Cautious reaction by stock firms

Press, 13 December 1985, Page 2

Cautious reaction by stock firms

PA Wellington The economic package was complex and appeared consistent with the Government’s market philosophies, said the general manager of the Stock and Station Agents’ Association, Mr Vince Connolly.

“There is some assistance to those fanners in the marginal category. For those wishing to sell, the taxation concessions on development expenditure, interest claw-back and livestock standard values will

be beneficial,” he said. “The repeal of the Land Aggregation Act, and the possibility of overseas investment, must in time increase buying strength to the advantage of those wishing to sell. “Changes to Rural Bank policy to allow leasing and the freezing on interest rates will assist some categories of farmers.” The effects of the package would take some time to evaluate, and some aspects required clarification, Mr Connolly said.

The leader of the Democratic Party, Mr Beetham, said the Government’s farm package was a “heartless response to a human predicament.”

Structural changes to help farming were needed, but they would do nothing to ease the unbearable pressure many farmers and their families were under, he said. “A more direct and immediate package of painrelieving moves is needed than dogmatic and academic long-term measures conceived by Treasury officials and delivered by the Minister of Agriculture, with Federated Farmers acting as the hovering midwife,” he said. “The measures announced by the Government will not stop many competent farmers from being sent to the wall by other policies the Government has already put in place.”

Mr Beetham said the package ■ was one to save farming, but not farmers. “In failing to change its monetary and exchange policies that are the cause of farmers’ problems, Labour is looking to corporate fanning and foreign purchase of our farms as a way of ‘saving’ New Zealand’s struggling farmers from the pain they now suffer.”

The deputy leader of the Democratic Party, Mr G. T. Knapp, said New Zealand’s export and primary industries were bleeding to death because of the Government’s policies. It was a futile attempt to relieve the pain caused by deliberate Government policy.