Labour’s high country, agricultural and water policies gave farmers plenty of reasons to vote National.
Federated Farmers water spokesman Ian Mackenzie, called them a hat trick of ill-conceived policies and he was right.
And now they’ve added a fourth – they’re going to start taxing animal emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme in 2013.
Labour’s environment spokesperson Charles Chauvel says it is wrong that agriculture has been excluded from the Emissions Trading Scheme.
He admits it won’t be a popular policy with farmers, but says it is time the sector bore some of the costs of the ETS.
Just like they mistakenly think we don’t pay tax, they obviously don’t think we use power or fuel, both of which are subject to ETS surcharges.
What we don’t pay is a tax on animal emissions because there is very little, if anything, which we can do to lower them.
Farmers are paying for research into ways in which animal emissions could be reduced. But until this research results in practical and affordable ways for us to stop animals burping and farting any ETS charges are just another tax which will add to our costs without doing any good.
National has confirmed that it will not commit to bringing animal emissions into the ETS until our trading partners do it too.
It won’t be imposing the tens of thousands of dollars on each farm that Labour is through its capital gains tax, ACC levies, increase in the minimum wage and other added costs its 1970s employment policies will impose either.
Homepaddock 
So now the mighty dairy industry can’t survive, unless it has the use of unlimted free water and is subsidized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per farm by fellow tax payers.
Next you’ll be wanting to bring in cheap overseas labour.
If dairy can’t pay its way, how can it truly be sustainable.
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Ele;
Labour certainly gives us another good reason not to give out vote to them but this does not mean that National should get it.
Indeed National still has the absurd ETS and is soaking other productive elements of the community – eg Steel manufacturing, cement manufacturing not to mention transport which moves goods to markets and effects everybody including farmers.
Scotty,
New Zealand is reliant upon Dairy Farmers, without our agriculture we would all be starving peasants living in grass huts and anything that interferes with the efficient production of primary products and raises their prices making them less attractive to overseas consumers should be vigorously opposed by all thinking New Zealanders (far too few of those as our woeful politicians with their woeful policies attest).
Do not be led down the garden path by those who use the politics of envy and division to try and obtain political power for themselves – they do not have your interests at heart they are just after a higher spot in the feeding chain for themselves
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“Just like they mistakenly think we don’t pay tax, they obviously don’t think we use power or fuel, both of which are subject to ETS surcharges.”
Clearly, Ele, you are unaware of just how lame this excuse sounds to the non-farming lay-person. Almost as lame as this:
“What we don’t pay is a tax on animal emissions because there is very little, if anything, which we can do to lower them.”
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Andrei,
Thats my point,I dont think NZ can rely on the Dairy industry, when the same industry is not robust enough to pay its way in the modern world.
New Zealand taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize farmers ,so their prices are attractive to overseas consumers.
Hiding the true cost of production, is not sustinable.
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“Hiding the true cost of production, is not sustinable.”
But methane/CO2 is not a “true cost” of production. If it were a problem the green minded Germans would have been the first to put an ETS on its farmers.. the fact is, no other country (AFAIK) has an ETS on farming.. so why should NZ?
JC
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Well said JC.
To appreciate how the general public of New Zealand are miss led regarding farm animal emissions visit the websites http://www.farmcarbon.co.nz
and http://www.climaterealists.org.nz
These sites should also be compulsory study for our politicans.
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Sustainable is a “noise” word with little to no meaning – deployed by those of empty head to attack those who actually produce something useful and saleable.
What these dolts don’t get is that they are biting the hand that feeds them and that money doesn’t grow on trees.
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JC,
Maybe because they make up the bulk of our emissions.
Andrei,
Dairy farming is not efficient or sustainable in its current form in NZ.
Thats why we hear the continual bleating , that any requirement for the dairy industry ,to pay for the inherent cost of doing business ,will send them broke.(your argument)
Dosen’t sound like a robust business model to me.
Perhaps Dairy NZ could pay my power and GST so I to can become more efficient.
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Animal emissions are zero-sum anyway. They add no carbon to the atmosphere. What do you take us for?
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No Scotty – you economic illiterate.
See for New Zealand to be able to buy products made overseas we need to sell things overseas to pay for them.
And to get housewives in Britain to choose New Zealand cheese from Tescos instead of Danish cheese it has, as a rule, to be cheaper.
Now one of the costs applied to dairy farmers, the people who transport the milk from farm to factory and cheesemakers is tax – which is fine provided that tax is used to support the infrastructure that supports this enterprise. But it supports much else besides, like media studies departments in universities and the production of films nobody who hasn’t addled their brains with drugs would ever watch and studies of the history of gay sex in Auckland etc etc etc.
And as the parasitic class grows so does the cost of doing business in New Zealand, including dairy farming and its associated industries and as this happens the cost of NZ Cheese in Tescos has to rise and as it does the English housewives choose Danish Cheese over NZ Cheese.
Now your ETS is just another growth in the parasitic class who can while away their time calculating the “emissions” from dairy farming and since it is in their financial interest, because levies can be charged for such emissions, to calculate these as high as possible,
And of course the cost of these new parasites has to be added to the cost of the cheese sold in Tescos which is good for the Danish Dairy industry but not so good for ours ………
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Andrei, Your personal insults add no weight to your simlipistic
logic.
Its business like Tescos that are calling the shots, whether you like it or not.
We either get with the programme or be left behind with all other apologists for the status quo.
I m not interested that you dont its fair, tough
Im not paying Dairy NZs’ share of the ETS so they can carry on pretending the’re efficient.
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who owns the water in our rivers .. anybody?? I know Harawira thinks Maori do.
The water charge could be the nail in my working coffin
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You have a ‘working coffin’?
Respect!
What does it do – automatic embalming? Carry itself to the hearse?
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scotty can you tell as why dairy farming is not efficent or sustainable
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Scotty may mean that the test of efficiency would be that it requires no subsidising. Think ‘water pollution’. Think ‘climate change’.
Or just, ‘think’.
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i think i asked scotty
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ploughboy, Hard to put a finger on exactly why .
But access to free water, slack effluent disposal rules, have certainly played their part in enabling an inefficient industry to survive.
Now the NZ taxpayer is being asked to subsidize it further by paying
its ETS costs, which will further disincentivise dairy farms into any change.
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water is no more free than water in town.both pay for delivey of water .in my case a share for one hectare is worth $11000 with on farm system another $4000 plus a yearly charge of about $780. effluent i would not say slack when you get fined for could have and may have.in saying that there is no excuse for effluent entering waterways.
have a look at nzs gdp figures take off dairy and tell me who is subsidizing who
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Nobody should be paying the ETS for anything, if the New Zealand Government channels taxpayer money into ETS it is corrupt.
Danish farmers don’t pay ETS, nor do the farmers of Britain, Belgium or the Netherlands.
Let’s face it mate ETS just makes things like making steel in New Zealand more expensive and the steel that doesn’t get made here just gets made in China or India who can make it cheaper because their Governments aren’t insane like ours and will not hobble productive enterprise to feed parasites.
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You did ask Scott, ploughboy, though this is an open, non-exclusive forum. In your claim that ‘water is no more free than water in town’, you are talking nonsense, conflating the cost of reticulation, which on the farm is discretionary, that is, you choose to buy your pumping gear and pipes, because you will profit from the application of water, whereas the urban consumer has no choice, must pay for the service provides and generally uses water for the necessities of life, not gaining financially from the water they use. I’m not fooled by your argument.
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When it comes to effluent, the real costs of the harm farm dairy effluent, for example, does to our environment, is indeed ‘subsidised’, in that the degradation that results (measurable, actual degradation) represents a loss to the community that is not paid for by the farmer at all. Therefore, the farmers gain is subsidised either by the public (clean-up programmes through Regional Councils, loss of potable water, swimming sites, recreational opportunities), or by the environment, which takes the hit (it’s fisheries suffer, biodiversity suffers, etc.)
Your argument that farmers are not being subsidised for what they do, is nonsense.
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Robert, sometime ago you said, on your own blog, that Environment Southland were going to discuss the on going problems of pollution caused by roadside sumps, something that most citizens will contribute to in day to day living.e.g. the wear and tear off the truck tyres that deliver goods to the supermarket,and the cars that take the consumables to the end consumers residences.
Any outcomes of note in this repect?,as it is the environment that takes the hit.
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Colin – yes, our scientists presented a discussion paper on this issue. The management of roadsides, including the control of such pollutants you describe is a poorly developed one, in my opinion. The substances that cause the most concern are oil (dripped) and zinc (from the wearing of tyres) as I recall. Road camber and roadside drainage are all that are employed to manage those issues in the rural area, storm-water drains in the urban areas. I take issue with your claim that ‘most citizens contribute to’ the problem through trucks. Most citizens, in my experience, don’t drive trucks between towns. Supermarket to home, yes.
I recommend using supermarkets less or not at all, where possible. Grow your food at home, cut down on travelling, and thereby your contribution to the problem you are describing. I would also say that the ratepayer already pays for the management of much of the pollution caused by ‘roadwash’, through their rates, in the towns at least.
I suspect you are in fact trying to draw a parallel to farming activities that you believe are ‘driven’ by public pressure to produce food and that therefore the ‘citizens’ are responsible for the pollution farming creates, so go for it. Let’s hear what you really mean:-)
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A balanced article contemptuous watermelons should read.
http://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2011/11/gerry-eckhoff-hot-issue-of-water.html
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Robert, I would like to thank Ele for space to enable me to reply to your answers on roadside sumps.
I concur that in my experience as well, most citizens do not drive trucks between towns, and although some may well not shop at supermarkets, at some time they no doubt will have had cause to purchase other merchandise that in all probability will have incurred road transport to retailers.
Strangely enough though, I do not observe most of the shopping public driving trucks to travel from the supermarket to home.
The thoughts expressed in your last paragraph could be said to be part of credible solution to the problem and I thank you for your contribution.
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Yes, Colin, few ‘citizens’ drive their trucks to and from the supermarket – most leave them parked in front of their suburban sections in readiness for that unforeseen ‘must move this huge load of stuff’ moment – hence, you don’t see them in transit, as you so rightly point out.
The excuse used by industry that they do what they do because the public demands it of them, or because the public benefit from their industry, is not a valid one, in my opinion. Industry seeks to make profit for itself. Excusing polluting behaviour, as for example meat-works have done in the past, on the grounds that it’s a necessary evil and acceptable because ‘everyone uses their product’, doesn’t wash with me. Does it with you? It would allow industry to pollute at will. There has to be a wider view taken and regulation set by an authority that can look dispassionately at the whole scenario. Industry cannot make that judgement for itself. The farming industry is presently claiming that it can.
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Robert, I would suggest that the meat industry today is more responsible than many towns and cities in regards to pollution issues.
Don’t squander your life Robert.
Hopefully you will grow older and wiser.
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so have we sorted out who owns the water yet
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Colin – it is, I won’t and I do too!
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I guess we have NOT sorted who owns the water then .. so how can the Greens demand commercial users pay anybody for the water .. you should know bOb, you are all ears
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Won’t be long before the watermelons are demanding that we pay for the air we breathe.
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Don’t go giving them ideas, Sally.
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Who’s worth voting for Sally in this situation?
Might be better not to vote at all ?
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My blog didn’t come out as it should.
It should have said:- Who’s worth voting for,Sally, in this situation ?.
I apologise Sally if I have mangled my syntax.
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“Might be better not to vote at all ?” Surprised that you would even contemplate that thought at all Neil!
Trouble is that National has the biggest watermelon of all with Nick Smith at the helm.
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