increase font size
Make your vote count towards candidates who understand the rural community.
When you exercise your vote in the local body elections in October, make it count towards candidates who understand the rural community.
It is important that farmers get out and vote for candidates who can better represent them. If we don’t it makes the job of Federated Farmers much harder.
The sad truth is the farming community is stuck with an old system of capital-based rateing versus the central government’s existing tax on earnings.
Comparable to other residents, farmers pay a lot of money to fund community services. It feels like we’re the ATM machines that keep councils’ lights on.
As Federated Farmers has argued for many years, land and capital value rates tend to allocate a larger portion of costs for council activities and services to owners of high-value properties.
High country farmers, for example, may own thousands of hectares, which leads to a higher valuation.
However, profitability is lower due to current commodity prices. Competition amongst buyers drives prices up, including overseas buyers after their next prestige asset.
People may be against overseas ownership, but by voting for a council which increases rates or forces excessive conditions upon on these farmers, their cashflows are eroded, making the properties unaffordable to own.
With all of this in mind I’ve put together tips for farmers and common sense advice for potential candidates.
Top tips for voters:
- Understand why your preferred candidate is standing and what they stand for; one-issue activists don’t make great team players.
- Even though some legislation is regulated at central government level, regional councillors have an important role to play in influencing the development and implementation of regional plans.
- Councillors have the freedom to advocate for innovative approaches to maintaining or improving the local community.
- Councillors should accept and recognise that farmers pay more than their fair share of rates.
Top tips for prospective councillors:
- Challenge your council to undertake a rating review with targeted rates and uniform charges.
- Implement hard caps on annual rates increases and focus on reducing and prioritising spending.
- Two-way informed communication is the key to meeting community expectations.
- Where changes in farming practises are required, give farmers realistic compliance timeframes.
- Improving water quality is a local community discussion. Spend upfront in getting the science right to identify the issues correctly and accurately. Put emotions aside.
- Develop policies and methods that are flexible to allow onfarm innovation and provide certainty for decisions and investments.
Remember, every vote counts. If you don’t exercise your right to vote, don’t complain about your rates and councils who don’t play ball.
Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
Federated Farmers says the final report into banking competition is a significant step forward for rural New Zealand - and a vindication of the farming sector's concern.
Farmer lobby group Federated Farmers has announced it is supporting a new Member’s Bill which it says could bring clarity to New Zealand farmers and save millions in legal costs.
Federated Farmers says climate protest group Greenpeace is manufacturing outrage and attempting to scare New Zealanders with headlines that have no basis in science.
Phoebe Scherer, a technical manager from the Bay of Plenty, has won the 2025 Young Grower of the Year national title.
The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand (FCANZ) celebrated the best of the best at the 2025 Fencing Industry Awards, providing the opportunity to honour both rising talent and industry stalwarts.
Award-winning boutique cheese company, Cranky Goat Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation.
As an independent review of the National Pest Management Plan for TB finds the goal of complete eradication by 2055 is still valide, feedback is being sought on how to finish the job.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand has launched an AI-powered digital assistant to help farmers using the B+LNZ Knowledge Hub to create tailored answers and resources for their farming businesses.
A tiny organism from the arid mountains of mainland Greece is facilitating a new way of growing healthier animals on farms across New Zealand.
