Friday, March 29, 2024

Taxpayers part-funded anti-dairy film

Neal Wallace
Taxpayers contributed $48,550 towards the anti-dairy farming documentary Milked, the Taxpayers Union has revealed.
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Taxpayers contributed $48,550 towards the anti-dairy farming documentary Milked, the Taxpayers Union has revealed.

The documentary currently being shown on the film festival circuit, is directed by Amy Taylor, co-produced by vegan activist Chris Huriwai with Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of Hollywood film producer James Cameron, the executive producer.

The Camerons are vegans who have moved to NZ and regularly question the future of animal agriculture.

The Taxpayers Union says the documentary argues dairy farming causes climate change, pollutes water, destroys wetlands, abuses cows and causes high suicide rates among farmers.

It includes contributions from Greenpeace, animal welfare activists SAFE, the Green Party and includes interviews from former Green Party MP Gareth Hughes, freshwater scientist Mike Joy, UK conservationist Dame Jane Goodall and Wellington economist Peter Fraser.

The documentary claims milk is not wholesome or crucial to a diet, that the industry is based on what it calls white lies and it is a money-driven industrial-scale business.

Union spokesperson Louis Houlbrooke the $48,550 grant would anger many New Zealanders.

“The 40,000 New Zealanders employed in the dairy industry are unlikely to be happy to learn they are funding a film that attacks the source of their livelihoods,” Houlbrooke said.

“And that’s to say nothing of the rest of us, who all benefit from dairy’s enormous contribution to New Zealand’s economy.”

Houlbrooke says the documentary appears to be part of a wider anti-dairy campaign, with its promoters erecting billboards in the main centres stating: Congrats NZ Dairy! Our #1 polluter.

In written answers to questions posed by the Taxpayers Union, the NZ Film Commission says Milked met the required criteria that it was of market interest and it will attract an audience.

It had no opinion on whether Milked was an explicitly political film and that its funding was for the film only, not the erection of anti-dairy billboards.

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