Agsafe Weekly Rural Report

Agsafe Weekly Rural Report:

Finance: The NZ exchange rates were steady over the week finishing marginally above the previous week. Brent Crude dropped again over the week and finished around $66/barrel. Watch your fuel prices!!
Wool: Wool prices are steady but at a low unsustainable level. We look forward to the Governments announcement taking effect.
Beef, Sheep & Venison schedules: Meat schedules are mostly steady to slightly firmer with strong international demand for grass fed red meats.
Dairy Prices. The new dairy season is about get underway in the North Island and strong demand for basic commodities has underpinned a good opening farm gate price for Fonterra suppliers. Other buyers base their payments around the Fonterra FGP..

The high prices being paid for weaner calves will encourage most farmers to look for buyers of 4-day old calves or rear more themselves. The feeder calf prices are very high and it is important that you do the sums for rearing calves. Milk powder is +$120/bag and whole milk has a value of around $1.00/litre and they eat of meal as well.

im’s Weekly Rant:
Politicians create situations that affect us all and somehow, we all need to keep abreast of what is going on in parliament. It is nearly impossible for each of us to read the daily Hansard reports. It is important that there are watch-dog groups like the Taxpayers Union, NZ Centre for Political Research and Hobsons Pledge. The most recent actions taken by the Taxpayers Union was identifying a proposal to tax business utes. Did you know about the Ministers plan?. Simon Watts is the Climate Change Minister and The Minister of Revenue and Energy. Watts is from the North Shore electorate in Auckland. Watts was found to be supporting the development of a plan to implement a draconian Fringe Benefit Tax on utes that would affect all farmers and tradies. The Minister Watts had instructed the officials to develop a new tax that would require the owner of a mixed-use farm ute costing $70,000 to be charged an annual FBT of $6,370 and if a vehicle over $80,000 is operated, the tax is at 100% of the FBT rate which is 9% of the value of the benefit. Watts was wanting to remove the logbook use and slap a flat tax on the utes irrespective of how much private use verses business use there was. The proposals even made the Labour Party tax grab look good which had a maximum payment of $5,175 per annum and National fought against that proposal. The Taxpayers Union (in the last 10-days) exposed the plans and Newstalk ZB with Heather du Plessis-Allan then asked Federated Farmers about the proposed tax. Publicly exposing the Minister Watts tax proposal had the National Party hierarchy running for cover and distancing themselves from the tax saying they knew nothing about it and realizing the political risk, they quickly overruled Watts policy plan. The PM office has now been very clear that the ute tax is dead. Erica Stanford and Tama Potaka have been challenged this week on policy plans and policy developments and both have run for cover as the popular public opinion has been at variance with their ideals. Stanford as Minister of Education is being challenged about the ongoing requirements for teaching Te Reo in schools and while she says it is up to the local school and the board, the funding suggests otherwise, and it is Hobson’s Pledge that has been asking questions about the $100m budget. Potaka is waiting for a report on the use of Whanau Ora funds for funding the Moana Pacifica rugby team. These issues are being exposed by members of the public. It is obvious that the farmer friendly political party has some rogue members who have little regard for the rural lead economic recovery. It is up to each of us to be vigilant and try and understand what is happening on a daily basis in our parliament and never be afraid to challenge the politicians and especially your own local MP. There has been a recent Banking Commission, there is currently an inquiry into the use of GMO, The Regulatory Standards Bill and the Immigration Amendment Bill along with others. Not all proposed legislation receives public prominence and some issues like the proposed ute tax can slip under the radar and if not seen, the results could have been far reaching. Their decisions affect us all. The ute FBT was stopped by a vigilant public and it is the power of the individual that will make the changes. Emails/letters and phone calls can make a difference.