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Will there be change under Chris Hipkins' leadership or is it just lipstick on a pig?
OPINION: The sudden resignation of Jacinda Ardern and installation of Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister will see many in the farming sector looking to the old maxim about 'putting lipstick on a pig' - which means making superficial or cosmetic changes to a product in a futile effort to disguise its fundamental failings.
It is fair to say farmers have not been overly enamoured with what the Government has imposed or proposed on the rural sector over the past five years.
What if any difference will Hipkins make to Labour's policy agenda?
Farmers have long been critical of many of the Government's proposed changes and the impact that these will have on the agricultural sector and rural communities.
According to Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard, rural leaders have had nothing to do with the new Prime Minister or his new deputy, Carmel Sepuloni - with neither of them being part of the government team meetings with food and fibre leaders. This could be a good thing and allow for a proper reset of the agriculture sector's fraught relationship with the current government. Or will it just be more of the same?
As Hoggard says, "It (the Government) needs a complete re-look on a whole range of issues."
Beef+Lamb NZ chair Andrew Morrison rightly points out that Hipkins needs to understand the huge amount of financial pressure that farmers are facing when he and his cabinet review what projects should be scrapped or revisited.
The new PM has already made mutterings that change has happened too fast, but it will be a case of waiting and seeing if these words translate into anything in terms of actions.
It should not be forgotten that Hipkins has been deeply involved with the policy direction of the Government from the beginning, as both a senior minister and member of the kitchen cabinet under Ardern.
The rural sector should not hold its breath, rather it can probably expect little more than cosmetic changes in the direction of government policy.
Hence the old saying: 'You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig!'
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