Plight Of Farmers On High Country

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30191, 24 July 1963, Page 16

Plight Of Farmers On High Country

(From Out Parliamentary Reporter j WELLINGTON, July 23. The need of the high-country farmer for increased understanding and assistance, in order to increase productivity generally, was emphasised by Mr A. D. Dick (Government, Waitaki) during the Budget debate in Parliament tonight. “This Budget has been referred to as a farmers’ budget, and even as a high-country and marginal farmer’s budget,” Mr Dick said. “As a high-country farmer myself, I agree.”

He said some of the highcountry farmers were barely at subsistence level. It was a very strenuous way of life and at times very hazardous yet the Leader of the Opposition, referring to these people, had said “they toil not. neither do they spin.” Actually. Mr Dick said, this winter had been a very hard one. The snow had been heavier and lower down than for a long time, and stock losses would be high. "It has been a matter of snow-raking from daylight till dark from April.” Mr Dick said. "Thousands of sheep have been swept away by avalanche. Last week there was an additional eight inches of snow, which meant more snow-raking and more losses “But the Leader of the Opposition said: ‘They oil not”’ Opposition voices: He didn’t say that. Mr Dick: 1 am sure this statement will be remembered —this statement from one who knows not.

Mr Dick said the Opposition had made much of the term "workers” as opposed to “nonworkers.” In New Zealand everyone was a worker Everyone worked for wages or salary. The only difference he had noticed when he became an employer was that perhaps he worked a little harder.

Mr Dick gave a general description of the history of high-country farming and Government support. He said he looked forward to the day when the whole of the country was under the control of -abbit boards for not until hen could the opossum prob lem be dealt with adequately “The high-country farmers

are a group which this Budget aims to help,” he said. “At present they are a bewildered and over-advised group, eager to do something for themselves. Their only rights are those they have under the 1940 act

“I have long advocated that all tussock grasslands should be under one authority, such as the Lands and Survey Department. Production on this type of property has been strangled for lack of finance and by a multiplicity of direction.” He said there was no longer a case today for fighting oolitically for a standard of living. The fight was not economic. At least part of the answer lay in making marginal lands more productive, and so raising the country’s output generally. The Budget aimed at doing this.