Anderton Jim: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Anderton Jim: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17472] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 I have just a brief response. Firstly it is interesting for the Committee to note that the Sustainable Farming Fund which has been going during the whole period of this Government was not going in the period of the previous Government so we would not have been able to get any applications approved because there was not any money to approve. This fund has had 3000 applications—500 of them have been approved—and the best that the National Party can do 3 months out from an election is claim that there was a mix-up on one application out of 3000. Boy oh boy has any Minister of Agriculture ever had an easier ride than that? That is the only thing that the Opposition spokesperson on agriculture David Carter can find wrong—one out of 3000 applications 500 of which were approved. That is somewhere between $40 million to $50 million of research funding for agriculture and the real problem is that one $250000 grant fell through the cracks. Well if it did that is not a bad record actually. I bet that there is fear and trepidation about how many of these things might happen on the watch of any spokesperson on agriculture that the National Party might appoint. Agriculture is a $22 billion industry sector. What we have heard from the National Party is—shock horror—that there was one application out of 3000 for a quarter of a million dollars that went down the gurgler. Fine it was approved and sure there might have been some problems but Lord save us—is that all? Is that it? That is amazing. 
Animal welfare is an issue. This year I was able to get funding from Cabinet and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for $300000 to be given to the Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—the RSPCA—and that was valued by that organisation. I readily concede that there is more work is to be done in the area of animal welfare and I accept that it is one of our weakest areas. But when one comes to a Budget round one has to prioritise. The priority for us from an overall viewpoint was animal identification. That had to be got up and running—and year on year that had not happened. I made it my No. 1 priority to get it up and running and I did it. Now most of the farming community with the odd exception from Federated Farmers think it is the best thing since sliced bread. Animal identification had to happen; if we did not have it we might have lost our trade. We now have animal identification and I have one question to ask National members. How could they have more money to spend on sustainable farming animal welfare and animal identification and traceability when they would cut out all those bureaucrats—which National says we have not got? We need more of them in animal welfare but National would cut them out—even the ones we already have. 
Hon David Carter 
: We’ll get rid of the hopeless ones. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Oh I see; National will not get rid of those ones. We now know that animal welfare bureaucrats are OK. Is it the nurses doctors or teachers that National will get rid of? This is the problem. It is “almost certainly likely”—whatever that means. That is the mantra for the National Party. So it is almost certainly likely that National will or will not do something about bureaucrats but not the ones it wants. We will watch this space as we move along because that kind of nonsense and the nonsense that we have heard from the member here is just laughable. If that is as good as it gets from the National Party on a $22 billion industry sector then I have had the easiest ride that any Minister of Agriculture has ever had.