“There’s definitely nothing to add to the protest because we have to wait until August 16 and we’ve given the Government until then to make a response,” Groundswell co-founder Bryce McKenzie said.
“But we have got other irons in the fire. There are other subjects we will be commenting on or putting stuff out on for people to look at separate to the protest,” he said.
This will help maintain the momentum the protests had generated.
“We’re certainly not going to do nothing,” he said.
McKenzie says it was overwhelming to think the protest had such an impact on people across New Zealand.
The turnout still surprised him, despite Groundswell coordinators around the country telling him prior to the protest that it was gathering momentum.
He attended the Gore protest and the sheer volume of tractors driven by protesters blew him away.
“I remember thinking ‘my gosh, there’s some tractors there’, so it was a bit breathtaking in that respect and I remember when I got up to speak and I looked out at the crowd, I was really taken aback. There was an enormous crowd,” he said.
He also thanked all of those who drove tractors for maintaining such a high standard of safety during the protest.
“To take your heavy machinery from the country into towns and cities like that and for there to be no reports of damage is a real credit to those people handling that machinery,” he said.
McKenzie believed the protest was successful because people wanted to show they have had enough.
“I think it resonated because there are so many things – if you haven’t got caught with one thing, you’ve got caught with another, or two things or three or four. These things have come in and you’ve had no say and you can’t fathom why you’ve got all of this hanging over you,” he said.
In Waikato, retired farmer and former Waikato Regional Council chair Peter Buckley says rural people are hurting, despite the high commodity prices and export returns they were getting.
Their margins are being eroded by additional compliance costs and paperwork.
“I know of one farmer who has had enough. He’s told the real estate agent that he’s having an auction on July 26 and he wants out,” Buckley said.
Prior to selling his dairy farm, Buckley says he spent $850,000 to construct a wetland to treat the water coming off the property and the neighbouring quarry. In 2015, he was recognised by winning the catchment improvement award at the Waikato Farm Environment Awards.
It annoyed him that while some farmers had spent millions on similar projects, other sectors had a lot of catching up to do.
“On each individual farm, if you add it all up, the billions they have spent is huge and the water standards coming off farmland is now far better than that in the towns and cities,” he said.
He questioned the value of requiring resource consents to develop areas classified as significant natural areas (SNAs) by the Government.
“What’s that going to achieve compared to what we already do? I have real issues with people wanting to put all of these conditions on and the costs they involve,” he said.
Amplifying all of these issues, he says, was the nationwide labour shortages being felt across the primary sector.
He rejected claims that it was a sign that farmers were behind the times.
“Farmers realise they have to change, but let’s change in a way that we can manage it in a timeframe and the timeframe that this government wants is just too tight. It’s just going to destroy,” he said.
Buckley says farmers were not asking for a free ride or a handout, but with regulations that support them, rather than being tied up with red tape.
