To state my position: I accept the climate is changing and we need to do something about it. I believe much of the science we get quoted is dodgy and I don’t believe New Zealand should be leading the world on anything. We’re a small insignificant country in the South Pacific.
I further accept that 19 out of 20 of our politicians wouldn’t know a cart from a horse and that 99% of our civil servants are woefully ignorant of the practicalities of life on the farm.
When it comes to our emissions, I do not accept that markets will open if we reduce them and have seen zero evidence to back that up. With floods, drought, pestilence and the war in Ukraine, food will be at a premium and I don’t believe we’re making enough of our grass-fed status, let alone anything else.
In addition, the majority of Kiwis support farmers’ current practices as evidenced in a recent poll by Federated Farmers.
Feds paid reputable research company Curia to survey 500 Kiwis about their attitudes to pricing agricultural emissions. The results are fascinating, with only 26% of respondents believing we should price agricultural emissions before other countries do. Of interest is that the majority, 57%, opposed the move.
By party vote, 15% of Labour voters supported the move with one in three opposing it. Of considerable political interest is that 63% of undecided voters are opposed to NZ leading the world. National, ACT and NZ First are similarly opposed.
Asked if voters support cutting livestock numbers, 58% thought it was a bad idea. No age group agreed with livestock reduction. The harshest opposition, understandably, came from the provinces. With the exception of the Greens, the supporters of all political parties disagreed with the move.
Taxing NZ farmers to encourage production moving overseas was also unpopular, with 54% claiming they are less likely to vote for a party that goes down that track.
Feds are to be congratulated for their initiative, which will cause some major concern in the halls of power. As president Andrew Hoggard said, “It seems no matter where you are in New Zealand, you are against the proposed methane tax.”
He added that politicians needed to heed Federated Farmers’ repeated calls “for a review of the current unscientific and unnecessary methane targets”. I totally agree.
The whole sorry saga has nothing to recommend it.
It started with Climate Change Minister James Shaw threatening to include agriculture in the ETS. Why you would want to penalize the only real show in town so harshly is beyond me.
Then we had the option of He Waka Eke Noa, which involved countless discussions and didn’t get very far. The duplicity of the bureaucrats being part of the discussions, then not, then getting involved again after the fact beggars belief.
I was also a little surprised with the actions of the levy organisations who were involved in discussions that would rip the industry they were representing into little bits.
Why would you participate in discussions that would see lamb production reduced 21.4% and beef by 36.7%? Dairy got off lightly with a predicted 5.9% drop in milk solid production, which makes me suspicious of some of the figures used.
Why would you also hamper an industry with Luddite actions? We have GE ryegrass that can reduce emissions now, but we can’t use it. Instead, we’re going to cut production. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the stupidity in that.
Feds put out a media release when the government’s take on HWEN was released, saying it would “rip the guts out of provincial NZ”. I agree – it will.
Meat plants will close, unemployment will increase and the world will go hungry.
As well as from Feds, vociferous opposition to the government’s moves has come from Māori and the Meat Workers Union, who told us that meat processing is our largest manufacturing industry.
Why would you put that under threat?
It all seems bloody minded and ridiculous.
Putting it in perspective, NZ produces about 0.17% of global emissions with around half of that coming from agriculture.
By comparison China produced 27% of the world’s emissions with an increase of 3.4% last year. It plans to build 43 new coal-fired power plants and 18 new blast furnaces. That will add an additional 1.5% to its annual emissions.
China has no plans I’m aware of to tax emissions on anything.
The United States produces 11% of global emissions and India 6.6% and they’re not planning to tax anything either.
Against that we have NZ agriculture, producing 0.08% of global emissions, which is going to be hit with punitive taxes. It is a totally ridiculous state of affairs.
So well done Federated Farmers. You have provided solid, factual and unarguable proof that the country does not want taxes on food production.
Neither does the Paris Agreement.
