How do you think it's all going?

Look, I think Where's the Greens have probably run... one of our best campaigns ever, if not our best.

We went out early with really solid policy positions.

We launched our whole manifesto in July, and we've made really clear to the public what our solutions are for the cost of living crisis around affordable food, around affordable energy, and around our commitment to looking after nature properly, protecting our most precious assets as a country, our oceans, our forests, our waterways.

And it's really worked in terms of the public response we've received.

The polls are looking really good for us and the feedback we get on the street is fantastic.

On the other hand, I feel that parties on the government side have run One of the dirtiest and lowest kind of campaigns that I've ever seen, really.

Do you think the government should be doing something about this?

How do you think it's all going?

Look, I think we as the Greens have probably run one of our best campaigns ever, if not our best.

We went out early with really solid policy positions.

We launched our whole manifesto in July and we've made really clear to the public what our solutions are for the cost of living crisis around affordable housing.

food around affordable energy and around our commitment to looking after nature properly protecting our most precious assets as a country our oceans our forests our waterways and it's really worked in terms of the public response we've received the polls are looking really good for us and the feedback we get on the street is fantastic on the other hand i feel that parties on the government side have run one of the dirtiest and lowest kind of campaigns that I've ever seen, really.

Nationals' willingness to stoop into the realm of AI slop attacks on their opponents is really revolting in my view and doesn't bode well for politics in this country.

But on the other hand, I feel like it also hasn't worked for them.

Do you think the government should be doing something about this?

Well, aren't we then just tilting at windmills? Isn't this just virtue signalling from us, no matter what we do, we're not going to make hardly any difference at all?

So the virtual signaling bit of it is meaningless.

We have to actually work out how to cut emissions.

We are not globally significant, I've said this to you before, in anything in particular, but in farming we are.

And we should be able to prove the way that you can produce food and fibre in a way that lowers the ecological harm, the environmental harm and the climate impact.

And that's an exciting challenge and it's a huge opportunity.

And I put it to you, even in a market like India alone, India's not a great example in terms of dairy, but in other markets, the United States is a good example.

Are you going to reinstate David Parker's freshwater rules?

Well, aren't we then just tilting at windmills? Isn't this just virtue signalling from us, no matter what we do, we're not going to make hardly any difference at all?

So the virtual signaling bit of it is meaningless.

We have to actually work out how to cut emissions.

We are not globally significant, I've said this to you before, in anything in particular, but in farming we are.

And we should be able to prove the way that you can produce food and fibre in a way that lowers the ecological harm, the environmental harm and the climate impact.

And that's an exciting challenge, and it's a huge opportunity.

And I put it to you, even in a market like India alone, India's not a great example in terms of dairy, but in other markets, the United States is a good example, people want... green product.

Are you going to reinstate David Parker's freshwater rules?

What's the logic here for you guys?

I mean, reducing the training wage is nuts, isn't it? Because for the exact same reason as it's not sustainable for nurses to be training without an income, it's not sustainable with the current training wage for tradies, you know, builders or electrician or anyone getting a trade to have to live on $19, just over $19 an hour.

So we're proposing that it be a requirement of the minimum wage, which is closer to $24 an hour.

And when Chloe and Marama made this announcement, they had a couple of trainees there in the audience, and one of the women basically cried because it was a recognition of just how tough it is to actually... be a trainee tradie and live on such a small amount of money and these people are working these people are working um a full day they're laboring and they're allowed to be paid less than the minimum wage it's totally untenable that we should allow that to continue and we won't agree government won't let that continue

Is there an argument there, though, you know, what Luxon's on about with the youth unemployment rates, that we're going to see less businesses wanting to take on young people if there's higher risk and more cost associated with that?

no i mean like um the the point is that it's just the idea of a minimum wage which you know actors against as well these guys are extremists they're against the idea that we should guarantee a minimum wage for workers and so it's not so surprised that they're against the idea of making the training wage livable or in support of lowering the training wage these are bare minimum requirements that we should put on employers to provide for the workers And the idea that if an employer can't afford to pay those bare minimums that we should expect of any employer, then they need to sort themselves out, frankly.

And other countries have this, including Australia.

Australia has a much higher minimum wage than we do.

What's the logic here for you guys?

I mean, reducing the training wage is nuts, isn't it? Because for the exact same reason as, um, it's not sustainable for nurses to be training without an income.

Um, it's not sustainable the current training wage for tradies, you know, uh, builders, builders or electrician or anyone getting a trade to have to live on $19, just over $19 an hour.

Um, so we're proposing that it be a requirement of the minimum wage, which is, as I said, $24 an hour.

And when Chloe and Marama made this announcement, they had a couple of trainee tradies there in the audience, and, uh, one of the women basically cried because, um, it was a recognition of just how tough it is to actually be a trainee tradie and live on, uh, such a small amount of money.

And these people are working.

These people are working, um, a full day.

What's your response to that?

Will you insist or will you leave it at that?

We're not going to try and buy back BNZ, though, Mark.

No, that's right.

Well, you should be.

Listen, the thing is that the negotiations about what we get when we're going into coalition in a few weeks' time will be done at the negotiation table, not in this forum, and that's appropriate.

But to be clear about something, our position on the tech, you know, putting agriculture into the emissions trading schemes, it should come in at the lowest possible price to send the right signals.

And previously that's been a 90% discount.

seem to agree on solar.

And that was criticised very, very heavily at the time as potentially economic sabotage.

Can we just go back a step here? Because I remember the days when New Zealand would proudly act in the global interest on causes that were very distant from us.

We've sent people overseas to die in other people's wars on multiple occasions on the supposed principle that it's the right thing to do.

But when it comes to climate change, an existential challenge that is a global challenge, we seem to be doing under this government everything to dodge the bullet, literally to avoid from our responsibility as a major exporting nation to lower our emissions.

And this government has lowered our targets.

It's opened up oil and gas again.

It's sought to find ways to avoid these responsibilities.

There's a lot more sophisticated ways of reducing emissions than just reducing cow numbers.

If it wasn't for farming and the primary sector, we'd be a banana republic.

So let's take all of this stuff in context.

Farming is a huge part of our economy, and more importantly, it's a huge part of our society.

It's what we do.

We are not particularly significant in anything else in the world, but in farming we are.

We are a global player.

That is a fact.

Yes, it's niche and it's well rewarded and I get that, but it's not applicable for every farmer to go organic.

If it wasn't for farming and the primary sector, we'd be a banana republic.

So let's take all of this stuff in context.

Farming is a huge part of our economy, and more importantly, it's a huge part of our society.

It's what we do.

We are not particularly significant in anything else in the world, but in farming we are.

We are a global player.

That is a fact.

Yes, it's niche and it's well rewarded and I get that, but it's not applicable for every farmer to go organic.

Come November, if we are looking at coalition talks between Labour and the Greens, are you going to be able to be on the same page about who you're protecting and what are the Greens going to be willing to compromise on when it comes to all of this?

Yeah, I mean, I found that kind of bewildering.

And I have to say in Labour's defence, and this has been generous perhaps, the argument is that a capital gains tax, which they have announced that they intend to put in place, will have the effect of being a tax on landlords, which is correct insofar as when people realise the value of a property and they sell it, then they'll be having to pay the capital gains tax.

The problem with that is there's no immediate revenue from that.

So that only gets realized when there's an actual passing on of an asset to a new owner.

So the problem with capital gains tax is it takes a very long time to accumulate any income, whereas, you know, The landlord's tax cut that these guys put in place is immediate revenue that could be being earned now.

And what is more, they gave that tax cut by borrowing money.

It's quite a lot, isn't it?

Uh, come November, if we are looking at coalition talks between Labor and the Greens, are you gonna be able to be on the same page about who you're protecting, and what are the Greens gonna be willing to compromise on when it comes to all of this?

Yeah, I mean, I, I found that kind of bewildering.

Um, and I have to say in Labor's defense, and this is being generous perhaps, their argument is that a capital gains tax, uh, which they have announced that they intend to put in place, will have the effect of, you know, being a tax, um, on landlords.

Um, bec- which is correct insofar as when people realize the value of a property and they sell it, then they'll be having to pay the capital gains tax.

The problem with that is there's no immediate revenue from that.

So, um, that only gets realized, uh, when there's an actual passing on of a asset to a new owner.

Um, so the problem with the capital gains tax is it takes a very long time to accumulate any income, whereas, uh, the, you know, the, the landlord's tax, um, effectively, or landlord's tax cut that these guys put in place is, is immediate revenue that could be being earned now.

Mm-hmm.

Come November, if we are looking at coalition talks between Labour and the Greens, are you going to be able to be on the same page about who you're protecting and what are the Greens going to be willing to compromise on when it comes to all of this?

Yeah, I mean, I found that kind of bewildering.

And I have to say in Labour's defence, and this has been generous perhaps, the argument is that a capital gains tax, which they have announced that they intend to put in place, will have the effect of being a tax on landlords, which is correct insofar as when people realise the value of a property and they sell it, then they'll be having to pay the capital gains tax.

The problem with that is there's no immediate revenue from that.

So that only gets realized when there's an actual passing on of an asset to a new owner.

So the problem with capital gains tax is it takes a very long time to accumulate any income, whereas, you know, The landlord's tax cut that these guys put in place is immediate revenue that could be being earned now.

And what is more, they gave that tax cut by borrowing money.

It's quite a lot, isn't it?

Do not we run the risk then of putting too much pressure on these guys or having something like this where they remove that and regional and rural areas will end up paying more because supermarkets go, well, we're not going to do that

anymore.

That's a quite nuanced detail.

So I think the thing that we... are committed to is making sure that we do bring competition into the whole system.

That specific, I can't say what the impact will be, but I'm sure that the socialisation of the cost of freight can still be done by that co-operative locally owned one, which is Pack and Save and New World.

Yeah, it's foodstuffs, yeah.

But the point is that by having another player which will have its own distribution centre and will have existing strong store locations, one of the factors we looked at was, well, do we just add in new stores? And the fact is that that would not be beneficial because the market would have too many supermarkets and that would be a competition problem.

Do you not risk then forcing the price down for the suppliers? How do you compensate suppliers? Because why would a supplier sell to KiwiMart when it can sell more, A, overseas, or B, to one of the other supermarkets?

What does the Green Party modelling suggest if that transition were to happen?

Yeah, I mean, I disagree with all of that analysis because if you look at how massively our sheep and beef sector has changed, we've hugely reduced the stocking rates of sheep since the 1980s.

But actually the value of sheep has gone up significantly.

So the total value of the entire sector hasn't decreased.

My argument is that you can make as much money from a hectare of really high value, low land, arable, productive land from doing something other than dairy, then the economy doesn't suffer at all.

We just change our land use.

And when we think about the land use transition that's happened since 1990, you know, doubling of the dairy herd, we can think of a similar land use change that would still be highly profitable for farmers and for the economy, but see a much lower footprint in terms of agricultural impacts on freshwater and marine coastal environment on the climate.

So this national food strategy, including legislating the right to adequate and nutritious food, how would that be done?

What does the Green Party modelling suggest if that transition were to happen?

Yeah, I mean, I disagree with all of that analysis because if you look at how massively our sheep and beef sector has changed, we've hugely reduced the stocking rates of sheep since the 1980s.

But actually the value of sheep has gone up significantly.

So the total value of the entire sector hasn't decreased significantly.

My argument is that you can make as much money from a hectare of really high value, low land, arable, productive land from doing something other than dairy, then the economy doesn't suffer at all.

We just change our land use.

And when we think about the land use transition that's happened since 2008, the 1990, you know, doubling of the dairy herd, we can think of a similar land use change that would still be highly profitable for farmers and for the economy, but see a much lower footprint in terms of, you know, agricultural impacts on freshwater and the marine coastal environment on the climate.

So this national food strategy, including legislating the right to adequate and nutritious food, how would that be done?

I think it's probably going to be one of the most important things that happens in the next term for rural New Zealand to get that right, to have that formula right, so that local communities will step through the process to get numbers that work for them.

I think largely the population is in support of some kind of local government reform, but what we haven't been very happy with is the process by which it has gone about, giving a very short timeframe for councils to come together with a plan, and there is really genuine concern from the communities out there, particularly our small rural communities, that their voices are gonna be lost in this amalgamation process.

The problem you have, though, and it's not just sloganeering, you get parties doing things to you in the name of what would be good that actually doesn't achieve what we want, and in the end, that is a waste of your money.

I think it's time that politicians started thinking beyond a three-year cycle and started having long-term vision and finding ways to work together in which they can do that that allows our communities and our agricultural sector certainty.

Certainty to invest in the things that they know they want to invest in but are too scared to because of the flip-flopping every time there's a change in government.

Who thinks New Zealand is too reliant on dairy?

Steve, why? Listen, in the last 30 years, well since 1990, we had a six-fold increase in the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer that only doubled the dairy herd.

But we're seeing the consequences of that.

Dairy is unfortunately the most polluting industry in New Zealand in terms of water pollution, soil compaction, climate emissions, marine coastal pollution.

It doesn't have to be that way.

There are dairy farmers now, including in this part of the country, who are farming without synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, who are producing high-quality, high-value dairy product that the export world wants.

And it earns them more money for every milk fat solid.

If you tell them to destock by 20%, who tells the bank?

Tell us a little bit about where the Green Party stands on David Seymour's sort of alternative model.

I mean, his model's been a disaster.

He basically corporatised the whole system, cut funding to it.

The consequences, I think, were widely known.

Just really a major decline in the quality of food the kids were getting.

Some of the worst examples were school lunches turning up where They'd been heated so much that the plastic, the food was wrapped and melted into the lunch and been served to children.

And nothing but an unending stream of negative reports and large amounts of food being thrown away because the kids didn't want to eat it.

What is it about setting up a trust that's going to protect this sort of money from any sort of governmental interference in the future?

Can you tell us a little bit more about the sort of details of how the Greens are proposing, um, we, we go about enacting this?

Yeah.

So basically, the starting point is that we recognize marae as the cornerstone of society, um, and that the services that marae offer, um, in natural emergencies or unnatural emergencies in terms of climate change, uh, a place to go to get, uh, refuge, to get a bed, to get kai.

And across the country, this is w- what we've seen happen when we've had these more frequent and extreme weather events.

Um, so there's a starting point of marae resilience that marae should be better equipped to s- continue to provide that, um, service to the community.

But more than that, um, marae a- are also kind of hubs for, um, the enrichment of the, the immediate community that they serve in terms of the hapū and iwi who associate to that marae.

Um, and that what we get with better support of those, um, centers of, um, cultural and economic and community activity is a whole lot of, um, outcomes that are really positive.

Uh, what is it about setting up a trust that's going to protect this sort of money from any sort of governmental interference in the future?

Can you tell us a little bit more about the sort of details of how the Greens are proposing, um, we, we go about enacting this?

Yeah.

So basically the starting point is that we recognize marae as the cornerstone of society, um, and that the services that marae offer, um, in natural emergencies or unnatural emergencies in terms of climate change, uh, a place to go to get, uh, refuge, to get a bed, to get kai.

And across the country, this is with what we've seen happen when we've had these more frequent and extreme weather events.

Um, so there's a starting point of marae resilience that marae should be better equipped to s- continue to provide that, um, service to the community.

But more than that, um, marae a-are also kind of hubs for, um, the enrichment of the, the immediate community that they serve in terms of the hapū and iwi who associate to that marae.

Um, and that what we get with better support of those, um, centers of, um, cultural and economic and community activity is a whole lot of, um, outcomes that are really positive.

Uh, what is it about setting up a trust that's going to protect this sort of money from any sort of governmental interference in the future?

Steve, just before we clash swords, I don't know whether we'll clash swords or not [laughs] But just before we do, tell me about your background and what sort of credentials have you got in agriculture?

Um, I mean, my credentials in agriculture, I'm not making a claim to other than being a New Zealander with farming in my family.

My mum was raised on a farm.

She was a lamb girl and a herd tester, and my uncle was a dairy farmer, and then he moved to deer, and then he ended up doing horticulture by the end.

Um, my dad's side of the family, Dad used to work for Haliburton Meats and Di- Di Giddies before then, in the days when just about all, all industry, if it wasn't directly involved in farming, was a subset of farming or a part of the, um, you know, the higher end of it.

Um, my own background is I'm a, you know, I'm a kid raised in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Um, so I can't make a claim to be, um, a farmer or having a particularly strong personal agricultural background.

... brain dead experiment, and the country just about went broke.

Steve, just before we clash swords, I don't know whether we'll clash swords or not, but just before we do, tell me about your background and what sort of credentials have you got in agriculture?

Um, I mean, my credentials in agriculture, I'm not making a claim to other than being a New Zealander with farming in my family.

My mum was raised on a farm.

She was a lamb girl and a herd tester.

My uncle was a dairy farmer, and then he moved to deer, and then he ended up doing horticulture by the end.

Um, my dad's side of the family, Dad used to work for Hellaby Meats and Daggett's before then, in the days when just about a- all industry, if it wasn't directly involved in farming, was a subset of farming or a part of the, um, you know, the higher end of it.

Um, my own background is that I'm a, you know, I'm a kid raised in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

... brain dead experiment, and the country just about went broke.

What's your view? What's the Greens' view of this change in particular?

Yeah, look, I don't see how anyone thinks there's a version of us thriving as a country if there's not a healthy relationship between local iwi and councils, between iwi and government, and amongst us as a whole country, for us to have cohesion amongst our diverse population, tangata whenua, tangata tiriti, you know, all of us.

In that cohesion, we have the potential to truly thrive socially, economically, in all matters.

And the sort of division that gets achieved, if you like, for want of a better word, by picking a fight with Māori or taking Māori out of the conversation is not in the best interest of the country.

The most notable thing about this is that local councils weren't asking for it.

Local councils actually really value and appreciate the relationships they have with local iwi.

It's about working together to get shared outcomes.

This flip-flopping we constantly see is not any good for anybody.

I get that, right? But isn't that just shock and scare tactics?

No, it's the figure that's being put out there.

And let's be clear about that.

There's probably a lot of under-reporting.

There's probably a lot of people who don't know that when they've got a stomach upset, it's to do with... something they've consumed in their water.

So I think it's probably reasonable to extrapolate that there could be significantly more than 100,000 people getting sick from drinking water.

And, you know, it's a fact of our nature that we need safe clean drinking water and over the course of time the access to that is under threat and it's worsening if we don't protect the sources of that drinking water which is rivers lakes and aquifers and the over-nutrification of catchments which predominantly does come from the dairy industry i'm afraid to say has caused the degradation and fresh water quality and you know For an industry that takes up 7% of our land area, it provides 38% of the nitrogen that makes it to the marine coastal environment, which also causes nutrification and algal blooms and the likes of things that threaten even our fishery.

eight billion people on the planet though steve and i'd just like to know which of the eight billion really do want to starve to death but anyway that's a big lie that's a