Fred Roberts

Taieri

[email protected]

Fred was born on the East Coast at Te Puia Springs and grew up on the family farm at Tokomaru Bay. He is of Maori and European descent. While farming was hard work he had a wonderful upbringing with many farming chores but with lots of freedom He left School at 15 and went shepherding on a back country station where he became the head shepherd after 2 years. He left shepherding work to begin shearing at the age of 18, which turned into a career spanning over 30 years, including travel and work as a qualified shearing instructor. From there he went onto working as a Supervisor in a large Kiwifruit Orchard in Gisborne until returning to shearing approximately 3 years ago.

“I want to see all New Zealanders consuming our quality local produce at fair prices.”

Fred wants to encourage people to vote and to take more of an interest in politics as he believes this will afford people the chance to make change.

Fred’s interests include:

• Training and mentoring young people.
• Corporate agendas.
• Farming and recovery of the NZ wool industry.
• Investment in the hemp industry.

He would like to see us wearing and manufacturing what is produced in New Zealand, in particular the wool industry. Fred would like to bring back the wool board, which will be run by farmers,for the farmers, with little influence from corporations. He would encourage strong wool prices across all types of wool, like carpets, insulation and clothing, no just merino. A well paid shearing industry and better education in the industry so that workers can make good choices to improve their lifestyle. Easing of the current tight regulations on farming so that farmers can take individual action on their property to achieve better collective outcomes to drive change.