National announces rural policies

NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW: National Party MP David Carter today pitched for the 17 percent of the electorate living in rural areas with an agriculture policy which stretched to cover country doctors, schools and broadband links.

Launching the policy at the Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Show, he argued that agriculture was the backbone of the economy -- responsible for 50 percent of export earnings and 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

"Our primary sector will be at the heart of the economic step change that New Zealand so badly needs," said Mr Carter.

Nation's contribution to this -- if elected to government -- would be to keep domestic cost structures low while creating the conditions for continual innovation in agriculture.

It would also provide voluntary "bonding" to keep veterinarians and doctors in unpopular rural areas.

Mr Carter predicted the agriculture sector would particularly welcome National's commitment to secure more rural vets.

But he devoted a fifth of his short 7.5 page policy to underlining National's determination for a less bureaucratic approach to the funding of research and development.

He promised to wind up Labour's Fast Forward Fund, which offers extra funding to primary sector research, and instead allocate $20 million a year to setting up an international centre for researching greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, and put another $25m into primary sector and food research, and a further $25m into "research consortia" in the primary and food sectors.

Key National concerns with the Fast Forward spending included its targeting of food - excluding wool, hides and wood - and its duplications of existing funding mechanisms.

Mr Carter said National would spend $210m on research over the next three years, compared to Labour's projected $135m.

He also promised to re-jig the Resource Management Act and criticised the Government's emissions trading scheme. He said high country farmers could do as well as the Department of Conservation in looking after the South Island high country.

National would not sell off Landcorp in its first term in office. And it would re-instate horticulture and agriculture as scholarship subjects at high school, give a temporary work visa to visitors with guaranteed seasonal jobs offers, and introduce a 90-day trial period for workers joining businesses with fewer than 20 staff.

It would double the spending of broadband and aim at providing internet connections to remote and rural communities.

Rural Affairs Minister Damien O'Connor criticised National's agriculture policy as "underwhelming". He said it was piecemeal and showed no sign of a coherent plan to cope with the global economic crisis.

The plan to axe the Fast Forward Fund and slash research and development tax credits, would be a big blow for the rural sector. Mr O'Connor said Mr Carter should say which specific MAF programmes would be cut to fund retaining veterinarians.

Green Party agriculture spokesman Russel Norman called on the National Party to support organic farming as a more environmentally-sustainable practice. "The National Party is a dinosaur when it comes to sustainable food production," he said. While Labour "isn't great" it did fund an organics advisory service, said Dr Norman. He described National as a representative of Federated Farmers and agribusiness, rather than family farmers who wanted to look after the land.