The Country 14/08/24: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

One of NZ's leading primary sector academics, and director of DairyNZ standing for re-election, takes media giant Reuters to task over the headline, "New Zealand scraps clean, green policies to boost economy". 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She writes an excellent fortnightly column on our website, Thecountry
dot co dot Nz and I think she's excelled herself
this time around. Doctor Jaquelauath And Jacqueline, you've got stuck
into a story you read online. You clicked on it
from Reuter's about how the government's destroying our environments.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yep, and the whole business about letting the and this
is wrong. The headline indicated we were going to go
environmentally down the gurglar because the current government wants to
boost the economy. And when I'm looking at a headline,
I think, well, what am I going to learn from this?
Actually it's something that I might want to counteract because

(00:44):
our environment rated internationally is very good and what the
government is trying to do is get some sort of
balance that allows us to make it even better. But
the headline doesn't look like that, and it's an international headline.
It's Reuters.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, and the headline US and New Zealand scraps clean
green policies to boost economy. Not quite true, as the
Trumpster would say, fake news.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, because although they are rolling back some of the regulations,
what they're trying to make them is fit for purpose,
recognizing that our environment rated internationally is very good. How
can we get the money to make it even better,
but also support all the domestic policies we need, the health,
the education, gosh, the science, the R and D that

(01:32):
is falling, the research and development funding that is falling
behind other countries. And that's not good for us because
other countries don't do in research and development what we
need in terms of our agriculture, which is grass fed,
past debased, all of that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
You and I are both cheerleaders for the primary sector
and we need to put and so we should be too.
Let's put some context around the numbers, because even when
tourism was in its height pre COVID, I got annoyed
that tourism was going to overtake farming. Blah blah blah.
Farm farming was going to be a sunset industry. The fact,

(02:07):
the fact with tourism, Jecqueline is it's a two way straight. Yes,
it brings in money, but we explored a lot of
air money in outward tourism. And when you compare what
tourism's bringing into the country now, something like a eleven
billion you're quoting compared to the fifty five billion that's
coming from the primary sector.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and so we saw this very clearly when COVID struck,
and there weren't people being exported, and there certainly weren't
people coming to view our beautiful country. The economy didn't
falter in the way so many other countries did because
we had the primary sector doing what it always does,
producing great animal protein from pasture reared animals. They were

(02:52):
doing it under very difficult circumstances. It costs more, you know,
all of the distancing, all of that sort of thing.
But it continued and our economy did not falter.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Interesting stats in your column, far more New Zealanders are
concerned about the cost of living, and rightly so. That's
fifty nine percent, much more than climate change nineteen percent.
So Paddy Gower's shock horror show mightn't be getting the
message home there, just reflects the importance. And it's the
old Bill Clinton thing. It's all about the economy stupid.

(03:22):
It's all very well being clean and green and all this,
but if you can't pay the bills or keep the
lights on, why bother.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Exactly right, And I wanted to insert another statistic here
because yesterday or earlier in the week. The quarter two
the year two quarter two, which is March twenty twenty four,
wages went up four percent and food inflation was zero
percent according to the Reserve Bank inflation calculator. So we

(03:50):
need to allow our farmers who are struck by paying
more wages, more power. There's another thing, a new report
saying energy transition is increasing food prices. The more we
try and be this renewable energy, of course there will
be an impact on food prices. So people are more
concerned about the cost of living. And then of course

(04:10):
the health, the education, and my concern the research and development.
We need to enable the primary sector to do even
better than it is already doing.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Gong on doctor Jackwell and Ralph