Govt finds farmers in angry mood

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 3

Govt finds farmers in angry mood

PA Timaru Farmers’ anger surfaced at a meeting yesterday in Oamaru between North Otago farmers and the Associate Minister of Finance, Mr Caygill, and the Undersecretary of Agriculture, Mr Butcher.

Producers aired frustrations on what they considered was the Government’s inability to give across-the-board, short-term relief to farmers in desperate straits as a result of its economic policies. A recent Rural Bank move demanding security over livestock as well as land was strongly criticised and apparently surprised Mr Caygill, who said he was not aware of that happening. He said he would look into it.

He explained that the Government was encouraging departments to run their operations on commercial Uries, and they were doing that. That meant also that Ministers could question certain actions and call for change. Mr Caygill and Mr Butcher were left in no doubt about the strong feelings of the district’s producers, and their addresses were punctuated by outbursts ranging from derisive laughter to interjections.

Nearly 200 producers heard the Ministers explain in a two-hour session the Government’s economic package designed to help the primary industry. The Minister of Finance,

Mr Douglas, and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, faced another boisterous meeting of farmers in Hamilton. About 500 Waikato fanners turned up at the Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre to have details of new farming policies clarified. Early on, Mr Douglas’s speech was punctuated with angry calls from the floor. He said inflation was the main enemy of fanners. It was in their interest for the Government to get the monetary situation under control and the Government was committed to doing that.

Past short-term policy approaches had put farming in its present position, Mr Douglas said. The National Government had merely painted over the cracks with subsidies rather than faced up to long-term problems.

He said New Zealand could not return to the hand-out options of the past.

Mr Moyle told about 700 in Whakatane that measures to help farmers with high debt servicing could be in the pipeline. He said he had asked the Rural Bank to consider farmers who were under threat, provided they were in an otherwise viable situation, to tidy up their debt situation. They could exchange some of their private debt with somthing like a Rural Bank debenture and take over the mortgage risk.