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The Muster- Grant McMaster: Infrastructure Concerns · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Grant Disaster McMaster farms on the edge of Lake Wakatipu
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: at Closeburn Station and joins us. Just what I needed
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on a Tuesday afternoon was our Dose of Arby Rural-inspired Grant. G'day.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good afternoon, Andy. Good afternoon, everybody.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: How's everything in the basin?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lovely in the basin. We've had a pretty good week.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Well, at the start of the week, mind you, it's
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: only Tuesday. No, lovely at the moment, 12 degrees. The
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: soil temperature is setting at 12 as well. And beautiful,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: clear day. And we've certainly got a bit of a
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: lift on the grass. It's growing away. But the last
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: week was cold on Wednesday night, Thursday. Well, we've had
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: 53 mils of rain up until Thursday. So that's Tuesday
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: after we spoke. And we got snow with that and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: a really good covering of snow halfway down around the mountains.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: And as a result, we've had a couple of hard frosts.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So that is, it's made the grass go a wee
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: bit black if you were driving on it, but it's
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: certainly taken a few trees out, sort of turned a
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: few leaves up and what have you. So yeah, that
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: snow stayed around and really it only, it really disappeared yesterday.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Friday, It started going on Sunday
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: and away yesterday, so it just shows you that it
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: hadn't been that warm. There was actually more snow on
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: those ski fields looking at them than there were the
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: last two weeks when they were still open. So, yeah,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: it was a good fall and it got pretty bloody cold.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: You made the comment before you had to go and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: put the slacks on. I mean, I think you're wearing
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: slacks like a pair of beige Deans from the 1970s.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I was watching an old country calendar programme last
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: night on the... on the Castle Point races, and that
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: was in 1981, and the fashion there was pretty good,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and that was the year I went overseas, and I
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: got to that university in England, and they sort of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: looked at me as though I was from outer space
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: with the dress sense, or lack of it, but looking
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: at that program, that was the year I went, I
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: was actually fitted in well into New Zealand, because, jeez,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: there were some good fashions back then.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Well, you had the, all flares are back in, arguably,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: these days, and the big collared neck, and it's like
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the fashion has done a full circle. It came back
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: in in the late 90s, went out again, but these days,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it's really cool to be wearing flared denim, apparently.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it was ever really cool, but
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: we did wear them, so I know it was quite interesting,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: another good one of those old looking back on country
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: calendar things. But no, you had the slacks on, all right,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: and pleased to put them on, but the fire went
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: for another three or four days, and Good job the
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: spuds aren't in because otherwise they would have got frosted.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: How bad are the frosts been though recently? Normally you
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: might have a tinge of a frost in mid-October. We
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: get that, but not a couple of humdingers.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they were minus probably three. Oh, jeepers. Two
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: or three, yeah. So, no, they were pretty good. And
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I was saying to you off-air that we, 20-odd years ago,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: planted an orchard up here on the station, on the
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: residential area with, you know, plum trees. nectarines, peaches, pears, cherries, apples,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and they, you know, you've heard me bang on enough
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: about being a late, you know, short-growing season. Well, you know,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: you get the blossom on the trees this time of
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the year, and then you get a couple of those frosts,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and it certainly takes the pleasure out of eating what
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: fruit you're going to get in the autumn. And then
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: we're generally pretty good with apples. They seem to survive.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: But when the peaches and the apricots, if you get them,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: they come so late in the season that, they don't
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: get time to ripen. So then the possums enjoy those.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So it's hard to get it ripe. But certainly, you know,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: if we didn't have those frosts, you know, it's sort
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: of not abnormal for here, especially with a bit of
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: snow going around and just the climate where we are. But, yeah,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: some of our trees that we've planted over the years,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: like last year in a couple of tree lanes, they've
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: had a wee bit of a tickle up. So hopefully
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: they'll spring back or turn them back a bit and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: see what happens.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: You talked about climate there, Grant. Now, climate change is
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: something affecting a lot of people in whatever way, shape
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: or form. You'd like to talk about it today.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I just read a really good article written
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: by Richard Dawkins. He's the water spokesman for Federated Farmers,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and it was in one of the Farmers Weeklys I
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: was just reading the other day. And, you know, it
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: talks about the great climate debate, and it's all about,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the emission, being taxed on emissions and methane
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: targets and the debate looks at, you know, it looks
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a lot different on farm, doesn't it? You know, we're
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: talking about something that is happening. But his article is
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: about investing before the events happen and, you know, goes
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: on to say, like, if we met every climate target tomorrow,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: we still need to deal with the adverse weather conditions
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: that are coming from the climate changing, and for whatever
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: reason it's changing, and we've had ice ages before, we'll
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: probably have them again, and what have you. I just
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: think it's a cycle of the way things go. But
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: his article was really good, and he was basically saying,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: we need to be putting in the infrastructure to help
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: for these events, and that's certainly not really happening. And
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: you look at water storage, it's a bigger study have
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: trying to get permits to get water in and and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: you know all the water that that that falls and
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: isn't it is it something about 97 percent of it
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: just goes straight down the rivers into the sea or
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: some bloody thing like that you know and the problem
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that the and the thing the hoops you got to
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: jump through to try and get consents to do put
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: water storage in that you know and if It is
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: getting drier. Well, don't we need water to grow crops
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: so we can be lifting productivity and that strengthens all
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: our rural communities? And, you know, we're always asked... The
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: article goes on to say that's a really good point.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: They're always asking us to adapt within the farm gate
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: while the structure around us can't keep up with anything,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: whether it be, you know, culverts, rivers, bloody... You name it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: And I was just thinking... you know, that's a classic example,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: not just in Queenstown, but a lot of other rural
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: communities and cities within New Zealand, that infrastructure has been
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: kept up over the years, and there's all different reasons
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: for that, and they'll continue to be debated. But I
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: just look at our small place here, and, you know,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: we've had to redo tracks and try and get creeks
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: back into where they were after just massive blowouts. Now,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: We've spent $ 100, 000 on that over the last two years
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: to try and get that right so it's not causing
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: more damage than it was before we started. Same within Queenstown.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: These creeks that all come down and there's pine trees
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: around and there's houses and the creeks are rocky and
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: they used to put culverts in that weren't big enough.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: They try and put the bigger the culvert they go,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that's great, but it's not actually helping when it does help.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: but we're still left with these problems. So I think
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: his article is really worth a read. It's about, you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: getting the money and it's got to come from central government.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: We can't, you know, we can, we can fundraise so
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: much and, and, and get grants, which is, which is
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: bugger all, but it's got to come from capital government,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: but from central government. And it's about looking at what's
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: happening here. We know it's the climate's changing, but look,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: let's deal with what, what, what we are. We let's
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: deal with what is facing us as, and what I've
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: just spoken about. And, uh, And that's why I think
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: we need more partisan agreements, bipartisan in these governments when
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: they're formed or whatever. Otherwise, you know, it's all very well,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: as the article says, going around and trying to meet
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: these targets that are bloody impossible anyway, and we shouldn't
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: be doing it, but that's another story. Let's get in
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: and be proactive and do what we've done as Kiwis,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and especially farmers, get in and get it right and
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: try and prevent it. Try and prevent before the proverbial
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: hits the fan. We know it's going to happen. but
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: we need to try and deal with it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Two things we'd love to see happen, less paper trails
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and bipartisan agreement.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I don't see any other way. And, you know, everybody's
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: on the soapbox this time of year and it's, you know,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: it's a bit like Pinocchio. They've all got a story
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: to tell. But we've got to get back to the basics.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: We've got to look after our people and our environment. And, yes,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: the climate's changing, but let's bloody look after what we
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: can look after.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: How would you have gone as an MP?
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, I wouldn't last very long, I wouldn't have thought.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Well, kicked out for swearing within three hours?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I can handle the swearing, all right.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: But it's good if you can put the old adjective in,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: of course. But, no, I don't know. I do, you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of people in there doing a lot
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of back patting, and I just don't think there's, you know,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: we just need to have a few people in there
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that are doing the work and let them get on
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: with it. A bit like farming. Let us handle our
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: own bloody destiny and let us do what we do well.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Words of wisdom as always, Grant. Enjoy the afternoon.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Well done, Andy. Take care.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Grant Disaster McMaster, brought to you weekly, brought to us
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: weekly by the team at Arby Rural. Kess Rauber's up
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: next from South Confederated Farmers.