Farmers whine about paying for their pollution but Labour still refuse to slaughter sacred cows
Every major debate in this country is fucked up.
Take the tax issue.
The Right scream ‘we are so over taxed – we demand tax cuts’ when the reality is our top tax rate is the 39th highest in the world behind all the Scandinavian countries plus Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and South Africa!
Australia’s top tax rate is 47cents!
Our GST rate doesn’t even get us into the top 50 and our corporate tax rate is 40th while Government spending against GDP ranks 56th!
The Right scream, ‘We are over regulated – cut red tape’ when the reality is there are only 37 inspectors of rental properties for 300 000 terrible rentals while there are only 82 labour inspectorates who are supposed to police hundreds of thousands of migrant worker exploitations, and we are voted easiest to do business by the World Bank!
Likewise the Agricultural Right are screaming over this tepid step by the Government to make them pay for their climate damaging emissions their products produce when the reality is that this is all part of a joke response to the climate crisis that will see us carbon neutral in 28 years!
28 YEARS!
The right wings mythology has taken over the narrative on so many issues in this country that it is impossible to even begin debating because their assumptions have no bearing in reality.
Screaming this tepid measure will cut the throat of NZ is such hyperbole it’s meaningless.
This is why we urgently need a Public Broadcaster that isn’t swayed by commercial interests to actually explore these issues so the public are made aware of what the facts are and not what the corporate spin Dr pimps claim it is.
This measure won’t do a damned thing to adapt us to the reality of climate change, it’s just another tiny step of mediocrity and even then it’s framed as evil by the Right.
We are a shallow settler nation with all the maturity of a can of day old coke-cola.
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’28 YEARS!’
In 28 years time most will live in houseboats or on rafts and the dairy farms of the Waikato and Canterbury Plains will be used for aquaculture, ricefields and taro swamps.
By this time Australia will be largely uninhabitable, the United States will have fought another Civil War, a new Russian Revolution will have happened, South America will be a flourishing United States of Latino Socialism and the Poms will still be trying to organise Brexit.
And after that it’ll start getting really bad.
The IPCC advises us not to implement climate change policies that may impact future food production.
BOOM and just like that AO/NZ has solved there commitment to reducing carbon ( be it methane) by making those fuddy duddy predominately hill country sheep and beef farmers, pay for our emmmissions, I feel better knowing that I can pick the kiddies up from school and take them 200 meters down the road to sports practice in the the polished land rover and will happily book my flight to Wellington to participate in the next climate change protest sipping on my warm can of coke!
Farmers dont want to lift a finger to reduce their emissions, or lessen the environmental footprint of their farming.
All they care about is money and profit, and they will turn the whole country into a dead shitshole to make more money. End of.
The only thing this will do is make us less competitive on the world market, which of course means other countries can fill the gap at our expense. Presumably, NZ will impose the exact same tariffs on all imports of produce from our trading partners if they don’t themselves have a similar plan in place? Yeah, didn’t think so, since that breaches our “Free Trade Agreements”. So we shoot ourselves in the foot for the benefit of those that refuse to. Slow clap. This sort of short-sighted knee-jerk policy is exactly why this government is done in 2023.
Oh and BTW, all these new costs inevitably just get passed onto the consumer anyway, so more inflation. #winning.
So what countries are so close to competing against NZ farmers for being the most efficient and productive farmers in the world, to use the Head of the Federated Farmers own words?
Jesus all the bleating. Try and do anything about climate change and we get ultimatums like stop farming etc, we won’t be competitive (ironically this could actually increase our brand overseas).
I’ll be interested to see what happens when they end up proving that (ridiculously) high nitrate levels in water are linked to bowel cancer rates. We will be told to suck up the healthcare costs and mortality for a mountain of milk powder.
What do you mean by proving that high levels of nitrate are linked to bowel cancer rates? I thought that was well settled.
As I said, farmers are more interested in profit than preserving water quality or reducing emissions. They would poison every lake, river, creek and stream in this country if it meant a (very ) quick buck.
I believe our personal income tax rates are lower on average than what they were twenty years ago while GST is higher, property rates are higher, and there are no or little changes to other taxes excepting excise taxation.