The Country 16/07/26: Shane McManaway talks to Jamie Mackay

A flood-affected Wairarapa farmer has headed down to Kaikōura to help with the clean-up of a bigger mess on his son’s dairy farm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shane mcmanaway joins us from kai Kura. He's a well
known wire a rapper, farmer, a philanthropist, very well known
in New Zealand agg circles. Wire a rapper got smacked
by the rain events, in fact, two of them. But Shane,
you've gone down to kai Kura to help your son,
Adam out, who we had on the country last week,
because he or that region is even worse affected than yours.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good afternoon, Yeah, good afternoon, Jamie. Yeah. Here in beautiful
kai Kurra today, not a only a breath of wind.
The sun's out, lovely and mild, and thank goodness for that,
because been a pretty disastrous situation. So led a part
of last week Adam my son's dairy farming here just
on the outskirts of kai Kura, and there's three rivers
that sort of run up in the back underneath the

(00:44):
hills that broke their banks almost at the same time,
and they just couldn't contain the stop banks couldn't contain
the water, and a fair chunk of it came down
and went across the dairy platform. So some of the
beautiful dairy pastures now a river. So pretty disheartening. But
for the last three or four days we've been on diggers,
ramming in posts, and I've sort of come out of retirement.

(01:07):
Jamie on fencing, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
I know you love diggers, but I think you would
sooner play with them in a different time and space.
What is the recovery period for Adam and his farm
and some of those badly flood affected farms in the
Kaikoura region. Well, look, I.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Think they're getting fences back up and getting stockwater going
as probably the number has been the number one priority,
and we're pretty much on Adam. Adam, unfortunately, his farm
was the worst effect in the region. There's lots of
areas that are really bad, but Adam unfortunately wore the
brunt of it down here on the on the on
the flats. We got the four hundred dairy cows back

(01:45):
onto the platform yesterday. They came back from the runoff.
A little fortunate to the runoff the cows, we were within
walking distance. We got them back onto here. So it's
really just sort of business as usual. But Jamie, without
fences and without water troughs and some paddocks at the moment.
But one of the things that there's been an unbelievable.
God send is that Adam's got Halter collars on his

(02:07):
cows and he's now able to start feeding. Has heard
of dairy kaws on the fodder beat without a fence
in sight. It's unbelievable. I never thought i'd see the day,
but I'm bloody pleased that they came up with that idea.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes, Halter does well. Wearable collars because there's more than
just Halter do provide some insurance against events like this
when and we were talking about it earlier in the
week on the show, like when fences get washed out,
especially on high country.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, absolutely, it's worth its weight in gold. In this
particular instance, jamieen Holt have been great. They've been on
the phone to Adam to see what more they can
do to help. It's been one of the things I'd
just like to point out here since I've been here
in kai Kura the last four days, is the community
spirit here is unbelievable. There's people coming up the drive
sort of at least every hour to help with something.

(02:57):
But it's not dropping off food. Is to see if
they can come and help take stuff out of fences.
Like it's just unbelievable. And the Kaikura District Council. I
think there's a few district councils around New Zealand should
come down and take a leaf out of their book.
They I don't think they've got knowing their vocabulary. They
just do whatever they can to help. It's so impressive.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
How's the water up there getting on, Jamie, We're.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
On almost almost a cut and paste, to be quite honest.
From down here, we've we've got rivers that broke their
banks and busily trying to fix those up. A lot
of affected farmers. But you know, one of the issues
that we have up and down the country is we're
not we've been unable to get the gravel out of
the rivers because of rules and regulations, and we've now
got river beds that you could bridges that you could

(03:42):
drive under with a digger, you know, thirty years ago,
and today you wouldn't get under them with a go kart.
And you know, it's just it's just a it's a
there's no wonder we've got these disasters continually happening, happening.
We've got to get to get hold of whoever wrote
the rule book and says we can't take it out
to change it to say we can, because you know,
I'm no river engineer, but I'm pretty sure that if

(04:04):
there's less gravel in there, there's pair of chances more
water can go down.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, let's just finish on Winston Peter's somoria feedback coming
in Indian FTA is undoubtedly and need a deal for
New Zealand. But I'm worried Winston may actually been right.
He's been awfully consistent with his messaging and is aligned
with the messaging from the Indians. Time will tell you
heard Winston. He was pretty fired up. What do you reckon?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, well, it's hard to not believe that the arrangement
with India is the free trade arrangement with India is
not a good thing, Jamie. I mean, one point four
billion people, and if they're wanting to buy our stuff
and we want to form relationships with them, there's bloody
hard to argue. I would have thought. But he's a
worry old fox and he's been around a long time,

(04:50):
so I wouldn't like that get up and argue against
him either. So yeah, you're right, he's been incredibly consistent.
But I guess time will tell whether it's a good
thing or not.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Okay, here's another one. Winston was correct about Fonterra, miles
gone and a major restructure, jobs being cut all the
way through selling brands. There you go, So Winston's got
quite a bit of support out there. Shane mcmanaway to
you and your farming family and Cocua all the best
in the recovery.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Great thanks Jennie, thanks for having me on