Cutting red tape and listening to local issues were front of mind for a trio of Act MPs during a whistle stop visit to Mid Canterbury.

Associate agriculture minister Andrew Hoggard and MPs Todd Stephenson and Mark Cameron paid Mid Canterbury a visit on Thursday as part of the party’s country-wide tour.

Their first stop was Chris Allen’s farm in Ashburton Forks, where they met a group of farmers to learn about the area’s issues.

Hoggard, a former Federated Farmers president, said it was important to get out and meeting farmers in person.

“I find going out and seeing the problem or the challenge with your own two eyes, hearing from the people on the ground, gives you a far better understanding than getting a briefing on your desk.”

Resource consents are top of mind for Hoggard, who in April received a letter from agriculture lobbyists asking for law changes in response to a watershed court decision.

The High Court found Environment Canterbury had illegally granted the Ashburton Lyndhurst irrigation scheme, owned by 230 local farmers, a consent in 2021.

Judge Cameron Mander found that ECan had not applied sections 70 and 170 of the Resource Management Act 1991 in his decision in March. The sections restrict regional councils from granting permissions, and prohibit the granting of consents, where discharge excessively contaminates the water.

The sections were usually used to deal with “point source discharge” such as sewage pipes.

The ruling could potentially see farmers need consent to own animals who create “diffuse discharge” or faecal matter.

It will prove dangerous for farmers nationwide, Hoggard said.

“It basically says you can’t be farming,” he claimed.

“We can’t afford it in the country.”

Stephenson and Cameron said, along with farming frustrations, people had brought up local government and education as areas of concern.

“Kiwis do recognise that we don’t have a high-functioning education system”,” Stephenson said.

“We’re actually just setting up the country for not a very good future.”

He added that there had been much support for the reintroduction of charter schools, and encouraged people to “come forward with options that will suit their community”.

Cameron claimed many parents they’d spoken to during their trip had said they “don’t like identity politics that have crept into the state-run system. That’s a common theme”.

The Resource Management Act was the topic of the day, the three agreed.

The trio spent some of their day explaining proposed amendments to the RMA, which they said would cut red tape.

“It’s just got too complex, too cumbersome and too litigious, and everyone has to ask permission to do the most sensible things,” Hoggard added.

“Changing that [RMA] will be important for farmers, not just from Mid Canterbury, but anyone and anywhere in New Zealand.”

Cameron said politicians could not make better laws if they did not engage with New Zealanders.

“By virtue of doing what we’re doing, hopefully tomorrow is better than today.”

By Anisha Satya