National’s new farming policy is everything wrong with NZ in one Party.
I honestly couldn’t have come up with a worse policy if I wanted to.
Exploiting migrant labour by legally reducing what they can be paid per hour is a recipe for disaster.
Doubling the number of migrant workers that the agricultural industry can exploit is a recipe for disaster.
Restarting live animal exports is a sickness not only for the animals but our global reputation.
This last one is just a joke. On one hand National are screaming they will cut red tape, but the it comes to live exporting animals (something that accounts for a tiny percentage of our exports) they are promising MORE red tape.
Well which one is it?
Less red tape or more red tape?
Why risk our international reputation to gain. tiny amount of money?
How beholden is the National Party to Farming interests to risk this?
Hilariously, as National were launching this stupid policy, news came in over night that the planet now has more carbon in the atmosphere thanks to human pollution than at any time in the planet’s history for at least 15 million fucking years!
So let me get this completely straight.
The planet has not been like this for 15million years and National’s solution is to double the exploited migrant workers, pay them less and start live animal exports?
It’s like th planet is burning, and National want to throw a petrol can on it as a solution.
Honestly NZ – if you vote for this fucking bullshit policy – you deserve everything that comes with it you fools.
National’s farming policy will exploit the workers, the animals and the planet!
Allowing National to win and implement such counter productive environmental policy because the woke are fucking pricks isn’t an adult response.
Don’t tell me this is the Left’s fault with their alienating woke bullshit, if you are seriously going to elect these maniacs because Trans activists and allies are anti-free speech arseholes, then this is on you.
That said, I still can’t vote for a Green Party with Marama Davidson and James Shaw as co-leaders and I sure as hell can’t vote for a Green Party with Dr Kerekere and Ricardo as co-leaders either.
Isn’t it weird? If only we had an actual Green Party that wasn’t lost in identity politics dogma to challenge National’s environmental vandalism with some mana.
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I would say that I am guess if National win next year, then New Zealanders will be locked out of farming jobs by 2030.
Millsy
They don’t have to be locked out. It not unlawful to employ kiwis. They just have to put their hand up and say I’ll do that job. Truth is New Zealanders don’t want to work hard anymore, or do menial jobs for thar matter. We’ve become conditioned to being lazy and unproductive, a nation where it’s easier to rely on the state than working you way up. That’s why businesses and farmers need those workers. This is reinforced everytime I drive past a site after 4pm and also on weekends, and I see Asian builders hard at it. Now you can throw the usual nazi and rightwing shit at me…but the truth hurts.
Its called a decent days works for a decent days oay,
And yes that includes breaks, paid time off and sick leave, things which you hate, I guess you want to import sweatshop conditions in this country, have poeople working for 50c per hour for 12 hour days. No breaks,.
Not like you to exaggerate, hey Millsy.
Ridiculous you are millsy.
Not like you to exaggerate millsy.
Do you mean in the same way the Iwi owned fishing companies have locked NZers out of jobs on their boats?
That can’t be!!!! Iwi have all Kiwis interest at heart. That’s the whole idea of co-governance, isn’t it?
“The woke” – you managed to get the word into an article about farming. Great work! They are every where and responsible for nearly every problem discussed in TDB. I’d be disappointed if I read an article that didn’t find a way to blame the woke.
Heh, well said Peter, stuck record.
Matters I would like to see farmers and horticulturists seriously address other than cheap wages are…
• Animal exploitation
• Water hogging for industrial dairying (South Island) and monoculture crops (e.g. Avocados on Aupouri Peninsula Far North)
• Expanding plant based production including Cannabis and Hemp.
• WATERWAY QUALITY
Just been driving around Southland the last few days definitely a lot of brown rivers, tells you something IMHO ?
It’s been raining?
raining shit?
Hey – if you don’t like it Peter – fuck off
Ok – fair point.
Pick one issue, hold your nose, and vote.
TOPs tax policy is probably the greenest thing on offer at the moment: poor people have tiny carbon footprints – a UBI will see some downsize and give up on work altogether. And it should sting the rich, affecting their enormous carbon footprints.
Not a fan of the teal card but I guess I can hold my nose. The alternative is never voting.
Our ambition should be to improve the average wellbeing of the inhabitants of earth.
TOP’s policy will do exactly what you say.
It lacks ambition.
PS
I am in favour of UBI …. with some ambition rolled into it.
The planet will outlive our species and “flourish” in ways unimaginable.
“Pick one issue, hold your nose, and vote…”
ACT: Primarily on their firearms policies.
You really need to watch this. I mean really-really.
YouTube.
https://youtu.be/09maaUaRT4M
In this video we are going to explore the most dangerous of all psychic epidemics, the mass psychosis. A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of a society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction. Two examples of mass psychoses are the American and European witch hunts 16th and 17th centuries and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century.
ACT is roger douglas and was don brash. Are you really sure you want to reanimate those evil fuckers. seymour’s a mere minion and barely worth a mention.
It’s what the Left want, apparently they need a good kicking to get them to remember what they are supposed to stand for, and if it doesn’t work, at least our rights to own firearms are protected from a Government that would much rather rule over a disarmed populous.
There is no, nor there have ever been a “right” to own firearms in this country. If the government lets you own AR’s or SMG’s then why not grenades, tanks, and rocket launchers? Perhaps even chemical or biological weapons? Im sure farmers have on hand toxic chemicals that can be made into nerve gases.
You get sillier by the comment millsy.
They say they will cut two rules for each new one.
That will be interesting.
I think you undersell yourself.
You can, in fact, beat this one without even trying very hard.
That is what I love about TDB.
Just try. You can do this!
Lazy immigration seems to be the only think that NZ parties want to do.
Clearly before lazy immigration not only did the crops and farms seem to function without cheap labour but the prices for produce were also affordable for Kiwis to buy.
Before globalism most Kiwi farmers did the labour themselves with their families and communities, it was not owned by foreign billionaires and private equity and did not create intensive farming pollution the way we see farming is going today.
Under Labour and Greens the number of workers arriving on on temporary visas has already exceed the number that were arriving pre-Covid – $20,000 a month – around quarter of a million a year.
We have immigration at 195% and still not jobs filled. Something seems to be very wrong with how all political parties are using immigration to bring high numbers of people into NZ but they are not working here in recognised jobs.
Spot on!
Employers need to start training their staff and creating an environment to encourage employees rather than screwing the shit out of them, like they have been over the last 100 years.
+ 1 Ngungukai.
Correction. Humans have never had it better on this planet. Initially they were not even here, until they were.
The upward trend in average human well-being has been spectacular in spite of our best efforts to create the opposite. Improving the average should be our ambition.
If woke needs a new definition, so does climate change. Managing the second is indeed life limiting. The first may well be a deliberate diversion imposed on us to deflect from the latter.
+1
Good article Martyn.
We the voters don’t have much to choose from.
National/Act are stuck in the past and the left is morphing into something hard to understand.
Yuck I can’t abide cruelty to animals.
Down with those plans for horrible live cattle exports.
Yes.
When you have a mass immigration policy while not engaging with the next generation to actually do the jobs, the next generation find other ways to spend their time…. and much of it is not good.
129 ram raids since May, ‘almost of all of them’ committed by people under 18, Police Minister Chris Hipkins reveals
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/129-ram-raids-since-may-almost-of-all-of-them-committed-by-people-under-18-police-minister-chris-hipkins-reveals/G5DMLFGUS3NMLAPTH3VSULKMYQ/
Road-rage horror, two teens charged with murder: ‘Precious life, violently extinguished’
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/beach-haven-road-rage-fatal-knife-attack-stabbing-teens-charged-with-murder/
Many members of the next generation are not being recruited properly – all media and government and hangers on seem to see foreign youth doing the jobs. Thus NZ youth fail to see a future in a country they seem to be written out of in terms of real employment fore real jobs. The ‘ceremonial jobs’ and woke ‘victimhood’ that woke like to create are not real jobs that create real outcomes or lead to good mental health.
UK after a period of mass immigration, followed by backlash of Brexit, are getting youth attacks too. Not just ram raids on property, in the UK they ram raid people too.
Richmond Park: Men armed with machetes targeting high-end bicycles
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-58892191
Maybe decrying all local youth as being too lazy to work and not good enough, is not a very good strategy for western countries, more youth crime as well as constant unemployment drives of countries and always the countries are always in need of workers and have housing, health and inflation problems to boot.
No consequences for young people today, they are being encouraged by their parents and the gangs, and we have a soft judiciary.
SO you think they should be gunned down by police then? Or perhaps beaten by then. Or raped and shanked in prison?
Pathetic millsy.
Yup. And then there’s David Parker’s ‘as you were’ for Australian owned NZ Steel. Good one Dave. Where can one take one’s centre-left, environmentally terrified, progressive vote these days?! I wish it were TOP, but they betta gotta get a raft of serious MP propositions sorted in the next week for that to be an option.
David Parker lacking gonads worried about getting re-elected.
That’s why you need the Handbrake elected. Just like Labour did well in the first term with a political handbrake.
Alot of the farmers are old. They need foreign national s to work the land.
Winston has lost his bearings and is chasing the fractionalized and diaffected red necks.
Seems like a great platform to me: it just secured the rural vote.
We also need to end carbon sequestration by planting invasive pines.
Well the answer is vote Labour or the Maori party simple
@ MB. ( Farmers. Read the link below re mass psychosis. )
Yeah, I know. I read and saw luxon getting down and dirty with a few farmers in rnz.
I could write tombs, I really could but you know what? I can’t be bothered. Instead, I’ll be brief.
This is interesting. I found this on YouTube while looking for clips on kittens getting frights at cucumbers. ( Why do they do that..??? )
YouTube:
MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL
In this video we are going to explore the most dangerous of all psychic epidemics, the mass psychosis. A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of a society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction. Two examples of mass psychoses are the American and European witch hunts 16th and 17th centuries and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century.
This video will aim to answer questions surrounding mass psychosis: What is it? How does is start? Has it happened before? Are we experiencing one right now? And if so, how can the stages of a mass psychosis be reversed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
So let’s put our psychoses aside for a moment and look at reality.
A rich salaried city born wanker sidles up to agriculture and blows out brains farts. With me so far?
AO/NZ = agrarian economy, and why? Because that’s all we got. But tourists, some might ask. Yes, we have tourists but are they edible? Naughty, I know what you’re thinking.
I was told by the dept of stats that there are about 50 K farmers. I think the number’s much, much, much less than that but who am I to argue with a state bureaucracy.
Here’s what happened.
Farmers started to export their produce at the dawn of the refrigerated shipping we Kiwi’s invented to the winter bound northern hemisphere. At about that time farmers had a Union ( I nearly wrote Onion.)
But not for long. Too much farmer-involvement. No need to be involved, you silly ol farmers, you just leave it up to your wise and wily city cuzzies and just hope right back on the horse and plow, and if you’re good and don’t ask too many questions, we might even let you have one of them there tractor thingy ma jigs. We’ll take care of business in the elite clubs and trade ‘organisations’ we built, for your benefit, of course.
The Feds. The Federated Farmers. A dull minded gaggle of farmers born of dubious parentage. Easily manipulated once populated by in-bred ignorant and so of course, pliable.
Ever attended a federated farmers ‘meeting’? Ever huffed dull farts? There you go then.
The national party are, indeed, the farmers party. ( Metaphor) Our farmers are sitting ducklings rendered thus by a cadre of shiny arsed criminals in True Blue Mate. All the national party has to do is slide into the front bench then enable now nine multi-billionaires and open the door to four foreign owned mafia-like banksters, who are still taking ( Not ‘making’ because they do fucking nothing for their $180.00 a second. ) massive profits from our agrarian export economy, and now that the neoliberals need a wee boost to pay for their losses re covid and the recent Silicon Valley Bankster fright, they send in Cock Head McBaldy Locks to schmooze our exploited farmers.
Farmers. You’re being shamelessly exploited and have been so for generations. Don’t take this the wrong way but your minds are not your own.
For God’s sake! Let your common sense be your guide and demand a royal commission of inquiry.
Brilliant countryboy!!!
Yep. And I even liked the typo (“I could write tombs” instead of “tomes”..)
I think that, to reduce the minimum wage for entry level positions including those available in the farming sector, would enable our post covid era country to grow more, develop faster, employ more people including migrants and those on working holidays. However, anything less than $21.00 per hour would be unacceptable because the difference between anything less than that figure and the living wage which currently stands at around $26.00 per hour, would be too high. We wouldn’t want a situation a few years down the track, for example, whereby migrants are working for $19.00 per hour and yet the living wage is $28.00 per hour.
Excellent comment saveNZ
Awaiting Countryboy’s sensible comment as an ex farmer.
‘Awaiting Countryboy’s sensible comment as an ex farmer.”
Well, there’s eight words, one apostrophe and a perfectly good full stop wasted.
If you’re trying to discredit me @ Mike Horse Kings you’ll have to try harder than that. I have a suspicion that the harder you try the funnier this is going to get.
Sorry to be a disappointment to you, but I was being genuine Countryboy.
I’m sick to death of the right wing crap that is espoused on here. Check my posts to see I was genuine.
It’s as if National handed Federated Farmers a blank sheet of paper and asked them to write their farming policy, oh wait…
NZ is stuck in the American cotton fields of the early 1800’s. Instead of a highly modern, mechanised, automated industry we import cheap exploitable labour to drag ladders around the orchards, and charge them horrendous amounts to be locked up in prisoner of war style barracks.
Shhh, don’t tell everyone how our economy works, they all be at it.
I watched t.v 3 news last night, the white maggot came on along with horrendous footage of which I only glimpsed through my fingers as my hand was covering my eyes. Cows belly deep plugging through mud, a ship exporting cows that sunk,…. OMG what a fucken disgrace. People are willing to do anything for money in this country. Cheap as Fuck!
the usual derth of ideas from the nats…so they wheel out an old vhs tape of their failed policies
Correction. CO2 levels were much higher 12,000 years ago. Closer to 1080ppm. It is why they were able to grow grapes in Scotland. Milankovitch cycles have more to do with the heating and cooling cycles of Gaia than a trace gas.
I am not bothered by CO2. Humans can adapt. I’m more bothered by the plastic pollution which is arguably far worse. At least CO2 is taken back out by a cooling ocean, and eaten up by plants. Plastic on the other hand? Not recycled into anything unless it’s dumped into Mauna Loa volcano to melt down back into its component particles.
” I am not bothered by CO2. Humans can adapt. I’m more bothered by the plastic pollution which is arguably far worse. ”
Yes and is now in the air we breath and the food we eat including all marine life that ingests and dies from plastic pollution.
If the rubbish on the beach and along our roads and streets is anything to go by most people couldn’t’ ‘ give a damn including the local authorities who never provide enough bins to cope with the excess rubbish we are disposing of.
James I wonder if you’ve got your time scales confused. I don’t think people were growing grapes 12,000 years ago anywhere, let alone in Scotland. Apparently grapes were first domesticated in the Caucasus region between 6,000 and 8,000 yrs ago: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438903/
And I believe the atmospheric [CO2] 12,000 yrs ago was about 270 ppm.
National always back to their corporet debt freind!s the Farmers, we will care for you, ask Shiply, and that other uncaring selfish EX,pm and our nations structure of care, Brash, sell us all out for capital and its uncaring profit, only for them.
Bugger….that was a waste of a can of tomato soup and a tube of superglue…How much Co2 is actually in the air now…The PPM is very confusing…?? It certainly does seem a large increase…..
I tried to counter Martyn’s argument on cheap immigrant labour. With figures, but couldn’t get published.
“National’s new farming policy is everything wrong with NZ in one Party”
Everything, Martyn? I don’t see any mention of the “Disinformation Project” gaslighting the public, nor any mention of a neolithic worldview being foisted on the science curriculum, nor the woke monoculture in our universities, nor the mutilation of impressionable children by “gender-affirming care”. And no mention of the dreadful state of our health system, or of the fact that half the population can’t afford to go to the dentist.
” Restarting live animal exports is a sickness not only for the animals but our global reputation.”
This decision is utterly reprehensible and I hope its met with reaction and protest.
These people have learnt nothing from all the evidence and investigation that has been carried out showing how barbaric , dangerous and cruel this practice is to the livestock that suffer with this practice.
But that sums up the Nasties approach to most things including human beings. They like the cows and sheep are expendable in the drive for profit , greed and control.
The problem with you Mosa is you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t like the current live shipments simply because we are selling our best breeding heifers to China. The cattle are picked for their quality and are precious and expensive. They are worth $2000 plus which is a lot for young cattle. They are expected to arrive in China in top condition and they do. The loss of a boat full of cattle and some crew recently was avoidable but not to be confused with the trade itself. I personally know someone who picks these cattle and has accompanied them to China. They are well looked after and living areas kept clean. The cattle maintain their condition and weight, and unhappy under fed cattle wouldn’t do that. You are entitled to not like the trade as I do, but your emotional misinformation is misleading and wrong.
” The problem with me is I don’t know what I am talking about ”
For the record I do know all about this as a member of SAFE and the video footage taken by the activists who risk their personal safety to show the cruelty these animals are subjected to.
” As the final cattle are prepared for live export to China before a law change comes into effect at the end of the month, animal rights organisation Safe has released a video claiming they are being held in “disgraceful” conditions in paddocks near Timaru. ”
” Save Animals from Exploitation (Safe) released a video showing cattle in muddy paddocks on a property at Pleasant Point, near Timaru, on Wednesday, claiming the livestock had no shelter, shade or grass ”
” Safe chief executive Debra Ashton said the footage was taken on Saturday showing thousands of cattle living in mud in pre-export quarantine.
“This footage is a cruel reminder that the ban on live export cannot come soon enough.”
“It’s bad enough these animals are being forced to endure a long and traumatic sea journey to a country with animal welfare standards far below New Zealand’s. But to add insult to injury, they’re forced to live in disgusting conditions while they wait.”
“There is no shade or shelter to protect them from the harsh elements or grass to graze one. These animals have no option but to lay in the mud,” Ashton said.”
New Zealand has an appalling shameful record of cruelty to animals and the animal welfare act is a farce and no where strong enough to force severe penalties or actually provide the protection a stronger law would provide including the human animals who inflict pain and torture on bobby calves for example who are clearly deranged and should be serving prison terms.
Then you have this bullshit and yes I am aware of the pun !
” Ministry for Primary Industries’ director animal health and welfare Carolyn Guy said the ministry was aware of the footage of some pre-export cattle standing in muddy conditions and has referred it to the appropriate teams for review. ”
The M.P.I are a front for the perpetrators of animal cruelty who have a shameful record of enforcing the act such as it is.
” “This is a sobering reminder of just how much New Zealand needs to re-evaluate the way it treats farmed animals and how important it is for the ban to remain in place.”
” “From the feedback we’ve received from the public, we have learnt that a lot of people did not know just how cruel it was for animals.”
” I don’t like the current live shipments simply because we are selling our best breeding heifers to China ”
But your happy for all the other cows that aren’t breeding heifers including sheep to be exploited and suffer as a result as are the National party who will overturn the ban.
The National party are well known as the nasties for a reason and had they not been so compromised they could have made a stand by not reversing the ban and encouraged a change to the way we view animal welfare and the ingrained attitudes that allow the cruelty and fear our livestock suffer is unacceptable.
Mosa For the record I’m against live sheep exports as in my opinion the greater numbers involved and lesser value allows more opportunities for mishandling. I also don’t agree with animals, sheep in most cases, being shipped directly for slaughter.
I intend to improve the literacy of NZ children by going into their houses and replacing every one book I see with two books, because the content of the book does not really matter.
I’ll start by replacing Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” with a copy of “Splish Splash Spot” and “Spot goes to the Zoo”.
What will you do in those houses where you don’t see any books?
The problem with you New View is you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You clearly didn’t see the footage of the cattle about to be herded and the mud only enclosure they were being housed in on TV one news last night, A picture tells a thousand words. “They are expected to arrive in top condition and do so” Evidence of this to support your quote would be greatly appreciated otherwise you lose credibility. And no, I don’t take your word for it.
Gus, a RNZ article from last year that gives both points of view.
Ministry for Primary Industries investigates accusations of mistreatment of live export cattle
The Ministry for Primary Industries is investigating after photos and video emerged of stock being hit while being loaded onto a live export ship.
A picture supplied by Taranaki Animal Save of cattle boarding the Ocean Ute. Photo:
Advocacy group Taranaki Animal Save took the footage of the animals, which were being collected by livestock carrier the Ocean Ute in Taranaki last week.
New Zealand exports live cattle to China in efforts to help the country build up its own herd. Last year nearly 135,000 cattle were exported there.
Group spokesperson Elin Arbez said what they saw last week was disturbing.
“Our activists captured footage of cows arriving at the gates of Port Taranaki with clearly visible circular bald patches on their bodies indicative of ringworm, and significant hair loss around the eyes as you see with lice/mite infestations.
“We also filmed cows being hit excessively with alkathene pipes and prodded with electric cattle prodders. Some of the cows were struck on and around their heads.”
Arbez said to many breaches of New Zealand’s Welfare Act are occurring on live export ships.
“We have obtained some of the voyage reports under the Official Information Act and they show that the animals suffer immensely on the journey.
“Isn’t it enough that they suffer and die from heat stress, lameness, infections, necrotic wounds, broken bones, and more – must they also be beaten and afflicted with skin conditions prior to departure?”
Last year the government announced it would ban live cattle exports by sea – that ban is due to come into force in April next year.
But Taranaki Animal Save says the exports should be banned immediately.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said it has received a complaint in regards to the loading of stock onto Ocean Ute and will investigate.
But MPI manager of animal health and exports Carolyn Guy rejected claims the animals were in ill health and that they will be subjected to immense suffering.
“MPI takes its responsibilities of animal welfare very seriously. MPI-approved veterinarians thoroughly inspect each and every animal before a decision is made whether or not it’s fit to travel. Animals deemed unfit for travel are excluded from the export shipment.
“Animals with minor, treatable conditions – as will also be found on New Zealand farms – can be included in the shipment, and will be treated accordingly by the veterinarian on board the vessel.”
She said for this shipment the export certificate application was for 5265 cattle but after the inspection, 4998 cattle were approved for the shipment.
“It is important to note that the circular bald patches can be indicative of ringworm, which is one of the most common skin diseases in cattle on New Zealand farms, particularly in younger stock. Ringworm is a superficial fungal infection, which is ubiquitous in the environment. The bald patches can remain for up to nine months after the infection has resolved following treatment.”
To ensure animal welfare is key during the voyage, the on-board veterinarian submits daily reports to MPI – from the day the first animal is loaded until the last animal is unloaded at the destination port, Guy said.
“We also reject claims by Taranaki Animal Save that the voyage reports indicate immense suffering.
“The mortality rate for these shipments are extremely low. For all the voyages in 2021, the mortality rate was 0.07 percent – equating to 86 deaths out of 134,722 animals exported.”
No I haven’t seen the footage Gus. No doubt it has been used to maximum effect. I don’t have visual proof of my comments accept what I have seen when I have been to a farm in Hawkes Bay that has been designed to hold several thousand cattle for a period of time specifically to adjust their diet to the food they will be eating while at sea. The cattle are hard fed during the day in close proximity and let out at night to a break fed pasture system. They are constantly being weighed and medically assessed and any cattle not up to standard don’t get on the ship. Like dairy cattle they get used to being shifted around and being in yards. Weather can cause difficulty in all farming operations and as a retired farmer I have had stock waiting for trucking which is not great but sometimes unavoidable. Some cattle die on the voyage but my understanding is no more than do on farms. I have no reason to not believe the person I know who works in this trade. The Chinese pay a lot of money for these animals and common sense tells you they’re not going to accept and pay for malnourished badly treated animals. The footage you will see on the Sunday programme will no doubt show the practice in a bad light and you will take you own opinion from it. Mosa like yourself are obviously against the practice and I don’t particularly like it either, but to say it’s cruel and barbaric is not my idea of a balanced argument.