Rural Affairs
United Future recognises the importance of primary industries to the security and prosperity of New Zealand.
Our policy is more than just an economic prescription for our primary industries. It is about ensuring that the often neglected rural communities receive fair and reasonable access to educational and health services.
Agriculture
United Future's position is to:
- undertake an immediate review of all legislation and regulations that impose coercive powers and administrative burdens on farmers to ensure their impact is minimised, consistent with the overall public interest
- conduct a biennial review of the Resource Management Act to ensure that is working as well as possible with regard to improving certainty, shortening timelines and reducing user costs
- investigate alternative local body funding arrangements with the aim of abolishing rates on domestic and commercial properties
- encourage landowners to return non-viable farming land to native regenerative forest, possibly with assistance from the QEII National Trust and carbon credits allocated through New Zealand's Kyoto obligations.
Rural Services
United Future's position is to:
- support the family farm concept
- increase the Financial Assistance Rate (FAR) that is paid by central government to local authorities for the construction and maintenance of local roads up to 80% of their total costs as a first step to reducing the rates burden faced by many rural communities
- introduce bonding options for graduates in medicine and nursing to work in rural areas
- support rural schools by ensuring that their operations grants are sufficient to meet the costs to schools of providing the learning opportunities that government expects
- ensure that the Tertiary Education Commission recognises the importance of education for the development of the agricultural workforce, and funds vocational courses that meet the needs of the sector
- ensure adequate police coverage of rural areas.