Farmers respond to safety campaign
MORE FARMERS are buying and wearing helmets when riding quad bikes on their farms, according to Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson.
One day you are part of the executive and setting policy, with a ministerial house and Crown limousine at your disposal. Then after just one phone call from the PM you are out of Cabinet, your house and car gone, and you’re suddenly languishing on the back bench.
For the agribusiness sector, the real interest in the Cabinet reshuffle was the promotion (or more of a sideways shuffle) of former Primary Industries Minister David Carter to the speaker’s chair and his former associate Nathan Guy elevation as minister.
The changes in the primary sector portfolio were pretty well telegraphed – with the jungle drums beating for some time about Carter’s move to Speaker – with the only real debate being whether or not Guy would get the primary industries top job or whether it would go to such as the high-flying Amy Adams.
Some commentators have criticised the change, which now leaves Guy and the primary industries portfolio ranking at the relatively low number 16 on the Cabinet list. But as former Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton once sagely commented on the subject: “It doesn’t matter what number you are at the buffet table during state dinners; what really matters is being seated at the Cabinet table.”
David Carter will be a loss to the primary sector. He has been a strong advocate for farming as a minister and opposition spokesman for the past 10 years. His work – particularly in water sphere – leaves a legacy for Nathan Guy to build on.
Guy already has a head start, having been the associate minister for primary industries for the past year or so. Therefore, he should be up to speed on the issues facing the sector and not new to the portfolio.
As a farmer and MP for Otaki, an electorate that takes in rural heartland in the lower North Island, Nathan Guy has all the credentials and mana to connect well with the rural sector. But he needs to do more than connect – he has to deliver – to be a success.
If Guy performs to his potential, it will not be long before the primary industries portfolio is back on the front bench and its minister at the front of the queue for those all-important state dinners.
