The call received a loud cheer from the around 200 people who had gathered in a farm machinery shed at agricultural contractor John Austin’s place of business near Te Awamutu to hear her speak.
“I will actually do this,” she said.
“It’s stopping anything from happening. It’s got to the stage now where there’s all of the responsibility of owning land and none of the fun of it.”
While there would be environmental standards in any replacement legislation, farmers would have more freedom in activities on their farms, Collins said.
Collins said it was “amazing” how every other political party suddenly liked farmers.
“You are no longer responsible for the dirty water in Kohimarama Beach in Auckland where there are all of those dairy farms,” she joked.
Collins said the National Party was embracing its rural roots. Without rural communities we would not have much of anything in the economy, she said.
Collins said 23% of the country’s income had gone as a result of the covid-19 lockdown but farmers were still there.
Collins said they will also help employers hire new staff by bringing back 90-day trials and giving businesses $10,000 if they keep these staff on.
She said the policy was important because of what she believed will be looming job losses once the Government ends the wage subsidy on September 1.
“I have this awful feeling that there’s going to be quite a lot of people unemployed,” she said.
“We have some pretty tough economic times ahead.”
She called Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern naïve in thinking New Zealand had gotten through the worst of the economic downturn.
“I imagine she doesn’t understand what is about to happen – which is a tsunami of job losses, so we have got to be ready for it,” she said.
Collins announced to the audience her government would spend $20 million to go towards protecting women from gynaecological cancer through greater awareness, improved clinical guidelines, increased testing and greater access to clinical trials.
“It will give us 10,000 extra tests,” she said.
More than 1000 women are diagnosed with, and over 475 die, from gynaecological cancer every year.
Collins also took aim at the Government calling it “utterly useless,” after it cancelled a similar funding policy.
This investment is alongside National’s commitment to fund an independent Cancer Agency and set up a $200 million fund dedicated to cancer drugs.
