Luxon calvacade hits town

Giltrap AgriZone staff.

Meeting the team: National Party leader Christopher Luxon meets Giltrap AgriZone staff from left: Sam Turkington, Sean Anson, Riley Butler and Adam Fischer. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Torrential rain beat National Party leader Christopher Luxon to Cambridge, but he did the right thing and took it with him after a 35-minute flying visit on Monday.

Luxon was on his way to Matamata for a meet and greet and needed a stopover, so his team saw the opportunity to come off the Expressway at Hautapu and into Giltrap AgriZone, one of the country’s largest agricultural dealerships.

There managing director Andrew Giltrap took him on a tour of the dealership’s head office opened by then Prime Minister John Key in 2015.

But first Luxon in a Crown car had to manoeuvre his way through the huge puddle overnight rain had deposited at the entrance where cameras waited to take the shot showing him “making a splash”.

There were also the obligatory shots of Luxon in a high-spec blue tractor and pointing to a child’s ride-on blue tractor with a dash of black.

Reporters who are on the campaign trail with him look for any sign and Luxon’s video posted to social media before his arrival saying he would form a coalition with New Zealand First after the election gave them the excuse.

“That’s blue with black,” one said about the mini tractor, followed by a wry smile from Luxon.

Taupō MP Louise Upston introduced Luxon to staff and a couple of National supporters who had found their way to the dealership.

“Here in the mighty Cambridge part of the Taupō electorate, in the heart of the Waikato, agriculture still is the incredible backbone of our local economy as well as New Zealand. Fantastic to have the boss in town,” she said.

“Thank you for letting us gatecrash your morning,” said Luxon.

“I want to say that farmers are not villains. They’ve been treated like so over the last six years under this government and the reality is that agriculture is so important to us here in New Zealand.

“It is 11 per cent of our GDP, 13 per cent of all our employment, it drives 80 per cent of our export earnings, it generates $10,000 for every man, woman and child in the country and importantly we feed 40 million people around the world,” he said.

At cow and woolshed meetings, farmers were telling him 35 per cent of their time was tied up in paperwork rather than farming so it was time to get Wellington out of farming.

The travelling capital media, particularly those who had leant against dirty tractor wheels during the tour, seemed to appreciate that comment.

“You should be proud of farming. It has been a tough time for farmers over the last six years.

“We need our farmers to power us out of the low growth environment we are in.”

And with that Luxon was off to his meetings in Matamata followed by the trailing media looking for more quotes on a National-NZ First coalition.

By then the rain had stopped; Giltrap shouted his staff to a morning tea and the puddle started to disappear.

Centre of attention: National Party leader Christopher Luxon looks through the showroom of Giltrap AgriZone during a media stop over. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.