You’re already subjected to the slings and arrows of every environmental nutter in Christendom and you now also have the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) complaints committee piously supporting Greenpeace slagging you off.
We’ve all seen the Greenpeace television advertisements, which I view as scurrilous. DairyNZ complained to the ASA.
The ASA in a gravity-defying ruling rejected all complaints. They added that the statements in the ad “wouldn’t come as a surprise to most New Zealanders”.
I went on the ASA website to try to find a scientist or credible environmentalist who would assist the Wellington bureaucrats in making their judgement.
Alas, the ASA complaints committee is chaired by a lawyer, deputy chaired by an accountant with the other members being a barrister and solicitor and a registered tax agent. The two public alternatives are an education consultant and, you guessed it, another lawyer.
My simple point is to ask what qualifications the ASA has to make scientific judgements about the state of our rivers.
Is one of the lawyers or accountants also a pollster or sociologist to be able to ascertain the thoughts and opinions of most New Zealanders?
The dairy industry has spent more than $1 billion mitigating pollution and erected 27,000 kilometres of riparian fences. Perhaps someone should tell the ASA.
Further, the Greenpeace statement that 62% of our monitored rivers were unswimmable and blaming agriculture is simplistic and wrong.
In 2013 the Ministry for the Environment did do a survey on our rivers and 62% were judged unsuitable for swimming.
If you go carefully through the data, however, that pollution came largely from sediment.
In addition, if you’re monitoring a popular river you’ll have ducks, kids and dogs swimming in it.
Mind you, Greenpeace has a habit of ignoring facts.
Remember the palm kernel issue where Greenpeace protesters invaded boats to protest about NZ dairy farmers causing the destruction of tropical rainforest.
The fact that palm oil was the cause of any problems and that palm kernel was a by-product was ignored.
What was also ignored was that if Kiwi farmers hadn’t bought palm kernel it would have been burned, creating the considerable pollution Greenpeace claims it is serious about stopping.
Did Greenpeace campaign against the supermarkets? Did they hell.
They prefer to dishonestly slag off farmers while trembling about the reaction of supermarkets. Publicists yes, hones campaigners no.
Also, I’d suggest the Greenpeace ethics are at best dubious.
The ASA had asked the parties to wait until it released its information before commenting.
Greenpeace, not remotely concerned about the ethics or morality of the issue, released a statement the day before, on a Sunday.
They even put in their media release; “in a ruling due to be released tomorrow”.
I’ve read the ASA judgement and it’s what you’d expect from a Wellington-centric organisation with no practical knowledge of farming, science or provincial NZ.
The ASA statement that it didn’t believe “this advertisement is misleading or in breach of the code of ethics as the impact of intensive dairy farming on water quality is widely documented” is ridiculous in the extreme.
You don’t have two sides to a scientific argument, either the facts back up the assertions or they don’t.
Yes, there is widespread criticism of the dairy industry but I’d argue the science and would accept anything from Greenpeace with a grain of salt.
Again, facts and headlines don’t mix when it comes to Greenpeace.
How the ASA can make statements like that from a legal, accountancy, tax or education perspective has me stuffed. The only thing I can think of is tarot cards.
In another ruling the ASA said the Greenpeace ad “did not meet the threshold to cause serious or widespread offence”.
Maybe not in Lambton Quay or Queen Street but it sure as hell did in the provinces.
The ASA judgement talks about advocacy advertising and the Bill of Rights Act of 1990 allowing the right of freedom of expression.
The Act also promotes freedom from discrimination in section 19 and I’d argue that Greenpeace discriminated against dairy farmers.
It also certainly offended my understanding of natural justice as contained in section 27.
In my mind, the most laughable part of the judgement was the comment that “the advertisement had been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility to consumers and society”.
Again, maybe in Lambton Quay or Queen Street but not in the real world.
DairyNZ is appealing the judgement.
In summary, the Greenpeace advertisement is not advocacy but propaganda, the ASA doesn’t have the remotest clue on practical or provincial matters and DairyNZ certainly didn’t cover itself with glory.
But people, for what it’s worth, I’m on your side.
It seems we don’t have a lot of friends or supporters.
