stories in terms of bullying by their banks over
the years. I know there's a couple of very good
books that have been written by a farmer on the
West coast, gray eat Weale, that are worth looking at,
(19:40):
and I know he's been involved. But you know, that
inquiry is really fundamental to our being really because as
any business people or personal personal bank has etc. And
it's now opened up a course to include the righteousness
around banks that have got into you know that the
whole climate change debacle, and now it's really good that
(20:03):
that's being looked into. Because it won't be long, and
those banks will also be those that are the part
of the AGU zero Ponzi scheme, will also be trying
to force upon us again their pills and potions to
as solutions to the problem that doesn't potentially exist, Jamie.
So I think we need a bit more coverage on
that as well, Jamie. Really important for all New Zealanders.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do we really have to talk about sapazi mari.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Oh, Jamie, I just about yeah. I felt a bit
nauseous looking at some of their new policies. One of them,
and I won't take up too much time, but was
to abolish acc That sounds really clever. A levy on
all properties sold or least in New Zealand, and that's
going to be used to run their mary parliament. And
remember Raweri y Tt said he wasn't a fan of democracy,
(20:49):
so that'll be interesting. I think they want something like
fifty percent of all teaching in New Zealand to be
based on Terreo. Now that is a considering we're a
country that's only just restarting to each reading, writing, and
arithmetic properly, Jamie. That is concerning, And of course the
old Yeah, the old hardy annual of getting rid of
all prisons, Jamie, how's that going to go down? So yeah,
(21:11):
very very unpalatable. And I don't know if we'll call
them to party, Murray. I think it's almost sort of
yea like as I said, domestic terrorism, lest reading that, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
They're a joke and they're the reason that Chris Sipkins,
as long as his backsides pointing to the ground, won't
be prime minister. No one wants them running the country.
Can I just finished really quickly because I'm short on time.
How are things in North Otago? You guys are having
a pretty good season?
Speaker 7 (21:35):
We certainly are, Jamie, and as you and I alway
feel a little bit guilty because we usually are getting hammered,
particularly in autumn. But now we're having a really, really
good season, and so that's that's good and that bodes well.
Everything is very positive at the moment generally in farming.
And we just we just need some of these other
things to be aired and discussion had Jamie, and just
you know, keep the democracy that we all fight for
(21:56):
in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I did go up your way recently
for the South Island Airy event and I must say
that North Otago South Canterby looking an absolute picture. Jane Smith,
thanks for your time. Enjoy your day out on the
big Smoke.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
Thanks Jamie.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
The Best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank, Julie,
Julie Joy.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I'm maginn I you please don't me.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Gooday and good morning New Zealand. I'm Jamie McKay. You're
listening to the Best of the Country here on news Talk.
Sa'd be on your long Easter weekend. I hope you're
getting a bit of a break. I know a lot
of the farmers out there will be working all the
way through. They're the backbone of the economy. Let's not
forget that. Hey, this, by the way, is an American
a cappella group called Pentatonics from Arlington, Texas. Very clever
(22:52):
a cappella meaning of course you sing without any musical
instruments as a backup. They're very very good. They paired
up with Doll Partner. Did this one right up next
on the Best of the Country, Peter newbol Gm of
PGG Rights and Monthly look at the State of the
Rural market, how much is your farm worth? And our
Ossie correspondent Chris Russell talking about a boring leader's debate
(23:15):
the Sydney Royal Ester Show where he presented the Chris
Russell Medal. Will tell you all about that and the
state of Ossie Rugby. Now, just before I forget, Rabobank
wonderful sponsors of this show have a Ravo Community Fund.
It's used to support initiatives that help develop driving rural
communities and is fully funded by Rabobank New Zealand. Since
(23:37):
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To find out more, go to that website again, rabobank
dot co dot Nz. Up next Peter Newbold and we
wrap it with their Ossie correspondent Chris Russell.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Johnnie the Best of the Country with Rubbobank, the bank
with local acribanking experts passionate about the future of rural
communities Rubbobank monthly.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Here on the country. We have a look at the
state of the rural landmarket. How much is your farm worth?
Can you sell one? At the moment? Peter Newbold is
the GM of PGG rights in real estate and Peter
are from the highs the COVID frenzy. I think of
what twenty one, twenty two or round about there to
the lows of the last couple of years, and now
(24:53):
we're starting to see the rural markets take off again.
Speaker 8 (24:57):
Yeah. Look, there's a clear sign if I go back,
that's sort of sixteen through to twenty twenty. You know,
we're sort of averaging around four billion, and then twenty
twenty one it just dropped off a cliff to about
two billion, and then twenty two we had that big boost,
went up to four and a half and now we're
sitting roughly just under three billion. So to me, that
(25:22):
sends a clear signal that things are on the move,
which is really positive. And just to give your listeners.
A comparison, the lifestyle market sits at about six billion
and at its peak was ten billion, So you can
see the rural market is a small marketplace, but you know,
small moves we're seeing at the moment is really encouraging,
(25:44):
and I think we're seeing that coming through at the
moment where the sales are any strong.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Okay, A live style, A lifestyle market that was worth
ten billion at the COVID peak. That's Peter. That's a
lot of productive land that's got houses and horse on it.
Speaker 8 (26:01):
Yeah, look when you look around now you look at
all these well moving out from the big metropolitans, but
even provincial New Zealand, there's a lot of lifestyle blocks. Also,
what you'll see too, there is a lot of more
of these smaller fifty hectare sort of what i'd call
grazing blocks, and again there's demand for those. But definitely
if you look around some of these larger provincial towns,
(26:24):
now there's a lot of lifestyle activity which creates a
whole lot of other demands. But yeah, definitely it hasn't
It's had an impact in some areas, but again I
look at rural and it's moving in the direct direction,
which is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, let's look at the biggest market, the dairy sect.
How's it going there. The dairy farmers are going to
get ten bucks or better this year. I'm imagining when
the corporate starts sniffing around again, there's got to be
interested in it.
Speaker 8 (26:51):
Oh, there is interest, and there's a lot of players
now looking at it. I guess we go into this
period where the dairy slows off a bit and we're
probably seeing a lot more momentum at this time of
the year, more than normal, and that sheep and beef
and grazing area, so that's still strong. The dairy thing,
I think will come into play a game as we
come into the spring area. But there's a lot of
(27:12):
players interested in that. And I think the other thing
that is noticeable there a lot of payback, a lot
of debt, so there'll be a lot more cash available
and I think we're going to see that stimulate sales
not only in dairy but in our whole sheep and
beef marketplace. So I think we're going to have a
pretty solid spring and depending on the weather in the winter,
(27:34):
we might see more activity there too.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Let's have a look at horticulture. What's happening there keeping.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
Fruit and that side of it is good. Viticulture is
quiet for all those reasons we know, But definitely if
you look up in that bigger Kiwi fruit area, we've
seen a lot more activity. There's more interest, and I
think that's a good thing. After you look there's bit
has probably been quiet for two three years.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
As you know, you also not only run the real
estate division, Peter and Newbold, you're in charge of the
live stock division.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Now.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I think one of the great stories out of farming
this season has been the renaissance of red meat. Not
so much beef. It's been good, but certainly lamb and mutton.
Are we seeing that reflected in the interest in those
properties you mentioned, the interest in sheep and beef and
grazing properties.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Oh, look, definitely. You know, if you look at a
traditional sheep and beef farmer, you go back a couple
of years or even up until this season has been
really tough, and now we're starting to see really good
prices in sheep and also cattle. I think it'll be
fair to say in some parts of the country where
we're scraping to find stock for people, so that's a
(28:46):
really good thing. It's good for those all those farmers.
Suddenly they're going to get a good return, some will
pay back debt, put them back into a profitable position.
You know. It's really healthy and that is and it
will stimulate eat more sales in that sector. And when
you combine that with the dairy side, you know, rural
New Zealand hasn't looked so good for a long long
(29:08):
time in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
So the livestock division at PGG Rights and Will have
had a bit of a roiler.
Speaker 8 (29:14):
Yeah, we've had a fantastic year and that's really good
and I must admit it's it's nice operating in both businesses.
But you know, the livestock world, she's an interesting place
and we have some wonderful characters in that in that business.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Of ours, and we also chat to those guys on
a monthly basis as well. Look, Peter and Newbold, thanks
for some of your time wearing your real estate and
livestock hat out of PGG Rights and I hope you
have a RESTful Easter weekend. Don't eat too many Easter eggs.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
No, thank you, jamiean Likewise, you have a got easter.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
The best of the country with Rubbo back.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agribusiness experience.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Grow with Rubboback.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
He's our guy across the ditch. Chris Russell, our Australian correspondent, Chris.
I was going to start off by the second leader's debate,
Elbow v. Dutton last night, but like a lot of Australians,
you didn't bother watching it. What have you heard?
Speaker 9 (30:09):
Oh so these are so lackluster. They're both so gun
shy about that got stuck in a little bit more
into Albanezia, particularly about the orcast thing. But yeah, they're
very gunshy. The much more interesting discussion came between Dutton
and the Australian newspaper, one of our major national newspapers
here after the debate. I don't know whether he was
(30:31):
saving up for them. I don't understand why he didn't
release out of the debate, which would have been seen
by more people. But nonetheless he announced that one of
his policies is going to be to start indexing the
different tax brackets you fall into, so you know whether
you pay thirty percent tax or thirty two percent or
forty percent or whatever changes at certain levels of income
(30:53):
and they haven't been index for years, so we've been
suffering from what they call bracket creep, where as you
get more, you suddenly duck into the next tax bracket. Well,
he's going to actually index those to match the waging
greases and therefore avoid that problem. Now, that's been tried
about twenty years ago by John Howard and it didn't succeed.
(31:13):
They started it, but they just never finished it off.
It was all sorts of cry from Treasury and the
costs and so on, so it never happened fully. But
that's something I think would be popular, and it's certainly
at last we've got a little bit of a point
of differentiation, rather than each of them announcing something, the
other one saying they'll do the same thing or slightly differently.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I reckon it's a great policy. We could do with
it here something that's also very popular. And I remember
the time you took me to the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
It's going to be huge, or more huge than ever
because the way the holidays have fallen this year with
the ENZAC thing happening.
Speaker 9 (31:50):
Yes, look it's always big. I think the Sydney Royal Is.
The showground is the largest purpose built showground in the
Southern Hemisphere, as my statistics are right, and it's a
big event always they always expect to get about seven
hundred thousand people through, but this year, and this is
despite the costs being around about forty dollars for an adult,
(32:11):
so it's not cheap to go in. But this year,
because of the fact there is two long weekends and
the school holidays completely encompassing the period the show is
open that they're expecting many more people on that and
they've really gone over the top to try and make
it worthwhile for people to get in there. All the
normal things rides and show showbags and so on. But
(32:33):
the evening event they have a bison stampede with bison
climbing up on the top of semi trailers. They have
other cowboys sort of acts, motocross, a fantastic fire works
display which is on every night, goes on for about
fifteen minutes, so they've really gone well. And of course
all the normal things the wood chopping and so on,
which everyone attracts. So I just noticed, ah, I was
(32:56):
there on Tuesday and I just noticed a huge number
of people. Well, one of the starlight things I think
for it is the district exhibits as well, where each
section of New South Wales come and display their produce
in a big display would be about maybe fifteen twenty
meters by twenty meters on a sloping stage where they
display all their goods and it's judged both for the
(33:18):
quality of the goods and for the actual display quality.
And that's always a big attraction for me. It's just
lovely to be able to see all those goods on display.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Jamie.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Well, on Tuesday evening you were of there. You were
there of course to present the Chris Russell Middle awarded
to the top what tertiary graduate an egg.
Speaker 9 (33:39):
Yes, that's great, you know, unfortunate name, I suppose, but
I'm just one of the things I really value. And
each year the top graduating undergraduate student. This is at
bachelor degree level in New South Wales. They all submit
the honest students submit their thesis for their final year
and they're judged by an academic panel and the top
(34:01):
graduating student then we present their final presentations. The panel
decides and then we actually award the medal to the
top student. A nice medal. They get a nice check.
They also get a twelve months membership of one of
the top agricultural think tanks in Australia called Agrimines, where
they get to mix a match with some of the
(34:24):
leaders of society in agriculture, the Agrimines, if you like,
of Australia. So it's a much valued prize and I
really value getting to meet all of the young graduates.
There's such brainiacs, Jamie. You know, I don't even understand
the titles of some of their thesis. Unbelievably good and
sophisticated work that we will not even looked at till
(34:45):
you've got to at least PhD level. So it's a
joy to see such talent being attracted to agriculture. None
of them really off farms. They are all city people
who have discovered agg and the worthy winner this year,
you know, young Harris, she did a fantas pastic, fantastic
thesis looking at using artificial intelligence to model growth patterns
(35:06):
in wheat based on data. I think all the farmers
get data overload almost well, she's found a software system
being able to feed all that data into and predict
what growth patterns are going to be where the big
harvest is going to be, when it's going to be
and so on, and a very exciting project that she
did to win that proz.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
All right, let's just finish very quickly on rugby. I've
got about thirty seconds. Chris an extra sixty five million
for TV rights for Rugby Australia. Now, the bloke who's
in charge of a former Wallaby a Phil Waar, saying
the players need to front up and I'm worried about
the Wallabies this year. They could be quite good.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
Well, I think they've certainly, you know, everyone's hopefully excited
about it. They're depending on this line's tour as bringing
some extra cash in. They certainly didn't make any money
out of Wales or Georgia last year and that's why
their loss was not as great as they thought. But
it was significant. Fifty millions a lot of money to lose.
But they're having within a couple of years and particularly
(36:02):
with these new TV right income that they're going to
be able to turn that around. I feel Ward's a
good operator. I think every confidence they are. They've got
some star players coming in Swali and others that are
going to make a difference, So fingers crossed, we're going
to have be back to the glory days of the eighties.
You know, David Campezi, Michael Lyon, are all those wonderful players, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I think he did once when the Bleederslow Cup in
the early two thousands. Has been a long time between
drinks though, Chris Russell enjoy the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.
Speaker 9 (36:33):
No worries, thanks Jamie.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The best of the country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Chris Russell, our Australian correspondent of long standing, been on
the show believe it or not for more than thirty years,
was almost there on day one when we kicked it
up nineteen ninety four at ages both of us, doesn't it.
My name's Jamie McCain. This is the best of the
country each and every Saturday morning here on News Talks EDB.
(37:09):
It is brought to you by Rabobank. We're growing a
better New Zealand together. I'm coming down from the high
of last week's Master is my favorite sporting event of
the year, and I love my rugby as well. But
Rory McElroy. What a finish that was. I'm hoping my
Highlanders can do a bit of a Rory McElroy against
(37:30):
the Chiefs tonight. I'm not holding the breath on that one,
because the Chiefs are a very good side. I think
they might be favorites, perhaps along with the Crusaders, to
win Super Rugby. But as Chris said, watch out for
those Aussie sides. Right, that's me done and dust that.
I'm out of here. I'm leaving you with my a
cappella group. A cappella group, get it right, Pentatonics. This
(37:51):
is their cover of Hellelujah. Have a great Easter, and
remember what it's all about, not eating too many Easter eggs.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Was how to shoot somebody who out do you.
Speaker 8 (38:08):
And it's not a cry that you hear light, it's
not somebody who's seen the lad.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
It's a cord.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
It's a broad.
Speaker 9 (38:27):
How you
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Because
The Best of the Country with Robbobank.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agribusiness experience.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Grow with Rubbobank Man.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Ten thousand people, name people talking with speaking people here
with people riding sham Noster sun.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Looks so get a and good morning New Zealand. My
name is Jamie McKay. This is the best of the Country.
It's brought to you on a Saturday morning, in this
case Easter Saturday Morning by Rabobank. We're growing a better
News Zealand together. I gave this song a bit of
a whirl on Thursday show. It was a bit of
a disjointed week for me. I was only on the
Tools on Monday and Thursday, but I played this one
(01:09):
on Thursday's show. The old Simon and Garfunkel song are
remade a beautiful remake by Disturbed, So I thought I'd
give it another whirl because it was just sitting there
right on the Best of the Country this week only
from Monday and Thursday show. On Monday, I caught up
with David Seymour, soon to be Deputy PM. We talked trade, Trump,
inflation and Willie Jackson plus is he going to vacate
(01:32):
the naughty chair on the thirty first of May when
he becomes the Deputy Prime Minister. Tom Young we talked
red Mate, Red Mate, he's a good mate of the show.
We talked red meat with afco's National Livestock Manager Jane Smith.
North Otago Farmer Award winning environmentalist says she's hearing nothing
(01:53):
but the sounds of silence from the media on some
key issues. Thus this song newbold GM of PGG rights
in real estate, a monthly look at the state of
the rural market, how much your farm's worth. And we're
going to wrap it. With our Ossie correspondent Chris Russell,
we talked about a really boring leader's debate they had
(02:15):
across the Tasman the Sydney Royalist to show hundreds and
hundreds of thousands through the gate for that and the
state of Ozzie Rugby. It's all on the best of
the country and it's brought to you by Rabobank.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
The best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients Rabobank.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
David Seymour is the Act Party leader come the thirty
first of May. He'll be the deputy Prime Minister. Today
we're going to talk about trade, the treaty, inflation and
Willie Jackson. I'm not quite sure how we tie all
that in, but I want to start with the Deputy
prime Minister positioned David Seymour. Has Winston already started jostling
for petition for positions? Should I say condemning hysterical language
(03:05):
to quote them are used by Luxon and Trump trade
tariff talks or is this just a beat up by
the media.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Well, I don't have a good idea of what is
going on with the two of them. They're The only
thing I would say is that it's generally accepted and
respected that the Prime Minister is always the de facto
foreign minister. And when it comes to relationships with other countries,
(03:36):
whatever differences we may have within New zealand And, I
think we should have more debate about the future of
our country, but that's internal. When we front up to
the rest of the world, doesn't matter if your national
labor communist at party, we're all on Team New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I thought you were suggesting the Act Party was communist
there for a moment, David, I may have misard you
Now it's all about you, you being a naughty boy
in your eighteen months as not being Deputy PM, annoying
the hell out of the Prime Minister with your Treaty's
Principal's Bill. And now that Winston's nearly finished and he's
been on his best behavior and everyone universally is saying
(04:16):
he's done a good job as our trade minister, Is
Winston going to be the naughty boy?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Well, he's not the Trade Minister, as the Foreign Affairs
sorry minister. And you know, I think it's a shame
that people say that because the Treaty Principal's Bill, you know,
putting to the heart of our country's constitution.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Are we equal or are we not?
Speaker 5 (04:38):
To have that dismissed as being quote unquote naughty. I
think is really a sign of why we find it
so hard to solve problems in this country.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
David, you had three hundred thousand submissions. The previous record
was one hundred thy ninety percent opposing it. And I
know that you're appeasing your constituency, but sometimes a sleeping dog,
what's best left to lie?
Speaker 5 (05:02):
No, But a couple of things. First of all, anyone
who thinks select committee submissions are an indicator of public opinion.
Need only look at the end of.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Life choice or abortion.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
In both cases, ninety percent of submissions were opposed, and
yet the public overwhelmingly supported those law changes. Why is
that happening, Because whenever you put up an issue, people
come and object. If they don't like it, they're less
likely to submit on something that they actually support. That's
just a fact of life. Well, the number that's submitted
(05:35):
on treaty principle, I think shows that people do know
the question of what our treaty means matters to our country.
If you want to be able to do resource consents,
run local government, do education and health, everything is harder
when we're constantly divided by when our ancestors arrive so
far from being naughty or annoying, it's actually one has.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
To have right to us. I'm over the Treaty Principal's bill.
Now a poll out suggesting something that we already knew.
The cost of living is still the biggest concern in
this country. Supposedly, new data due out this week will
show inflation has risen for the first time in about
two or three years, but there is a solution, David Seamour,
(06:20):
It's sitting right in front of your nose, and Willie
Jackson was smart enough to realize this. All you need
to do is take the gst off meat.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Well, we're the start. I mean, first of all, I'm
a big fan of GDP Live. If you haven't checked
it out, try gurgling it. It's a guy called Christoph
Schumacher at MESSI and he takes real time data every
day from a whole lot of businesses to get a
sense of where GDP and inflation are at. Rather than
(06:52):
waiting three months but Statistics New Zealand to tell us
what it was doing two months ago. You can get
it in real time, so GDP Live And unfortunately I
just looked at it before this interview. In November, inflation
was down to two point h three. Now it's up
to two point four two according to this very precise
real time measures. So that would tell you that, you know,
(07:12):
when Stats New Zealand gets around to it, they two
are going to say GDP sorry, inflation has started rising again,
and that is a real concern. There's no question that
people have been doing it tough for a long time.
We crushed inflation down to two point two in the
official record, appears to have gotten a new lease of life.
All I can say is that, you know, there's things
(07:33):
you can control, there's things you can't. We can't control
the Americans, we can't control global trade. What we can
control is red tape and government waste and spending. So
all Act brings to the table is less red tape
and less government waste. Freeze people up to be productive
now when you and that means you've got more goods
for the amount of money, and that means slower prices
(07:55):
and better lives. So that's all we can do, and
that's exactly what we are doing right across the board.
I won't give you the whole gamut of red tape
cutting we're doing, but you know, people know it's a lot.
When it comes to Willie Jackson, I mean, what can
you say? I mean, this guy, you know it text
me all the time, but he never fronted up to
debate me. When TV three offered him the chance to
(08:17):
debate me on treaty principles, he had a whole year
to ask me questions about it. In the house. He
asked me one question and he got annihilated. So bad
that when we put it on YouTube, eight thousand people
watched him get annihilated. Asking me a question. Now he
pops up saying he wants to take GST off meat. Well,
here's a few things. One is that the GST savings
(08:38):
will go probably about half maybe more to the supermarkets
who are selling it, rather than to the consumer. The
money that gets saved by the consumer, we'll get mostly
of people buying I Phillip's, not to people buying mints,
because they'll get a bigger GST discount. It's a dream
for a tax account, and it's not a dream for
(08:58):
if you've got to pay them. The people paying will
be the consumer. So it's just about impossible to think
of a stupid or more complicated, less effective policy than
GST off meat if you want to help struggling families. However,
it's just about impossible to think of a stupider politician
than will they get all right, Well.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Leave it at that. David Seymour in the naughty chair,
but he's about to move to the responsible chair at
the end of May. Thanks for your time on the country,
David no worries Jamie.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The best of the Country with Rubbo Bank the bank
with local agri banking experts passionate about the future of
rural communities Rubbobank.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
One of the great success stories of the primary sector
this season has been red meat, well above expectations. But
how much of a threat is Trump and as tariffs?
Let's find out what's happening on the ground at the
coal face. Tom Young is a FCO's National livestock Manager. Tom,
how much of the ten percent tariff is going to
(09:58):
be paid for? Ultimately? Buy New Zealand farmers. Good afternoon by.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
The way, Yeah, yeah, hi Jamie. Look, we start out
with the intention of making the Americans pay the tariff themselves,
so we just we held onto our pricing at pre
tariff levels I guess for a bit. But we have
seen in the last few days or I guess a
week or so, we've seen probably the Australians of clawback
(10:24):
five percent, so half the teriff are you but it
still works? Okay, Like we're still keep you where we're sitting,
and we don't think at this point in time it's
going to have any adverse effect on schedules, so we're
comfortable with them.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Okay, that's the US. What about our biggest market, our
biggest trading partner, not for red meat, that's the US currently,
but China. There's going to be a lot of collateral
damage out of this trade war. It's going to affect
the Chinese economy ultimately that's got to affect us.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, what we
have seen, or what I can coming on now, is
we've seen a huge amount of demand come out of
China in the last week or two. So there have
been some sort of I guess, some big players talking
to us, questioning us whether they can have big volumes
of meat, and I'm talking hundreds of loads of meat,
and we don't have the product. So obviously we're going
(11:16):
into the time of the year we were shortening up
on product. Capacity is starting to get backed off, but
we simply don't have a heavy amount of meat that
the demand is therefore coming out of China. So they
sort of come out of nowhere and they're sort of
building it up and they're desperate to get some product.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Now I see an Aussie analyst I've just forgotten his name,
you might better fill in the missing pieces for me,
said that Lamb's going to be ten bucks of Quilo.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Happy days, Yeah, happy days.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
I mean I think his name was Simon Cruelty and
I mean nice to say, but probably doesn't really help
New Zealand, and that drives the price of stores stop
mad and can probably put expectations in people's heads that
might not be there. I think my personal view is
if you had, if you had a prediction from a
(12:05):
large company in New Zealand, a red meat company, and
they said, look, we think it might get to this level,
it's a bit more sort of believable than a third party.
He has no sort of vest of interest in the
New Zealand red meat sector.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
So we're getting near the end of the season. We're
all scrambling, or you guys are scrambling to supply enough
meat to these markets the US and China which just
can't seem to get enough of it at the moment.
Do you know what that sings out to me, Tom Young?
Procurement war.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, everyone talks about a procurement war. I think it's
it's already super competitive. There's enough you know, people looking
to buy red meat in New Zealand and processes that
you're never not going to get a competitive price week
on week at any time of the year. I guess
in the middle of winter, late winter, you'll see some
pressure on the price. You know that we're a long
(12:55):
way through the land cool now beef and lamb took
the land call sort of back a million lambs, so
there's no doubt we're going to have a shortage and
all out procurement war.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (13:05):
I think everyone puts the beast foot forward. Now, the
contract or a price, a weekly spot price, and does
the best to sort of buy some lambs that are
going broke. So yeah, our view will always be to
have a competitive price, but we're not going to take
it to a level where we don't exist in a
year or two s time.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
A sheep farm is ultimately going to win by being
the last man standing. If you've still got a sheep
farm and you're raising some lamb, if the pine trees
haven't invaded your sheep farm already, there's going to be
so few that they're going to be worth a fortune.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Well, I mean they've rebounded, the price is rebounded massively,
has it in the last six seven, eight months? So,
but it's always been a psychical business, hasn't a red
meat It goes up, it goes down. It's no different
dairy farming. I think if you've got a farm and
you've got a good system, and you've got a way
of farming and that works, you know, whatever your percentage
(13:58):
of sheep to cattle, you need to stick with it.
I think people that change stock classes and dive in
and out of markets and try and find Eldorado or
Tennessee somewhere generally come unglued. And the people that stick
with a good policy ten to come out of it
on a five year average and a better position than
those are in and out of different classes.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
To stop, we've heard how the US is going to
take several years more than one to build up the beef.
Does that mean that, like beef prices for the next
few years, tariffs aside are going to be strong.
Speaker 6 (14:30):
Well, you think so, wouldn't you. But I mean we
have seen times when you know, South America can turn
up with a lot of beef too out of nowhere.
So logically you'd say, if there's a global shortage of
price will be held up. But you know, there have
been times when we've seen that shortage has been shortened
in a hurry and all of a sudden, countries have
(14:51):
found a lot of beef that probably people haven't expected either.
So I would say, you know, looking out over the
next next six to twelve months, probably pretty healthy pricing,
pretty hard to see too much past. Then I would
have thought, let's.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Just finish on weather and track conditions as I like
to call them around the country. We know them. We
know the North Island's being particularly dry, the west part
of it, the dry part of it has received some
useful rain. You guys on the East Coast and Hawke's
Bay where you're based, have fared much better. But you've
headed into a typically dry autumn.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Yeah, we have, so we're probably a little bit too
dry now. But hopefully this Wednesday and Thursday is sort
of fifty tow one hundred miles predicted the black so
that it'll turn us round if it does arrive.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
It's called Easter Tom. It's a rain maker and a windmaker.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Hey, thank you very much for some of your time
today as the National Livestock Manager for AFCO onwards and
upwards for the meat prices bugger truck, Let's.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Hope say wonderful. Thanks Jamie, the.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Best of the country. With Rubber Bank.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agribusiness experience, grow with rubber Bag.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
So Jane Smith's a bit of a regular hair on
the country North Otago farmer coming to town for the day.
Also a former winner of the Balanced Farm Environment Awards,
and she's all about the sounds of silence today, Jane Smith,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Good afternoon, Jamie. I just think there's a number of
elephants in the room at the moment that the media
seemed to be sort of dodging and it just seemed
to be silent on. And one of those is, for example,
the Knight Tahoo the High Court taking the Crown to
the High Court at the moment, and that's for the
control pursuing the recognition and control over freshwater in the
(16:39):
South Island. I think they call it chiefly authority and
they say they don't want ownership, they only want authority.
So and just I guess they've disguised it as wanting
to improve water quality. Isn't that what we are all
working towards and doing and actually really gaining some really
good ground on. And it's interesting, Jamie that Chris Finlinson,
who's of course the ex Attorney General. He was the
(17:03):
Minister of the treaty negotiations that she did a pretty
reasonable job of that. But of course he is now
working for NATAH on this court case taking the Crown
to court, and good on Cederated Farmacist standing up and
doing a stellar job in that. It'll be a hell
of a pressure cooker situation. But this has set a
massive precedent for the country going forward, so I'd love
(17:23):
to see some more media coverage on that, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Well, I need to get my backside into gear and
go into back with Federated Farmers on that one. In
my mind, the water belongs to us all. What about
the ge bill? You reckon? This is going to slip
past the goalie in silence.
Speaker 7 (17:38):
Yeah, Well it's really interesting, Jamie, it really has been,
and it's a very short time frame, and I guess
it's really interesting that other I guess the opposition. I'm
really surprised the opposition haven't asked the more time, more
Select Committee discussion around this. And it's not whether we
should or shouldn't. And gene technology is not new. I
mean we've had gene technology in some shape or form
(17:58):
since the nineteen seventies. But what they're looking at here
is a pretty open ended process and control that there
will be no process and no control if this goes
through in its in its current form disguised as being
needed for egritech and I guess lux And has his
eye on Silicon Valley money. But if this does go through,
New Zealand will be the least regulated ge country potentially
(18:22):
in the world, far greater than Australia, etc. So rather
than just an unfitted sort of opening up. But surely
we should be having a conversation about that, Jamie. But
again silence.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I thought we were going to go to the same
standards as Australia.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
No, it certainly looks like we're actually going to be
opening up even wider than that, Jamie. And I guess,
as I said, is that because we're looking for some
new new money and new investment. And look, I certainly
do agree with some of the technology that we may
may need for peat and possibly weed control, but gosh,
some of it also has been sold as being needed, like,
for example, metha mitigation, and you know my thoughts on that, Jamie.
(18:58):
Pills and potions for no reas and at all. But
you know that is a great concern that it's just,
you know, there's no discussion. I think that at the
very least there should be good discussion, if not a referendum.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
Jamie.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
You mentioned Federated Farmers and they have done a sterling job,
especially when it comes to things like the banking inquiry
on behalf of not only farmers but business people in
this country. You reckon that's gone quiet as.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
Well well, it seems of Jamie, even though actually behind
the scenes it's really actually get up and I think
there was over fifteen hundred individuals have shed some pretty
harrowing stories in terms of bullying by their banks over
the years. I know there's a couple of very good
books that have been written by a farmer on the
West coast, gray eat Weale, that are worth looking at,
(19:40):
and I know he's been involved. But you know, that
inquiry is really fundamental to our being really because as
any business people or personal personal bank has etc. And
it's now opened up a course to include the righteousness
around banks that have got into you know that the
whole climate change debacle, and now it's really good that
(20:03):
that's being looked into. Because it won't be long, and
those banks will also be those that are the part
of the AGU zero Ponzi scheme, will also be trying
to force upon us again their pills and potions to
as solutions to the problem that doesn't potentially exist, Jamie.
So I think we need a bit more coverage on
that as well, Jamie. Really important for all New Zealanders.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do we really have to talk about sapazi mari.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Oh, Jamie, I just about yeah. I felt a bit
nauseous looking at some of their new policies. One of them,
and I won't take up too much time, but was
to abolish acc That sounds really clever. A levy on
all properties sold or least in New Zealand, and that's
going to be used to run their mary parliament. And
remember Raweri y Tt said he wasn't a fan of democracy,
(20:49):
so that'll be interesting. I think they want something like
fifty percent of all teaching in New Zealand to be
based on Terreo. Now that is a considering we're a
country that's only just restarting to each reading, writing, and
arithmetic properly, Jamie. That is concerning, And of course the
old Yeah, the old hardy annual of getting rid of
all prisons, Jamie, how's that going to go down? So yeah,
(21:11):
very very unpalatable. And I don't know if we'll call
them to party, Murray. I think it's almost sort of
yea like as I said, domestic terrorism, lest reading that, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
They're a joke and they're the reason that Chris Sipkins,
as long as his backsides pointing to the ground, won't
be prime minister. No one wants them running the country.
Can I just finished really quickly because I'm short on time.
How are things in North Otago? You guys are having
a pretty good season?
Speaker 7 (21:35):
We certainly are, Jamie, and as you and I alway
feel a little bit guilty because we usually are getting hammered,
particularly in autumn. But now we're having a really, really
good season, and so that's that's good and that bodes well.
Everything is very positive at the moment generally in farming.
And we just we just need some of these other
things to be aired and discussion had Jamie, and just
you know, keep the democracy that we all fight for
(21:56):
in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I did go up your way recently
for the South Island Airy event and I must say
that North Otago South Canterby looking an absolute picture. Jane Smith,
thanks for your time. Enjoy your day out on the
big Smoke.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
Thanks Jamie.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
The Best of the Country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank, Julie,
Julie Joy.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I'm maginn I you please don't me.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Gooday and good morning New Zealand. I'm Jamie McKay. You're
listening to the Best of the Country here on news Talk.
Sa'd be on your long Easter weekend. I hope you're
getting a bit of a break. I know a lot
of the farmers out there will be working all the
way through. They're the backbone of the economy. Let's not
forget that. Hey, this, by the way, is an American
a cappella group called Pentatonics from Arlington, Texas. Very clever
(22:52):
a cappella meaning of course you sing without any musical
instruments as a backup. They're very very good. They paired
up with Doll Partner. Did this one right up next
on the Best of the Country, Peter newbol Gm of
PGG Rights and Monthly look at the State of the
Rural market, how much is your farm worth? And our
Ossie correspondent Chris Russell talking about a boring leader's debate
(23:15):
the Sydney Royal Ester Show where he presented the Chris
Russell Medal. Will tell you all about that and the
state of Ossie Rugby. Now, just before I forget, Rabobank
wonderful sponsors of this show have a Ravo Community Fund.
It's used to support initiatives that help develop driving rural
communities and is fully funded by Rabobank New Zealand. Since
(23:37):
twenty twenty one, the Rabo Community Fund has committed more
than three million dollars in funds to rural community projects
throughout New Zealand. Find out more at their website rabobank
dot co dot Nz. And while I'm at at, boost
your savings with Rabobank's Premium Saver. Enjoy unlimited withdraws and
earn a premium interest rate of three point five percent
(23:59):
as long as as you top up your end of
month balance by at least fifty dollars TS and c's apply.
To find out more, go to that website again, rabobank
dot co dot Nz. Up next Peter Newbold and we
wrap it with their Ossie correspondent Chris Russell.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Johnnie the Best of the Country with Rubbobank, the bank
with local acribanking experts passionate about the future of rural
communities Rubbobank monthly.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Here on the country. We have a look at the
state of the rural landmarket. How much is your farm worth?
Can you sell one? At the moment? Peter Newbold is
the GM of PGG rights in real estate and Peter
are from the highs the COVID frenzy. I think of
what twenty one, twenty two or round about there to
the lows of the last couple of years, and now
(24:53):
we're starting to see the rural markets take off again.
Speaker 8 (24:57):
Yeah. Look, there's a clear sign if I go back,
that's sort of sixteen through to twenty twenty. You know,
we're sort of averaging around four billion, and then twenty
twenty one it just dropped off a cliff to about
two billion, and then twenty two we had that big boost,
went up to four and a half and now we're
sitting roughly just under three billion. So to me, that
(25:22):
sends a clear signal that things are on the move,
which is really positive. And just to give your listeners.
A comparison, the lifestyle market sits at about six billion
and at its peak was ten billion, So you can
see the rural market is a small marketplace, but you know,
small moves we're seeing at the moment is really encouraging,
(25:44):
and I think we're seeing that coming through at the
moment where the sales are any strong.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Okay, A live style, A lifestyle market that was worth
ten billion at the COVID peak. That's Peter. That's a
lot of productive land that's got houses and horse on it.
Speaker 8 (26:01):
Yeah, look when you look around now you look at
all these well moving out from the big metropolitans, but
even provincial New Zealand, there's a lot of lifestyle blocks. Also,
what you'll see too, there is a lot of more
of these smaller fifty hectare sort of what i'd call
grazing blocks, and again there's demand for those. But definitely
if you look around some of these larger provincial towns,
(26:24):
now there's a lot of lifestyle activity which creates a
whole lot of other demands. But yeah, definitely it hasn't
It's had an impact in some areas, but again I
look at rural and it's moving in the direct direction,
which is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, let's look at the biggest market, the dairy sect.
How's it going there. The dairy farmers are going to
get ten bucks or better this year. I'm imagining when
the corporate starts sniffing around again, there's got to be
interested in it.
Speaker 8 (26:51):
Oh, there is interest, and there's a lot of players
now looking at it. I guess we go into this
period where the dairy slows off a bit and we're
probably seeing a lot more momentum at this time of
the year, more than normal, and that sheep and beef
and grazing area, so that's still strong. The dairy thing,
I think will come into play a game as we
come into the spring area. But there's a lot of
(27:12):
players interested in that. And I think the other thing
that is noticeable there a lot of payback, a lot
of debt, so there'll be a lot more cash available
and I think we're going to see that stimulate sales
not only in dairy but in our whole sheep and
beef marketplace. So I think we're going to have a
pretty solid spring and depending on the weather in the winter,
(27:34):
we might see more activity there too.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Let's have a look at horticulture. What's happening there keeping.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
Fruit and that side of it is good. Viticulture is
quiet for all those reasons we know, But definitely if
you look up in that bigger Kiwi fruit area, we've
seen a lot more activity. There's more interest, and I
think that's a good thing. After you look there's bit
has probably been quiet for two three years.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
As you know, you also not only run the real
estate division, Peter and Newbold, you're in charge of the
live stock division.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Now.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I think one of the great stories out of farming
this season has been the renaissance of red meat. Not
so much beef. It's been good, but certainly lamb and mutton.
Are we seeing that reflected in the interest in those
properties you mentioned, the interest in sheep and beef and
grazing properties.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Oh, look, definitely. You know, if you look at a
traditional sheep and beef farmer, you go back a couple
of years or even up until this season has been
really tough, and now we're starting to see really good
prices in sheep and also cattle. I think it'll be
fair to say in some parts of the country where
we're scraping to find stock for people, so that's a
(28:46):
really good thing. It's good for those all those farmers.
Suddenly they're going to get a good return, some will
pay back debt, put them back into a profitable position.
You know. It's really healthy and that is and it
will stimulate eat more sales in that sector. And when
you combine that with the dairy side, you know, rural
New Zealand hasn't looked so good for a long long
(29:08):
time in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
So the livestock division at PGG Rights and Will have
had a bit of a roiler.
Speaker 8 (29:14):
Yeah, we've had a fantastic year and that's really good
and I must admit it's it's nice operating in both businesses.
But you know, the livestock world, she's an interesting place
and we have some wonderful characters in that in that business.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Of ours, and we also chat to those guys on
a monthly basis as well. Look, Peter and Newbold, thanks
for some of your time wearing your real estate and
livestock hat out of PGG Rights and I hope you
have a RESTful Easter weekend. Don't eat too many Easter eggs.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
No, thank you, jamiean Likewise, you have a got easter.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
The best of the country with Rubbo back.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Choose the bank with one hundred and twenty years global
agribusiness experience.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Grow with Rubboback.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
He's our guy across the ditch. Chris Russell, our Australian correspondent, Chris.
I was going to start off by the second leader's debate,
Elbow v. Dutton last night, but like a lot of Australians,
you didn't bother watching it. What have you heard?
Speaker 9 (30:09):
Oh so these are so lackluster. They're both so gun
shy about that got stuck in a little bit more
into Albanezia, particularly about the orcast thing. But yeah, they're
very gunshy. The much more interesting discussion came between Dutton
and the Australian newspaper, one of our major national newspapers
here after the debate. I don't know whether he was
(30:31):
saving up for them. I don't understand why he didn't
release out of the debate, which would have been seen
by more people. But nonetheless he announced that one of
his policies is going to be to start indexing the
different tax brackets you fall into, so you know whether
you pay thirty percent tax or thirty two percent or
forty percent or whatever changes at certain levels of income
(30:53):
and they haven't been index for years, so we've been
suffering from what they call bracket creep, where as you
get more, you suddenly duck into the next tax bracket. Well,
he's going to actually index those to match the waging
greases and therefore avoid that problem. Now, that's been tried
about twenty years ago by John Howard and it didn't succeed.
(31:13):
They started it, but they just never finished it off.
It was all sorts of cry from Treasury and the
costs and so on, so it never happened fully. But
that's something I think would be popular, and it's certainly
at last we've got a little bit of a point
of differentiation, rather than each of them announcing something, the
other one saying they'll do the same thing or slightly differently.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I reckon it's a great policy. We could do with
it here something that's also very popular. And I remember
the time you took me to the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
It's going to be huge, or more huge than ever
because the way the holidays have fallen this year with
the ENZAC thing happening.
Speaker 9 (31:50):
Yes, look it's always big. I think the Sydney Royal Is.
The showground is the largest purpose built showground in the
Southern Hemisphere, as my statistics are right, and it's a
big event always they always expect to get about seven
hundred thousand people through, but this year, and this is
despite the costs being around about forty dollars for an adult,
(32:11):
so it's not cheap to go in. But this year,
because of the fact there is two long weekends and
the school holidays completely encompassing the period the show is
open that they're expecting many more people on that and
they've really gone over the top to try and make
it worthwhile for people to get in there. All the
normal things rides and show showbags and so on. But
(32:33):
the evening event they have a bison stampede with bison
climbing up on the top of semi trailers. They have
other cowboys sort of acts, motocross, a fantastic fire works
display which is on every night, goes on for about
fifteen minutes, so they've really gone well. And of course
all the normal things the wood chopping and so on,
which everyone attracts. So I just noticed, ah, I was
(32:56):
there on Tuesday and I just noticed a huge number
of people. Well, one of the starlight things I think
for it is the district exhibits as well, where each
section of New South Wales come and display their produce
in a big display would be about maybe fifteen twenty
meters by twenty meters on a sloping stage where they
display all their goods and it's judged both for the
(33:18):
quality of the goods and for the actual display quality.
And that's always a big attraction for me. It's just
lovely to be able to see all those goods on display.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Jamie.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Well, on Tuesday evening you were of there. You were
there of course to present the Chris Russell Middle awarded
to the top what tertiary graduate an egg.
Speaker 9 (33:39):
Yes, that's great, you know, unfortunate name, I suppose, but
I'm just one of the things I really value. And
each year the top graduating undergraduate student. This is at
bachelor degree level in New South Wales. They all submit
the honest students submit their thesis for their final year
and they're judged by an academic panel and the top
(34:01):
graduating student then we present their final presentations. The panel
decides and then we actually award the medal to the
top student. A nice medal. They get a nice check.
They also get a twelve months membership of one of
the top agricultural think tanks in Australia called Agrimines, where
they get to mix a match with some of the
(34:24):
leaders of society in agriculture, the Agrimines, if you like,
of Australia. So it's a much valued prize and I
really value getting to meet all of the young graduates.
There's such brainiacs, Jamie. You know, I don't even understand
the titles of some of their thesis. Unbelievably good and
sophisticated work that we will not even looked at till
(34:45):
you've got to at least PhD level. So it's a
joy to see such talent being attracted to agriculture. None
of them really off farms. They are all city people
who have discovered agg and the worthy winner this year,
you know, young Harris, she did a fantas pastic, fantastic
thesis looking at using artificial intelligence to model growth patterns
(35:06):
in wheat based on data. I think all the farmers
get data overload almost well, she's found a software system
being able to feed all that data into and predict
what growth patterns are going to be where the big
harvest is going to be, when it's going to be
and so on, and a very exciting project that she
did to win that proz.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
All right, let's just finish very quickly on rugby. I've
got about thirty seconds. Chris an extra sixty five million
for TV rights for Rugby Australia. Now, the bloke who's
in charge of a former Wallaby a Phil Waar, saying
the players need to front up and I'm worried about
the Wallabies this year. They could be quite good.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
Well, I think they've certainly, you know, everyone's hopefully excited
about it. They're depending on this line's tour as bringing
some extra cash in. They certainly didn't make any money
out of Wales or Georgia last year and that's why
their loss was not as great as they thought. But
it was significant. Fifty millions a lot of money to lose.
But they're having within a couple of years and particularly
(36:02):
with these new TV right income that they're going to
be able to turn that around. I feel Ward's a
good operator. I think every confidence they are. They've got
some star players coming in Swali and others that are
going to make a difference, So fingers crossed, we're going
to have be back to the glory days of the eighties.
You know, David Campezi, Michael Lyon, are all those wonderful players, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I think he did once when the Bleederslow Cup in
the early two thousands. Has been a long time between
drinks though, Chris Russell enjoy the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.
Speaker 9 (36:33):
No worries, thanks Jamie.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The best of the country with Rabobank. Choose the bank
with a huge network of progressive farming clients. Rabobank.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Chris Russell, our Australian correspondent of long standing, been on
the show believe it or not for more than thirty years,
was almost there on day one when we kicked it
up nineteen ninety four at ages both of us, doesn't it.
My name's Jamie McCain. This is the best of the
country each and every Saturday morning here on News Talks EDB.
(37:09):
It is brought to you by Rabobank. We're growing a
better New Zealand together. I'm coming down from the high
of last week's Master is my favorite sporting event of
the year, and I love my rugby as well. But
Rory McElroy. What a finish that was. I'm hoping my
Highlanders can do a bit of a Rory McElroy against
(37:30):
the Chiefs tonight. I'm not holding the breath on that one,
because the Chiefs are a very good side. I think
they might be favorites, perhaps along with the Crusaders, to
win Super Rugby. But as Chris said, watch out for
those Aussie sides. Right, that's me done and dust that.
I'm out of here. I'm leaving you with my a
cappella group. A cappella group, get it right, Pentatonics. This
(37:51):
is their cover of Hellelujah. Have a great Easter, and
remember what it's all about, not eating too many Easter eggs.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Was how to shoot somebody who out do you.
Speaker 8 (38:08):
And it's not a cry that you hear light, it's
not somebody who's seen the lad.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
It's a cord.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
It's a broad.
Speaker 9 (38:27):
How you
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Because
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