Fed Farmers’ lobbying the star of this week’s Fieldays

Sunday, 15 June 2025

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon tells farmers that they would be ‘staggeringly naive’ to think New Zealand could pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

“I hope you know you are not villains. You are deeply loved, and deeply valued by this government.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon knew was on safe ground bashing Labour and the Greens at the Federated Farmers Rural Advocacy Hub at Fieldays on Wednesday.

The Federated Farmer lobby group, which has privileged access to the ear of the Government, had just released a poll showing Labour would get just 3% of the farming vote, were an election held tomorrow.

The Greens would get 2%, mainly comprised of organic farmers, due to panic over the Gene Technology Bill that could see the country lose its GE-free status.

National, by contrast, would get 54% of the vote; ACT, represented at Fieldays by former Fed Farmers president Andrew Hoggard, would get 19%, and New Zealand First would get 8%.

“Shutting down the sector, and moving 30% of the farming offshore, as was the intention of the last Labour government, is not the way forward,” Luxon said.

“Any production that is lost out of New Zealand and goes to 194 other countries actually makes global greenhouse gas emissions worse for the world,” he said. “We ain’t shutting down farming.”

New Zealand farmers were the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world, Luxon said, but the future was lower emissions, and increased production, through the use of Kiwi science, technology and innovation.

Luxon wasn’t having a bar of a farmers calling for New Zealand to pull out of the Paris Agreement entirely.

“During the last government we saw some completely unrealistic emissions targets. Now we are looking to see them realigned,” national president Wayne Langford told Luxon in a ‘fireside chat’ in the Hub.

Groundswell would like New Zealand to ditch its climate commitments, but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said they were being 'stunningly naive'.

Luxon directed his answer to the older farmers staffing a stall in the Hub run by the Groundswell farmer lobby group, whose ‘Quit Paris’ stress balls and car stickers were on Hub tables for supporters to take away.

“You would be stunningly naive, if you seriously think you are going to pull of out Paris, or the other global climate commitments, and not lose and punish farmers at home,” Luxon told them.

Big multi-national food producers like Unilver or Nestle or would just “flip” New Zealand producers out for Kerry Dairy, or Land O Lakes, he said.

“If you are one of our competitor countries, they would like nothing better than to use that as a non-trade tariff barrier to move New Zealand products off shelf around the world,” Luxon said.

“I’m not going to punish farmers, and I’m not having farmers have less access to markets, and lower incomes, and make New Zealand poorer.”

“It’s very easy to go to populist politics, and play out a simplistic view,” he said.

The Federate Farmer's Fieldays Rural Advocacy Hub.

Lobbying coup

Federated Farmers pulled off a lobbying coup with the Rural Advocacy Hub.

At least a fifth of Parliament’s MPs spoke from the podium, or popped in for a chat, including seven Cabinet ministers.

National MP and farmer Grant McCallum makes a point at the Groundswell table. The MPs from the Rural Nats group, formed at Fieldays last year, wore matching blue-checked Swanndri coats.

With Luxon were a dozen National MPs in cute matching blue Swanndri jackets. They included Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay, Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts, and Minister for Regional Development Shane Jones.

Policy pledges and praise flew like wisps of fleece in the woolsheds Federated Farmers’ Save Our Sheep campaign hopes to save.

Willis announced wool carpets would be going into Kāinga Ora state houses, and also she was working on a law change Fed Farmers had lobbied for - allowing young farmers to use KiwiSaver funds to help them buy farms.

There was a $4 million fund to support farmer mental health community groups, said Doocey.

The message was: farmers are getting a lot of what they ask for.

That included easing stock exclusion rules designed to keep livestock out of wetlands, and less onerous winter grazing rules. The Government was making “improvements” to the Resource Management Act and freshwater regulation, which environmentalists see as a charter for pollution and environmental degradation.

Self-described climate “Doubting Thomas” Jones suggested more was possible.

The skies opened on Thursday at Fieldays, but its clientelle is not afraid of a bit of wet and wind.

“At the next election we will be campaigning to get an exemption for all the food sectors in our economy from out of the Paris Accord,” Jones said when he spoke a the Hub on Friday.

Willis celebrated her “Investment Boost” Budget 2025 tax breaks for businesses buying capital equipment.

“We very much had farmers in mind when we designed it,” Willis said.

There was concern that investment boost would turn into a tax break for toys for farmers like recreational boats and a fleet of shiny new utes. A funny meme circulated of a new recreational boat with a pond-stirrer attached to its rear.

Willis gave a shout-out to sheep farmer Sandra Faulkner, who is part of Federated Farmers’ Save Our Sheep campaign.

“Do you know what she did today? She bought a new ute,” Willis said. “Do you know what? She didn’t face a ute tax. Instead what she’s going to get is a deduction from her tax bill this year because that’s what a National-led government does.”

Banks, ASB included, made a big play of their presence at Fieldays after a bad year of publicity in which farmers protested about how they were being treated.

Farmers, buoyed by tax cuts, a high dairy price, and lower interest rates applauded.

“Your advocacy works, and we listen to you,” Willis said.

She praised Federated Farmers lobbying that prompted a Parliamentary banking inquiry that led to the Reserve Bank Te Pūtea Matua reviewing its capital requirements for banks, which farmers blame for banks pulling back on rural lending.

“Your advocacy works, and we listen to you,” Willis said.

Banks were listening too. ASB announced 0% loans for solar to farmers. BNZ sent croissants to the Hub so no-one got peckish.

Farmers still have beef though. They don’t think the Government’s announcement of caps to limit forestry conversions go far enough - and there’s still too much red tape.

Hoggard, himself a farmer, said he was “a minister who hates writing shit out twice”.

He said he counted up the number of different government agency programmes that he had to fill in paperwork for on how many cows he had. It was 11.

“The only one that was useful to me as a farmer was the farm recording system,” he said.

Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins got a polite laugh joking that about 100 people were listening to his speech, so, based on the Federated Farmers poll, that meant three Labour supporters.

“All those other 10, they were just a pain in the arse. The stuff in the herd records, that was 100% accurate because that gave value to me. The rest of it. Write a number down.”

The crowd understood his act of civil disobedience.

Hoggard wanted to see an end to the last government’s national Te Mana o te Wai direction on freshwater.

“We don’t need ambiguous spiritual concepts, which I think will ultimately end up with in effect co-governance,” Hoggard said.

The speaker list at the hub was put together through a mix of invitation and request. Te Pāti Māori was not asked to send an MP to speak, but next year is election year, and Federated Farmers says the party will be invited.

Labour was keeping its policy powder dry. Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins, who did not have a red Swanndri, spoke for just over three minutes.

Green MP Steve Abel pitched a good speech, and was well-received in the Fieldays Rural Advocacy Hub, despite his party being deeply unpopular in rural New Zealand.

“You’ll hear a bit more from us probably early next year in the agricultural space,” he said.

But, he said: “The policy we had in 2023 won’t be the policy we take into the 2026 election. It will be different.”

Swanndri did a roaring trade sellings shorts and coats at a big discount to the prices in city stores. For many politicians a colour-appropriate Swanndri is the Fieldays clothing of choice.

A Labour-led government wouldn’t repeal anything currently working well, but there was bound to be some disagreement between the party and farmers.

“Our goal being here is really just to keep the relationship alive,” he said.

He sought common ground. He came up with free trade agreements, which Labour did a lot of, and pests, and wilding pines.

Green MP Steve Abel found more common ground.

He was a supporter of wool. More money was needed to fight wilding pine. Pork and egg products imported needed to meet New Zealand animal welfare standards. The Green’s Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) bill, currently being debated, would give farmers more repairability rights over farming equipment.

“Farmers are essential to us being able to produce the food and fibre that we need to be able to live, and we need farms to be profitable, and we need farms to be profitable in a way that does not compromise the viability of life for future generations,” he said.

The Government was about to make a horrible mistake with the Gene Technology Bill, imperilling agricultural exports by releasing untested self-replicating genetically-modified organisms, forfeiting the country’s valuable GE-free status, Abel added.

“We might disagree on how many cows there should be on a hectare, or how much pollution should be allowed to go into the rivers … but we all probably agree on our international reputation for producing high-quality natural food.”

But farmers and the Greens, who wear green Swanndris, are miles apart on inheritance tax.

Green MP Scott Willis, who grew up on a sheep station, was challenged by Eve McCallum, a member of the Future Farmers group, and daughter of National MP Grant McCallum.

Willis tried to reassure her that an inheritance tax would reduce land value.

“Over time there will be a lower cost to land for younger farmers,” he said.

Banks could shoulder some of the capital loss through “taking a haircut” as there was an unsustainable amount of debt on farms, Willis said.

“Would you not consider an inheritance for farms for the inheritance tax?” McCallum asked.

Nothing was fixed in stone, Willis said, but added: “If we want to live in society, we need to pay for all of those public goods.”

Hipkins was also challenged on inheritance tax.

“Taxing capital is one of the things that’s on the table, and that we are working through,” Hipkins said.

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