June 29, 2025 • 8 mins
Today’s Northland Dairy Farmer/MP Panel chew the fat.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the country. How good is Neil Young?
I wonder if he was any good at Glastonbury. Michelle
can find that out for me. Some people just get
too old and they need to be moved on. People
make that criticism of me. I can't believe that. Here's
today's farmer panel, a couple of Northland dairy farmers who
(00:22):
are also MPs, as I said, Grant McCallum and Mark Cameron. Mark,
I just want to say thanks for coming on the
show today. You've got a few health battles at the
moment and you've just basically come off dialysis to chat
to us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Good afternoon, You've got a tonoon my friend, I hear
ever the woe, but I'm still here. Is my grandmother
would say, you're back. I still pointed to the ground.
So yeah, Look, it's a challenge and it's one of
the one of these things that you have to go
through as part of the journey and Mike and so
it's in the cut of mine. But hey, look I'm
still alive. I still desperately live rural New Zealand and
(00:59):
what I'm doing in Parliament, So hopefully I can square
this up and go back to work.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Now you want to talk about flooding today. We've talked
already about flooding at the top of the South Island.
How did the top of the North Island go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Mark by all testament pretty well, I mean the flash
floods sort of came and went, Jamie. So look we saw,
you know, localized flooding, localized damage. But you know, I
think the heartstrings have been called in the South Island.
They're getting whacked. They're getting whacked again, I believe down
the west coast of the South Island. And it's hey,
(01:35):
look it is June. We're having our shortest day of
the year just been, and we're getting towards the equinox.
It's it's syfical, but it's hard work, especially felt by
real people.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Grant McCallum joins us.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now you've been on your soapbox grunt over carbon farming.
Good on you for doing that. But I notice that
Dennis Neilson and his henchmen are onto you.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, well, yeah, you get and everybody had just great
you have had you on board, Mark, and just quickly,
I just think i'd like to acknowledge the party of
the take a tome own cash Hemp. I mean, that's
just a real tragedy, was a real shock to the
system on Thursday when it occurred, and I just shows
how important our health is to us. And I just
(02:21):
say to your Mark mate, just look after yourself as
number one. You know, I mean genuinely mean that, because
you're doing a great you do a body, good job
and you have got a lot of fun, you got
family there, So keep that in mind. Now Now with
respect to Dennis and go, yeah, well they would have
the whole country covern and pine tree.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Dennis, nothing would please them more than just have everything
planted and pine tree.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Sorry, but that's not the way the world's gonna it
needs to work. New Zealand's we've got a great production
forestry industry and I support them wholeheartedly. But the carbon farming,
you're throwing a real that the real into the marketplace.
It's skewed Mark, you might say. And so we're looking
to fix that because I think long term everyone can
(03:05):
see we don't need all this really good, easy role
in clean country put into pine trees just for carbon farming.
It's got to stack up for production parocy by itself
to do that, and I think that's and that's a
bit we don't we're looking to fix. Just so quick,
plug head Jamie. Submissions are now open until Monday next
week for the Environment Select Committee, which I said on
(03:26):
so please if you're ins in this topic, it would
be great to get a submission in if we want
to get this law changed and get a bit of
balance and sense back to the to the partial sector.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And Mark Caaron, I know you wanted to talk about
the ETS. We've got the settings wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think the thing is
we've got a capital missions here in New Zealand. And
just one note, you see our industry being heurely affected
by the activities of that ETS. It it was skewed
and its original inception and I know still today as
a false floor in the market in terms of its
(04:02):
settings to do with its price. And really and truly
I think the government needs to get out of the way.
In a natural environment, a natural market would see natural
market forces consumer demand and you'd see that price come down.
I think in this instance now what we've seen is
the reverse of that, where the government has partner with
the private sector said look we'll help you out, you
(04:25):
help us out to drive down emissions, but there's subsidized
and then when you've got a false floor, the government
almost becomes an undibitter in the process and unfortunately grants
one hundred percent. Correct, we see the pastoral sector flooded
with blied pine trees, and just one final remark game,
we know pine eventually ends back in the carbon cycle.
(04:47):
At some point those bloody trees they fall over, windfall,
they either get burnt in some far off contry. But
the real is is this is about global emissions and
we just cannot plant our way out of it.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Totally one hundred percent agree with you. You also wanted
to talk Mark Cameron, excuse me about commodity prices.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, look, it's to celebrate how damnably good we are
in rural New Zealand. You know, I just I saw
the numbers the other day. Twenty seven billion dollars for
the dairy industry, a plug for the beef sector. They're
doing dwelve. You know, horticulture is nine. I believe, as
far as I can recollect most of the other industries
for trout was too, so good to see the primary
(05:30):
sector being the fiscal backbone of what it was otherwise
pretty doomy and gloomy fiscal economics of the country where
we're slowly getting into the black and Jamie, it's a
bloody good story.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That is a bloody good story.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Grant McCullum, you'll be happy that the Mike Hosking Highway
is now one hundred and ten kilometers an hour one
hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Mate. That was a grade announce that I wake up
to this morning. I know they've been working through that.
So I'm about to go and drive on. But the
last day at one hundred and then I come home tomorrow,
I'm going back. I'm going to shooting down to Wellington
because we have the Youth Parliament on for each few
day's Jamie, I thought, so, I'm only going down there
to support my young guy. Just show the sort of
centers you might have to put up with a parliament, Jamie.
(06:12):
Everyone gives me a hard time with the Regan I
was possibly so Keith Holyoakes, you MP, which you know
everyone seems to think that that's a a possibility, but no, look,
it's a great opportunity. I'm looking forward to going down
and support them and having that road at one hundred
and ten. Finally, my Cosky might be even slightly happy
with the government.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well exactly, they're what we need to do, and you
guys will be great proponents for this. You need the
four lane highway obviously from Auckland to funk Array, but
we just need more of them around the country. I'm
doing a fundraiser and to Pook even August and that's
a great road from Talannga out there. Well imagine if
we had those all dotted all over the country and
we could actually move things quickly and get to places quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Jamie percent bloody Julie.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And Jenner in a bike lane.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Don't you start me, Jamie, she honestly, she has got
a different view of the world. She thinks we should
all be running around on bicycles and driving buses. It's
just crazy stuff, mate, And regionally, Zione doesn't work that way,
never has and never will. We need really good roads
and National is a big support of the road up here,
always has me and the next one, next stage you'll
(07:20):
be started before the the middle next year. And then
well then we're got to carry on planning the way
all the way to finer A. But you won't get it.
Let Juliana and back in charge.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, if Julianne's back in charge, I think I'll get
on a highway and.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Drive to the airport and keep going. Come back.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Hey, Mark Cameron, thanks for your time mate, and hope
you go well, hope your health battles go well.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Thanks both. You absolutely legend to take take care and
we'll talk to.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Man yeah, and to you, Grant, all all the best,
all the best. Just don't go to just don't go
too woke on me.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
All right, Well you are just insufferable, Jamie. You go
and you pay, go, pay your subtagrams. Well where you go.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Grant McCallum, Mark Cameron, the Northland dairy farmer and MP
panel
Welcome back to the country. How good is Neil Young?
I wonder if he was any good at Glastonbury. Michelle
can find that out for me. Some people just get
too old and they need to be moved on. People
make that criticism of me. I can't believe that. Here's
today's farmer panel, a couple of Northland dairy farmers who
(00:22):
are also MPs, as I said, Grant McCallum and Mark Cameron. Mark,
I just want to say thanks for coming on the
show today. You've got a few health battles at the
moment and you've just basically come off dialysis to chat
to us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Good afternoon, You've got a tonoon my friend, I hear
ever the woe, but I'm still here. Is my grandmother
would say, you're back. I still pointed to the ground.
So yeah, Look, it's a challenge and it's one of
the one of these things that you have to go
through as part of the journey and Mike and so
it's in the cut of mine. But hey, look I'm
still alive. I still desperately live rural New Zealand and
(00:59):
what I'm doing in Parliament, So hopefully I can square
this up and go back to work.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Now you want to talk about flooding today. We've talked
already about flooding at the top of the South Island.
How did the top of the North Island go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Mark by all testament pretty well, I mean the flash
floods sort of came and went, Jamie. So look we saw,
you know, localized flooding, localized damage. But you know, I
think the heartstrings have been called in the South Island.
They're getting whacked. They're getting whacked again, I believe down
the west coast of the South Island. And it's hey,
(01:35):
look it is June. We're having our shortest day of
the year just been, and we're getting towards the equinox.
It's it's syfical, but it's hard work, especially felt by
real people.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Grant McCallum joins us.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now you've been on your soapbox grunt over carbon farming.
Good on you for doing that. But I notice that
Dennis Neilson and his henchmen are onto you.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, well, yeah, you get and everybody had just great
you have had you on board, Mark, and just quickly,
I just think i'd like to acknowledge the party of
the take a tome own cash Hemp. I mean, that's
just a real tragedy, was a real shock to the
system on Thursday when it occurred, and I just shows
how important our health is to us. And I just
(02:21):
say to your Mark mate, just look after yourself as
number one. You know, I mean genuinely mean that, because
you're doing a great you do a body, good job
and you have got a lot of fun, you got
family there, So keep that in mind. Now Now with
respect to Dennis and go, yeah, well they would have
the whole country covern and pine tree.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Dennis, nothing would please them more than just have everything
planted and pine tree.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Sorry, but that's not the way the world's gonna it
needs to work. New Zealand's we've got a great production
forestry industry and I support them wholeheartedly. But the carbon farming,
you're throwing a real that the real into the marketplace.
It's skewed Mark, you might say. And so we're looking
to fix that because I think long term everyone can
(03:05):
see we don't need all this really good, easy role
in clean country put into pine trees just for carbon farming.
It's got to stack up for production parocy by itself
to do that, and I think that's and that's a
bit we don't we're looking to fix. Just so quick,
plug head Jamie. Submissions are now open until Monday next
week for the Environment Select Committee, which I said on
(03:26):
so please if you're ins in this topic, it would
be great to get a submission in if we want
to get this law changed and get a bit of
balance and sense back to the to the partial sector.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And Mark Caaron, I know you wanted to talk about
the ETS. We've got the settings wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think the thing is
we've got a capital missions here in New Zealand. And
just one note, you see our industry being heurely affected
by the activities of that ETS. It it was skewed
and its original inception and I know still today as
a false floor in the market in terms of its
(04:02):
settings to do with its price. And really and truly
I think the government needs to get out of the way.
In a natural environment, a natural market would see natural
market forces consumer demand and you'd see that price come down.
I think in this instance now what we've seen is
the reverse of that, where the government has partner with
the private sector said look we'll help you out, you
(04:25):
help us out to drive down emissions, but there's subsidized
and then when you've got a false floor, the government
almost becomes an undibitter in the process and unfortunately grants
one hundred percent. Correct, we see the pastoral sector flooded
with blied pine trees, and just one final remark game,
we know pine eventually ends back in the carbon cycle.
(04:47):
At some point those bloody trees they fall over, windfall,
they either get burnt in some far off contry. But
the real is is this is about global emissions and
we just cannot plant our way out of it.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Totally one hundred percent agree with you. You also wanted
to talk Mark Cameron, excuse me about commodity prices.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, look, it's to celebrate how damnably good we are
in rural New Zealand. You know, I just I saw
the numbers the other day. Twenty seven billion dollars for
the dairy industry, a plug for the beef sector. They're
doing dwelve. You know, horticulture is nine. I believe, as
far as I can recollect most of the other industries
for trout was too, so good to see the primary
(05:30):
sector being the fiscal backbone of what it was otherwise
pretty doomy and gloomy fiscal economics of the country where
we're slowly getting into the black and Jamie, it's a
bloody good story.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That is a bloody good story.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Grant McCullum, you'll be happy that the Mike Hosking Highway
is now one hundred and ten kilometers an hour one
hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Mate. That was a grade announce that I wake up
to this morning. I know they've been working through that.
So I'm about to go and drive on. But the
last day at one hundred and then I come home tomorrow,
I'm going back. I'm going to shooting down to Wellington
because we have the Youth Parliament on for each few
day's Jamie, I thought, so, I'm only going down there
to support my young guy. Just show the sort of
centers you might have to put up with a parliament, Jamie.
(06:12):
Everyone gives me a hard time with the Regan I
was possibly so Keith Holyoakes, you MP, which you know
everyone seems to think that that's a a possibility, but no, look,
it's a great opportunity. I'm looking forward to going down
and support them and having that road at one hundred
and ten. Finally, my Cosky might be even slightly happy
with the government.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well exactly, they're what we need to do, and you
guys will be great proponents for this. You need the
four lane highway obviously from Auckland to funk Array, but
we just need more of them around the country. I'm
doing a fundraiser and to Pook even August and that's
a great road from Talannga out there. Well imagine if
we had those all dotted all over the country and
we could actually move things quickly and get to places quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Jamie percent bloody Julie.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And Jenner in a bike lane.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Don't you start me, Jamie, she honestly, she has got
a different view of the world. She thinks we should
all be running around on bicycles and driving buses. It's
just crazy stuff, mate, And regionally, Zione doesn't work that way,
never has and never will. We need really good roads
and National is a big support of the road up here,
always has me and the next one, next stage you'll
(07:20):
be started before the the middle next year. And then
well then we're got to carry on planning the way
all the way to finer A. But you won't get it.
Let Juliana and back in charge.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, if Julianne's back in charge, I think I'll get
on a highway and.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Drive to the airport and keep going. Come back.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Hey, Mark Cameron, thanks for your time mate, and hope
you go well, hope your health battles go well.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Thanks both. You absolutely legend to take take care and
we'll talk to.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Man yeah, and to you, Grant, all all the best,
all the best. Just don't go to just don't go
too woke on me.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
All right, Well you are just insufferable, Jamie. You go
and you pay, go, pay your subtagrams. Well where you go.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Grant McCallum, Mark Cameron, the Northland dairy farmer and MP
panel
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