The Greens' clean river policy is more wet than their economic policy
Surprise, surprise; the Greens launch its new, clean river initiative and once-again farmers are at the brunt of the party’s animosity and revenue gathering plans.
It now wants to charge farmers for the water they use for irrigation as part of its new plan to clean up New Zealand’s waterways. Farmers would be charged 10 cents for every 1000 litres of water. The plan also includes setting minimum standards for water quality.
As Federated Farmers water spokesman Ian Mackenzie says irrigation is not the cause of water quality problems. He also makes an excellent point about the stupidity of the Green’s policy and the idea that taxing Canterbury farmers to sort out problems in the Manawatu River as a rather strange concept.
Mind you, probably no stranger or nuttier than most Green Party ideas. In fact this is highlighted by the fact the Greens’ new clean water policy was launched with a vegetarian barbeque, live music and face painting – a real circus if there was ever one!
The Greens say the government’s current policy on freshwater management is too weak.
“Our standards for clean water will set limits to the amount of water being taken from our rivers and lakes, and the amount of pollution going into them.”
It will also require stock exclusion from rivers and lakes within five years. Planting riverbanks and excluding stock from waterways has been shown to significantly improve water quality within three years, the Greens say.
Yes, that is right and you know how we all know this? Farmers have been planting riparian strips around rivers and lakes bordering their farms for years – off their own bat and or in conjunction with local councils.
The new river policy is one of the Greens’ three election priorities and comes on the back of its claims that more than half of New Zealand’s rivers are unsafe for swimming.
“Our two biggest export industries, tourism and dairy, they both rely on the clean green brand to sell food to the world and to invite tourists here,” Russel Norman claims. “Our clean and green brand underpins our tourism and agricultural exports.”
Funny, as Norman and the Greens tend to spend most of their time bagging the dairy industry and farming in general and now its latest policy initiative wants to tax farmers more and limit where they can graze stock.
That’s hardly a recipe to encourage more growth in our most productive sector and putting a price on water used for irrigation is not the way to go to improve water quality.
Unfortunately, the Greens latest policy initiative is a case of different day, same crap – its blames all water quality problems in this country on farming and then wants to impose a tax to fix it. That is not an answer it is ideology and bad ideology at that!