So when are Farmers going to start blaming National for Mycoplasma bovis?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
13
16

Dear Farmers

Where’s your messiah now?

Let’s remind ourselves how we came to have such an incompetently underfunded and meaningless system to stop Mycoplasma bovis?

Biosecurity cuts = irresponsible Government
2013 – NZ Labour Party

Biosecurity border protection services have been slashed by $6 million in Budget 2013 and no amount of spin by Minister Nathan Guy will change that reality, Labour’s Biosecurity spokesperson Damien O’Connor, says.

“While funding for ‘border systems’ – that no doubt include the Joint Border Management System (JBMS) – has increased by $1 million, Budget documents show funding for border biosecurity, monitoring, and clearance is being cut from $97 million to $91 million.

“John Key’s ‘Smart Gate’ system already allows hundreds of thousands of visitors to walk across our border unchecked. This latest move will further reduce border security and inspection.

“The cuts are confirmed by a projection that income from fines will drop by 33 per cent – a clear admission that less identification and intervention will be happening.

“This is backed up by performance measures in the Budget that project a reduction in the number of goods that will be inspected or identified as biosecurity-risk goods at the border.

“At a time when every primary sector and conservation agency has identified biosecurity risk as the single greatest threat to the New Zealand economy and ecosystems, the National Government is cutting resources for frontline biosecurity services.

“The recent Auditor-General’s report identified a large number of deficient areas within Biosecurity New Zealand. This budget does nothing to address the most urgent of these.”

…well, well, well. So it was National, the Party of the Farmers, who underfunded and screwed you too.

Kinda makes this picture below look a whole new kind of stupid don’t it?

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Every election NZ has the choice to either allow National to keep screwing the country up, or allowing Labour in to fix National’s damage.

13 COMMENTS

  1. “Prudent fiscal management”. That’s what National sold itself on.

    Unfortunately, that “prudence” was on the back of state services; healthcare, mental health services, education, housing, DoC, police…

    … oh, and bio-security.

    As I blogged in 2012 on cuts to bio-security;

    National has put at risk this country’s $5 billion industry – simply to save a few million dollars.

    They have risked horticulturalist’s businesses; workers their jobs; and all the down-stream economic activity – to save a small percentage of billions.

    This blogger has three pieces of advice for all concerned,

    1. John Key must accept the resignation of David Carter, Minister for Bio-security immediatly.
    2. National must reinstate biosecurity services to pre-2009 levels.
    3. Horticulturalists (and others who own farms and other agricultural businesses) should carefully consider whether National is working on their behalf – or for the sake of implementing false economies. What is the point of an orchardist voting for National – if National is going to screw his/her business by cutting back on essential government services such as biosecurity?!?!

    Hopefully, this fruit fly is a lone bug; perhaps a stowaway in someone’s bag or in a container offloaded at Ports of Auckland.

    If so, once again we’ve been lucky.

    But how long will our luck hold out?

    ref: https://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/national-what-else-can-possibly-go-wrong/

    I find it hard to have sympathy for farmers when they vote for the very people who made cuts to bio-security and put our agricultural sector in danger.

  2. Short-term thinking has dominated politics and economics for decades, to the point of completely excluding all long-term planning, and the consequences are now manifesting in horrific ways, both in NZ and globally.

    The latest atmospheric CO2 reading is 412.60 ppm (much as expected when no nation is making any significant effort to reduce emissions and most nations are committed to increasing them), trapping more heat than in human history.

    The global sea ice cover is on the cusp of being the lowest ever since measurement commenced.

    It is not only with respect to the environment that mainstream economics has been an utter disaster. It is a disaster economically. both here and overseas.

    ‘Canadian house prices plunged -11% in the year to April. The volume of sales dropped almost -14% compared to the same month a year ago and the lowest level since 2011.’

    https://www.interest.co.nz/news/93747/dairy-prices-rise-us-inflation-jumps-canadian-house-prices-slump-china-electricity

    Despite the writing being on the wall in HUGE LETTERS, there is still no plan (from any political party) to extricate NZ from the madness of mainstream economics or to prepare for the meltdown that is underway. Therefore, everything that matters long term will continue to be made worse.

  3. Wow,… the longer National are out of government , – the more we learn just how BAD they were IN government…

    And the lie was all held together by some hand picked media tools to perpetuate the lie.

    Kinda scary , huh?

    Is there egg on faces , – or is there egg on faces?

  4. This mycoplasma incursion is a complete National own goal,
    Thus far:
    Underfunded biosecurity by National the farmers party.
    Nathan Guy ministerial initial inaction then half measures.
    Farmer non compliance with record keeping, non recorded animal movements.

    Wait and see what the port of entry is. If indeed it was imported drug/product supplied out of area- as alluded to in a media story (import may/may not be legal depending on exact context which we don’t yet know), then guess who lobbied to free up drug prescription regulation?
    Farmers.

  6. Hah!! Zero sympathy for them. Not only did they vote National, but the halfwits ignored NATE which was set up to help them track diseased animals. They are the authors of their own misfortune.

  7. Re the coment: “Hah!! Zero sympathy for them. Not only did they vote National, but the halfwits ignored NATE which was set up to help them track diseased animals. They are the authors of their own misfortune.”

    The problem with the above comment – IMO – is that the impact on the country & we – the people, is ignored by the commenter. When the farming industry suffers, the entire country suffers. Inappropriate comment IMO!

Comments are closed.