Colin King spent last week in Palmerston North putting 48 young shearers through their paces as part of pre-shears events, for this years Golden Shears competition. This week he will be sharing his views with local farmers at the Tapawera Federated Farmers meeting.
Roy Bensemann, chairman of the meat and fibre section of Federated Farmers, and Edwin Newport, chairman of the Tapawera branch of Federated Farmers have invited Colin King, northern South Island representative on MeatNZ, as a guest speaker at a meeting in Tapawera. He intends using the event to highlight and discus with farmers MeatNZ, the future dis-establishment of the Wool Board, and issues in the agricultural sector surrounding the amalgamation of research and development.
"At the moment we are at a crossroads, we have done the deal as it were on research and development and amalgamated between the meat and wool board, and are all looking to the dis-establishment of the wool board."
Colin commented on the complexity of the reforms that have been put forward, and while there are good reasons for them, he is getting the message from farmers of concern that it appears to be more of a reforming, rather than a dis-establishing.
"From that point of view I am particularly interested in the outcome. What we don't want to do, is just have duplication again. I would say farmers will point us in a direction whereby we move to having one pastoral entity that administers and collects a commodity levy of some nature, and has industry good activities done for numerous things from game industry boards to meat activities, wool activities to possibly say ostrich and emu. I can't really see the need for all these organisations, with another CEO, another board secretary and so on. It just seems to be adding to the cost, a little bit of empire building."
The biggest challenge Colin sees is not the culture of these organisations but the agendas. The fulltime staff have a huge impact on things, and it's their livelihood, "the directors and such like who are meant to be there for governance tend to end up just rubberstamping."
Colin described feeling pretty relaxed about political life, as he has always enjoyed the gladiatorial situation of competition, saying it's not too hard to get a 'fairly clear steer' with the monthly rural publications. "And also if you stick pretty close to the coal face and have a pretty good cross section network, I think you can get a balanced view on what the majority of people want. That majority may not be a huge majority at times but it is a majority and you have to go by that."
"The big challenge really is to listen to all people, but to learn especially who to listen to." You will be able to do just that, at the Tapawera Hotel, March 12th at 8pm.
