Goodbye Charlie Pedersen
The Wellington ‘beltway’ will be a quieter place without Charlie Pedersen who leaves Federated Farmers presidency to be replaced by Southland sheep and beef farmer, Don Nicolson. In his parting shot yesterday Charlie gave a rambunctious speech, mostly focused on attacking the Resource Management Act.
But some of what he says is right there on the fringes of radical green philosophical thought. Take this for instance:
New Zealanders eat a hell of a lot of food and don’t give a second thought to the fact that they themselves drive the food producers and any environmental effect from the food production.
In New Zealand we are and have for sometime been consumer led, not production driven. When government got out of our lives in the mid-eighties, we had to produce the food the consumer wanted, to rebuild our sector. The hypocrisy of those consumers living in the most unsustainable environment in the world, a city, to eat the food we produce, but demand only we as food producers accept responsibility for the environmental effects of production just amazes me. If they used the same value set as they used with car driving they would be cutting back on food to save the planet, even perhaps encouraging “more foodless” days for the really righteous environmentalists. But no, they eat too much, exercise to little and abuse and blame the producer.
That’s too much for the Green Party to be advocating, but interesting none the less. Then Pedersen, the champion of free trade and ‘go it alone’ fortitude, perseverance, self reliance makes this call for new taxes and subsidies:
One other approach is to allow New Zealanders to share the cost of Kyoto and a better environment by placing a “Green Tax” on all food at retail level. The proceeds of this tax could be used to help New Zealand food producers to buy carbon credits and compensate for property loss under the RMA. The paying and acceptance of such a tax would have the double benefit of keeping New Zealand food producers viable and still producing in New Zealand, and allowing all New Zealanders to share the responsibility. After all, European farmers are all paid a subsidy by government to carry out environmental work and a tax on food in New Zealand would allow all New Zealanders to help enhance what we all love.
Greenpeace seems gobsmacked.
Good luck back on the farm Charlie after your time here as an honorary townie.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Foodless days. I can see them catching on if this global food crisis continues. I hear they’re in fashion again in the Horn of Africa…
June 26th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Foodless days. I can see them catching on if this global food crisis continues. I hear they’re in fashion again in the Horn of Africa…
caused by subsides
free trade would fix this problem
June 26th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I like this guy.
Kyoto does not work and has contributed to a 20% increase in the rate of AGW gas pollution. It is a greenwash catering to “the hypocrisy of consumers”. Kyoto sweeps carbon emissions out of a country so emissions increase as the original producers were closer to the market and more efficient.
Greenpeace is an organisation that relies on the donations from consumer society (to fund awareness campaigns, the occasional rock concert, a fleet of passenger ships) and so it condones the hypocrisy - not surprising.
You Greens are in a similar position, requiring 5% of the vote. People will not vote for you if you ask them to make sacrifices, change their lifestyles or pay more. So you decide to load small sector of the population with a burden of being official “polluters” - in this case farmers. It is a very good political ploy and is likely to gain you much more than 5% of the vote - I salute you on your anticipated electoral success.
The fact that it is hypocrisy is obvious - our consumer lifestyles are very polluting, whilst our farming techniques are amoung the worlds least polluting. The hypocrites want to exempt the worlds worst polluters and penalise world leading efficiency. It will inevitably make the planet more polluted, but it makes the hypocrites more popular.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
># unaha-closp Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I like this guy.
Kyoto does not work and has contributed to a 20% increase in the rate of AGW gas pollution. It is a greenwash catering to “the hypocrisy of consumers�. Kyoto sweeps carbon emissions out of a country so emissions increase as the original producers were closer to the market and more efficient.
Greenpeace is an organisation that relies on the donations from consumer society (to fund awareness campaigns, the occasional rock concert, a fleet of passenger ships) and so it condones the hypocrisy - not surprising.
You Greens are in a similar position, requiring 5% of the vote. People will not vote for you if you ask them to make sacrifices, change their lifestyles or pay more. So you decide to load small sector of the population with a burden of being official “polluters� - in this case farmers. It is a very good political ploy and is likely to gain you much more than 5% of the vote - I salute you on your anticipated electoral success.
The fact that it is hypocrisy is obvious - our consumer lifestyles are very polluting, whilst our farming techniques are amoung the worlds least polluting. The hypocrites want to exempt the worlds worst polluters and penalise world leading efficiency. It will inevitably make the planet more polluted, but it makes the hypocrites more popular.>
“Panda Stands and Applauds
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
I wish I could write like that
Well done
June 26th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
nice.
couldn’t agree more.
lifestyle change is key.
why not put a tax on food. we are intending to do that already aren’t we… oh no thats right just a tax on food produced in New Zealand. Fair enough. We don’t use coal fired power stations to keep our animals warm so I guess that makes sense. Should have treated our dairy cows better??!!?
June 26th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Should we thank god for our farmers? Ha
http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/should-we-thank-god-for-our-farme rs/
June 26th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I personally thought this guys ideas were quite interesting. After all, cities are unsustainable, and consumers do have to acknowledge the cost of their actions.
Perhaps farmers should only pay for the carbon credits associated with their exports, and domestic consumers pick up the rest of the tab? The reasoning being it is hard to get overseas consumers to pick up the cost of the carbon credits, but it should be easy enough to get domestic consumers to pick up the cost of credits.
So that local farmers are not priced out of the domestic market by cheap imports, place a levy on all imported food which is the same (per litre, kilogram or other unit) as what farmers pay for exported produce.
The net effect would be that consumers pick up some of the costs of the carbon credits, and producers pick up some. I think it might also make the domestic market look more attractive to farmers, and reduce the mount of imported food items.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
yes Stephen you bloody should
unless u want to live in a crappy 3rd world country mired in the 18th century
u should thank god every day for NZ farmers and their dedication and willingness to put their livelhoods on the line
June 27th, 2008 at 8:29 am
It’s great that they do all this Panda, but they aren’t doing it out of charity. Woohoo, I get to use an Adam Smith quote:
They don’t give a toss about us - it is simply the most profitable way to use a particular resource - land. If flowers were profitable, they’d grow that. Money would still flow into the economy of course.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Putting a small tax on imported and locally produced food and using the money to make NZ farms more sustainable and improve the rural environment in general doesn’t seem such a bad idea, as long as the minimum wage and benefits increase to cover food price increases. The neo-liberals will scream bloody murder though, and the WTO might put a nix on it, so I can’t see it happening.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Sam Buchanan,
Imitation, sincerity, all that.
Putting a carbon consumption tax on imported and locally produced goods and using the money to buy carbon credits doesn’t seem such a bad idea, as long as the income taxation rates are reduced to cover food price increases. The socialists will scream bloody murder though, and the Kyoto Treaty might put a nix on it as it targets consumption and not production, so I can’t see it happening.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Really, why not just say ‘Labour’.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Because it would be unfair to socialists. Labour is so poll driven they would cut relative social benefits to generational lows for a few votes.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The Green party policy is to reduce income taxes at the lowest level, so this should satisfy both Sam and unaha-closp. Personally I think it is daft to tax work, which most of us think is good, but not pollution, which most of us think is bad.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
okay unaha-closp, it just usually means people can’t bear to say Labour, for some reason.
kiore1, right, as Fitzsimmons HAS said many a time, but the government needs money, and that’s a pretty easy and steady way of getting it. I wonder what sort of an effect reduced pollution would have on tax takes and thus govt spending - reduced pollution = worse social services?
June 27th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I say we should impliment a carbon trading MARKET within new zealand with a base rate of zero with those who produce the credits being able to sell them and those who use them being obligated to purchase, the government could of course initialy use their kyoto allowance while the market starts up and then switch to using a fraction of the credits produced by new zealand land and sea reserves.
it would increase the price of nz goods and decrease nz ability to compete in the high carbon producing industries though. so, asmuch as i hate the idea of tariffs and subsidies, we place a carbon equalising tariff on imported goods from non carbon accounting countries and possibly do the reverse for exports, though since our trade deficit isint so much in high carbon producing imports it may cause a problem. but it equalises the nz market and along with other innititives such as a decreased income tax rate for R&D and increased educational grants for engineering, would help with the change to a high-tech, high-wage and low-carbon economy.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I also say that anything which depletes a national good for capital gain should be made to pay for that depletion so that ultimatly the nation does not loose out big time like it does currently.
Also, in my previous comment;by credits i mean carbon equvilency credits, so it includes most greenhouse gases and mustr be accounted for through their relative carbon equivlency in terms of radiative forcing.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:06 am
unaha-closp: I just read your excellant comment:
“You Greens are in a similar position, requiring 5% of the vote. People will not vote for you if you ask them to make sacrifices, change their lifestyles or pay more. So you decide to load small sector of the population with a burden of being official “pollutersâ€? - in this case farmers. It is a very good political ploy and is likely to gain you much more than 5% of the vote - I salute you on your anticipated electoral success.”
You have hit the nail right on the head and put into words what anyone who steps back and takes a good hard look at the Greens and their tactics can see. I can only echo Panda’s comment:
CLAP CLAP CLAP.
Please, Please, Please unaha-closp, please start a blog I want to read more of what you have to say!
Well done!