UnitedFuture New Zealand recognises the importance of primary industries to the security and prosperity of New Zealand. At a time when there are strong opportunities in the international marketplace, the importance of innovative, resilient and responsive primary industries is paramount. They must be supported so the opportunity for diversification and added value is identified and encouraged.
Our policy is more than just an economic prescription for our primary industries. It is about ensuring that often-neglected rural communities receive fair and reasonable access to educational and health services.
Agriculture, Aquaculture, Forestry
It is UnitedFuture policy to:
- Promote a strong and viable economic policy framework to underpin the role of primary industries as our major export earners;
- 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;
- Oppose any changes to the principles of the Resource Management Act, but support changes to improve the processes within the Act;
- Continue to ensure that the Resource Management Act is a balanced piece of enabling legislation by requiring a biennial review of its operation with regard to the costs, delays and uncertainty faced by users;
- Support free and fair trade and embrace free trade agreements;
- Continue to increase agricultural workforce skills by encouraging more people into industry training, e.g. through modern apprenticeships in the agriculture and horticulture sectors;
- Establish a global online service that matches potential skilled migrants with job opportunities in New Zealand to help fill critical skill shortages;
- Ensure that advice and information is available to businesses to support them in hiring migrants to fill skill shortages;
- Continue the ‘no-fault’ regime and mandatory workplace accident insurance, but support competition in the provision of accident compensation services;
- Actively support the role of research and development into the sustainability of primary industries and the ongoing development of new niche industries, with a particular emphasis on adding value;
- Ensure that biosecurity remains a top Government priority;
- Promote the planting of native trees and bush along or close by all inland waterways where practical in order to limit soil erosion and reduce agricultural runoff (via Government subsidy);
- Encourage landowners to return non-viable farming land to native regenerating forest, possibly with assistance from the QEII National Trust and carbon credits allocated through New Zealand’s Kyoto obligations;
- Boost funding for Crown Research Institutes to conduct research into the health, wellbeing and productivity of New Zealand soils, to develop new techniques for remedying any deterioration that has occurred over time, and establish targets for the quality of soil in which crops are grown;
- Support the current policy of allowing the application of GE and GM technology to proceed – but with caution;
- Support, through Government subsidy, voluntary environmental codes of conduct such as the Clean Streams Accord;
- Accelerate the position of declaring Aquaculture Management Areas around NZ so that aquaculture investment can take place in a climate of certainty;
- Assist the forest sector to move up the value-added chain through research and development and industry partnerships, so that value-added products derived from our forests, rather than unprocessed chips or logs, are exported to the greatest extent possible;
- Balance the need for viable primary industries with environmental sustainability;
- Work closely with the forestry industry and other interested parties, such as recreational users, to maintain a strategic overview of issues affecting or impacting on outdoor recreation, such as sambar deer and public access;
- Ensure that NZ producers of sustainably-harvested timber products are not undercut via the “dumping” of imported timber and products that have been harvested without regard to sustainability criteria;
- Introduce more significant discounts on employer levies for those who undertake workplace safety regimes, and give more responsibility to industry sector groups to ensure safe practices (such as the Independent Forestry Safety Review Panel);
- Prioritise measures to improve worker safety in those industries with the highest rates of serious harm, such as agriculture, forestry and mining, through pro-active enforcement by WorkSafe NZ;
- Establish legal guidelines for drug-testing in the workplace, to ensure there are no barriers to implementing testing.
see also UnitedFuture Policy on Climate Change: Forestry and Agriculture
Rural Services
It is UnitedFuture policy to:
- Support the family farm concept;
- Emphasise community-based social programmes, together with contestable regional development funding, to assist the revitalisation of rural communities;
- Increase the Financial Assistance Rate (FAR) that is paid by central government to local authorities for the construction and maintenance of local roads to up to 80% of their total costs as a first step to reducing the rates burden faced by many rural communities;
- Support Rural GP services by:
- encouraging medical students to consider rural general practice,
- supporting the professional development of rural GPs,
- providing sufficient funding for locum cover,
- increasing financial incentives for rural GPs,
- supporting Rural Nurse Practitioners as a new field of practice for senior nurses, and by
- establishing appropriate practitioner to patient ratios that will ensure quality of care and reduce the risk of burnout;
- Ensure that ambulance and air rescue services are maintained at a level that does not compromise public safety;
- Extend Mobile Surgical Services and support the extension of Mobile Dental Clinics;
- Recognise the importance of schools in rural communities, beyond their educational function, and ensure that their operations grants are sufficient to meet the costs to schools of providing the learning opportunities that government expects, including sustainable, high-speed broadband;
- Allow rural schools that are difficult to staff to pay more to attract quality teachers;
- Establish ‘families’ of schools to improve coordination between pre-school, primary and secondary schools in a given area, with a view to sharing resources such as computers and sporting equipment, and holding quarterly meetings of representatives from boards of trustees;
- Ensure that school bus services are sufficiently resourced to meet the needs of rural communities;
- Establish a network of ‘rural education posts’ to serve as adult and community education information centres and meeting places, utilising existing educational facilities;
- 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;
- Establish community safety plans with police, local bodies and communities, building on local knowledge and community relationships, and ensure that all households can receive information about local policing issues.