The Prime Minister is rejecting “any suggestion of an urban-rural divide” ahead of rallies planned by farmers across the country.
Thousands of people are expected to protest in towns and cities tomorrow against new rules for freshwater, indigenous biodiversity and climate change.
“I do not accept any suggestion of an urban-rural divide - what I accept is we have national challenges,” said Jacinda Ardern.
“There is no question in my mind that our primary sector is critical to New Zealand. They’ve helped us through Covid, that doesn’t mean, unfortunately, the challenges to our environment are going away.”
Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard said he’s not surprised frustration and anger about the deluge of new regulations and costs from central Government is spilling over into protest meetings.
He said it has been a "winter of discontent" in rural communities, with the so-called ute tax being the straw that broke the camel’s back for many.
"Overall, my message to the Government is we need to organise the workplan better. We have a siloed haphazard approach right now that is causing stress and anxiety for many; not just for farmers and growers, but other sectors and, quite frankly, probably the Government’s own officials."
West Coast beef farmer and former Federated Farmers president Katie Milne said the new regulations were “just overwhelming”.
“For years farmers have been very good at coming up with solutions to problems when they’re presented with them and it’s like we’ve been forgotten and we’re no longer part of working out how to deal with this stuff.”
She hopes the Government pays attention to the action being taken by farmers tomorrow.
“We do hope the Government will listen and take a pause and actually get back to basics and work with people for solutions verses throwing down bureaucracy on top of them.
“They’ve gone back to being very draconian,” said Milne.
But Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague argued there had been consultation with farmers on how to clean up the environment.
“These particular changes have been developed in consultation with farmers and environmentalists like Forest and Bird so there’s been good process,” said Hague.
“If these are not the changes that farmers want to see then let's see their proposals which would achieve the same end as quickly.”
Hague said the simple fact is that nature was at breaking point.
“We have 4000 species at risk of - or threatened with - extinction. We’ve got a lot of our rivers which are too toxic not only for the species that should live in them but also now for human health.”
Ardern said “a good number of farmers have worked closely with us to address those challenges”.
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