Cutting red tape was the slogan championed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at his recent Mid Canterbury appearance.

Luxon stopped by Ashburton on the Restoring Farmer Confidence tour alongside associate minister for agriculture Nicola Grigg and Federated Farmers president Wanye Langford.

Almost 500 farmers from across Canterbury showed up at the Ashburton Event Centre to share their concerns with the trio, from regulation-cutting to gene editing.

The group were welcomed in by a small demonstration outside the events centre, some members holding the Tino Rangatiratanga or Māori sovereignty flag.

Karla Paul said was there to peacefully show her support for Māori and disdain for the Treaty Principles Bill.

“We’re not here to protest, really.

“It’s just to let [Luxon] know that, even though the walk is over, we still stand for our mokopuna, our treaty, our kids and our rights.”

Kylie-Rose Paul said the bill was unnecessary and that nothing needed to change regarding the Tiriti O Waitangi.

She felt Māori rights and claims were bought up and contested year after year and said it was “hoha,” or vexatious.

There was no conflict between the demonstrators and those attending the event.

Langford led the event by sharing his personal plight with the audience.

“I’ve been feeling it, my family and community have all been feeling this weight of regulation, of uncertainty, and a lack of directions around where we’re going as a sector.

“So it’s wonderful to get the Prime Minister out here to hear [about] the promises and what’s been going on.”

He said farmers are forced to make many decisions in a day and with Federated Farmers’ surveys showing the “lowest farmers confidence in history,” it was time to talk face to face with those in Parliament.

Luxon arrived slightly late, saying he’d been at the Christchurch police unit learning about the Comancheros’ shakedown.

He quickly turned his attention to the farming audience.

“Our primary industries, our agriculture sector, is an incredibly important economic driver for New Zealand.

“11% of all revenue, of all the GDP that’s created in this country, comes from agriculture.

“It’s this sector that got us through the GFC, it’s this sector that got us out of Covid, and it needs to be this sector that gets us out of the recession.”

He believes we need to push our produce into “premium” markets to counteract our small production scale on the world stage.

“We’re small - we don’t have share of mind, we don’t have share of wallet, and we’ve got to lift our relevance to [international] markets.”

We also need to lift our game and get ahead of advancements in ag-tech, he said.

“There are 40 plus conservative countries that actively embrace gene tech legislation.

“I’m excited to get to a place that’s appropriate for 2024, not 1999.”

Our agriculture sector needs innovation to keep us competitive and visible across the world, which makes it an exciting palace for young minds.

Luxon promised that the Resource Management Act (RMA) changes were well underway and certainty would be provided to farmers in the next term.

“As we said, it’s a three-stage process - The first step has been to knock off the previous Labour government’s RMA reforms, we killed that.

“Phase two has been to produce the fast-track legislation, which we’re very close to passing in parliament.”

With almost a third of all the approved fast-track projects in the South Island, passing that legislation is essential to “actually getting things built and done in this country.”

“By the middle of next year, we’ll have our long-term solution which will be the new RMA reforms.”

The event wrapped up with a huge spread of meat and milky drinks, courtesy of Alliance Group and Fonterra.

By Anisha Satya