Todd McClay and Christopher Luxon at Fieldays 2023. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Primary industry sectors have their new Parliamentary ministers under the new coalition government.
The National Party's Todd McClay, who has been the party's spokesperson for agriculture since March, will take on the Agriculture portfolio. He will also be minister of forestry, hunting and fishing and minister for trade.
While McClay doesn't come from a farming background, the Rotorua MP of more than 15 years, will be backed by three associate ministers of agriculture - National's Selwyn MP Nicola Grigg, who will focus on horticulture, ACT's Andrew Hoggard on animal welfare and skills and also New Zealand First's Mark Patterson.
Patterson, a sheep and beef farmer in Otago and a former Federated Farmers Otago provincial chairperson, will also be the minister for rural communities.
Hoggard, a Rangitikei dairy farmer and the former Federated Farmers president, will also hold Food Safety and Biosecurity.
National's Erica Stanford will be the minister of immigration.
NZ First's Shane Jones will take up Ocean and Fisheries and Regional Development.
National's Simon Watts will be the new climate change minister.
Policy agreements:
The three-party coalition announced a number of policy commitments in its documents released on Friday morning.
They cover a number of primary sectors from farming, to freshwater, fishing, firearms, immigration and more.
- The new government will move ahead with reversing the ban on live animal exports and reform the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee
- It will maintain a split-gas approach to methane and carbon dioxide and review the methane science and targets in 2024
- The current review of the Emissions Trading Scheme will be halted, and greater duties will be put on forestry harvesters to contain and remove post-harvest slash
- Farm environment plans will be improved, regulatory blocks on irrigation are set to go, and freshwater management will become more localised with the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 planned to be replaced
- For immigration, the cap on Recognised Seasonal Employer workers will be increased, and the Accredited Employer Work Visa is said to be improved
- The implementation of Significant Natural Areas, which came as a result of Resource Management Act, will not proceed
- Genetic engineering laws will be "liberalised"
- The Firearms Law Reform, which was developed following the Mosque Terror Attacks in Christchurch in 2019, will be rewritten
- Government agencies will be directed to prefer the use of woollen fibres rather than artificial ones in government buildings
- The duration of marine farming permits will be extended, in efforts to increase productivity and the potential of the seafood and aquaculture sector
