Jamie Mackay: Host of The Country on Federated Farmers calls on Government to ditch pine planting proposal, ANZ says no to climate targets, and Zespri voting

Federated Farmers is calling for the Government to urgently distance itself from a radical new pine planting proposal released by the Climate Change Commission. 

ANZ is not going to introduce climate targets for farming customers. 

And, voting has opened on a proposal from Kiwifruit marketer Zespri to increase plantings of SunGold in other countries. 

Host of The Country Jamie Mackay joins Heather du Plessis-Allan. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So this was Toby from Federated Farmers talking about the
Climate Change Commission's plans for how we're going to meet
our climate targets, new ones that are coming at us,
including fifteen percent. We're going to go out and shoot
fifteen percent of the dairy house, twenty four percent of
the sheep and beef, and we need to plant a
whole bunch of a whole bunch of trees, apparently enough
trees to cover all of Gisbond and all of Hawks Bay,
and then we're still looking for more land.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Absolutely ridiculous. And we've just been through a winter where
people couldn't afford to buy and new head and beef
and lambs. We imported Australian stuff. So everybody's you know,
shock and amazing. I mean, that's just if they're ware
to heap with this. There're no one in his edit
is ever going to be able to buy our dairy,
our beef and our lamb is going to be too
expensive for them. So we're going to start becoming a
net food importer, which is just absolute madness.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Jamie McKay Hosts of the Countries with Us. Hello Jamie, Hello,
he the thoughts.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well come with Toby. To be perfectly honest, those numbers
are a bit are a bit of an eye opener,
aren't they? Twelve to fifteen percent fewer dairy couse, Just
remember New Zealand if you're listening for them, what's going
to get us out of the economic hole? It's probably
a nine dollars fifty or a ten dollar payout. So
the last thing we want to do, and I want

(01:09):
to be environmentally friendly about this too, Heather, the last
thing we want to do is a nation has reduced
our dairy heard, I would think by fifteen percent, not
to mention eighteen to twenty four percent for sheep and beefstock,
and they'll be the real losers from this suggestion. I
know that Toby Williams is very very passionate about protecting

(01:30):
some of that rolling hill country land. Look, it's an
absolute shame that some of it is going to trees.
And I'm not against trees, but at the moment, aid
is the carbon credits. But b there isn't a great
return for logs at the moment. And once we plant
this in trees, Heather, it takes a lot of undoing.
You're talking about a thirty year cycle. From planting to harvest,

(01:54):
and even then you just can't go and plant grass
after pine trees have been there for thirty years. The
pine needles are very acidic, and you have to do
a whole lot of things to soil without complicating it
before you can move that back to pasture.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, well, here's hoping that some common sense prevails in
this particular part of the world. But on common sense,
how about A and Z being the one bank that's
not going to introduce the climate targets.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm very pleased about that. And the reason I'm pleased
and I think whoitness has taken over here because it's Westpac,
B and Z ASV and my mates at Rabobank have
all set twenty thirty reduction targets. I think they should
be butting right out of it. And A and Z, interestingly,
Heather and it was good to hear their chief executive,

(02:40):
Antonia Watson, come out and save this. They have the
biggest rural portfolio of all the banks because back in
the day, A and Z combined with the National Bank,
and if you go back one step further, they took
over the Rural Bank which had the biggest rural portfolio.
So you know Antonia Watson saying at the moment, and
we're not setting a dairy target, and the reason is

(03:02):
that we don't see a pathway clearly for our dairy
customers to reducing emissions. We're waiting on new technology, We're
waiting on new science, We're waiting for all these solutions.
In my humble opinion, and I said this to Todd Charteris,
chief executive of Ravo Bank on my show on Monday,
I think the banks have gone woke. They need to
butt out of this. This is a government decision, not

(03:24):
a bank decision. And if the processes want to put
on a levy at process at the processor level, let
them do that. But if I want to change farmer behavior,
and I'm bloody banging on a I'm repeating myself and horrifically,
just give the farmers a premium for zero carbon or

(03:46):
reduced carbon produce and they will change they're farming practice
to suit. It's a really simple equation.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
It really is, Jamie, Thank you very much. Enjoy your
evening as Jamie McKay host to the Country. For more
from Hither duplessy Ellen Drave, listen live

Speaker 3 (04:00):
To News Talk SEB from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio