Getting down to business
Released 03 Jun 2011
James Houghton is Federated Farmers Waikato provincial president
I'm stepping into some pretty big shoes but fortunately, Stew Wadey has taught me well. The enduring thing about Federated Farmers is that we are always bigger than the person holding the top job. We're not there for ego or self-advancement but for service and to advance farming. At times we'll say things that grate but unlike politicians you'll know what we say and what we mean. Doubletalk is not part of a farmer's lingo.
The good news for us is that Stew's wise counsel has not been lost given that we've persuaded him to stay on as the Treasurer. Hopefully higher office within Federated Farmers may also come at our annual conference in June. The new provincial team mixes new talent with experience as well as farming types. My vice-president is Don Coles, a very well known sheep and beef farmer in North Waikato while the junior vice-president is Stuart King. Stuart has not only chaired our Te Aroha branch but he has taken on the misinformation spread by Russel Norman. The new dairy chair is Pukeatua farmer, Chris Lewis, while John Hodge and John Mills have respectively been returned to represent the province's grain as well as meat and fibre farmers. Behind any successful team is a great organiser in the form of administrator, Gaylene Bamford and our field officer that farmers will see on the road, Pearl Hamid.
It's fair to say farmers have plenty of challenges but the last thing we thought of would be an ankle tap by the Labour Party. Then again, politicians only say or do what they need to get elected. What's good for the country can be a distant second. Yes, the average dairy farm may have averaged $500,000 in revenue in 2008/9, but that season saw the average farm face $558,500 in expenses. You don't pay tax on red ink. DairyNZ rightly points out that the average dairy farm over the past ten years has paid $28,225 of taxes each year. When you add that up it comes to an average of $300 million in tax each year. Oh, and we also part with $137 million each year in council rates for some pretty Spartan services in return. Given each dollar increase in the milk solids pay-out generates 4600 full time jobs outside the farm gate, there's plenty of people who depend on us.
You see revenue is not profit. It would be nice to keep every cent Fonterra payout but I know upwards of $5 per kilogram of milk solids is eaten up by the cost of running my farm on things such as vets, feed, wages and electricity. Take your local corner dairy. It may sell $500,000 worth of goods over a year, but that's not its profit because it has to pay for the stock it sells. Its truly scary Labour wants to become the Government when it doesn't understand something as basic as this. Talking of tax, if you listen to those on the left, you'd think low income earners are not only being exploited at work, they're being exploited by the taxman. interest.co.nz found that the top 6.3 percent of taxpayers, those earning $100,000 plus, contributed almost half (47 percent) of the taxman's $21 billion personal tax harvest. The low-waged may make up three-quarters but contribute just 22 percent.
I believe in good ethics of being my brother's keeper and these statistics tells me that the top personal taxpayers act in the same way. Instead of bad mouthing those who try to do well it's time for Labour to drop the spite and back us instead.
