Friday, March 29, 2024

ALTERNATIVE VIEW: Wise head prevails on freshwater

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The front page of last week’s Farmers Weekly should be compulsory reading for politicians and civil servants.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Basically, you had an unworkable system promulgated from Wellington and farmers down south rebelled. The Regional Council was on the farmers’ side.

Environment Minister David Parker, at his school teacher best, was quick to both justify the unjustifiable and threaten action against the Southlanders. He was ably supported by his assistant, the schoolmarm, Eugenie Sage.

After that it got interesting.

In one corner, we had Southland farmers refusing to play the Government games over winter feeding.

In the other corner, you had Ministers Parker and Sage.

The basic problem is that a single solution promulgated from Wellington with no local support, consultation or acknowledgement won’t work.

In Southland there were three areas of the legislation that the locals are upset with and rightly so.

It was about resource consents, pugging, replanting and a magical 10-degree slope restriction.

Environment Southland and the local Feds opposed the legislation saying it was unworkable but Parker, no doubt with support from Sage and advice from a bevy of sycophantic officials with no real farming knowledge, passed it anyway.

Simply speaking, a farmer was required to get a resource consent for winter grazing. The Southland Regional Council issued the consent and monitored them.

Southland Feds told their members not to play the silly game and, in doing so, have raised the ire of one Eugenie Sage who labelled Southland Feds “irresponsible.” Minister Parker has also claimed farmers are irresponsible, adding the threat that no one was above the law.

Feds responded by saying the regulations were “unworkable.” The issue over pugging was over the top.

Pugging is simply a hoofprint. The claim that animals are up to their udders in mud over winter was ridiculous. Farmers want healthy animals and that doesn’t happen if they’re swimming in the mire.

They’re also meant to get a resource consent if they crop on a slope in excess of 10 degrees.

Again, that’s insane micromanagement.

A 10-degree slope is almost flat. The locals wanted 20 degrees. The figure in the discussion document was 15.

Winter crops must also be resown by November 1. Again, that’s absurd in Southland. Did the Government want farmers to work their tractors in dangerous conditions, to ignore the health and safety protocols and laws?

In many areas of Southland the land will be too wet to work until the new year.

We then had both Parker and Sage trying to justify the unjustifiable.

The Sage statement was to call the farmers’ actions irresponsible when the National Policy Statement was developed after full public consultation and scientific input.

I disagree. 

The Parker water committees were stacked with anti-farmer types. They were appointed to give him the answers he wanted and not to encourage independent scientific input.

Further, the consultation document arrived at Feds late on a Friday afternoon. They had to have a full response by 3pm the following Wednesday.

You call that consultation?

Southland’s Feds vice president Bernadette Hunt has put a video on YouTube outlining the issues and her concerns. It is science-based, factual and unemotive.

I’d suggest Ministers Parker, Sage and all the various committee members, along with every civil servant, in Wellington view it. They’d learn what life was really like in the South and get some real knowledge of the reality and practicality of farming there.

The Parker/Sage regulations were estimated at costing the Southland farmers between six to eight million dollars annually. A criminal waste during a pandemic.

Finally, some good sense came in the form of Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.

On Wednesday, he made the statement that “it has become apparent that some of the regulations within the Freshwater standards – including the ones around winter grazing – need to be adjusted, so we’ve done that.”

The Cabinet agreed to the adjustments.

In a non-confrontational media release Minister O’Connor made the additional point: “The intent is clear – to clean up our waterways. We’ve made real progress in the area of winter grazing,” he said.

“There are some challenges ahead of us but I’m confident we’ll get this right.

“Where the regulations are impractical or unclear we will continue to make adjustments.”

So common sense has prevailed, and I’m sure to the relief of farmers everywhere but especially in Southland.

Going forward the Cabinet and government as a whole would be better off listening to the rationality of O’Connor, who is a farmer in his own right, as against the doctrine of both Parker and Sage. 

He obviously saw what was wrong with the legislation and went out to change it. Impressively, he was able to take the Cabinet with him.

I’m reminded of the words of a previous Feds president Dr William Rolleston, “engage not enrage.”

I’m pleased that Minister O’Connor has done just that.

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