Rangiora farmers defended

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 3

Rangiora farmers defended

Political reporter

The member of Parliament for Rangiora, Mr Jim Gerard, has rejected the suggestion that farmers in his electorate have chosen not to repay Rural Bank debts. The Rural Bank’s Rangiora office is owed $1.24 million by 198 client farmers, as of March 31 this year. In Parliament, yesterday, the Minister in charge of the Rural Bank, Mr Prebble, said some of these farmers were in a strong financial position and able to repay their debts. The bank’s policy was to take legal action against such farmers who “have chosen not to meet their contractual obligations.”

Mr Gerard rejected this assertion, pointing to a bank report that since April 1 this year only four farmers throughout New Zealand had Property Law Act notices issued against them. - A similar suggestion last

week from the member of Parliament for Waitaki, Mr Jim Sutton, was described by Mr Gerard as “michievous and misleading.”

Mr Sutton had told the House of a prosperous Waitaki farmer who boasted that he went into arrears with the Rural Bank to finance off-farm investments.

Mr Prebble said yesterday that those in arrears in Rangiora also included fanners with no equity left in their operations. Some farmers’ operations were so unviable that their debts exceeded the value of‘their security, and the bank was seeking the voluntary sale of their farms.

Mr Prebble said he sympathised with farmers in genuine financial difficulty. But he had no sympathy for those who chose not to repay their debts, then relied on their local member of Parliament to embarrass the bank into not enforcing its contractual obligations.-