Jamie Mackay: The Country host on Fonterra's job cuts and the climate debate within the National Party

Up to 120 jobs are on the line as Fonterra plans to shut its Hamilton packaging facility. 

The closures due to 'challenging economic conditions'. 

'The Country' host Jamie Mackay talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the closure and the climate debate within the National Party. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jamie mckaye, Host of the Countries with Us Jamie, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good to be back. Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Where have you been?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I was up in Towonga for the break between Easter
and Anzac the long the short week. Should I say,
a new grandchild, the first time i'd met her? Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
How old, Jamie?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, I they're too embarrassed to tell you my wife
on humorous visits.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hey, not your age? How old?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
How old is?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
She?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Is like a scandal that you haven't been to see her?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
You bough, it's a family scandal. But let's just move
on to things. I'm more comfortable and no, it's not
a scandal at all. I've just been busy. So she's
four months old.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh no, that's okay. I think that's okay. And they're
cute at four months, aren't they? They just gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well but before that, Heather as well, you'll know with
ween MacKaye. Honestly, and I'll get in trouble for saying this,
but I've started the snow stopping now in the early
days and months, they just poo themselves and react with you.
They're boring. Yeah, they are boring. Be honest about it.
Not politically correct, but that's true. When they can react
with you and laugh, or you can make them laugh,

(01:07):
that's when they get interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, four months, four months they're doing the little giggle
at you and stuff. So no, I think your toming
is bang on. I don't blame it all. Plus you
get a little bit more concession as a man, so
you know, just own it. Now, what is going on
here with Fontira deciding it's going to close its planning
and pack it's canning and packaging facility.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, I guess Fontira is ultimately answerable to its ten
thousand farmers, shareholders and supplies and this is just a continuation.
This is my take on it anyhow, on their decision
to ditch the consumer brands for the ingredients business. So
it's sad, really, it's sad. In these tough economic times.
Have seen the bad news from Nikola Willis this morning. Well,

(01:47):
here's another one hundred and twenty jobs on the chopping block.
I know they're going to go through the consultation process,
but we all know how that ends. So they're going
to lose their jobs in Hamilton. They currently or the
site currently packs up to four thousand metric tons of
powder per year. And while that sounds a lot, Heather,
it's not really. It's less than one percent of the

(02:09):
co ops total product volume. So what they're saying is
they're going to get out of these blends and packaged
milk powders doing it, and they're going to focus on
the higher value ingredients such as the advanced proteins, you know,
the sports stuff and the medical nutrition. And that's the
way it is heading, and they believe this is the

(02:31):
best way to focus on farmer returns because I guess
at the end of the day, with Fonterra, it is
a co op and unless the farmers get a meaningful return,
they might take their business elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Jamie listen, I am glad that you've raised this with
me as something you want to talk about, because I
meant to talk about this earlier in the week. But
Thomas Cogland did a great piece, didn't he about the
climate debate within the National Party and how much trouble
Simon Wat's got himself into.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well, it was a rare treat for me, Heather, as
someone who's based in Dunedin to physically grab a weekend Herald.
I always read it online, but to physically grab a
weekend Herald and read this. I thought he did a
fantastic job. The story was inside the climate debate that
quietly rocked the National Party. It's all about Simon Watson,

(03:16):
these new emissions targets, and he's stuck. This is Simon
Watts really between a rock and a hard place, because
the right think he's gone he's been excessively ambitious. In reality,
he hardly increased it at all. But the original argument
is the fifty percent reduction by twenty thirty was never

(03:36):
realistic and those on the left suggested New Zealand would
be doing next to nothing to reduce its admissions between
twenty thirty and thirty five, which is probably true. And
you know, you've got all these factions at play, as
he pointed out, there's the National Party who perhaps are
a bit more socially enlightened than act in New Zealand. First,

(03:57):
is that a nice way of saying, You've said it,
they're perhaps a little bit more woke than National and
New Zealand first, I don't know. But you've got Winston
who's coming out and he's saying we're going to get
out of We're pulling out of Paris, and David Seymour
made a really interesting comment on this. He said, look,
eventually the cost of staying in Paris could eventually outweigh

(04:19):
the penalty for leaving, so he's thinking that way as well.
And you've got to remember the other dynamic play here.
Final shot from me here that this is New Zealand
First and Act who are both actively campaigning for the
farmer vote from national and certainly anecdotally I would say
they're being reasonably successful at the moment.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Jamie. Thank you, Jamie McKay, host of the Country.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
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