Livingston seems to have a very generous definition of the word collaboration. As one of the few farmers who attended these collaborative feedback meetings I was under the illusion, the drystock farmers with the largest portion of Waikato’s waterways on their farms would have some tangible input and influence on the proposed plan change – how wrong could I be.
Not one of our key concerns was addressed.
How collaborative is a decision-making group where the actual custodians of 43% of Waikato’s waterways, drystock farmers, get one vote out of 24?
How robust is a decision to push stock exclusion beyond the national Land and Water Forum recommendation on slopes without doing any quantitative analysis of the benefits and the likely cost burden for hill-country farmers?
How robust is a process that mandates impossible fencing and water reticulation costs on hill-country farmers yet doesn’t require the basic rigour of sampling hill-country streams to establish the magnitude of their actual contribution to the problem.
In short, this whole exercise was little more than the flimsiest pretence of engagement with most farmers in my area completely oblivious to its existence and those few who were part of it either ignored or marginalised.
Livingston trots up and down the province offering platitudes like “To do nothing is not an option”, a disingenuous attempt to position all opponents as recalcitrant foot-draggers.
Personally, I find that offensive as many drystock farmers have already fenced off large areas of bush and many kilometres of waterways.
And as thanks for those efforts we now get a proposed water policy that will burden hill-country farmers with hundreds of thousands of dollars of new fencing and water reticulation costs, rob us of our land-use flexibility and devalue our major asset, our land.
Just because farmers in north Waikato are getting organised, have stood up and are refusing to let a small group of bureaucrats ride roughshod over our livelihoods without any real engagement, we are are cast as somehow seeking an advantage for ourselves.
I do agree with Livingston on one thing. To do nothing is indeed not an option because if we farmers roll over and do nothing, it will be us who will end up paying for what is surely the most extreme and expensive water policy in New Zealand.
And rest assured farmers, we will be the only ones paying for this.
You will note that the same self-righteous councillors who harp on about everyone doing their bit have completely excluded Hamilton from this proposed plan change.
I urge every farmer in every part of the greater Waikato to have a close look at these proposed rules and if you don’t like what you see, make your voice heard to your local sector group or join one of the recently formed opposition groups, Primary Land Users Group or Farmers for Positive Change.
I don’t think it’s too much for Waikato hill-country farmers to expect water policy that is both environmentally and financially sustainable for all.
Jason Barrier
Waikato
