New Zealand needs a rethink about how it uses and stores fresh water, the National Party’s new agriculture spokesman Todd Muller says.
He has replaced former Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy and says water management needs to change to meet the required doubling in the volume of hydro electricity generated to replace a decarbonised economy and sustain food production in a climate that will be drier in some areas.
Muller says the food and fibre sectors will remain NZ’s economic drivers but the Government’s approach to water management is Wellington knows best instead of working with the sector.
“The ideas that seem to come from this Government is management built on a brutal planning regime.”
He described the approach to water storage as woeful despite the country having an abundance of water.
Given the challenges facing the country water storage requires a strategic approach and the primary sector needs certainty so it can use water strategically and responsibly.
“We spend all our time fighting each other rather than getting out and building things at scale,” he says of how we deal with the challenges.
He fears the primary sector is being swamped by a tsunami of regulation, costs and change and given tight time frames in which to comply.
That will start to negatively affect the economy.
Farmers are given little credit for the changes or improvements they have made.
“Essentially, the regulatory framework expected of the average farmer is massively ahead of 10 years ago.”
Muller was elected for the Bay of Plenty electorate in 2014 after an agribusiness career.
He was born in 1968 to sharemilkers on a Papakura dairy farm.
Five years later they moved to a kiwifruit orchard at Te Puna, which is still in family ownership.
They later added a pack house, cool store and a spraying business in which Muller worked to fund himself through Waikato University.
His interest in politics stemmed from his grandparents, Henry and Eileen Skidmore, who were the former mayor and mayoress of Te Aroha and who were influential in his life.
“I saw through their lives the value of service and what they did for their community and the huge impact they made.
“I was really impacted by it and realised I wanted to get involved in politics.”
On leaving university Muller worked in the office of former Prime Minister Jim Bolger during his second term in the mid 1990s.
The need to get out of the Wellington bubble and experience the real world saw Muller return to Bay of Plenty and a job with Zespri where he stayed for 10 years, reaching the role of general manager.
On leaving Zespri he stayed in the horticulture sector as chief executive of Apata Group, a company providing post-harvest services to kiwifruit and avocado growers.
In 2011 he resigned to work at Fonterra where he became group director of co-operative affairs, with responsibility for stakeholder relationships including shareholders and government.
He is a former Waikato University councillor and sat on the boards of Plant and Food Research and the Sustainable Business Council.
Muller is married to Michelle and they have three children, Aimee, Bradley and Amelia.
His priority issues are water, helping industry bring consumers closer to producers and ensuring the sector has the necessary staff, connectivity and capability.
Asked how he would respond to Mycoplasma bovis, Muller says eradication is the right tactic but he has concerns the Ministry for Primary Industries has unresolved issues with farmers that have created immense stress.
On rural community concerns about the impact of afforestation Muller says trees have a place and acknowledged forestry is a significant industry and export earner.
But he says the structure of the Emissions Trading Scheme is flawed and distorts the market by favouring the blanket planting of trees on pasture by investors wanting to offset their emissions.
He also questioned why changes introduced by the Government streamline Overseas Investment Office approval for foreign investors wanting to buy forests or land for planting but not those wanting to make other investments.
Muller says the Government’s proposed methane reduction targets are too high, based on Climate Change Minister James Shaw’s own figures, while ignoring the advice of his officials.
The urban-rural divide is real and Muller says the Government has contributed by using divisive tones in reference to farmers and the primary sector.
“The Government narrative is always pointed, always in conflict with the sector.
“They have absolutely exacerbated the urban-rural divide.”
His solution is to remind people of agriculture’s positive contribution, that farmers have already made significant changes to improve the environment and their practices and are prepared to make further changes.
The Government needs to help the sector.
“It is a different tone of conversation, that the primary sector matters.”
A year out from the election Muller says he intends meeting farmers and farming leaders and doing plenty of listening as he prepares policies ahead of next year’s ballot.
