Farmers protest at Fieldays
Waikato Times Chris Gardner 17 June 2010
The prime minister, climate change issues minister and agriculture minister were nowhere to be seen when two dozen members of Waikato Federated Farmers took to the National Agricultural Fieldays stage to protest the Emissions Trading Scheme yesterday.
John Key, Nick Smith and David Carter attended the event's opening ceremony, where they glimpsed farmers dressed in high-visibility vests with the words Extra Tax Stinks written on them, but were nowhere in sight two hours later at the start of the formal protest, allowed at a scheduled time by the organisers.
Protesters held placards with slogans including "National's BURP tax buggers up rural profits. Dump the ETS".
Mr Carter said at the KPMG Agribusiness Leaders' Breakfast at Mystery Creek yesterday morning that the scheme, which comes into effect on July 1, would cost the average dairy farmer $3300 per year and the average sheep and beef farmer $1200 annually. But yesterday's figures were smaller than those Mr Carter shared in a memo to caucus in May, which said dairy farmers would pay $3900 and sheep and beef farmers would pay $1475.
Regardless, the minister's figures are about a tenth of the estimate Federated Farmers members have calculated using data from industry organisation Meat and Wool New Zealand and Lincoln University in Canterbury. Mr Carter said Federated Farmers' members' figures, which ranged from $20,000 to $40,000 per farm, were incorrect.
"It's not a cost that we expect farmers to welcome," he added.
Dr Smith was silent on the issue yesterday, but Mr Key told crowds at the opening ceremony that New Zealand farmers would be the worst affected by climate change.
"It won't be the generation of farmers who are standing here today, it will be their sons and their daughters that take over the farm. I would be derelict in my duties if I did not ensure future generations of New Zealanders can farm the land," Mr Key said.
He said the ETS would cost dairy farmers 3 cents per kilogram of milk solids, which was half a cent more than figures shared publicly by Mr Carter last month.
Te Aroha dairy farmer Stuart King said the ETS was effectively a tax on the nation's food producers.
"Is the ETS a tax?" asked Taupiri sheep and beef farmer Teresa Stark.
"Nick Smith will tell you it's not, even though when anyone has money taken off of them with no say on how it is spent says it is."
Federated Farmers president Don Nicholson said the Government's figures kept changing and it needed to be transparent in order to stand up to scrutiny.
