Editorial: Pining for change!

What they will likely find is that very few farmers and primary industry groups are impressed with what has been proposed – judging by the outcry from rural NZ. The question is: Will the Government listen?

Damien O’Connor claims the Government and farmers are not that far apart and that with some tweaking and compromising it can all be fixed amicably. That seems a long bow.

Most farmers are very cynical when they hear this Government talking about consultation – especially when it comes to complex changes written by bureaucrats. The documents are long and complex and no serious attempt has been made by the Government to make the changes remotely understandable for the average farmer, whose livelihood and community faces potential ruin at the hands of the anti-farming lobby.

Former DairyNZ director Ben Allomes is on the money when he describes the consultation on the He Eke Waka Noa as democracy by stealth. Politicians and bureaucrats have all day to ruminate and create crazy policies; farmers have real jobs and are busy trying to keep the NZ economy on track – not destroy it.

Sadly, the opposition to the Government’s response by the Opposition has been weak. National is supposedly the farmers’ party. Right now they are certainly not acting like the farmers’ friend with their fence-sitting tactics.

National, it seems, is conflicted and confused and is scared of backing rural for fear of losing the city vote. A warning to them – fence sitting can be painful!

Then there is the primary sector group He Eke Waka Noa. At last, it seems that they have woken up to the fact that cuddling up to the Government doesn’t always work. They will argue that, if they didn’t, the deal would have been worse. However, the old adage ‘if you sleep with dogs, you catch fleas’ may now apply.

In the last few weeks, they have hurriedly started to come out against the Government – led by Fed Farmers, who have shown some seriously good leadership on this issue. But will it turn the tide in farmers’ favour? Highly unlikely. Consultation is not a promise of change and never has been.

New Zealand has traditionally been known as the land of the long white cloud. Now, it seems, it is destined to become the land of the tall green pine.