Editorial
Blowing in the wind
by Denis Welch
The last time farmers protested at Parliament, in 1986, seven topdressing planes buzzed the Beehive. Nothing so dramatic occurred a couple of weeks ago, when the rural sector marched again on Wellington. The occasion was so different, in fact, that it almost seemed to exemplify Marx’s observation that history repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Unlike the 1986 rally, which was fuelled by serious levels of rage, this one came with barking dogs, clanking harvesters, mud-spattered utes, a tractor called Myrtle and two cows called Energy and Mambo (who were probably the best behaved mammals there).
The various placards being waved around also struck a farcical note: among them, Fart Off, Queen of Farts (Helen Clark), It’s Insanus to Tax My Anus and We’ll Keep Our Bullshit in the Countryside If You Keep Yours in Wellington. And when, to the tune of “Frère Jacques”, the protesters sang (quite tunefully) “Are you listening? Are you listening? We don’t want no fart tax, no bloody way”, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had strayed into some open-air theatre of the absurd.
Some ancient Anglo-Saxon strain in our culture – a gas gene, perhaps – stirs up lame-brained ribaldry whenever the word “fart” is mentioned. This utterly unexceptional function of any creature with a digestive system worthy of the name still has the power to make people fall about. So when the government proposed a “flatulence tax” on farmers – to make them pay for the methane emissions produced by their livestock – every fart joke in Christendom was wheeled out and dusted off. (Never mind that most of the bad air is generated by cows belching, not farting.)
The weak jokes should not, however, detract from the seriousness of the issue. Bizarre as it may be, farm animals produce something like half this country’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and, given that we’ve signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, agreeing to slash such emissions, clearly the problem must be addressed. Either New Zealand plays its part in reducing global warming or we renege on the kind of environmental responsibility that most of us pay at least lip-service to.
Should farmers, then, not shut up and pay up? After all, at 72c a cow, the average dairy farmer with a herd of, say, 300 would only be up for about $220 a year. Anyone else polluting the atmosphere expects to be fined or levied in some way – why should farmers be exempt?
Answering that takes you back to the 80s, and the challenge faced by farmers since then, namely, that they – unlike all their global competitors – are exposed unprotected to world markets, without subsidy or safety net. They still carry the nation’s economy in many ways (Opposition leader Bill English, addressing the rally, wasn’t ashamed to spout the old “Farming is the backbone of the country” line), but feel strongly that their contribution is no longer truly valued, at least not by the current government.
In other words, they’re saying: we do enough already – give us a break! To them, this tax is the straw that broke the cow’s back. As Federated Farmers president Tom Lambie says, “it’s just another cost we shouldn’t have to bear”. ACC increases have already hit them hard, and it infuriates them that, while trees are a natural carbon sink, capable of mitigating the effect of livestock emissions, the government has taken away the tax credits they used to get for converting farmland to forest.
So they don’t feel that they’re being treated fairly, or with due respect. But as several protesters pointed out, farmers themselves, like the long-haired marchers of the 60s and 70s, are a minority now – not just numerically but politically. “Our only weapon is this sort of public embarrassment,” said one, rather sadly.
The funny thing is that what farmers were protesting against in their thousands in the 80s – the free-market no-subsidy regime – is so much part of the landscape now that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Will they in time accept the realities of a more environmentally conscious world – or pin their hopes on a more farmer-friendly National government coming to power and repealing the tax?
As one protesting farmer said, cheerfully mixing his metaphors,“I think we’ve got political clout, it’s just the wrong party we’re dealing with. And they’re riding the pig’s back at the moment, because of three or four good years. But the chickens are coming home to roost now.”
Let’s just hope that the chickens don’t start farting, too.
