Buffoon of the Year
Shane Jones for his redneck comment. Redneck means poor, uneducated white farm worker. A buffoon is a person who amuses others by ridiculous or odd behaviour. Appropriate, I thought.
The Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing Award
The National Party. The MPs were going to change the zero carbon legislation and the gun laws and when it came to the vote their little toes went firmly up.
Rabbit Award for Bunny of the Year
Beef + Lamb independent director Melissa Clark Reynolds for telling an Otago symposium she wants people to eat less meat but way better meat and the meat needs to be produced with love. She should stand as a farmer director and see how many votes she gets.
Fountain of Youth Award
Dead heat between Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett. With their stance on gangs, law and order and marijuana they make this conservative geriatric feel like a young liberal. The only people who can.
The Tailor Award for One Size Fits All
Environment Minister David Parker by a country mile. One thing about Parker is he always knows best – no matter what’s happening locally.
Placard of the Year
The enterprising West Coaster who during the anti-Government protest in Greymouth had the placard: Sage – good for stuffing the Coast and chickens.
The Dumbo Award for Lost Opportunities
The Canadian company that tried to buy a dairy farm but was turned down by Ministers Eugenie Sage and David Clark because it wasn’t going to add enough value. It should have planted it all in trees then the Government would be rushing to approve the purchase. We have a ridiculous situation when an overseas investor wanting to buy a farm for production is turned down but one wanting to take a farm out of production by planting trees is welcomed with open arms.
Organisation of the Year
50 Shades of Green, which went from nothing to a major force. Its arguments are rational, the media statements rely on facts and the spokespeople are credible. Mind you, they do have the advantage of right being on their side.
The Nero Award for Fiddling While Your Country Burned
Aussie PM Scott Morrison has certainly even outshone the ancient Nero with his activity over the Australian fires.
The Joseph Goebbels Award for Spin
Stuff, with its anti-farmer stance. It can publish an emotive anti-farmer diatribe from Greenpeace and people from the agricultural sector wanting to reply are refused. Further, councils can pollute the oceans and they get nary a mention, certainly not censure. Conversely, a farmer putting a bucket of effluent into a waterway as the result of equipment failure is pilloried.
The Diogenes Award for Cynical Opportunism
Every Member of Parliament except David Seymour. The Christchurch mosque shooting was an absolute tragedy exploited by Parliament, ably led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Cabinet with their anti-gun antics. They said military style semi-automatics would be illegal, which suddenly became all semi-automatics, which was, at best, dishonest. They said it was a terrorist attack but was the perpetrator a terrorist? In addition, rifles, semi-automatic or not, aren’t the favoured weapon of terrorists. The subsequent gun buyback was a farce. One mate suggested the problem was our politicians didn’t know the difference between a rifle and a rapier. I’d go even more basic. They wouldn’t know the difference between rifles and ragwort.
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for Hypocrisy
Fish and Game, Greenpeace, the Environmental Defence Society and the Greens. When farmers pollute, whether intentionally or not, they get roundly criticised. When city councils put uncut sewerage into harbours they get ignored. Someone should tell David Parker that more people swim in the sea than in rivers yet he wants swimmable rivers and ignores polluted beaches. The RW Emerson quote on hypocrisy reads “The more he talked of honesty the quicker we counted our spoons.” Appropriate.
