Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick’s maiden speech in support of rural communities

Mike Butterick gave his maiden speech in Parliament, talking about rural communities.

Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick has spoken in support of rural communities in his maiden speech at Parliament.

The sheep and beef farmer, who is based in the Wairarapa, said what brought him to politics and Parliament was “a deep despair at the direction we were heading in as a country and the need for our provincial communities to be heard”.

The National Party MP explained in his speech that the electorate was made up of three regions, Wairarapa, Tararua District and Central Hawke’s Bay.

He said the regions are home to family businesses, both rural and urban, that are intertwined and host many special places or events such as Pukaha Mt Bruce, Dannevirke’s Wheels With Attitude, Norsewood’s Viking Festival, Woodville’s Motocross GP and many others outside of the Tararua District.

As a farmer, he said he was fortunate to have lived his passion.

“I’ve got an opportunity to give back to the community I’ve spent my life in.”

Butterick went on to say that provincial communities have strong values, work hard, have a strong sense of community and know how to have fun and enjoy each other’s company.

“Things are not right when I talk to a local dairy farmer about how they don’t want to say what they do for a living when they go out, about their kids getting bullied at school because their parents are farming. It’s not okay.

“When I talk to local sheep and beef farmers about their despair when contemplating their legislative fatigue, it’s not okay.”

Butterick said the rural community, “despite all the rhetoric” are environmentalists and the relationship between the farming business, family and environment is reciprocal.

“The rural community has likely spent more on the environment than those that criticise them, those that flush the dunny without a thought about where it goes, in their plastic clothes, standing on their plastic carpet, that ignore their own impacts on the environment and would rather point the finger.”

Butterick pointed to the uniqueness of rural people in his speech.

“They’re the only sector that I know of that live in their business. They look out the window or walk out the door and it’s there.”

He said passion is what motivates people in the rural sector to do what they do and the avalanche of previous, rushed legislation is eroding away that passion.

“That’s not a great outcome.”

He asked those in the house to understand that provincial New Zealand is interconnected and that the rural or farming community is greater than what is traditionally articulated in statistics.

“The mechanics, stock agents, accountants, freezing workers, truck drivers, the shearers, the loggers and others are all part of the agricultural sector and contribute to the local economy.”

Butterick added that the rural/urban divide in provincial New Zealand is a myth.

“The message to the farming community, and all those that contribute to it, is that this government supports you, this government has your back, and you should be proud, proud to be a part of the food and fibre sectors that earn 82 per cent of this country’s export income.

“Be proud of what you do and what you contribute to your communities, to your environment, and to the economy.”