November 28, 2025 • 46 mins
Andy Muir talks to Jon Pemberton, Eric Roy, Emma Blom, Rob Scott and Bruce Ford.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Last night.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I've had the strange Yes, a very good morning and
welcome along to the best of the muster, a collaboration
of interviews that took our attention during a busy week
here at Hokkanu e HQ. My name's Andy Mueller. Thanks
to your company. Was starting off the y hour by
catching up with John Pebbleton Farming it means he's fairy
but also part of the Noughfield Scholarship this year. We
(00:26):
caught up with John O it was actually back from
Australia not that many days ago, and just talks about
the year from his suspective, how he's founded and why
somebody should think about being a Enoughfield scholar. Eric Roy
was on the program former MP He's wore a lot
of hats over the years, but absolutely this week all
about the pork industry, with Eric just saying certainty for
(00:48):
the sector going forward around Naywak, around regulations and the likes.
Certainty is something that needs to be looked at. Emma
Bloom from Balfi Young Farmers, Miss Balfour, It's happening tonight
off a halt when Emma was on the program, not
only talking about Miss Balfer, but just about young farmers
in general, and suddenly it's an organization on the rise
(01:08):
and really good to do our chats every week like
I do with the team from A Take A South
and Young Farmers. Rob Scott South and District Mayor, he's
got his five cents to say about amalgamations. They're back
on the table this year regarding councils local body elections
have been in gone. Although the arguments there what did
they occur at all? If there's changes possibly in the wind,
(01:28):
which Rob Scott goes into and with a little bit
more detail this is of course coming out of central government.
And finally bruce forward our Stuart Island correspondent Worth once
again that staggering figure regarding the amount of cars that
are on Stuart Island, which is something that never ceases
to surprise me. So without further Ado will start the
(01:50):
yell with John Pembleton. You're listening to the best of
the muster, John Peebot and farms at means he's fairy
(02:11):
and joins us this afternoon and the Sergeant Dan Farming
round up of course, sanks to Sergeant Dan Stock food
here and Gorde John O good afternoon. How saints, Yeah,
good endings.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Have your weekend, had.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
A great weekend. Actually we went and cut out a
heaver of Christmas shopping Saturday morning. Did in the afternoon,
I went to watch Kelley play a bit of cracket
down there and obviously with Koy Kulley and yesterday it
was pretty cool. Went out there holp to mate with
some weaning and the young fellow came out there and yeah,
went home and I was pretty much just coughing up
dried up sheep dung for the next five hours. But
(02:44):
that's just what you do. It was good fun.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Reminding the old days.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Mate, Oh, it does absolutely But look you talk about
technology off the cuff, and oh man, the way hand
piece evolution has come around, especially from the days of
having a big digging plant. You've got a number eight
wire strung up and just dragging it along, and you've
got chords and you might have bolshy twoties or something
dragged the down troupe and drag you the length of
the race. But not anymore. You just got a listy
(03:11):
empowered hand piece, just have it in your pocket and
just go through the mob and didn't and dagg as
you please, it was revolutionary.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, yeah, I've just recently we've got a heap of cheap,
cheap feelingsy for tituts and the only fences on a
on a new property and it's got four or five
k's a sheep being eaving to do.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Of fencing.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I find is quite I quite enjoy it. And but no, Milwaukee,
You've got a got a quite a cool week contraption
of just an electric paired stafle gun. That's sort of
been my early Christmas present.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's been fantastic yourself. How things been? We haven't spoken
for a while and quite a bit as occurred.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, so I managed to get back.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I was on the GP. It was supposed to be
a five week trip and that got scuffled when we
got to Italy with the storm in south and just
resources getting stretched a bit hard at home. So sort
of made it last minute, called a hop on a planets.
There's femine rubbish coming the following week, so that was
sort of the clinch from the decision.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Really shot home. Two weeks at home, got caught.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Up on things and then I had a messy away
and have a week in Victoria, Australia, with the meatback
up the crew.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
That was her last week of travel. It was really good.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
I've never done Australia before and just really enjoyed the
business we visited and just the diversification Victoria. Really I
was very surprised, you know, it was quite random seeing
vineyards in the corner of Sarah cropping farms and.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
There was olive gross and.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
A lot of right through to market access from those farmers.
They weren't just selling commodities went through JBS. One of
the milling plants are processing north of two hundred thousand
a year of feed. A lot of that's going into
the pigs and chickens and that was fascinating too. A
lot of peg farms helped me now under a very
(05:06):
sort of being managed under the baller system that we
have in Zealand, where the processes like JBS owns the
feet owns the pegs, the farmer owns the infrastructure and
the farmer manages it while that line of finishing those
wanders happens. And I thought there's actually a quite interesting
model to be run. And I guess probably the takeaway
(05:30):
as I saw was the scale of arable over there.
Family succession want to be a challenge lot to us
keep building the businesses rather than making sure that there
were ring fencing properties as they went. They just sort
of kept building on mass. But also a lot of
people just wanting to come home and drive the tractor
with audosteer and all the toys. No one was actually
(05:51):
willing to roll up their sleeves and get some pig
sure or care shit on the elbows. Because that's where
I saw the opportunity for young farmers was to get
back into the livestock game. That's where the return seemed
to be, but just didn't seem to They were saying
they weren't making two They were sort of battling with
some of the profits. But maybe those haven't battled enough
(06:12):
yet to shift that that thinking.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
So it's a mindset with the younger people as such.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I think so, yeah, I think I think there's a
huge opportunity for the cropping farmer over bed and the
great livestock system within his farm gate. You know that
the price of fertilizing inputs, they kept saying was what
was making things tough. Well, if they had the livestock
system with inside the gate, that their feed could go
directly into then that they sort of create the loof
of nutrients, wouldn't they. So yeah, I just yeah, huge
(06:41):
opportunity over that's for sure. But you know, there was
certainly some innovation happening. Most guys had a large shed
on their farm and they spent half their time building
stuff and adapting stuff rather than going and buying especialized
bit of equipment. So it was Yeah, it did kind
of remind me of what we would have done maybe
(07:01):
thirty years ago in Yu Zealand before we had access
to European markets for that gear a bit cheaper what
we have now, but there's still pretty cool stuff coming
out and seeing what they were achieving in that space.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
With all this travel, you must be sick of the
side of airports.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I threw the passport and the drawer the other day,
and I think, yeah, it'll be at least six months
before that comes out again, if not a year. Just
that you just learned to tune out, like it's surprising
how well you can adapt. Like when they came back
from Italy, you know, I was sort of went to
bed at eight o'clock one night and got up back
up at four the next and didn't really suffer from
(07:35):
the too much from the jet leg And yeah, it's
amazing condition your south to all those flights and not
affect you too much.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So that pretty much concludes your Nothiel commitments.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yeah, so that's all my travel done, and now I'm
just going to sit down a knuckle out a solid
report at the end and that what's included that is
a fifteen minute presentation at the by annual Nuffield Conference
of the Cargo happening into February coming so probably the
(08:09):
big months between field Day's Lamb Day and that conference happening,
so it'll be quite cool get to host a few
Nowfield friends down in the Cargo while that's all happening
at the end of February, so it'd be great.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So would you recommend people going for the Maffield Scholarship
as such, Johno, based on.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Your yet, Yeah, absolutely. I think anyone that is looking
for is inquisitive and looking for answers and thinks that
they might have a curly one that no one's really
looked at. Absolutely put your hand up for the twenty
twenty seven round. And even even if that feels like that,
(08:48):
it's a too big a leaf and commitment. Just looking
to the Raw Leaders programs. I've got the Barely Chained
Tour which happens in start of March from memory, sorry, Jen,
actually in the January, and that that goes through the
Kiwi Fruit, Apple's red Meat dairy sectors of New Zealand
(09:09):
from the farm to the consumer. That's run the North
Island over over a week to nine days. Then itself
is a really great place to connect with people. But
it's full on the long days, but you get so
much out of it and it really helped me with
my approach and enough who I was traveling. But yeah,
the Rayal Leaders program. If people would just want to
(09:31):
see how they can grind and develop, just look into
New Zealand Rule Leaders and there's a number of different
programs there to help people with the growth their business
and personal growth.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Good on you, John, I always appreciated your time on
the Muster. This is the last time we chat for
twenty twenty five, dear or say it so you and
the family enjoy the festive season and we'll chat in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, mate, Mike Bumanda this summer. Cheers, welcome back to.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
The Muster on Hakanui. Eric Croix, former MP, as well
as having a number of portfolios amongst his name these
days as well, environment South and Counselor amongst them. Joins
us once again, you're a good afternoon. How are thanks?
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Oh yep, good afternoon and good afternoon listeners. Yeh, got
a bit of growth at your now. Now we can
get pass waving in the wind. So we've kind of
turned a week corner there. Sold to him pretty good, really.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So what's the ground situation in general?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Though?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It feed?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Okay, it's still getting a lot of rain. I had
a bit of a looker on Saturday there, but I
just decided she was a bit wet for the discs.
It's about a third of every peddic. I thought, oh no,
I can't go around that. So we'll wait. But gravity
will keep it there. I'll get it done before Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So you're not freshing about it not being done. It
will happen.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Fretting doesn't solve any problems here, any threading, Oh, any problems?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Okay, So we called this a panteen effect. It won't
happen overnight, but it will happen.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah, it's going to happen. Don't worry. I'm on the
case or there.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
We gave them. There's nothing to fear. Eric is here. Look,
we talk about this. We had Sewn mlloy on the
program yesterday last week, our big farming correspondent and what's
happening in the pork industry, and he was really buoyant
about the state of the industry as such. But the
issue around Naywak and the code of conduct around Pharao
win Crates doesn't seem to go away.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Well, I think it has. I think what we've got
now are some people that say we weren't listened to,
But there's a good reason why they weren't listened to it.
Can I just give a hands up to Andrew Hoggard
who actually said, listen, I'm not happy with the work
that's been done by the original Naewhak team and we
(11:54):
need to address this. So and I think he's lended
in a pretty good place. The partner that's got everybody
weave at upsee it is actually the ten years he's
given people to enact what the new rules are. I think,
look if you look at what's happened in Europe where
(12:16):
they're also addressing this but not coming out with such
a vigorous change. They're sort of twelve to nineteen years
to change over. There was quite a bit of money involved,
but m key, some of the decisions that original Nawak
team made were just a nonsense. And whilst they some
of the animal rights groups and our stress animal rights
(12:39):
and not animal welfare groups have come out and said,
well he's listened to the farmers. Well they just we
just totally excluded the farmers, and they brought out just
an unbelievable regime that no one was doing anywhere in
the world. And in order like an economic unit pigying
(13:00):
at is three hundred soeurs and in order to effect
the changes that were required in that original report from
Niwak was about two point six million dollars for a
farm of three hundred soals and no one was doing
it anywhere in the world. And some of the things
were just an absolute nonsense, the spatial stuff and some
(13:23):
rules like weaning pigs. You're not allowed to wean pigs
till they were five weeks old. Well, it's not about
how old they are, it's about how big they are.
And if your pigs, your little pigs are over six
and a half kilos, they wreck the others of the
seals and you end up with mastitis. And we've got
people getting pigs to that way in eighteen to twenty days.
(13:46):
So look, it was just an absolute nonsense. And so
what Andrew Hoggett said, the MPI listen, sought out what
is important, what works, and where.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We go.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Whilst the farrowing crates are still there, they're only allowed
for four or five days after the sow has had
her piglets. And that's the case. And the other thing
I'd say about the whole approach that the Nawak team
took was the welfare and interest of what the sow
(14:22):
wants to do. And if she wants to tremble on
her babies, that's her expressing herself. She wants to eat them,
she can do that. So if you didn't have the
confined pharrowing for those first five days or so, it's
about two little pigs a litter that get crushed or
(14:46):
eaten or stood on. And you know, if you take
the number of sow mercy, that's thirty thousand little pigs
that are getting killed. And I'm sure the little pigs
would have a view about whether that was a good
idea not probably a better idea than some of the
people that were saying let it happen.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, it seems as though Eric Nawik had people involved
who had no skin in the game of such and
there was a concern no farmers and the lights actually
involved with naywork for pizza.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Well, now, I'd say there were some people there that
were vets in that there, but another previous administration. And
I challenged Stu Nash on this, and I know quite
well when he was in Parma. I said, look, you've
put on people that are animal rights people. They're not
animal wealthy people, they're not practitioners. And coming out with
(15:35):
some really really unusual stuff, he said, who did that?
And you guys did. Now, the other thing about some
of those people were they were quite aggressive people in
my mind, And so if you've got a rational argument going,
the rational people just got sick of aggression in the
argument in my view. So I just think it got
all of it too difficult to just engage in the
(16:00):
debate and land in the right place. And when you're
having these debates, you should need the spectrum of all
the ideas there. But unless you've got the farming fraternity there,
you're not going to land in the middle in the
right place. And unless you've got sort of a process
which acknowledges every view and measures them against science, you're
(16:22):
not going to end in the right place either. And clearly,
in my view, the original Nowak committee was short on
those qualities in order to come up with a reasonable decision.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Now where if you came out this morning the MP
rich list was out, there's three hundred and seventy nine
million dollars that members of Parliament and New Zealand have
tied up in property. If you commentators are saying this
is where a conflict of interests can come into play,
is that the case.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Well, I don't believe so. Like you had to do
a register of assets everybody that I filled one in
every year or every three years when you're elected, or
I don't know, it might be every year now in
case you've changed, and it just lets people know. And
what it does is if you've got shares in a
(17:10):
company or something and that's coming up, then you've got
to absent yourself and declare a conflict of interest. And
famously a laboring pea called Michael Watts didn't do that.
When he was a cabinet minister and he was worn
twelve times. You need to put this stuff into a
blind trust that you're not in control of and he
(17:33):
refused to do in a customer's job. So it's really
just to protect conflict of interest. And I would say,
you know, it's an open system, everybody can see who
did what, and it also got to declare any gifts
you've got and make sure that everything's above board. And
(17:55):
it's I think an appropriate way to actually do it.
The other commune I would say, is that do you
want people who don't have a dollar to their name
running the country or people who have been successful and
just have all we think about that and the intellect
and qualities they bring to decision making, if they've been
(18:15):
successful or not.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. Eric,
and the irony being Michael Wood has put his name
in the hat to go back into parliament next election.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
All is forgiven. I'd recognize my eras so it will
be interesting to see. It's going to be one to
watch on the night that one because met at Roskell
the chung is it the guy that talk it? Hey,
we never have well national not say we the National
Party for a number of decades, so it'll be interesting
(18:48):
to see whether he's forgiven or not.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
You're certainly going to be interesting in the lead up
to the next election. Eric, Always appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Good one.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
This is a muster and hakannui before we catch up
with Emma Blum. The Muster Events Diary brought to you
by Beef and Lamb New Zealand. Click Beeflambenzed dot com.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand's latest word wise workshop for
Milk to Meat is happening this Thursday, November the twenty
seventh at the Gore Golf Club. So go to Beeflaminzed
(19:27):
dot com slash events to register now. Emma bloom Out
of Bealfy Young Farmers joins us in this week's Young
Farmers round up. Good afternoon, Emma.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Hello, how are you.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I'm going pretty well. I was speaking to you, you see,
I'm pretty busy. You're helping the appearance with the milkings
in the morning, then doing an ai run.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
No, she's been flat out. It's been an awesome season
so far, so it's going good.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is the grass starting to grow around? Belfer yep, No, it's.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
Been pretty steady. We've just cut for Baylor yesterday and
then we've even got some sylogen so no, pretty happy.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, this way you'd hope to have at the end
of November anyway. Now Bellfer, young Farmer's quite a bit
going on that straight off the bat. It's all happening
at the Balfer Hall this Saturday evening, Miss Belfer tell
us about it.
Speaker 6 (20:15):
Awesome. Yeah, So it's a drag show, so we're encouraging
all of our lads to get dressed up and support
a good cause. So our local hall needs a bit
of a revamp and then this is just such a
great way to get everybody together have such a fun
night and then raise some money for the club and
then for the local Balfer Hall.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And I can tell you exactly when that hall opened.
I think it was about this time in nineteen eighty three.
Really yeah, well it's on the phone.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Who would have thought in nineteen eighty three that the
boys will be dressing.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
As girl.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Pretty much, but I'll be honest, there's a plark as
you walk in there saying it was opened by the
latest Erskine Boe maas so that's how I understood that one.
But you did write who would have thought all these
years ago these events will still be going on at
Bath that they've been hell before, And like you say,
the money's all going towards restorations of the Balfa Hall, right, yes.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah, so it was about ten fifteen years ago,
and talking to people in the community again, I'm excited
about this event. They still remember that night in detail,
Like you'll ask what somebody was wearing and they can
even name the color of the dress and what their
talent was. Like it's going to be such an unforgettable night.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, straight off the cuff, Michael Lee or Brett Dylan
for goodness sake. For a funny story about that night,
My wife went along to it, went along with her
mate for Walkland, who is a corporate high flyer, and
her one night out in Balfa went she went to
a drag show.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Oh that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, it was something certainly deviated from the norm. So
like ticket numbers and the likes, have you got numbers?
You've got a capead.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Obviously, Yeah, so our kepas one hundred and seventy five people,
we've still got tickets available, so if you're interested, please
come tag along. It'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But yeah, so as far as ticket details, what are
they worth? How do you pay for one?
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Sweet soe you just literally just google the bout a
drag show and it will come up. It's fifty dollars
a ticket. Otherwise, you can also on the Facebook page
for the Young Farmers and then there's a ticket link
on there and sufferers included. Doors open six point thirty
and it'll go till late. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Is there a courtesy coach locally?
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a courtesy coach brilliant.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It's nice to the driver, be nice to always nice
to the driver. Goodness meet when the people not nice
to the driver. Yeah, and there's also something around cell
phones as well. No cell phone use on the night.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Yeah. We want to just let the boys just go
wild and then have no regrets later on. I think
Captain twenty years ago, then the boys didn't have to
worry about it. There was just pixiland photos. But now
there'll be quite a lot of phones and videos that
can get out.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So yeah, and there'll be reminders of the night around that.
Looking forward to the event as well to be a
part of it. So other things about for young farmers though,
Has this been the core focus lately?
Speaker 6 (23:06):
No, We've just had our bark Up, which was a
great success. I think there were a thirty odd working
dog entrance which was really cool and it was a
really really cool event. And then yeah, our focus now
is on Miss Balfo and then we'll get Christmas out
of the way and then get all these other events
cranking through.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Just speak to Miss Balfer. How many entrants have you got?
Speaker 6 (23:26):
Oh, we got seventeen.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Do you need more or is that enough?
Speaker 6 (23:31):
I think we've got enough. But we won't say no
to people volunteering.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I reckon if we can crowdsource enough money, Blear Drysdale
could could go back and do a role we did
a few years ago on the Bealfa Show. What do
you reckon? We've got a couple of days to do this.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Oh, we have been traded. We've got Hopefield him on board.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, but we haven't got Blocker up there strutting the stuff.
I reckon we can do it. He's oed of it, No,
but I think we can right right out.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
What's our game plan?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Well, we just need people to donate money. If we
can reach I don't know, one hundred and fifty bucks
I reckon or two hundred dollars there we go fair figure,
we can source that on the night from whoever that
I reckon block has got a front up. What do
you reckon?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
I love that, so on the night he just gets
forced up there.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
He gets forced up there. It was regally absolutely, but look,
we're getting towards a Christmas season with you guys, fundraising wise,
you've been doing anything else? A bit of crutching coming up?
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Yeah, we've been doing a bit of crutching and then
the odd jobs around the district. Whatever people need help with,
we're happy to help. We've been doing a bit earlier
on the year with some fodderbeat sorting and then yeah,
a lot of crutching.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
As far as the one situation is it, have you
been helping it all like members regarding trees or tree lanes?
Speaker 6 (24:45):
To be fair, no, I think people have been quite
busy on their own farms sorting it out. But if
anybody has got wind damage, we're more than happy to
go out for a weekend or a day and clear
up some trees.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
So you're still getting out and about and you're thirsty.
Three where's this?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (25:02):
It was way kaya last week and I think this
coming week's Riversdale. It's a bit of a shame that
the Balfer Pub is closed, but we may do that's.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
That's what you've got to do, I suppose. So where
do you hold your meetings?
Speaker 6 (25:14):
Then I've been holding them at the Riversdale Pub and
then when we can, we do it at the Rugby
Club in Belfa, so you stay.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Pretty local with the meetings more or less. So you're
going down, you've got a tent at the races or anything?
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Are we're tagging along with Thornberry?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I thank everyone is Young Farmers in general, though it
seems to be in a pretty good place down here
in the south THEMA I'd say, oh, definitely.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Like when I was at UNI, my brother Nick, he
was chair of the bealf Young Farmers and there was
a handful of people that would come and people were
really keen. And then I went away and then I've
come back and it is such a cool group of people,
like people really want to do things, really actively involved.
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
How's the fines bot going?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (26:05):
The fines book is going pretty strong.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
What do we have this month? What have we had?
Give us some details. Taylor wasn't too keen on last time.
But here's a chance. What's been going on? I'm not
going to give to you don't have to give much deed, hell,
have you got to give us something? But what's been happening?
Like is it somebody just taking out strainers or what's
been the general gifts lately?
Speaker 6 (26:27):
Oh, I think somebody got a bit rowdy at the
barkup and yeah, that's that's all I'll say.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh, that's a that's a fair call em. Look and
you're meeting dates? Of course? When are they the first
Monday of every month? Good on you em. Always got
to catch up. All the best for miss Belfer this weekend.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Awesome, Thank you Andy.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Rob Scott is the mayor of the Southland District region
and joins us this afternoon. Of course, the news came
out in the last couple of days regarding the proposal
to get rid of a heap of counsels. Super cities
and the likes will occur in certain parts of the
country depending on where you're based, but Rob Scott was
one of the drivers of this about this time last year,
even earlier, and joins us this afternoon to give us
(27:24):
a bit of further comment. Good afternoon, Rob, you must
feel rather vindicated.
Speaker 7 (27:28):
Yeah, good afternoon, Andy. Yeah, it's quite interesting hearing some
of the interviews with the locks of Chris Bishop and
he's been using the same words that I was using
over a year ago. So yeah, it's the government's caught
up with with what Zapthens was doing.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Why do you think this has come to the attention
all of a sudden.
Speaker 7 (27:46):
Oh, I think there's a number of factors that when
you look at I mean, I know, the turnout that
the elections has sort of spacked a bit as a
voter turn out at the elections have spact a bit
of discussion as well. But I think it's I mean,
it's been time for change quite a while, and that's
what I've been saying, and I love the words the mirror.
What we've been saying was simplifying local government in the
(28:07):
country and actually trying to get stuff done and do
it efficiently and get that engagement app So yeah, I
think the government's recognized. I'd like to take all the
credit and say they've they've read sousand's proposal and gone, well,
this will work up and down the country, so let's
mirror that. But yeah, it's good to see that it's
been recognized.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Have you been talking to Chris special but or lately
by chance not.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
In the last couple of months, I didn't see well,
I did see the announcement coming at some stage, but yeah,
we didn't have any heads up that it was coming
on with us, So it was a surprise to us
as though, although yeah, not a huge surprise that it
was there.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So yeah, we've talked about this before as well. I mean,
over two hundred people were elected to local body politics,
whether they were mayors or counselors, unopposed, and that's certainly
got to be a catalyst for change. So just when
it comes to wasteful spending, yeah.
Speaker 7 (29:03):
Yeah, and it's well in the other words that they've
been using that mirrored what we've been saying is their duplication,
the siloed kind of approach, all of those sorts of
things where we're just yeah, there's a much better way
of doing it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
As far as ben Bell Core District mayor, I do
remember foul cheer of environments Southland, Tom Campbell and the cargo.
Have you been in much dialogue of these people regarding
what's going on.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
Yeah, we've had initial chats. I was actually at a
meeting with Todd McClay on. Sorry blast trek of days.
Now what day are we?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
We're on Thursday Thursday, So yeah.
Speaker 7 (29:41):
Tuesday, Tuesday night, so that the day of the announcement,
and Jeremy was there and had a quick catch up
with him and had had a bit of a chat
with Ben afterwards. I'm going to try and have a
chat with Tom today to see where we all kind
of said, Jeremy was looking a bit under tendably shell shocked.
It's the timing's not that great in terms of having
just gone through an election and then having that that
(30:02):
bomb bombshell drop that. Yeah, that all of the councilors
are going to be potentially out of a out of
a role. But yeah, I mean you can't carry on
waiting for these things to happen either. It's long overdue.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, the human is there the timing stakes, Kevin, We've
just had an election a couple of months ago, especially
around environment Southland.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Yeah, although when you look at it from the southern
point of view, I mean we've been having this discussion
for a while now and just reading through the full
We had a council meeting yesterday so I didn't have
a chance until this morning to actually have a good
read through the full proposal. But when you look at
the outcomes of what they're wanting to achieve, we can
take all of them off with the vocal that we
(30:43):
sent through in February of this year. So it's that
that middle step of having the regional councils governed by
the three mayors. We could probably avoid that because that
to me doesn't sound like a simple approach and just
go straight to the final that come of having the
two unitaries in South London. That's going to deliver the
(31:05):
best bank for back for us, for our people, and
the most simple form of local governance as well.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Rob, can we afford the cost of amalgamation because there's
a lot of money going into consultants, YadA YadA, yadda,
you know the drill, and there's going to be a
heck of a lot of coin change hands before this
actually comes to fruition.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
See, I don't actually think Andy, that we need to
spend a lot of money on it. We've done a
lot of the groundwork in terms of that proposal. We've
got really good local democracy for our community boards through
everything there. We've got systems in place already. I don't
think we need to make it. I think, following the
government rhetoric of keeping it simple, we can do a
simple amalgamation or reorganization as well. We don't need to
(31:47):
make that too complicated either. And as they're looking at
the roles and functions of local government at the same
time and where the duplication lies, we don't need to
get it of consultants. And the best consultants are actually
our rate payers in the community who we're actually there
to serve, and they'll have their expectations of what we
(32:08):
need to do. And yeah, I don't think we need
to spend a whole lot of money on it. It's
the money that we're spending in a broken system that
I'm worried about. In the money that we're wasting all.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Right, payers voicing well, a few people actually saying in
the last couple of days rather as well that there's
not going to be a lot of money saved if
amalgamations occur as well.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
Yeah, it's if you do amalgamation for amalgamation's sake, you're
not going to save any money, and it's important to
get the end result, right. I mean, you look at
that intermediary model, but the government's proposed with the I
think we'd a CTB or whatever it's called. The mayor's
sitting on that board, you're still going to be running
through and having the regional council there with the duplicated
(32:50):
kind of services and planning and all of that kind
of stuff. So the model that we proposed does actually
have savings because we're removing a lot of that jupilate.
You're still going to have a CEO of the regional
council under that intermediary model. If we jump straight to
the outcome, we're removing a lot of those overheads and
those costs as well, including the planning. So getting too
(33:13):
those nitry authority outcomes as where we will get the
savings and we'll get them a lot faster if we
skip that intermediate step.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Okay, let's use Tapanui as an examples in the material
licensing trust boundaries. Although it comes under a Targo regional
council jurisdiction, there could be a stickler.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
Yeah, it could be, and it's interesting I saw in
one of the pages of their twenty nine page document
this morning that they're not going to look at the
regional boundaries as part of this, and there have been
some people that have said, look, you can include the
sort of the Blue Mountain area around into South End,
and I mean it starts to complicate it a little
bit when you sort of cross those regional council boundaries.
(33:59):
But yeahs going to be a few little nuances in there,
but I'm sure we can work through those as they
go through. But the bigger picture of getting the model
right I think is the most important part.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
So as far as close to the district council, would
you be keen to get them involved as well?
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Oh, we can have conversations. I think one of the things,
and of having a look at the national map yesterday
that the government fut forward, which has got all the
boundaries and everything on. When you look at the South
and district, it's essentially it's like I'm just talking about
our current area as a district council. It's bigger than
a lot of the regions south, so we're effectively a
(34:42):
region already from a size point of view, and you
don't want to go too big from a geography point
of view, and it's one of the risks we just
focus on population, we end up getting too big geographically,
and then we end up getting the blow staff levels
because you've got to have additional staff to cover the
(35:03):
area because one person can't cover that entire space, and
then you end up getting extra managers in and you
get all that kind of stuff that we're trying to
avoid in that piece, and you don't get that same
connected kind of democracy. And when you look at the
voter turnout, Auckland's probably got the worst in the whole country.
And that's a very big, unitary authority covering quite a
(35:25):
wide area, but the people are very disconnected from their
elected members, which puts some off voting. When you look
at the voter turnout down South and I know Gore
did very well and Stuart Island actually got sixty something percent.
So when you get that smaller connected area, you get
a much better engagement. So it's getting that balance right
(35:45):
between your population and your geography and your representation and
sort of linking it all through. So it's quite important
to look at those boundaries and how it all ties
them together.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It's all hypothetical on the stage rib but then you
look at it area like Gorth, it's debt loading, historical
debt etc. This comes under the equation as well. It's
got to be I don't know, distributed fairly.
Speaker 7 (36:08):
Yeah, no it does. And those are the sort of
details that we can work out. But again you don't
need consultants to do that. You've got really good staff.
We've got really good governance, good information, good insights. You know,
we can do a lot of it ourselves locally.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is there a risted that amalgamations though don't work and
what happens then.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Well, if you get it right, you design it to succeed,
not to fail. And I guess that's one of my
reasons for not involving something designed by Wellington. It needs
to be designed locally by our people, for our people,
and if we do that, it's got a very high
chance of working where it's going to fail, as if
the government actually tries to design everything and do a
(36:52):
Wellington top down and do it to us. So it's
really important that as the South and region we focus
on the outcomes for our communities and we all work together,
even if it means some of us are going to
be out of our jobs. But we've got to work
towards those those outcomes for our people and never be
designed by the people.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Good owner. I'll always appreciate your time on the Muster.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
No worries.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
Thanks Andy.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
River Duran. Duran is the artist. The song is called
ordinary World. You're listening to the Muster. Although it's fair
to say our next guest lives in somewhere that is
pretty extraordinary. To coin a phrase, Bruce Ford lives down
at Stuart Island. They're correspondent from down that way. We
(37:43):
catch up from time to time. Bruce, good afternoon, Good
after Oh look it's the weather's on this way up.
It's it's a thing of beauty after what we've experienced
over the past couple of months.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it's made a considerable difference around here. We've got
a nice sunny day here and now, and whilst it's
been within a few days of that, the all the
lawns and need mowing and everything's growing like pretty crazy.
I've got a large huydroponics letus operation going, and there
was sunshine on that and the other day it was
(38:17):
up to the best part of thirty degrees on nutrient,
which is it's a pretty good push.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Really. The wind storm we had in the south a
few weeks back, now down there you reckon, you got
off pretty scott free. Bruce.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Ah, Yes, we did it. Wef we did get some wind,
and that's irregular occasion. Here we will be pretty strong
and things were tied down pretty good. But certainly I
couldn't find anywhere I'd going any firewood, So that's the
level of what we got so compared to the rest
of the region.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But down there on Stewart Island, a lot of school
groups have been down there lately. It's the tourism season.
Cruise ships have they been in abundance.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Cruise ships have started off again, so we had had
a few of those in I can't recall an angel them.
But whilst cruise ships have been threatened other parts of
the country, I think our team are still hold pretty good.
So we've been reasonably successful.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So you're seeing no change in numbers visiting numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Ah, the cruise ships or they're pretty kenny. They fucking
choose a bit and they'll I even off again, but
I think we should regard them as bonus. Anyways, because
we've had lots of other tourists. There's bird watchers and
the likes. At this time of years, things just quite
busy here, So you know where we're pleased with that.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Would you say tourist numbers are back to pre COVID levels.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I haven't checked the numbers, but my belief is that
they will be, and we get a good tally on
that from our visit us to levy records when I
get reports on that, and I haven't seen a recent one,
but I believed pretty much back to pre COVID.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So what's the levy for going to Stuart Island?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Fifteen dollars currently? We started off at five and it's
corporate and the fair and I've not heard a murmur
that anybody's even noticed it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Oh why would you? I mean, you're quite happy to
play it. If you've got to go somewhere there needs
to be expended. Sure, some infrastructures in place right well exactly, And.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
We've collected an excess of one and a half million dollars.
It's been used on community facilities and jetties and walking
tracks and toilets that sort of thing, So things that
rape players surely can't be expected to pay for.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You talk about tourists if you talk about ships. But
the Navy they've been in town as well.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, we didn't think we had a defense problem, but
the Navy turned up yesterday and that was a bit
of a bonus around town. There were lots of sailors
ashore and Tikaha. The school kids apparently had a visit
to the ship and they had a look round. So
I believe there was one hundred and sixty of Crowbard.
There a sailing again last night eight o'clock, so they
(40:58):
were heading for the need. Certainly gave them a bitter
fresh air, and no doubt spent some money because some
of the eateries are quite pleased to see them.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
So they weren't coming to check your hydro products set up?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
No, no, probably they'll probably get their own sheer and
green for sure.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
One figure that absolutely astounds with Stuart Island is the
amount of vehicles there. I think you see was that
six hundred odd vehicles? Is that right?
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Twenty yeah, and twenty k's of road. But the good
news is that the roads are getting resealed, Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Somewhere, I spect after Christmas they all it's a regular
sequence now every fifteen years or so, and they gravel
stop poles. The ceiling chips have been accumulating for the
last few months because of course it's all going to
be shipped, and no doubt they finger will turn up
after Christmas and there'll be two or three weeks to
(41:59):
us time they get even link tidied up, and then
we'll get some fresh road markings and doing it we
stick and stand.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You've got to be honest, every fifteen years they redo
the roads for you must be pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, well I try it, and it's a bit of
a different smell around the roads for a little while.
But of course we don't have any major heavy vehicles
on them, so they don't take as much damage as
your heavy trucks do on your side.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Well, the only smell cutting off those roads will be
the smell of progress, I suggest.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Oh yeah, exactly. And you know it's a bit tidy
up because there's always a few repairs happened prior to it,
and patching and water tables and all that stuff. So
it's a good reason to get things tidied up.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Now. A solar upgrades on the cards as well.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yes, we've hit some time ago, a few months ago
where Matt Patterson turned up with a blessing for the
community with some regional development money for solar farm. So
that's to happen after Christmas, at the start of it anyway,
and there'll be some upgrades with our lines system, desail generators, batteries,
(43:11):
so that in theory we should never ever get a
power cup again. And hopefully the price will change on
reduce our price because we paid eighty five cents a
unit currently and there are some suggests in that thirty
or forty cents unit will be a reduction from our
eighty five.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well as far as infrastructure around that, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, I want to make a hell of a difference
to anybody in business, because you know, the power villas
are a farewell chunk of course, and on top of electricity,
we use LPG for cooking these look at eating coal
all those things. So now power bills are well, mine's
four hundred bucks a month, But everybody in town that
gets fought and vollar bill has electric stove and water
(43:57):
heating and everything electric, so we have to skimp and
scrape awey bit.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Well, it's probably not that easy to go and get
a Guess spot a lot image.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I know, we have a regular guests supply here at
Guess swimming stations over just a local garage supply the guests.
So it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
The local garage will be a master of all trades too.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Oh hell, yes, yes, yes, of course, because I I
used to work for the one stage.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Oh there you go, say no more, Bruce. Now, one
thing that's really yours about Stuart Island when I've spoken
to you in the past is the fact that you'll
see key we walking down the street. But another thing
at the moment is the doctoral they're nesting and it's
bringing people to the island. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
The latest reports that Dark have been putting out in
the media, of course, is a positive positive response for
the doctoral nesting on Petstin and looked around rapy Her
and so forth. And because of the poison operation at
rivers and cats and wraps and things, the doctorals apparently
are doing very well. The counc increasing dramatically and that's
(45:02):
looking pretty good.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Just finally as well, you're a former councilor for the
Southland District. I spoke to Rob Scott earlier in the
program about the chance of the malgamations of councilors. What
are your thoughts around this?
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I agree that it's well overdue. You know, we've only
got one hundred thousand people in South lond and four
councilors is a bit rich. We could do a whole
lot of bet on that and fully supporting Robin's attempts
to have it changed around, but regional councilors have got
out of hand, So I agree with Shane Johnes on
that one. That's a great move.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
So an area like Stuart Island would benefit, Well.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Nothing really will change, you just get just reshaped a bit.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
We had reorganization in eighty nine when we had our
own council here and that got amalgamated into Southend and
we've managed on that and it's been successful. So I
don't see any reason why it's the striple a regional council.
But the work will still go on because those people
will still get a job. They'll still be working today.
(46:08):
Just the headings will change.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
That's matter. How the strangers Bruce Ford, there is Stuart
Island wrapping up the best of the muster and enjoy
the weekend. To make sure you take the opportunity to
go and play a bit of sport, have a coffee,
catch up with your neighbors, your mates, whoever. My name's
Andy Muer. I'll catch you on Monday.
Last night.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I've had the strange Yes, a very good morning and
welcome along to the best of the muster, a collaboration
of interviews that took our attention during a busy week
here at Hokkanu e HQ. My name's Andy Mueller. Thanks
to your company. Was starting off the y hour by
catching up with John Pebbleton Farming it means he's fairy
but also part of the Noughfield Scholarship this year. We
(00:26):
caught up with John O it was actually back from
Australia not that many days ago, and just talks about
the year from his suspective, how he's founded and why
somebody should think about being a Enoughfield scholar. Eric Roy
was on the program former MP He's wore a lot
of hats over the years, but absolutely this week all
about the pork industry, with Eric just saying certainty for
(00:48):
the sector going forward around Naywak, around regulations and the likes.
Certainty is something that needs to be looked at. Emma
Bloom from Balfi Young Farmers, Miss Balfour, It's happening tonight
off a halt when Emma was on the program, not
only talking about Miss Balfer, but just about young farmers
in general, and suddenly it's an organization on the rise
(01:08):
and really good to do our chats every week like
I do with the team from A Take A South
and Young Farmers. Rob Scott South and District Mayor, he's
got his five cents to say about amalgamations. They're back
on the table this year regarding councils local body elections
have been in gone. Although the arguments there what did
they occur at all? If there's changes possibly in the wind,
(01:28):
which Rob Scott goes into and with a little bit
more detail this is of course coming out of central government.
And finally bruce forward our Stuart Island correspondent Worth once
again that staggering figure regarding the amount of cars that
are on Stuart Island, which is something that never ceases
to surprise me. So without further Ado will start the
(01:50):
yell with John Pembleton. You're listening to the best of
the muster, John Peebot and farms at means he's fairy
(02:11):
and joins us this afternoon and the Sergeant Dan Farming
round up of course, sanks to Sergeant Dan Stock food
here and Gorde John O good afternoon. How saints, Yeah,
good endings.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Have your weekend, had.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
A great weekend. Actually we went and cut out a
heaver of Christmas shopping Saturday morning. Did in the afternoon,
I went to watch Kelley play a bit of cracket
down there and obviously with Koy Kulley and yesterday it
was pretty cool. Went out there holp to mate with
some weaning and the young fellow came out there and yeah,
went home and I was pretty much just coughing up
dried up sheep dung for the next five hours. But
(02:44):
that's just what you do. It was good fun.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Reminding the old days.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Mate, Oh, it does absolutely But look you talk about
technology off the cuff, and oh man, the way hand
piece evolution has come around, especially from the days of
having a big digging plant. You've got a number eight
wire strung up and just dragging it along, and you've
got chords and you might have bolshy twoties or something
dragged the down troupe and drag you the length of
the race. But not anymore. You just got a listy
(03:11):
empowered hand piece, just have it in your pocket and
just go through the mob and didn't and dagg as
you please, it was revolutionary.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, yeah, I've just recently we've got a heap of cheap,
cheap feelingsy for tituts and the only fences on a
on a new property and it's got four or five
k's a sheep being eaving to do.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Of fencing.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I find is quite I quite enjoy it. And but no, Milwaukee,
You've got a got a quite a cool week contraption
of just an electric paired stafle gun. That's sort of
been my early Christmas present.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's been fantastic yourself. How things been? We haven't spoken
for a while and quite a bit as occurred.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, so I managed to get back.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I was on the GP. It was supposed to be
a five week trip and that got scuffled when we
got to Italy with the storm in south and just
resources getting stretched a bit hard at home. So sort
of made it last minute, called a hop on a planets.
There's femine rubbish coming the following week, so that was
sort of the clinch from the decision.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Really shot home. Two weeks at home, got caught.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Up on things and then I had a messy away
and have a week in Victoria, Australia, with the meatback
up the crew.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
That was her last week of travel. It was really good.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
I've never done Australia before and just really enjoyed the
business we visited and just the diversification Victoria. Really I
was very surprised, you know, it was quite random seeing
vineyards in the corner of Sarah cropping farms and.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
There was olive gross and.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
A lot of right through to market access from those farmers.
They weren't just selling commodities went through JBS. One of
the milling plants are processing north of two hundred thousand
a year of feed. A lot of that's going into
the pigs and chickens and that was fascinating too. A
lot of peg farms helped me now under a very
(05:06):
sort of being managed under the baller system that we
have in Zealand, where the processes like JBS owns the
feet owns the pegs, the farmer owns the infrastructure and
the farmer manages it while that line of finishing those
wanders happens. And I thought there's actually a quite interesting
model to be run. And I guess probably the takeaway
(05:30):
as I saw was the scale of arable over there.
Family succession want to be a challenge lot to us
keep building the businesses rather than making sure that there
were ring fencing properties as they went. They just sort
of kept building on mass. But also a lot of
people just wanting to come home and drive the tractor
with audosteer and all the toys. No one was actually
(05:51):
willing to roll up their sleeves and get some pig
sure or care shit on the elbows. Because that's where
I saw the opportunity for young farmers was to get
back into the livestock game. That's where the return seemed
to be, but just didn't seem to They were saying
they weren't making two They were sort of battling with
some of the profits. But maybe those haven't battled enough
(06:12):
yet to shift that that thinking.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
So it's a mindset with the younger people as such.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I think so, yeah, I think I think there's a
huge opportunity for the cropping farmer over bed and the
great livestock system within his farm gate. You know that
the price of fertilizing inputs, they kept saying was what
was making things tough. Well, if they had the livestock
system with inside the gate, that their feed could go
directly into then that they sort of create the loof
of nutrients, wouldn't they. So yeah, I just yeah, huge
(06:41):
opportunity over that's for sure. But you know, there was
certainly some innovation happening. Most guys had a large shed
on their farm and they spent half their time building
stuff and adapting stuff rather than going and buying especialized
bit of equipment. So it was Yeah, it did kind
of remind me of what we would have done maybe
(07:01):
thirty years ago in Yu Zealand before we had access
to European markets for that gear a bit cheaper what
we have now, but there's still pretty cool stuff coming
out and seeing what they were achieving in that space.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
With all this travel, you must be sick of the
side of airports.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I threw the passport and the drawer the other day,
and I think, yeah, it'll be at least six months
before that comes out again, if not a year. Just
that you just learned to tune out, like it's surprising
how well you can adapt. Like when they came back
from Italy, you know, I was sort of went to
bed at eight o'clock one night and got up back
up at four the next and didn't really suffer from
(07:35):
the too much from the jet leg And yeah, it's
amazing condition your south to all those flights and not
affect you too much.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So that pretty much concludes your Nothiel commitments.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yeah, so that's all my travel done, and now I'm
just going to sit down a knuckle out a solid
report at the end and that what's included that is
a fifteen minute presentation at the by annual Nuffield Conference
of the Cargo happening into February coming so probably the
(08:09):
big months between field Day's Lamb Day and that conference happening,
so it'll be quite cool get to host a few
Nowfield friends down in the Cargo while that's all happening
at the end of February, so it'd be great.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So would you recommend people going for the Maffield Scholarship
as such, Johno, based on.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Your yet, Yeah, absolutely. I think anyone that is looking
for is inquisitive and looking for answers and thinks that
they might have a curly one that no one's really
looked at. Absolutely put your hand up for the twenty
twenty seven round. And even even if that feels like that,
(08:48):
it's a too big a leaf and commitment. Just looking
to the Raw Leaders programs. I've got the Barely Chained
Tour which happens in start of March from memory, sorry, Jen,
actually in the January, and that that goes through the
Kiwi Fruit, Apple's red Meat dairy sectors of New Zealand
(09:09):
from the farm to the consumer. That's run the North
Island over over a week to nine days. Then itself
is a really great place to connect with people. But
it's full on the long days, but you get so
much out of it and it really helped me with
my approach and enough who I was traveling. But yeah,
the Rayal Leaders program. If people would just want to
(09:31):
see how they can grind and develop, just look into
New Zealand Rule Leaders and there's a number of different
programs there to help people with the growth their business
and personal growth.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Good on you, John, I always appreciated your time on
the Muster. This is the last time we chat for
twenty twenty five, dear or say it so you and
the family enjoy the festive season and we'll chat in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, mate, Mike Bumanda this summer. Cheers, welcome back to.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
The Muster on Hakanui. Eric Croix, former MP, as well
as having a number of portfolios amongst his name these
days as well, environment South and Counselor amongst them. Joins
us once again, you're a good afternoon. How are thanks?
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Oh yep, good afternoon and good afternoon listeners. Yeh, got
a bit of growth at your now. Now we can
get pass waving in the wind. So we've kind of
turned a week corner there. Sold to him pretty good, really.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So what's the ground situation in general?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Though?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It feed?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Okay, it's still getting a lot of rain. I had
a bit of a looker on Saturday there, but I
just decided she was a bit wet for the discs.
It's about a third of every peddic. I thought, oh no,
I can't go around that. So we'll wait. But gravity
will keep it there. I'll get it done before Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So you're not freshing about it not being done. It
will happen.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Fretting doesn't solve any problems here, any threading, Oh, any problems?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Okay, So we called this a panteen effect. It won't
happen overnight, but it will happen.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah, it's going to happen. Don't worry. I'm on the
case or there.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
We gave them. There's nothing to fear. Eric is here. Look,
we talk about this. We had Sewn mlloy on the
program yesterday last week, our big farming correspondent and what's
happening in the pork industry, and he was really buoyant
about the state of the industry as such. But the
issue around Naywak and the code of conduct around Pharao
win Crates doesn't seem to go away.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Well, I think it has. I think what we've got
now are some people that say we weren't listened to,
But there's a good reason why they weren't listened to it.
Can I just give a hands up to Andrew Hoggard
who actually said, listen, I'm not happy with the work
that's been done by the original Naewhak team and we
(11:54):
need to address this. So and I think he's lended
in a pretty good place. The partner that's got everybody
weave at upsee it is actually the ten years he's
given people to enact what the new rules are. I think,
look if you look at what's happened in Europe where
(12:16):
they're also addressing this but not coming out with such
a vigorous change. They're sort of twelve to nineteen years
to change over. There was quite a bit of money involved,
but m key, some of the decisions that original Nawak
team made were just a nonsense. And whilst they some
of the animal rights groups and our stress animal rights
(12:39):
and not animal welfare groups have come out and said,
well he's listened to the farmers. Well they just we
just totally excluded the farmers, and they brought out just
an unbelievable regime that no one was doing anywhere in
the world. And in order like an economic unit pigying
(13:00):
at is three hundred soeurs and in order to effect
the changes that were required in that original report from
Niwak was about two point six million dollars for a
farm of three hundred soals and no one was doing
it anywhere in the world. And some of the things
were just an absolute nonsense, the spatial stuff and some
(13:23):
rules like weaning pigs. You're not allowed to wean pigs
till they were five weeks old. Well, it's not about
how old they are, it's about how big they are.
And if your pigs, your little pigs are over six
and a half kilos, they wreck the others of the
seals and you end up with mastitis. And we've got
people getting pigs to that way in eighteen to twenty days.
(13:46):
So look, it was just an absolute nonsense. And so
what Andrew Hoggett said, the MPI listen, sought out what
is important, what works, and where.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We go.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Whilst the farrowing crates are still there, they're only allowed
for four or five days after the sow has had
her piglets. And that's the case. And the other thing
I'd say about the whole approach that the Nawak team
took was the welfare and interest of what the sow
(14:22):
wants to do. And if she wants to tremble on
her babies, that's her expressing herself. She wants to eat them,
she can do that. So if you didn't have the
confined pharrowing for those first five days or so, it's
about two little pigs a litter that get crushed or
(14:46):
eaten or stood on. And you know, if you take
the number of sow mercy, that's thirty thousand little pigs
that are getting killed. And I'm sure the little pigs
would have a view about whether that was a good
idea not probably a better idea than some of the
people that were saying let it happen.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, it seems as though Eric Nawik had people involved
who had no skin in the game of such and
there was a concern no farmers and the lights actually
involved with naywork for pizza.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Well, now, I'd say there were some people there that
were vets in that there, but another previous administration. And
I challenged Stu Nash on this, and I know quite
well when he was in Parma. I said, look, you've
put on people that are animal rights people. They're not
animal wealthy people, they're not practitioners. And coming out with
(15:35):
some really really unusual stuff, he said, who did that?
And you guys did. Now, the other thing about some
of those people were they were quite aggressive people in
my mind, And so if you've got a rational argument going,
the rational people just got sick of aggression in the
argument in my view. So I just think it got
all of it too difficult to just engage in the
(16:00):
debate and land in the right place. And when you're
having these debates, you should need the spectrum of all
the ideas there. But unless you've got the farming fraternity there,
you're not going to land in the middle in the
right place. And unless you've got sort of a process
which acknowledges every view and measures them against science, you're
(16:22):
not going to end in the right place either. And clearly,
in my view, the original Nowak committee was short on
those qualities in order to come up with a reasonable decision.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Now where if you came out this morning the MP
rich list was out, there's three hundred and seventy nine
million dollars that members of Parliament and New Zealand have
tied up in property. If you commentators are saying this
is where a conflict of interests can come into play,
is that the case.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Well, I don't believe so. Like you had to do
a register of assets everybody that I filled one in
every year or every three years when you're elected, or
I don't know, it might be every year now in
case you've changed, and it just lets people know. And
what it does is if you've got shares in a
(17:10):
company or something and that's coming up, then you've got
to absent yourself and declare a conflict of interest. And
famously a laboring pea called Michael Watts didn't do that.
When he was a cabinet minister and he was worn
twelve times. You need to put this stuff into a
blind trust that you're not in control of and he
(17:33):
refused to do in a customer's job. So it's really
just to protect conflict of interest. And I would say,
you know, it's an open system, everybody can see who
did what, and it also got to declare any gifts
you've got and make sure that everything's above board. And
(17:55):
it's I think an appropriate way to actually do it.
The other commune I would say, is that do you
want people who don't have a dollar to their name
running the country or people who have been successful and
just have all we think about that and the intellect
and qualities they bring to decision making, if they've been
(18:15):
successful or not.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. Eric,
and the irony being Michael Wood has put his name
in the hat to go back into parliament next election.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
All is forgiven. I'd recognize my eras so it will
be interesting to see. It's going to be one to
watch on the night that one because met at Roskell
the chung is it the guy that talk it? Hey,
we never have well national not say we the National
Party for a number of decades, so it'll be interesting
(18:48):
to see whether he's forgiven or not.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
You're certainly going to be interesting in the lead up
to the next election. Eric, Always appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Good one.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
This is a muster and hakannui before we catch up
with Emma Blum. The Muster Events Diary brought to you
by Beef and Lamb New Zealand. Click Beeflambenzed dot com.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand's latest word wise workshop for
Milk to Meat is happening this Thursday, November the twenty
seventh at the Gore Golf Club. So go to Beeflaminzed
(19:27):
dot com slash events to register now. Emma bloom Out
of Bealfy Young Farmers joins us in this week's Young
Farmers round up. Good afternoon, Emma.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Hello, how are you.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I'm going pretty well. I was speaking to you, you see,
I'm pretty busy. You're helping the appearance with the milkings
in the morning, then doing an ai run.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
No, she's been flat out. It's been an awesome season
so far, so it's going good.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is the grass starting to grow around? Belfer yep, No, it's.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
Been pretty steady. We've just cut for Baylor yesterday and
then we've even got some sylogen so no, pretty happy.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, this way you'd hope to have at the end
of November anyway. Now Bellfer, young Farmer's quite a bit
going on that straight off the bat. It's all happening
at the Balfer Hall this Saturday evening, Miss Belfer tell
us about it.
Speaker 6 (20:15):
Awesome. Yeah, So it's a drag show, so we're encouraging
all of our lads to get dressed up and support
a good cause. So our local hall needs a bit
of a revamp and then this is just such a
great way to get everybody together have such a fun
night and then raise some money for the club and
then for the local Balfer Hall.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And I can tell you exactly when that hall opened.
I think it was about this time in nineteen eighty three.
Really yeah, well it's on the phone.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Who would have thought in nineteen eighty three that the
boys will be dressing.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
As girl.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Pretty much, but I'll be honest, there's a plark as
you walk in there saying it was opened by the
latest Erskine Boe maas so that's how I understood that one.
But you did write who would have thought all these
years ago these events will still be going on at
Bath that they've been hell before, And like you say,
the money's all going towards restorations of the Balfa Hall, right, yes.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah, so it was about ten fifteen years ago,
and talking to people in the community again, I'm excited
about this event. They still remember that night in detail,
Like you'll ask what somebody was wearing and they can
even name the color of the dress and what their
talent was. Like it's going to be such an unforgettable night.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, straight off the cuff, Michael Lee or Brett Dylan
for goodness sake. For a funny story about that night,
My wife went along to it, went along with her
mate for Walkland, who is a corporate high flyer, and
her one night out in Balfa went she went to
a drag show.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Oh that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, it was something certainly deviated from the norm. So
like ticket numbers and the likes, have you got numbers?
You've got a capead.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Obviously, Yeah, so our kepas one hundred and seventy five people,
we've still got tickets available, so if you're interested, please
come tag along. It'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But yeah, so as far as ticket details, what are
they worth? How do you pay for one?
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Sweet soe you just literally just google the bout a
drag show and it will come up. It's fifty dollars
a ticket. Otherwise, you can also on the Facebook page
for the Young Farmers and then there's a ticket link
on there and sufferers included. Doors open six point thirty
and it'll go till late. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Is there a courtesy coach locally?
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a courtesy coach brilliant.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It's nice to the driver, be nice to always nice
to the driver. Goodness meet when the people not nice
to the driver. Yeah, and there's also something around cell
phones as well. No cell phone use on the night.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Yeah. We want to just let the boys just go
wild and then have no regrets later on. I think
Captain twenty years ago, then the boys didn't have to
worry about it. There was just pixiland photos. But now
there'll be quite a lot of phones and videos that
can get out.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So yeah, and there'll be reminders of the night around that.
Looking forward to the event as well to be a
part of it. So other things about for young farmers though,
Has this been the core focus lately?
Speaker 6 (23:06):
No, We've just had our bark Up, which was a
great success. I think there were a thirty odd working
dog entrance which was really cool and it was a
really really cool event. And then yeah, our focus now
is on Miss Balfo and then we'll get Christmas out
of the way and then get all these other events
cranking through.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Just speak to Miss Balfer. How many entrants have you got?
Speaker 6 (23:26):
Oh, we got seventeen.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Do you need more or is that enough?
Speaker 6 (23:31):
I think we've got enough. But we won't say no
to people volunteering.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I reckon if we can crowdsource enough money, Blear Drysdale
could could go back and do a role we did
a few years ago on the Bealfa Show. What do
you reckon? We've got a couple of days to do this.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Oh, we have been traded. We've got Hopefield him on board.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, but we haven't got Blocker up there strutting the stuff.
I reckon we can do it. He's oed of it, No,
but I think we can right right out.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
What's our game plan?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Well, we just need people to donate money. If we
can reach I don't know, one hundred and fifty bucks
I reckon or two hundred dollars there we go fair figure,
we can source that on the night from whoever that
I reckon block has got a front up. What do
you reckon?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
I love that, so on the night he just gets
forced up there.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
He gets forced up there. It was regally absolutely, but look,
we're getting towards a Christmas season with you guys, fundraising wise,
you've been doing anything else? A bit of crutching coming up?
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Yeah, we've been doing a bit of crutching and then
the odd jobs around the district. Whatever people need help with,
we're happy to help. We've been doing a bit earlier
on the year with some fodderbeat sorting and then yeah,
a lot of crutching.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
As far as the one situation is it, have you
been helping it all like members regarding trees or tree lanes?
Speaker 6 (24:45):
To be fair, no, I think people have been quite
busy on their own farms sorting it out. But if
anybody has got wind damage, we're more than happy to
go out for a weekend or a day and clear
up some trees.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
So you're still getting out and about and you're thirsty.
Three where's this?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (25:02):
It was way kaya last week and I think this
coming week's Riversdale. It's a bit of a shame that
the Balfer Pub is closed, but we may do that's.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
That's what you've got to do, I suppose. So where
do you hold your meetings?
Speaker 6 (25:14):
Then I've been holding them at the Riversdale Pub and
then when we can, we do it at the Rugby
Club in Belfa, so you stay.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Pretty local with the meetings more or less. So you're
going down, you've got a tent at the races or anything?
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Are we're tagging along with Thornberry?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I thank everyone is Young Farmers in general, though it
seems to be in a pretty good place down here
in the south THEMA I'd say, oh, definitely.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Like when I was at UNI, my brother Nick, he
was chair of the bealf Young Farmers and there was
a handful of people that would come and people were
really keen. And then I went away and then I've
come back and it is such a cool group of people,
like people really want to do things, really actively involved.
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
How's the fines bot going?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (26:05):
The fines book is going pretty strong.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
What do we have this month? What have we had?
Give us some details. Taylor wasn't too keen on last time.
But here's a chance. What's been going on? I'm not
going to give to you don't have to give much deed, hell,
have you got to give us something? But what's been happening?
Like is it somebody just taking out strainers or what's
been the general gifts lately?
Speaker 6 (26:27):
Oh, I think somebody got a bit rowdy at the
barkup and yeah, that's that's all I'll say.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh, that's a that's a fair call em. Look and
you're meeting dates? Of course? When are they the first
Monday of every month? Good on you em. Always got
to catch up. All the best for miss Belfer this weekend.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Awesome, Thank you Andy.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Rob Scott is the mayor of the Southland District region
and joins us this afternoon. Of course, the news came
out in the last couple of days regarding the proposal
to get rid of a heap of counsels. Super cities
and the likes will occur in certain parts of the
country depending on where you're based, but Rob Scott was
one of the drivers of this about this time last year,
even earlier, and joins us this afternoon to give us
(27:24):
a bit of further comment. Good afternoon, Rob, you must
feel rather vindicated.
Speaker 7 (27:28):
Yeah, good afternoon, Andy. Yeah, it's quite interesting hearing some
of the interviews with the locks of Chris Bishop and
he's been using the same words that I was using
over a year ago. So yeah, it's the government's caught
up with with what Zapthens was doing.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Why do you think this has come to the attention
all of a sudden.
Speaker 7 (27:46):
Oh, I think there's a number of factors that when
you look at I mean, I know, the turnout that
the elections has sort of spacked a bit as a
voter turn out at the elections have spact a bit
of discussion as well. But I think it's I mean,
it's been time for change quite a while, and that's
what I've been saying, and I love the words the mirror.
What we've been saying was simplifying local government in the
(28:07):
country and actually trying to get stuff done and do
it efficiently and get that engagement app So yeah, I
think the government's recognized. I'd like to take all the
credit and say they've they've read sousand's proposal and gone, well,
this will work up and down the country, so let's
mirror that. But yeah, it's good to see that it's
been recognized.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Have you been talking to Chris special but or lately
by chance not.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
In the last couple of months, I didn't see well,
I did see the announcement coming at some stage, but yeah,
we didn't have any heads up that it was coming
on with us, So it was a surprise to us
as though, although yeah, not a huge surprise that it
was there.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So yeah, we've talked about this before as well. I mean,
over two hundred people were elected to local body politics,
whether they were mayors or counselors, unopposed, and that's certainly
got to be a catalyst for change. So just when
it comes to wasteful spending, yeah.
Speaker 7 (29:03):
Yeah, and it's well in the other words that they've
been using that mirrored what we've been saying is their duplication,
the siloed kind of approach, all of those sorts of
things where we're just yeah, there's a much better way
of doing it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
As far as ben Bell Core District mayor, I do
remember foul cheer of environments Southland, Tom Campbell and the cargo.
Have you been in much dialogue of these people regarding
what's going on.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
Yeah, we've had initial chats. I was actually at a
meeting with Todd McClay on. Sorry blast trek of days.
Now what day are we?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
We're on Thursday Thursday, So yeah.
Speaker 7 (29:41):
Tuesday, Tuesday night, so that the day of the announcement,
and Jeremy was there and had a quick catch up
with him and had had a bit of a chat
with Ben afterwards. I'm going to try and have a
chat with Tom today to see where we all kind
of said, Jeremy was looking a bit under tendably shell shocked.
It's the timing's not that great in terms of having
just gone through an election and then having that that
(30:02):
bomb bombshell drop that. Yeah, that all of the councilors
are going to be potentially out of a out of
a role. But yeah, I mean you can't carry on
waiting for these things to happen either. It's long overdue.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, the human is there the timing stakes, Kevin, We've
just had an election a couple of months ago, especially
around environment Southland.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Yeah, although when you look at it from the southern
point of view, I mean we've been having this discussion
for a while now and just reading through the full
We had a council meeting yesterday so I didn't have
a chance until this morning to actually have a good
read through the full proposal. But when you look at
the outcomes of what they're wanting to achieve, we can
take all of them off with the vocal that we
(30:43):
sent through in February of this year. So it's that
that middle step of having the regional councils governed by
the three mayors. We could probably avoid that because that
to me doesn't sound like a simple approach and just
go straight to the final that come of having the
two unitaries in South London. That's going to deliver the
(31:05):
best bank for back for us, for our people, and
the most simple form of local governance as well.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Rob, can we afford the cost of amalgamation because there's
a lot of money going into consultants, YadA YadA, yadda,
you know the drill, and there's going to be a
heck of a lot of coin change hands before this
actually comes to fruition.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
See, I don't actually think Andy, that we need to
spend a lot of money on it. We've done a
lot of the groundwork in terms of that proposal. We've
got really good local democracy for our community boards through
everything there. We've got systems in place already. I don't
think we need to make it. I think, following the
government rhetoric of keeping it simple, we can do a
simple amalgamation or reorganization as well. We don't need to
(31:47):
make that too complicated either. And as they're looking at
the roles and functions of local government at the same
time and where the duplication lies, we don't need to
get it of consultants. And the best consultants are actually
our rate payers in the community who we're actually there
to serve, and they'll have their expectations of what we
(32:08):
need to do. And yeah, I don't think we need
to spend a whole lot of money on it. It's
the money that we're spending in a broken system that
I'm worried about. In the money that we're wasting all.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Right, payers voicing well, a few people actually saying in
the last couple of days rather as well that there's
not going to be a lot of money saved if
amalgamations occur as well.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
Yeah, it's if you do amalgamation for amalgamation's sake, you're
not going to save any money, and it's important to
get the end result, right. I mean, you look at
that intermediary model, but the government's proposed with the I
think we'd a CTB or whatever it's called. The mayor's
sitting on that board, you're still going to be running
through and having the regional council there with the duplicated
(32:50):
kind of services and planning and all of that kind
of stuff. So the model that we proposed does actually
have savings because we're removing a lot of that jupilate.
You're still going to have a CEO of the regional
council under that intermediary model. If we jump straight to
the outcome, we're removing a lot of those overheads and
those costs as well, including the planning. So getting too
(33:13):
those nitry authority outcomes as where we will get the
savings and we'll get them a lot faster if we
skip that intermediate step.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Okay, let's use Tapanui as an examples in the material
licensing trust boundaries. Although it comes under a Targo regional
council jurisdiction, there could be a stickler.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
Yeah, it could be, and it's interesting I saw in
one of the pages of their twenty nine page document
this morning that they're not going to look at the
regional boundaries as part of this, and there have been
some people that have said, look, you can include the
sort of the Blue Mountain area around into South End,
and I mean it starts to complicate it a little
bit when you sort of cross those regional council boundaries.
(33:59):
But yeahs going to be a few little nuances in there,
but I'm sure we can work through those as they
go through. But the bigger picture of getting the model
right I think is the most important part.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
So as far as close to the district council, would
you be keen to get them involved as well?
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Oh, we can have conversations. I think one of the things,
and of having a look at the national map yesterday
that the government fut forward, which has got all the
boundaries and everything on. When you look at the South
and district, it's essentially it's like I'm just talking about
our current area as a district council. It's bigger than
a lot of the regions south, so we're effectively a
(34:42):
region already from a size point of view, and you
don't want to go too big from a geography point
of view, and it's one of the risks we just
focus on population, we end up getting too big geographically,
and then we end up getting the blow staff levels
because you've got to have additional staff to cover the
(35:03):
area because one person can't cover that entire space, and
then you end up getting extra managers in and you
get all that kind of stuff that we're trying to
avoid in that piece, and you don't get that same
connected kind of democracy. And when you look at the
voter turnout, Auckland's probably got the worst in the whole country.
And that's a very big, unitary authority covering quite a
(35:25):
wide area, but the people are very disconnected from their
elected members, which puts some off voting. When you look
at the voter turnout down South and I know Gore
did very well and Stuart Island actually got sixty something percent.
So when you get that smaller connected area, you get
a much better engagement. So it's getting that balance right
(35:45):
between your population and your geography and your representation and
sort of linking it all through. So it's quite important
to look at those boundaries and how it all ties
them together.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It's all hypothetical on the stage rib but then you
look at it area like Gorth, it's debt loading, historical
debt etc. This comes under the equation as well. It's
got to be I don't know, distributed fairly.
Speaker 7 (36:08):
Yeah, no it does. And those are the sort of
details that we can work out. But again you don't
need consultants to do that. You've got really good staff.
We've got really good governance, good information, good insights. You know,
we can do a lot of it ourselves locally.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is there a risted that amalgamations though don't work and
what happens then.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Well, if you get it right, you design it to succeed,
not to fail. And I guess that's one of my
reasons for not involving something designed by Wellington. It needs
to be designed locally by our people, for our people,
and if we do that, it's got a very high
chance of working where it's going to fail, as if
the government actually tries to design everything and do a
(36:52):
Wellington top down and do it to us. So it's
really important that as the South and region we focus
on the outcomes for our communities and we all work together,
even if it means some of us are going to
be out of our jobs. But we've got to work
towards those those outcomes for our people and never be
designed by the people.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Good owner. I'll always appreciate your time on the Muster.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
No worries.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
Thanks Andy.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
River Duran. Duran is the artist. The song is called
ordinary World. You're listening to the Muster. Although it's fair
to say our next guest lives in somewhere that is
pretty extraordinary. To coin a phrase, Bruce Ford lives down
at Stuart Island. They're correspondent from down that way. We
(37:43):
catch up from time to time. Bruce, good afternoon, Good
after Oh look it's the weather's on this way up.
It's it's a thing of beauty after what we've experienced
over the past couple of months.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it's made a considerable difference around here. We've got
a nice sunny day here and now, and whilst it's
been within a few days of that, the all the
lawns and need mowing and everything's growing like pretty crazy.
I've got a large huydroponics letus operation going, and there
was sunshine on that and the other day it was
(38:17):
up to the best part of thirty degrees on nutrient,
which is it's a pretty good push.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Really. The wind storm we had in the south a
few weeks back, now down there you reckon, you got
off pretty scott free. Bruce.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Ah, Yes, we did it. Wef we did get some wind,
and that's irregular occasion. Here we will be pretty strong
and things were tied down pretty good. But certainly I
couldn't find anywhere I'd going any firewood, So that's the
level of what we got so compared to the rest
of the region.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But down there on Stewart Island, a lot of school
groups have been down there lately. It's the tourism season.
Cruise ships have they been in abundance.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Cruise ships have started off again, so we had had
a few of those in I can't recall an angel them.
But whilst cruise ships have been threatened other parts of
the country, I think our team are still hold pretty good.
So we've been reasonably successful.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So you're seeing no change in numbers visiting numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Ah, the cruise ships or they're pretty kenny. They fucking
choose a bit and they'll I even off again, but
I think we should regard them as bonus. Anyways, because
we've had lots of other tourists. There's bird watchers and
the likes. At this time of years, things just quite
busy here, So you know where we're pleased with that.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Would you say tourist numbers are back to pre COVID levels.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I haven't checked the numbers, but my belief is that
they will be, and we get a good tally on
that from our visit us to levy records when I
get reports on that, and I haven't seen a recent one,
but I believed pretty much back to pre COVID.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So what's the levy for going to Stuart Island?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Fifteen dollars currently? We started off at five and it's
corporate and the fair and I've not heard a murmur
that anybody's even noticed it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Oh why would you? I mean, you're quite happy to
play it. If you've got to go somewhere there needs
to be expended. Sure, some infrastructures in place right well exactly, And.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
We've collected an excess of one and a half million dollars.
It's been used on community facilities and jetties and walking
tracks and toilets that sort of thing, So things that
rape players surely can't be expected to pay for.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You talk about tourists if you talk about ships. But
the Navy they've been in town as well.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, we didn't think we had a defense problem, but
the Navy turned up yesterday and that was a bit
of a bonus around town. There were lots of sailors
ashore and Tikaha. The school kids apparently had a visit
to the ship and they had a look round. So
I believe there was one hundred and sixty of Crowbard.
There a sailing again last night eight o'clock, so they
(40:58):
were heading for the need. Certainly gave them a bitter
fresh air, and no doubt spent some money because some
of the eateries are quite pleased to see them.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
So they weren't coming to check your hydro products set up?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
No, no, probably they'll probably get their own sheer and
green for sure.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
One figure that absolutely astounds with Stuart Island is the
amount of vehicles there. I think you see was that
six hundred odd vehicles? Is that right?
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Twenty yeah, and twenty k's of road. But the good
news is that the roads are getting resealed, Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Somewhere, I spect after Christmas they all it's a regular
sequence now every fifteen years or so, and they gravel
stop poles. The ceiling chips have been accumulating for the
last few months because of course it's all going to
be shipped, and no doubt they finger will turn up
after Christmas and there'll be two or three weeks to
(41:59):
us time they get even link tidied up, and then
we'll get some fresh road markings and doing it we
stick and stand.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You've got to be honest, every fifteen years they redo
the roads for you must be pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, well I try it, and it's a bit of
a different smell around the roads for a little while.
But of course we don't have any major heavy vehicles
on them, so they don't take as much damage as
your heavy trucks do on your side.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Well, the only smell cutting off those roads will be
the smell of progress, I suggest.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Oh yeah, exactly. And you know it's a bit tidy
up because there's always a few repairs happened prior to it,
and patching and water tables and all that stuff. So
it's a good reason to get things tidied up.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Now. A solar upgrades on the cards as well.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yes, we've hit some time ago, a few months ago
where Matt Patterson turned up with a blessing for the
community with some regional development money for solar farm. So
that's to happen after Christmas, at the start of it anyway,
and there'll be some upgrades with our lines system, desail generators, batteries,
(43:11):
so that in theory we should never ever get a
power cup again. And hopefully the price will change on
reduce our price because we paid eighty five cents a
unit currently and there are some suggests in that thirty
or forty cents unit will be a reduction from our
eighty five.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well as far as infrastructure around that, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, I want to make a hell of a difference
to anybody in business, because you know, the power villas
are a farewell chunk of course, and on top of electricity,
we use LPG for cooking these look at eating coal
all those things. So now power bills are well, mine's
four hundred bucks a month, But everybody in town that
gets fought and vollar bill has electric stove and water
(43:57):
heating and everything electric, so we have to skimp and
scrape awey bit.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Well, it's probably not that easy to go and get
a Guess spot a lot image.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I know, we have a regular guests supply here at
Guess swimming stations over just a local garage supply the guests.
So it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
The local garage will be a master of all trades too.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Oh hell, yes, yes, yes, of course, because I I
used to work for the one stage.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Oh there you go, say no more, Bruce. Now, one
thing that's really yours about Stuart Island when I've spoken
to you in the past is the fact that you'll
see key we walking down the street. But another thing
at the moment is the doctoral they're nesting and it's
bringing people to the island. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
The latest reports that Dark have been putting out in
the media, of course, is a positive positive response for
the doctoral nesting on Petstin and looked around rapy Her
and so forth. And because of the poison operation at
rivers and cats and wraps and things, the doctorals apparently
are doing very well. The counc increasing dramatically and that's
(45:02):
looking pretty good.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Just finally as well, you're a former councilor for the
Southland District. I spoke to Rob Scott earlier in the
program about the chance of the malgamations of councilors. What
are your thoughts around this?
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I agree that it's well overdue. You know, we've only
got one hundred thousand people in South lond and four
councilors is a bit rich. We could do a whole
lot of bet on that and fully supporting Robin's attempts
to have it changed around, but regional councilors have got
out of hand, So I agree with Shane Johnes on
that one. That's a great move.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
So an area like Stuart Island would benefit, Well.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Nothing really will change, you just get just reshaped a bit.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
We had reorganization in eighty nine when we had our
own council here and that got amalgamated into Southend and
we've managed on that and it's been successful. So I
don't see any reason why it's the striple a regional council.
But the work will still go on because those people
will still get a job. They'll still be working today.
(46:08):
Just the headings will change.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
That's matter. How the strangers Bruce Ford, there is Stuart
Island wrapping up the best of the muster and enjoy
the weekend. To make sure you take the opportunity to
go and play a bit of sport, have a coffee,
catch up with your neighbors, your mates, whoever. My name's
Andy Muer. I'll catch you on Monday.
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