The Country 16/09/25: Jason Herrick talks to Jamie Mackay

It seems dissatisfaction with regional councils is not just limited to Canterbury, following on from yesterday’s interview with former Mid Canterbury President of Federated Farmers David Clark. Today, it’s the turn of the current Southland President to voice his frustration. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So on yesterday's show you heard from David Clark, former
president of Federated Farmers for the Mid Canterbury region, having
to spend up to fifty thousand dollars on consultants to
get a consent just to carry on farming the way
he's been farming. And he did get an A Grade
environmental audit mark in twenty twenty four. So where's the problem. Well,

(00:23):
it seems like it's not only limited to Mid Canterbury.
Let's head down to Southland, God's own farming province. The
Federated Farmer's president down there is Jason Herrick. And Jason,
you've been jumping up and down about farmers being blindsided
by four thousand dollars winter grazing charges when they're doing
nothing wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, Jamie, isn't it appalling right throughout the country regional
councils of misbehaving in the sense and to be honest,
there's absolutely no common sense coming from regional councils, and
especially in our situation where farms have been identified from
the flights for winter grazing having a possible breach and
then they ensure a visit on farm And I mean,

(01:05):
I'm not going to go into the politics around the visits,
but there's a lot there that needs to be answered,
in questions that need to be answered there. But as
they have a discussion with the farmer and the compliance officer,
it's all around misunderstanding of how the rules written and
so there's no real major breaches, Okay, it's just little
minor infractions, and they have a discussion, they have an

(01:26):
agreement and leave, you know pretty much that there's nothing wrong,
and then six weeks later they receive an efty bill
for cost of recovery in the mail, which I think
is really underhanded and called for, and it's just revenue
gathering at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So you're saying you're being invoiced for a visit where
there are no breaches or problems, and you're saying, quite rightly,
that's incredibly frustrating. As I said to David yesterday, Look,
I'm not a huge fan of regional counsels either. They
take a lot of my money every year for a
properties I'm involved in. I'm not sure what I get
back in return, and I'm a big fan of unitary authorities.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, so my Jamie, and you've got to look at
the regional council as a whole, and what do they achieve.
Do they achieve environmental outcomes? Someone could argue no, do
they achieve river management definitely not. Do they achieve flood
protection definitely not? You know, so to me, I think
that there are a waste of resources and another mechanism

(02:26):
for higher costs on our small businesses and farming operations
and people within the cities. And I'm with you, I
think they need to go. Also receiving extra phone calls
too about other issues that farmers are having. You know,
I've received some phone calls from farmers that have been
fined but not reporting nitrogen use in June and July. Well,
pretty common sense that we don't boot nitrogen on in

(02:47):
June and July, so you know, why should they have
to write a number on the piece of paper. But
they're received a seven hundred dollar fine for that. And
obviously winter grazing consents. The farmers that have done done
good by getting a winter grazing consent are now being
charged yearly compliance costs and having compliance monitoring every year

(03:07):
and being pulled up for stupid nonsensical stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Have you had a round the table with Environments Southland.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I've tried talking with environments out and on many occasions
and to be honest, you just get pass from person
to person to person to person and that's talking to
the staff and the management of the divisions in there.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
But isn't the Chairman of Environment Southland a farmer?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Oh? Nicole Horraor is definitely a farmer and as the
chairman and he comes back to me with the same
story all the time. He's happy with what the stuff
have come back with. And you know, I've spoken to
other counselors as well, and the other counselors are working
hard now to try and come to get to the
bottom of this, and to be honest, those counselors have
some questions over the current situation.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Have you talked to Shane Jones about it? He's a
bit like you, He's not a paid up member of
the Regional Council fan club.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah. No, I haven't had a direct conversation with Shane yet,
but I'd love to. You know, we've got to get
back to a more common sense approach and you know
the council themselves absolutely leaned on RMA in this instance.
And you want to read some of the threatening you know,
letters that these farmers are receiving, you know, threatening them
with a maximum two year jail sentence in a three

(04:22):
hundred thousand dollars fine up to a six hundred thousand
dollars fine if you're a company. And that comes that's
accompanied with the with the invoice, you know. So it's
almost the council saying, well, we're letting you off lightly
with a three thousand dollars bill when you could you know,
you could be facing a six hundred thousand dollar fine
all time.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
And the slammer. Hey, just finally, did you hear the
David Clark interview on yesterday's show?

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes? I did, Jamie, I did.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Wasn't it bizarre that he's been advised that the easiest
way to gain consents for his sheep, beef and arable
farming operation would be to draw withdraw his current application
and lodge a consent application for conversion to daring.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's just so dumb, isn't It is so dumb? And
you know, and that ranges from regional council to regional council.
So I know of a situation here in South and
just quickly, Jamie that the farmer has been applying for
a resource consent to convert to dairy from a dairy
runoff for the last seven years, I think it is.
And he's one hundreds of thousands of dollars out of

(05:23):
pocket just to get that consent. You know. So here
every regional council has got a lot dancer for how's.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
The spring going in Southam because this time a year
ago you guys were having a shocker.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh yeah, last year was one out of the bag
and you know this year is much much better. Yeah,
the coast is getting slammed a wee bit at the
moment with wet or weather, so it's the weave at
wet in places. But as a whole, majority of Southland
is looking okay and they've had a really good spring
and grass growth has been really good.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Okay, there we go. Jason here at president of Federator
Farmers down in Southland. Thanks for your time today on
the country. I know you've got some more windy and
wet stae coming your way. Hopefully you can survive that
and get through to a grass growing October.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah no, thank you. Jamie