The Country 27/05/25: Damien O'Connor talks to Jamie Mackay

We find Labour’s trade spokesman at the E Tipu conference in Palmerston North, but is it a woke talk fest? We also preview tomorrow’s “Love in” with Federated Farmers in Masterton, but is it a waste of time? Plus, is he in favour of Fonterra selling its Consumer Brands? And what about more conversions in Canterbury?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I bet my first guest's a bit of a doors fan.
His name is Damian O'Connor, Labour's trade minister. Hello, I
love you. Why don't you tell me your name is?
By pure coincidence, Damien, because you normally come on the
show for a good argument. Are you up for one today?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Like, I don't believe any of that coming from your
mouth up until now. Of course, now I know you
get on to some more combatitive subjects. But yeah, the
doors were great, and yes we can go back a
long way. Interesting. I'm at eat Tippoo and that's looking
to the future, which is actually just as inspiring.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, there's some farming conferences on around the country. Very shortly.
I'm going to be chatting to Cameron Bagray, who's a
guest speaker, has been a guest speaker today at the
Dairy en Z Farmer Forum at the Claudlands Events Center
in the try On, where we're heading for a couple
of weeks. In a couple of weeks time, should I
say for field days e tipper. It's not a woke

(00:56):
talk fest, is it, Damien.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's a whole lot of them. We just had a
presentation from Fonterra ahead of ingredients strategy shoe very very good. Look,
it's a whole lot of people who are out in
the market, people who traveling around the world, part of science,
agri food and plant and food. Here a lot of

(01:21):
interesting people and this pharmacy. There should be far more here.
I wish they could find the time to come to
these things because there's a lot of wisdom emerging. Getting
it in place and making the changes and the progress
that we need. That's a lot harder than you know,
talking about it, but putting it on the table and

(01:41):
discussing it at somewhere like etipt It is very very good.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay, Just on the subject of Fonterra diverting momentarily, are
you in favor of Fonterra selling its consumer brands?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Look, intuitively, I say no. I've had a couple of
very useful discussions with Pat McBride and others. You know,
they're very focused on and in fact that the word
used was laser focused on these areas of ingredients. But
they really careful in a world that is changing so
quickly that you don't you know, you don't shut out
that lateral vision and opportunities that laser focus might eliminate,

(02:18):
So you know, I think farmers should ask the hard
questions and I'm not sure where it will end up.
At the start, of course, they said the question was
whether it should be sold or not. In fact it's
now moved on to what kind of sale should take place,
So that in itself is it's quite a significant step
forward for a cooperative to just assume that they should

(02:39):
sell it off. But I'll leave that up to the shareholders.
I think that it as our single biggest company out
in the world, for none of its products to be
branded in a consumer market or a supermarket is a
bit of a concern, but I guess all the other
smaller companies will just have to do their best.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
So it's palming North today. Tomorrow you're off to Masterton
for day one of the two day I'm calling it
eleven with Federated Farmers. This is the Labor Caucus or
some of the key labor spokespeople meeting with Federated farmers.
Is this a complete waste of time?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I don't know. I mean you have to ask a
Federated Farmers, I guess. And it's been set up. It's
a very useful forum.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Who instigated this, sorry Damien, who instigated it? Labor or
feeds chres hipkins.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, I think reached out. I think it was
both sides agreed that they should sit down and talk
about these things as we go forward. And I'll be
there for half a day tomorrow and you know there'll
be some useful discussions. It is important we will be
back in government. Farmers, you know, are absolutely cornerstone to
our economy and will be for a long time into
the future.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
But you forgot that on the last term.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
No, well, I guess you know, do we want to
get back into those old areas of debate.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, you can't come on the show and you can't
come on to the show and be hollier them now
supporting the farming industry when you did your best shafted,
especially on the second.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
You make some silly statements.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
No I don't. I'm I'm just echoing what I'm hearing
from farmers.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, if you know, perhaps you should just go and
listen to Mars or to nesle fonter A's biggest customers.
Now they've got European subsidies coming to help farmers to
move to a lower missions farming system. We were saying
that that, and we put a billion dollars in one
budget into the rural sectors around some integrated farm plans
to get some waterway catchment groups, the whole lot to

(04:35):
move us forward. That's what we did. We committed to that,
but because you know, you were happy to kind of
kick the sand in our face in that area. And
I'll say, as the world is moving in that direction,
we have to keep up. If we want an opportunity
and an advantage, we can try and get ahead of that.
At the moment we're kind of slow LaGG guards, but

(04:55):
we can get there if we try harder.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, he Wakinoa was the great eye there, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, I guess it was very challenging. And I said
that to the Prime Minister of the day that trying
to get sector leaders to sit down and agree on
anything and move forwards almost impossible. That remains the reality today.
But until we do that and work out best land
use more efficient operation and coordination cooperation, you know we're

(05:22):
going to fail because we're simply too small as individual
companies and so we have to cooperate as under New
Zealand Inc. To say that we have some of the
best systems in the world. We're trying to be better
and we'll produce the very best food and finder for
the world market.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Sometimes I wonder if you believe in your hard hearts
what you're spouting. But I'll get on to land use change.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
We have to. There's no alternative because actually, unless we
are the best, and that does.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
We we are the best. We are currently the best.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
No, we're no, we're not.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
So you you name a lower emissions producer of protein
than us around the world, Damien, who is it?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
There are other areas you have lower footprints and different systems,
indoor systems.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
No I'm talking about I'm talking about in a pastoral sense.
Who's a lower emissions producer than New Zealand. You haven't
got an answer because there isn't one.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, well, yes, in a pastoral system, but the vast
majority of protein producer the world is not in the
pastoral system. It's in indoor systems and bought production. Chicken production.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, but you're telling us you want clean green and
the way of the future is past your based production.
You can't have your cake and eat.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
There's an advantage in some of the markets if you
say it's past your base. People say there's more, there's
more AMaGA trees, it's healthier for you, it's better, will
pay more for it. But we also want to have
a lower carbon footprint over time. That's what Nesle is saying,
that's what Mars are saying. So we've got to combine
those attributes and get the premiums that we need because
we don't have a subsidized food or farming system. We

(06:57):
need to get those premiums back into farmer's pockets so
they remain comfortable.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
What is our biggest customer, China saying.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
How we've just heard today here from a couple of
people who live in market saying that China's moving in
that space is very very quickly. They've got massive inroads
and e vehicles for example, because they want to reduce
their carbon emissions. You know, they've got issues around electricity
production that I'm sure people will point out.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
A new coal fired station, a new coal fired power
station every week. That's what Johina is doing about reducing
its emissions.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Damien, I think that what you'll find is that will
reduce over time, just as their pollution has reduced. They
are very focused on that direction, and we have to
keep up. They've got very smart consumers who are looking
at their food. They've got you know, systems through pure
codes and traceability that you know, leave us for dead.

(07:52):
And they were saying that there's virtually no use of
money now it's all electronic communication and transactions over it.
In a market that you know, probably twenty years ago
we thought was developing, they are way ahead of us.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Hey, let's just finish on dairy conversions. In Canterbury. We're
hearing them, maybe up to fifteen of them. See that
didn't suit your kind of Haywoker echinoa rhetoric line. But
surely if we're looking to double and I don't know
whether you support this, Damien okondor if the government's looking
to double primary sector exports in the next decade, dairy

(08:27):
farming has to do some heavy lifting. What's wrong with
the dairy conversion is as long as it meets all
environmental consents.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Well, I guess you have to ask the people who
are living around Lakehood, you know, and around some of
the rivers and trying to get water from some of
the equifers weather you know, we can continue to increase
I guess that the intensive dairy in Canterbury. I can't
make that judgment, but there are some indicators that we
have to look at the impacts of that, and yes,

(09:00):
I agree we should get more value for what we're doing,
not just do more. And that's I said that all
the way through is Minister, just getting people to do more,
produce more is not necessarily the Wagh forward. What we
need to do is get more for what we do
and that will lift the levels of productivity across our
economy which are still pretty low. In the egg area,

(09:22):
it's it's quite high, but a lot of other areas
we have low productivity and we've got to change that.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Hey are you going to field Days? You up for
another scrap at field Days?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Good man? There, yeah, there, DAVEI and O'Connor. There you go.