NEWS
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS
Is that banker with a b or a w?
Simple ideas highlight Kiwi ingenuity. PAGE 24
PAGE 14
MANAGEMENT Has the Wiltshire’s time come? PAGE 20
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS JUNE 29, 2021: ISSUE 729
www.ruralnews.co.nz
No idea! PETER BURKE peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
APPLE AND pear growers around the country have slammed the Government’s handling of the overseas workers who pick a substantial amount of NZ’s apple crop each year. Richard Punter, chairman of Apple and Pears NZ, says the Government simply doesn’t understand the role performed by these people, who work under the RSE or recognised season employer scheme. Punter says describing these people has ‘unskilled workers’ is naïve and uncharitable. He says the real situation is quite the opposite. “The RSE’s are not unskilled labour. The fact is they are skilled manual workers,” he told Rural News. “Describing them as cheap and unskilled is offensive. We have multi-generational families that come over from the Pacific Islands and work in NZ year after year.” Hunter says “people in Wellington” don’t understand that in the apple industry, at a particular time of the year and in a puff of smoke, thousands of skilled manual workers appear in the country pick the crop and in six weeks’ time they disappear again. “It’s not a job, it’s not a career. It’s a task that has to be done at particular point in time and with speed and with particular skills,” he adds. Punter believes the problem is not unique to NZ. He says Britain has a similar problem where thousands of dollars has been spent advertising for local people to take jobs in the primary sector and few have turned up
or stayed on. “As a university professor says that phenomenon should not come as any surprise as the work ethic has been bred out of many people.” He saw this on his own property where two young people “gave up” working after just a matter of hours because “they didn’t like the manual work”. Punter says despite the labour shortages, larger apple producers will soldier on – even if their yields and returns are down and some of their fruit is not picked. “The people who will badly hurt are the small family orchards,” he explains. “This government has chucked them under the bus and just don’t care. At the same time, the current generation of business leaders have never had to deal with a government that just takes a decision and does it.” Punter says this is placing huge stress on these people. “The current Labour Government doesn’t have to talk to coalition partners, there is no negotiation and they have a specific, ideological position they are determined to implement.”
Legitimate gripe! Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was all smiles on her visit to Fieldays earlier this month. However, farmers were not smiling much about her government’s new Clean Car Discount scheme, which sees people buying new electric vehicles (EVs) eligible for a discount of up to $8,625. However, those purchasing emitting vehicles – such as petrol and diesel utes – will pay a tax on these. Farmers and rural contractors, who need these larger, more powerful vehicles, will be hardest hit by the scheme and the new tax. Many will have no other choice but to pay the fee to buy the vehicles – mainly utes – they need. Meanwhile, Fieldays was back this year – after 2020’s Covid-enforced hiatus – with close to 133,000 visitors heading through the gates over the four days of the event. Overall, the mood was buoyant, no doubt helped by a high milk payout for the current season and an $8-plus forecast for the next. – Read more on both these stories in this issue of Rural News.
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