I’m happy to see farmers taking protest action as part of having their say in a democracy.
But the saddest thing about Friday’s farmer protest is that while farmer complaints are unjustified, the government will bend over backwards yet again, will water down planned environmental protections further and extend the timelines for compliance. We’ve seen this too many times before. Gutless governments refusing the challenge farmer ignorance and arrogance head on.
When interviewed on TV after the protests Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, who has always been a foot-dragger on environmental protection policies, has said his door is open to discuss farmer concerns. He says they want to work with farmers. Translation = we will backdown.
Listening to the “Groundswell” organisers of the protests its clear they are driven by a heady Trumpian mix of climate denial, visceral resentment of “their rights” to do whatever they want with “their land” being challenged and wilful ignorance for any concept of the common good.
They are living in a Maggie Thatcher world where there is no such thing as society – just individual rights and interests.
Far too many of them live in a self-delusional world where they believe they are “the backbone of the economy”, they are “carrying the rest of us” and we should be grovelingly grateful.
Meanwhile the rest of the country are paying for the environmental destruction caused by unsustainable farming practices which most farmers seem deeply reluctant to change. We are paying more than a billion dollars each year to subsidise their greenhouse gas emissions and hundreds of millions more to clean up our rivers, streams and lakes – most of which are not swimmable and some not even wadeable. And further down the track we will face horrendous costs to get nitrates out of our drinking water.
Farmers have known about these things for decades but most simply refuse to adapt and change. I think most of the rest of us are over it.
Whenever there are droughts or floods, increasingly driven by climate change, we pour taxpayer money in to support them; whenever there’s a crisis like mycoplasma bovis hundreds of millions is expended to keep farmers afloat. Similarly with funding for the likes of agricultural research etc.
And meanwhile New Zealand farmers pay tax rates typical of most businesses and much lower than the rates paid by the migrant workers on low wages they employ. (That’s not the fault of farmers but the fault of governments who run the economy for the rich at the expense of the rest of us).
New Zealand farming practices have been unsustainable and environmentally destructive for many decades; it has now passed crisis point for all of us.
I feel sorry for young farmers who are in effect working for the big Australian banks to pay back huge mortgages. But that is the last reason anyone should give for the destruction and despoiling of our environment and stubborn ignorance of climate change.
However I suspect we won’t make much progress till farmers fear community condemnation for unethical farming practices more than they fear their bank managers.
National Party Rallies, ever met a happy farmer?
One of the interesting things about this protest is it was NOT organized by a political party.
The Nats and ACT tagged along at some of the meet ups by the sound of it, but they are observers.
No sign of them at ours.
This protest to me is about the rural urban divide, not asking for a license to pollute.
There are issues, but they need genuine collaboration, not fines if the mud is too deep on Saturday and crops aren’t on Tuesday because it rained. Some of the rules are so dumb and clearly made up by a desk jockey with no clues.
The Ute thing is only a few thousand bucks but what it represents is a fine on rural people to subsidize urban egos- extremely divisive.
It will also be interesting to see if this protest grows in to a political movement, there were many thousands of rural people protesting across the country – this may be the start of a grass roots movement -excuse the pun, definitely not a National party rally.
The whole rally looked like, and smelt like, a Don Brash ‘Iwi – Kiwi’ moving tribute billboard. Right out of Judith Collins and her old mate Whaleoil’s dirty-politics’ playbook.
Perpetuating New Zealand’s “Big Lie” and sowing division.
National, ACT, Billy Te K and MSM are rallying around every grievance known to “real men” to attack Labour and Greens. It’s like a USA Tea Party, but this time, on the back polarising “big-lie” pickup trucks and utes.
Sexist and political condescending attacks of the “Cindy –> Stalin”
Racist trope signs on the back of the pickup truck & utes read ‘Stop ramming Maori language down our throats!”
When is the planned storming of the Beehive scheduled for? Matariki? Waitangi Day? Will ‘real proud-boy’ protestors be riding on the backs of tractors, up the steps of Parliament, like they did when they protested the “Fart Tax”?
Will Judith crush the tractors, that were driving illegally on NZ roads. Don’t think so!
Apartheid Judith, Cameron and Don, the stale white privileged faces of dirty, racist, sexist politics.
Divide Kiwis along rural or urban lines.
Vaccine, or tin-foil-hat solutions.
Separate left or right sides of the political watershed.
Apartheid choice of kiwi-iwi.
Climate or cows.
Women have choice, of swandris, or maternity bras.
Water for Kiwis to swim in, or for cows to swim in.
Guns for farmers and hunters, or guns for gangs.
National are distilling New Zealanders again into binary choices. Dividing us again, like Trump and Bannon did in USA, and Iwi-Kiwi Brash tried decades ago.
It needs to stop.
Tin foil hat indeed.
Provincial towns swung to labour, some might swing back but Farmers compaining about Green Tail wagging the labour dog are laughable when they themselves being only a few percent of pop are trying to wag the Gov dog LOL
Saw an article about how uber eats, were they were wailing that they can’t find enough drivers to deliver the takeaway meals. As well as that this discourse seems to be related to increasing foreign soft power in the Pacific, it showed a mountain of plastic of undelivered orders… something is wrong here, when government is supposed to find cheap workers from overseas for overseas companies workforce who are not paying taxes in many cases, so that more people can die of obesity! And that is what the government is being constantly lobbied about!
While I don’t think the current farmers bug bear of ute tax is a big thing in the scheme of things, I think farmers have been scapegoated and undermined (like all the other attack groups, aka apparently landlords and zoning were the biggest problem for woke and right wingers, they got rid of both and seem to have quadrupled their previous problems because that was never the root cause). Now the attack on farmers, will drive similar problems aka sell off of NZ owned food to be an expensive, non nutritious, fake monopoly like the US and China.
NZ builders and farmers can’t get logs and wood now in NZ that we produce due to insufficient stock, the only thing not nailed down up for sale, is the rest of NZ farms and land! Sold to the new ‘kiwis’ who also get kiwi residence with each purchase and can start claiming the corporate benefits ASAP!
farmers have been scapegoated and undermined
Yes.
Where is pollution coming from (sunset business heavily subsidised by taxpayers, for the most part for billionaire business), and why do the woke not want to acknowledge that or the difference between intensive multinational farming and sustainable local farming?
Rio Tinto
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/mataura-asks-govt-act
Documents reveal government offered to pay millions to Rio Tinto
https://www.odt.co.nz/business/documents-reveal-government-offered-pay-millions-rio-tinto
Dairy firm wants ocean wastewater outfall
https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/dairy/dairy-firm-wants-ocean-wastewater-outfall
Harbour of doubt: The tiny creek that drains Auckland of its waste
“St Lukes mall, one of the single biggest contributors of sewage into Meola, and likely among the biggest overflow points in the country.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/117958444/harbour-of-doubt-the-tiny-creek-that-drains-auckland-of-its-waste
No plan to tackle environmental degradation by increased tourism – Commissioner
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/405767/no-plan-to-tackle-environmental-degradation-by-increased-tourism-commissioner
NZ Government Secretly Funded Water Bottling Companies
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1904/S00055/nz-government-secretly-funded-water-bottling-companies.htm
Nice to see the government has no problem ripping off consumers though while giving hand outs to offshore polluters.
Way to be cleared for big electricity players to prey on low-income households
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/102708888/way-to-be-cleared-for-big-electricity-players-to-prey-on-lowincome-households
NZ Power Companies are not even Compliant under EU and US Laws!
https://ecotricity.co.nz/nz-powercos-noncompliant-under-eu-us-rules/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=Non+Compliant+Blog+Release&utm_medium=paid&hsa_cam=6116002037136&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_acc=10152756314334928&hsa_ver=3&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_grp=6116002037536&hsa_ad=6116002037936&fbclid=IwAR0PwZmsmg8Q1b-aevcUijRowgavgNNT36_46yPRedul03imfWS6dSHLapc
“A dam illegally constructed in an Auckland Council reserve is set to be lowered before Christmas, but not removed
The impact of an illegally-constructed dam has been described by the Environment Court as “critical” for New Zealand’s most endangered bird but its removal will be a slow process, with the company which built it unlawfully setting most of the terms.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/12/19/953508/dam-delays-half-soon-half-later-maybe
Waihi runs out of water, council distributing water bottles
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/waihi-runs-out-of-water-council-distributing-water-bottles.html
Appeals against Chinese water bottling plant dismissed
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118255435/appeals-against-chinese-water-bottling-plant-dismissed
EPA grants drilling and discharge consent for Otago coast to oil and gas company OMV
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118277477/epa-grants-drilling-and-discharge-consent-for-otago-coast-to-oil-and-gas-company-omv
“Directors of Tamarind Taranaki, the New Zealand business of a Malaysian oil and gas producer say the company “may be insolvent”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12284777
EPA’s ‘inappropriate’ reaction to student’s speech
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/117378375/epas-inappropriate-reaction-to-students-speech
Palm oil giant Wilmar goes to full control of Goodman Fielder
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12211787
TRONW MEDIA RELEASE – Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua To File An Appeal On Dome Valley In The Environment Court
https://www.ngatiwhatua.iwi.nz/tronw-media-release-te-runanga-o-ngati-whatua-to-file-an-appeal-on-dome-valley-in-the-environment-court
Watch: Consent allowing for 20 billion litres of water to be extracted bought by Chinese investors
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-consent-allowing-20-billion-litres-water-extracted-bought-chinese-investors
Exclusive: Annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to top half a trillion by 2021, far outstripping recycling efforts and jeopardising oceans, coastlines and other environments
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change
(Great business destroying the planet, you buy up water bottling (huge polluter) and then buy up waste management companies to be paid to pollute the land to bury the waste your country created in the first place with help from NZ government!). Thanks NZ government (Sarcasm) for allowing this to happen under our so called environment laws! NZ government can get rid of freedom of speech and pest control for guns and no warrant surveillance, but apparently hands are tied to stop major pollution and stupidity on water with our laws! (and nobody is buying a ‘restructure’ for water control as helping, change the laws not committees for the control of the water!)
Yes ironic isn’t it, John, that the name Thatcher is more than likely derived from someone who put a roof over people’s heads yet her policies and the policies of her followers are doing the exact opposite to the large proportion of the population.
Yes ironic isn’t it, John that the name Thatcher is more than likely derived from someone who put a roof over people’s heads yet her policies and the policies of her followers are doing the exact opposite to the large proportion of the population.
It is all part of the divide between groups caused by this government. It is interesting when Maori protest in Northland against the lose f control of their land they get support from Greens but when Pakeha farmers on the West Coast do the same think James Shaw calls them trouble makers.
Jacinda=Stalin eh?
In that case why is not all New Zealand land owned by the state and worked by farm collectives?
If New Zealand really is a Stalinist state farmers are marching down city streets carrying huge portraits of Jacinda and shouting ‘Long live Aunt Jacinda! God bless the mother of our nation!’
Labour Camps are full of ex-wealthy farmers and bank managers rising before dawn to plant trees, repair railway lines and do all manner of useful public work.
Extra rations and privileges for people who inform on their neighbours for ‘”çounterJacinda’ speech and actions.
No more problem with gangs or drug dealing. The specialist police teams have eliminated them without time wasting legal procedures.
Having lived in a place where there is a genuinely oppressive government I feel some of these rural Joe Hunts need to get some perspective.
Be careful because the attacks seem to be driving us to this model and it doesn’t seemed to have helped out housing to get rid of Mums n Dads landlords and investors and replace them by international business who seem to be getting millions of subsidies while quadrupling the price of housing and polluting the country with construction waste and carbon emissions!
NZ Food and water assets being sold/given away , at the rate of NZ housing price escalation helped by the stupid woke and right wingers believing the lobby groups that are heavily lobbying for themselves (like climate change)!
Happened overseas and US seems be be losing the battle!
Investigation shows scale of big food corporations’ market dominance and political power
“A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans, new analysis reveals.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation
In NZ there are signs that multinational companies and/or private equity are taking over NZ farms and farming practises which are highly polluting. The reason that they need foreign farm workers, is that they don’t farm the land themselves, are farming unsustainably, and driving the need for foreign workers to come into NZ to work for them. Previously local farmers farm the land themselves without the need for external staff. (NZ taxpayers pay for the risks, health care, schooling, welfare subsidies of the foreign farm workers etc in the new model)
United States citizens and companies are buying up New Zealand land for farming, forestry and wine-making, an RNZ analysis reveals.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/whoseatingnewzealand/446687/us-buying-up-our-primary-industries
While Chinese interests seem to hold the majority interests of NZ’s largest companies and expanding from Silver Fern Farms, Comvita, water bottling, Wrightsons, Milk NZ, Westland Milk, NEW ZEALAND KING SALMON INVESTMENTS LIMITED (ultimate holding company registered in Virgin Islands with Callander Group Limited) and this practise of NZ façadism disguises the true identity of the true owners, who often live elsewhere or have been handed NZ citizenship/PR recently.
Yes the whole capitalist system is based on fractional reserve lending and the banks ultimately pushing up property prices, just as in residential real estate, NZ farm value is based on speculative value for the last decades not its productive value.
This means in order to farm, it is necessary for many to push the limits of productive capacity to pay the mortgage. Practically this means higher stocking rates and more fertilizer and irrigation.
It’s a fight to make mortgage payments and hopefully sell with decent capital gain. NZ had been farming capital gain for some time.
This becomes a problem when some corporate farmers extract maximum dollar with no direct connection with the land they farm.
The vast majority of farmers know they are farming their topsoil and look after it.
There are countless thousands of trees not being counted in emission schemes across our farms.
I ask you in your cities of concrete with no forests , pumping your shit in to the sea, unable to swim on your beaches or eat the shellfish or swim in your own toxic rivers, who gets to preach here? How many billions of liters of water is Auckland taking from the Waikato River to continue its unsustainable growth? Building landfills for foreign toxic waste in your own water catchment?
We all need to do our bit, what that doesn’t mean is buying a cheaper electric car and pointing the finger at the guys in the country helping you pay for it.
This government is the most divisive we have ever had, don’t buy in to the divide and conquer.
Anyone reproducing is the problem. Imagine how many future humans (including their pollution) can be caused by having one kid. Literally, Billions. Each person should be provided a CO2 allowance at birth. Have one kid and you can only use a cycle and not fly on planes. Have none and you can drive what you want and travel where you want because you could never come close to the damage that selfish parent has caused. The ignorant (boomer types) cannot see this for what it is, they think they should have their cakes and eat it. This mentality was caused through successive governments pandering to them like spoilt brats. Zero reproduction will save the planet, nothing else.
But how seriously can National be taken by farmers when they have David Bennett as their agriculture shadow spokesperson? He’s a clown – just listen to his puerile interjections at QT in Parliament.
If she is any judge of talent at all, Bennett may well be high on JC’s list to join Smith and Muller.
If the NACTZ and Judith cant gain 10% in next polls after the National Party Rally on Friday supported by all the old boomers and has- been radio and TV talk back hosts and commentators going orgasmic and salivating over their microphones and old nanny herald with its has been scribes, Judith and NACTZ will be dog tucker.
I dont know of anyone who hates farmers its only raised by the tories and right wing media (and farmers themselves). Most of us in the cities have had some farming background. I can see NACTZ dirty politics being brought out next year.
As said above The unregistered tractors (and cyclists on Harbour Bridge) were not ticketed. The mongrel mob in BOP and Auckland were photographed and ticketed the next day.
Note how media was concentrated on these hillbillies while Jacinda was hosting a meeting of the 3 most powerful leaders and economic powers in the world and others. Thank you Jacinda for keeping us safe and thanks Winston for siding with Jacinda. Aotearoa has been lucky alright – lucky Seymore and Judith and their useless Tory members of Parliament weren’t in Government.
There was a guy back in the 1970’s down Invercargill way, who developed an internal combustion engine that ran on water. In a Mini car. They even showed it on telly. I watched it as about a 12 year old and was intrigued. Years later , I understood it split the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen into two combustible gases,…using one or the other. It wasn’t long after the telly news article that it all went silent.
Now I understand why it did go silent.
And why wars are fought costing countless lives for better commercial opportunity’s and better mechanical amusements…
The Last Samurai – Cpt. Nathan Algren show
https://youtu.be/8UR8z_AMuTs?t=11
Now let me get back to my whisky.
Sooo we ignore the cynical actions of Grunter and Beetroot to tart up the economy during covid and blame the banks 100%. If the government didn’t doll out the cash a lot of the mess we appear to be heading towards doesn’t occur.
‘Farmers and banks – the deadly duo destroying our country’
A deadly duo indeed.
But of the two, the banks are far more deadly because they are operating a monstrous, fraudulent, global Ponzi scheme which is the process of rendering the Earth uninhabitable for most existing forms of life -including humans of course. And whereas farmers will cease to farm if economic or environmental conditions become too severe, nothing will stop the banks from operating their fraudulent Ponzi scheme because they can create money out of thin air and charge interest on it whenever they like.
Indeed, the worse that the government makes everything (governments being agents of banks) the more likely banks are to utillise disaster capitalism to suck the last remnants of value from the land and the people -via their agents, the government.
So. America is on fire, and the FIFTH heatwave is about to hit the western states.
And all the hype about Covid ‘vaccinations’ turns out to be hype.
Interesting times indeed, and getting more ‘interesting’ by the day.
Interest rates -how unfortunate we have two meanings for the same word!- are on the rise. Mortgagee sales anyone?
It won’t be the farmers who will benefit from mortgagee sales, will it?
Not too long now till it all collapses.
Nothing says hard times for farmers by a precession of $100,000 dollars plus Tractors.
Unsustainable farming practices is indeed the undeniably truth where they burn thousand acres of land to rid the crops creating haze within the country for weeks yet nothing has been done personally I think government has to make amends with each other to find solution for both party
New Zealand farming practices have been unsustainable and environmentally destructive has been a undeniably truth burning down and destroying acres of land has been detrimental to the environment personally I think the government and farmers should make deals for both party to be happy
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