Federated Farmers
June 20th, 2011 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarJon Morgan at Stuff reports:
Four candidates are seeking the presidency of Federated Farmers for the first time in its 66-year existence.
It is the first contested election since 1999, when Alistair Polson held off two challengers.
It will be voted on by the 40 delegates at the national conference in Rotorua on July 1.
The candidates are vice-president Don Aubrey, the man he ousted as vice-president in 2009, Frank Brenmuhl, and the retiring chairmen of the dairy and meat and fibre sections, Lachlan McKenzie and Bruce Wills.
They seek to replace Southland farmer Don Nicolson, retiring after a three-year term.
It will be interesting to see who wins. I suspect whomever it is, they’ll be hard pushed to match Don’s profile.
The contested election reminds me of Phil Goff’s comments last week, as reported in the Waikato Times:
Labour leader Phil Goff has angered industry leaders at the National Agricultural Fieldays by suggesting that Federated Farmers were considered the National Party in gumboots.
The comment was in response to being asked how important the agricultural vote was to Labour, in election year, during his Fieldays visit yesterday.
“In financial terms agriculture is hugely important, in political terms someone once said that Federated Farmers is the National Party in gumboots, it’s always been that way and we have to accept that,” Mr Goff told Waikato Times.
However that comment hasn’t gone down well with Federated Farmers dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie who said the organisation was staunchly apolitical.
A silly comment by Goff. Certainly farmers tend to be more conservative in their political tendencies than others, but that is not at all the same as being National in gumboots. Not all farmers think alike.
Federated Farmers have actually had a pretty tense relationship with the National -led Government. Anyone who thinks they are akin to unions and Labour do not know what they are talking about.
Related posts:
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- Fed Farmers on Greenpeace
June 20th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Vote Hannah Tamaki tbh.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
I’d wager the membership of Federated Farmers are a more solid National-voting group than unions members.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
I wonder if Save Our Farms has made an impact:
http://www.savethefarms.org.nz/
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Yes, a silly comment, especially when two of our best ministers of agriculture post-WW2 have been Colin Moyle and Jim Anderton. That’s what farmers themselves said.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Given that farmers (in general) have a massive investment in their businesses and work their butts off in order to make a dollar, it would come as no surprise that they would have a tendency to favour a party that, in turn supports the principles of free enterprise.
Anyone with an ear to the ground would be aware of tensions between the farming community and the National government and any attempt to compare the relationship between the Govt and Federated Farmers to that between Labour and the Unions, would only come from mischief makers or ill-informed.
If this is Goof’s best effort, then he is more stuffed than I thought.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
The Nat Party in gumboots comment might appeal to Labour’s rock solid constituency but will do nothing to broaden the party’s appeal.
Feds is apolitical and all the stronger for that – governments come and go and its members are best served by an organisation which can work with all parties.
Most voluntary organisations struggle for members and people willing to hold office. Four standing could be a sign of strength or division but it doesn’t reflect well on succession planning.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
On a more philosophical note, farming has been called the greatest invention of human history, since it enabled humans to stop being nomadic hunters and gatherers, to settle in one place and create relative surety of food supply.
Vote:Were it not for farming there would be little capacity for welfare. Under the nomadic hunter/gatherer model the weak and elderly are left to die.
Labour should be more circumspect about biting the hand that feeds their voter base.
June 20th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Farmers are very independant. You ask ten farmers a question on any issue you will get many different answers. But when groups or polititions gang up on farmers and tell them you are doing this or that, then it is a different story. 99.99999% of farmers oppose the ETS on farting sheep and cows, as as everyone knows it is a crock of sh*t. There will be total opposition to this if any Government is stupid enough to bring it in.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Elaycee
Well put. While the socialists micromanage the cutting of the cake they carefully ignore the people who created it. They also display their inability to adapt to the drivers of modern politics. To them we still live in the days when Young Farmers Clubs were the recruiting grounds for National & all Labour MP’s were former cloth cap union men.
As an aside it is not hard to see why Labour can afford to dismiss agriculture so readily when so many city dwellers have totally lost touch with the land. A while back my partner’s young granddaughter brought a couple of her friends to stay for a few days during the school holidays. They had never seen sheep or pigs other than in a story book & were amazed when we lifted a row of spuds. To them meat & veges came from the supermarket.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
homepaddock at 12:49 pm
Feds is apolitical and all the stronger for that – governments come and go and its members are best served by an organisation which can work with all parties.
Exactly, they have to be able to work with a very diverse membership, and they have to be able to work with governments of varying leanings.
At a national/list level one of our core policies is to liase with national organisations to develop issue positions and policies and help reprsent them in parliament (at that would include unions too if the are interested).
If you put politics aside you have a better chance of getting fact based issued focussed progress.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Labour people always spit out this ‘Federated Farmers’ claim when they are accused of being in the pockets of unions.This is the only response Labour has.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
@nasska. Agree – it reminds me of an oldie (but a goodie):
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s support.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Of course Federated Farmers is ‘National in gumboots’, just look at who has all the rural electorates. Why deny it?
And to suggest that they are ‘staunchly apolitical’, what a joke. Do they still deny climate change?
And how many current National MP’s are former senior members of Federated Farmers? Sandra Goudie, Shane Arden & David Bennett. Shane Arden is a former deputy chairman.
We are not that stupid DPF.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
YesWeDid
…”We are not that stupid DPF.”…..
No but you’re getting close. Three MP’s from National’s 58 MPs have a background of Federated Farmers membership. Agriculture provides 60% of NZ’s exports.
Looks like we need a few more agriculturalists rather than less.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
nasska
Your comment interested me so I did a quick check. True, only 3 National MPs mention FF involvement in their bios on the parliamentary website. A further 11 are farmers though, so a total of 14 out of 58 means there may be sufficient agriculuralists!
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
mikenmild
Never enough! Forty four seats to go.
Vote:June 20th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
One of the early 20th century US presidential candidates – a congressman – was involved in rural politics when the US farmers got pissed off after the crash and dustbowl of the 30′s and decided to form a suppliers union.
The guy new the farmers and – as he said “Farmers vote for poverty” and he didnt want poor farmers – he wanted prosperous farmers – so he blocked the union.
US farmers are wealthy.
(What he meant by voting for poverty, was that when given an option, farmers vote for the option that gives them the lowest return)
In NZ, the sheep and beef farmers have shown that this US congrssman was right on the ball – theyve have progressed down the wealth curve for the last 80 years and their voted reps on FF and Sheep and Wool, and the various other organisations have successfully ruined value in those products for probably the last 100 years. )The last surge in value was due to wars – not smart beef and sheep leaders.)
Dairy farmers are bound by their co-op setup. Theyve also failed to take advantage of the few votes that they have. Its slowly becoming obvious – that even though prices are high due to demand, that Fonterra is a pretty useless outfit. Theyve failed to do any real develoment (they buy companies and claim its development) amd whenever there is a hickup they pretty much mess it up. Theyve failed all opportunities to capitalise on things like the Crafar mess and continue to look overseas – at the cost to the shareholders.
So – dont hold your breath for any improvement in FF.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
The former Labour Cabinet minister in the Clark govt, Jim Sutton, came from a leadership role in Fed Farmers. I can’t think of any union official in the last 20 years who has become a cabinet minister in a National Govt.
Phil Goff really has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about most of the time.
YesWeDid
…”We are not that stupid DPF.”…..
Um… actually I think u are
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