The Muster- Eric Roy: We Don't Need A Rural-Urban Divide

Eric Roy says level heads are needed to ensure that a rural- urban divide doens't occur in the current climate.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome back to the muster. Eric Royd joins us this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Former MP. He's were a lot of hats over the years.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
We find him in the cargo this afternoon on this cool,
crisp afternoon in the Deep South.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good afternoon, Eric.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, good afternoon. I hope we're all doing well out.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
There, not too badly.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Like you just said, if here briefly before, this is
the time of year you want these frosts and the
likes go and kill those bugs in the ground, well.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
We kind of I think that works for us. We
don't have facial exp and white fringed weevils and all
sorts of things that they have in the North Island
that we don't have to contend with here. And so
there's a cross heavy purpose. And also I think it's
easy on the stop less feed wastage. Cold isn't as

(00:52):
bad as wet when it comes to maintaining animals. When
they're constantly dripping wet, that's when they really get but
beaten up. So I think this is all right.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I just had Anna Gillespie on the program before out
of Federative Farmers in Thetago saying that this is very
much becoming a case of raural versus urban regarding council mergers, Eric,
can you see any good coming out of those? You've
had a lot of skin in the game for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, well you have. Let me just say that I
took my first trip to Wellington representing the infants of
South in the nineteen seventy five, so that's over fifty
years I've been doing that. And I don't agree with
anybody that says we need to separate the urban and
they're all South and is co dependent on each other.

(01:40):
And I've spent a fever of my time across charities, business,
local government, government and a whole lot of interest groups,
and I don't believe there is a division there. And
I think those people that are espousing we need to
separate that now are causing division. We're co dependent on
each other. And the biggest question going forward that I

(02:01):
think all these councils have to answer is rural advocacy
provincial advocacy, and we need to do that. And we
kind of miss out like South and fifteen percent of
our export produce out of South and we're not getting
our fese.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Of road user charges.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Why is that? Well, I think one of the reasons
is we're not strong enough in rural advocacy. We need
a provincial voice. And I can give you some other
examples as well, but it would be my view that
and the other thing I need to say quite clearly,
that sort of drives my interest in having a bigger
unitary council if unities where we've got to go. And

(02:42):
that's what signing up and the Commissioner for the Environment said,
because we shouldn't be separating for dividing catchments. You can't
manage the environment when you put a line across the catchment,
and we would agree with that from the regional council's
point of view as well. And I think anybody it
advocates that we do that probably doesn't quite understand the

(03:04):
responsibilities that the regional councils have had around flood management
and water quality and all of those things that go
into water management. So I kind of think, yeah, I
would be more concerned about how we address the merge
between what is operating, which is their territorial authorities, and

(03:26):
what is control and regulation, which is really the regional councils. Now,
I'm not saying it can't work, but what we need
to do is get together as the combined groups and
say how do we actually manage this and advocate and
if there are concerns that the regional.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
The regions are being represented at equity, let's have a
talk about how in a unitary council we can do
that better. There are five in the country now, and
no one from those areas of saying Marlboro, Gizman or
wherever else they are saying, hang on, this is caused division.
Actually aren't saying that, So I'm just wondering what it's

(04:08):
actually driving that comment.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Now, you're a good National Party man. There's a lot
of concern out there is the why Chris s Bisher
has lumped this on councils so close to an election.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, well I wasn't consulted.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, you're not, but you know you're a good NETS person.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Through and through.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah. Well, look, very clearly I did have a discussion
with because I mix my friends with the last administration
where Labor was there, and they were talking about doing
something about the number of territorial authorities we had in
unity councils. So I think everybody realizes that what we've

(04:48):
got now is not the most efficient system and so
I don't think if there's a change of government that
there's going to be a step away from doing some
sort of reform. And why it happened now at this time, well,
I guess they're the ones that set their schedule and
they have probably had other priorities. I can't see this

(05:10):
being resolved anywhere near before the election. I think the
program started to have a look at this, but I
think it'll be in the hands of the next government
to come to the conclusion of what's beast for the country.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
But does this government need to thrive on chaos so
close to an election?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Good question, And as I said, I wasn't consulted. I
would have advised not to. Just this is a bit
like they've changed the flag issue. It's you know, people
just say, well, if the government's forcing this on us,
look out, we're not going to support them. And I
just think it's probably something that should have been given

(05:49):
a bit more time.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
That's for sure. Now.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Winston Peters, I quite have heard the other day was
overseas he's looked at as a statesman.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
At home, not so much.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Something happens when he crosses the border and he gets
into the politicizing and you know, people are saying he's great,
but actually what he sees here, even if it is
political driving towards the election, it still gets directed back
to the country that he's inn and I for a
long time thought he was a brilliant foreign a Faerce minister,

(06:25):
but he hasn't been in favor of the tradeography trade agreements.
And now he says something like he said the other
day about China and who are our biggest trading partner.
It's probably not really the best outcome that we could
have for our Foreign Afairs minister to be saying those things.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
But once he got to gain by coming out with
these statements.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Well, he's pressing the button that Pauline Hanson and Nigel
Farage and to some extent, Trump has been pushing that
there is a section of the community that wants to
identify with that any problem we've got is not caused
by us, it's caused by other people, and let's press
that button. And he's only got to get better than

(07:08):
five percent. So look, I don't know, you'd have to
ask him why he's doing that, but that's what it
looks like to me.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Stuart Nash as well, it looks as though his political
days are over. It may have been an innocuous text
to a confidant and then obviously wasn't the case.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well, I think that that this is like I known
Stuart for a long time and he's a guy I
could work with when I was in there. Sometimes when
you're dealing with unless you like ethics or something else,
you need to have a chat to those people on
the other side. And Stu, I think he was a
bit of a misfit, even though he's wild and Nash's
grandson by adoption. I think he probably was a bit

(07:48):
of a misfit than Labor and I kind of enjoyed him,
but he has a way of ruffling feathers and some
of his statements. But the big thing is here, it's
the judgment of Winston and is recycling of Stuart. When
we all knew that there was questions over some of
the information he might have been divesting to his supporters
when there's a cabinet minister those questions and there I

(08:10):
don't know how accurate they were, but he was certainly
stood down for some reason. And here's Winston's judgment. And
again I just say, well, we've got to trust Winston
who's out there now making some rather unusual statements, and
he's going to be sitting at a coalition gathering after

(08:30):
the for the election, and you're going to say, well,
can we really trust him? He chose to sender over
Bill Inglish, He chosen Stuart Nash and a lot of
other recycled people and tied markington silly statements about some
of our important trade. Just how good is his judgment
and where does that cross over into electioneering and just

(08:53):
driving New Zealand forward. Those are all questions that we
need to have a fairly serious look at and.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
We all know that.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Shane, James and always better check in, Eric Roy, thanks
for your time as always good one.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Thank you, Eric Roy.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
We carry on. James Eagers up next, fabing at maa flat.
He's back from his holiday house. Things on the Ranch.