Minister of Agriculture, Jim Anderon - Part 2
Roger: As I said earlier, we covered so much with Jim Anderton we couldnt fit it all in last week. Lets pick up where we left off. Lets talk about access now, access via farms to rivers and lakes.
Jim: I think theres more hype about this than probably needs to be. I understand it because youll always get the odd example where someone comes in, quite irresponsibly, and does damage to somebodys property. The intention was that there will be some fundamental rights of access to countryside without it imposing unrealistic burdens on the owners.
Roger: Intention was or intention is?
Jim: Intention was, and theres still an advisory group that is looking at this issue and consulting with rural communities and other stakeholders, in acclimatisation, environmental and leisure activities tramping, climbing, you name it. Inherently, Im in favour of people feeling that the countryside is available to them, in principle. In practice you have to be careful, true, but I think if we ever got to the stage where rivers, lakes, open country was closed off to people on the basis it was private property, as it is in many countries, then wed be in bad trouble.
Roger: Moving on to one of your other portfolios, Biosecurity, weve got a real test going on at the moment, weve got arrival of a particularly viral pig disease. Whats the governments role in that?
Jim: Well, the first thing is it hasnt just arrived, its been here for quite a long time, probably much longer than we think. Most countries in the world have got it. The problem with it is that we dont know what causes it, we dont know how to treat it, we dont know how to diagnose it - sort of wakes you up when you hear this from one of New Zealands leading scientists. So when people say, do something, the next question is like what?
Roger: I thought the decision would be to fund ways of finding out those things.
Jim: We have, we funded hundreds of thousands of dollars, but so have just about every country in the world. Its a bit like things like didymo, people just say fix it. Well, guess what? No country in the world was able to fix it. Weve thrown six or seven million dollars at didymo, just in the last year.
Roger: And if it doesnt work, you throw it in the too-hard basket and forget about it?
Jim: Well, sometimes you do. I mean, we spent 80 million dollars on getting the Painted Apple Moth. We only had a 60% chance of getting it. If we hadnt got it, well at some point youd have to say how much money are you prepared to throw at something. There are some things you have to accept and some things you dont. I dont like it - Biosecurity is a bit of a nightmare. Every time you wake up theres a Huntsman spider in your electorate or Argentine Ant somewhere else, or a Salt Marsh Mosquito somewhere else. Weve got millions of people coming through New Zealand, weve got hundreds of thousands containers, weve got hundreds of thousands of cars, tyres, you name it, and theyre all available for hitchhiking intrusions and incursions, and if someone suggests to anybody that we can fix everything and we can stop everything, then its an exercise in futility. We cant, so weve got to do the best we can with what weve got.
Roger: Before you go, I heard a quote from you recently which said that youre a pragmatist, and there are some things the government should do more of and some things it should stop doing. Could you give us some examples?
Jim: The real quote was, if things were doing are working, we should do more of them, if they are not working, we should stop. I was interested in developing the regional economies in New Zealand, by partnering the ventures that they said would be good for them, so where farmers tell me, we could do this, this and this, and if you could help us do that we gonna make a big difference, in other words in research and development the dairy industry has come to the government and said, look, would you partner us in the move forward to add value on a research and development basis, so we keep well ahead of the markets and we go for higher value niche markets, rather then just commodities?, now we should do more of that if it works - and clearly it is working so Im in favour of doing it.
Roger: The apple industry asked you for your help, they asked for help with replanting and you said no.
Jim: They didnt ask for help with the replant, they asked for help to take out the trees. Now the truth is, a lot of areas where the trees were coming out werent being replanted in trees, a lot of that land is very valuable so what people are doing is asking us to clear their land so they could sell it for real estate. Now if the economics of the apple industry dont sustain planting trees or change of land use for new variety, or whatever, then it shouldnt be done. And it shouldnt be done just on the basis that the governments going to pay you to do it, because it might be the wrong thing to do. You might be better actually to pull the trees out and sell the land. Its possible, on the other hand, if youve got a new variety like Jazz and youre in that and youve helped develop it and you want to get into that market, were there to assist that - and we are.
Roger: Jim Anderton, thanks for joining us.
Jim: Thank you.
Jim: I think theres more hype about this than probably needs to be. I understand it because youll always get the odd example where someone comes in, quite irresponsibly, and does damage to somebodys property. The intention was that there will be some fundamental rights of access to countryside without it imposing unrealistic burdens on the owners.
Roger: Intention was or intention is?
Jim: Intention was, and theres still an advisory group that is looking at this issue and consulting with rural communities and other stakeholders, in acclimatisation, environmental and leisure activities tramping, climbing, you name it. Inherently, Im in favour of people feeling that the countryside is available to them, in principle. In practice you have to be careful, true, but I think if we ever got to the stage where rivers, lakes, open country was closed off to people on the basis it was private property, as it is in many countries, then wed be in bad trouble.
Roger: Moving on to one of your other portfolios, Biosecurity, weve got a real test going on at the moment, weve got arrival of a particularly viral pig disease. Whats the governments role in that?
Jim: Well, the first thing is it hasnt just arrived, its been here for quite a long time, probably much longer than we think. Most countries in the world have got it. The problem with it is that we dont know what causes it, we dont know how to treat it, we dont know how to diagnose it - sort of wakes you up when you hear this from one of New Zealands leading scientists. So when people say, do something, the next question is like what?
Roger: I thought the decision would be to fund ways of finding out those things.
Jim: We have, we funded hundreds of thousands of dollars, but so have just about every country in the world. Its a bit like things like didymo, people just say fix it. Well, guess what? No country in the world was able to fix it. Weve thrown six or seven million dollars at didymo, just in the last year.
Roger: And if it doesnt work, you throw it in the too-hard basket and forget about it?
Jim: Well, sometimes you do. I mean, we spent 80 million dollars on getting the Painted Apple Moth. We only had a 60% chance of getting it. If we hadnt got it, well at some point youd have to say how much money are you prepared to throw at something. There are some things you have to accept and some things you dont. I dont like it - Biosecurity is a bit of a nightmare. Every time you wake up theres a Huntsman spider in your electorate or Argentine Ant somewhere else, or a Salt Marsh Mosquito somewhere else. Weve got millions of people coming through New Zealand, weve got hundreds of thousands containers, weve got hundreds of thousands of cars, tyres, you name it, and theyre all available for hitchhiking intrusions and incursions, and if someone suggests to anybody that we can fix everything and we can stop everything, then its an exercise in futility. We cant, so weve got to do the best we can with what weve got.
Roger: Before you go, I heard a quote from you recently which said that youre a pragmatist, and there are some things the government should do more of and some things it should stop doing. Could you give us some examples?
Jim: The real quote was, if things were doing are working, we should do more of them, if they are not working, we should stop. I was interested in developing the regional economies in New Zealand, by partnering the ventures that they said would be good for them, so where farmers tell me, we could do this, this and this, and if you could help us do that we gonna make a big difference, in other words in research and development the dairy industry has come to the government and said, look, would you partner us in the move forward to add value on a research and development basis, so we keep well ahead of the markets and we go for higher value niche markets, rather then just commodities?, now we should do more of that if it works - and clearly it is working so Im in favour of doing it.
Roger: The apple industry asked you for your help, they asked for help with replanting and you said no.
Jim: They didnt ask for help with the replant, they asked for help to take out the trees. Now the truth is, a lot of areas where the trees were coming out werent being replanted in trees, a lot of that land is very valuable so what people are doing is asking us to clear their land so they could sell it for real estate. Now if the economics of the apple industry dont sustain planting trees or change of land use for new variety, or whatever, then it shouldnt be done. And it shouldnt be done just on the basis that the governments going to pay you to do it, because it might be the wrong thing to do. You might be better actually to pull the trees out and sell the land. Its possible, on the other hand, if youve got a new variety like Jazz and youre in that and youve helped develop it and you want to get into that market, were there to assist that - and we are.
Roger: Jim Anderton, thanks for joining us.
Jim: Thank you.