Andrew Hoggard: Speech to ACT Rally 2025

Speech to ACT Rally 2025, Sunday 13 July, 2025

Eighteen months ago, when we came into government, farmer confidence was at an all-time low, driven by not only high inflation – which in turn creates high interest rates – but also a multitude of green tape from SNAs to over-the-top farm plans that apparently needed an understanding of the Treaty to write. On top of that, there were a number of freshwater regulations that basically sucked the fun out of farming but, more importantly, made making investments into future growth a no-go option.

It wasn’t just the producers of our food that were over-regulated – all through our food system we had red tape that was constraining innovation and competition. The case of Ag and Hort chemicals is one high-profile example of this, but there are many others, such as the Waikato biltong maker I visited who would love to trial more products, but the paperwork and cost just to begin a new trial mean he sticks with just his four products.

In my role of Associate Environment Minister, I moved as quickly as possible to put a stop to the previous Government’s direction to councils to identify and map new SNAs. Instead of a system that punishes farmers for looking after nature on their land, I’m looking at how the private sector can reward them. Farm Plans will be a much-slimmed down version that just focuses on how to minimise contaminant loss from farms, and then replacing a whole bunch of consents, to enable farmers to get on with farming. In the Freshwater space ACT is pushing hard to ensure that we have sensible local limit settings based on local geology and science, not one-size-fits-all spirituality from Wellington.

With Food Safety I have visited food businesses to hear their stories of the red tape nightmares firsthand. From the home-based small businesses to some of our most iconic brands, they all had a story to tell. I’m happy to tell you that we will be announcing a work programme shortly, dealing to the frustrations and barriers that they face.

So why should townies care about making life better for farmers, or manufacturers, or sellers of food? We are a trading nation; we pay our bills from our goods exports and 80% of those are from the primary sector. When our farmers and growers have the confidence to invest in their businesses, the outcome is pretty simple, they spend more money locally, that investment drives productivity meaning more exports, this means those businesses in the Agri sector need to employ more people, this will drive wage growth, those people themselves may well invest in their own businesses, and so it goes on. The economic improvement spreads out from the farms to the cities. On the left they will scream and call this trickle down economics, I just call it the law of supply and demand, a concept not much understood on the other side of the House.

Now you may not think that you are one of the people who will benefit from the economic growth, I would argue that everyone will benefit, but regardless: let’s just say you don’t, how does this all help you buy a block of butter? Well, our system treats everyone as if they are Fonterra sized and exporting. By making it easier for smaller producers to try different things, then you have the ability for more competition to emerge. We have a lot of well-intentioned rules in food safety, but quite frankly some are duplicative and unneeded, and they don’t start from the premise that food retailers and manufacturers want their customers to have an enjoyable food experience and thus become repeat customers.

With less red tape and more competition, you reduce costs, it all benefits the customer, and directly impacts positively on the cost of living.

All that is just from my portfolios, but ACT is delivering across the board for rural New Zealand. The insane climate agenda of the previous lot would have driven food production offshore to places with laughable records on emissions, crippling our exports while doing nothing to save the planet. So we secured commitments to keep Ag out of the ETS, maintain the split-gas approach, and review the science that currently treats cow burps the same way as coal burners.

This all leaves the question of what we’ll do about the Paris Agreement that drives this nonsense, to which I say, watch this space.