Apologies are, more or less by custom, the end of things.

Say sorry, and don’t mention it again.

As warm and moving as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s apology was over the immigration Dawn Raids of the 1970s, it will mostly fade away. At the function, standing under an Auckland Town Hall plaque honouring one of New Zealand’s worst administrators of Samoa (and Tokelau), no one I spoke to, knew who he was.

And yet nine years ago Prime Minister Helen Clark formally apologised for his actions and others.

Apologies are a bit of a sugar rush; something else is needed.

Which brings me to Australian-based academic Katerina Teaiwa who, during the dawn raid apology, tweeted it was great to hear, and added: “We’ll have to work on some specific recognition and support for Banabans from Kiribati & Fiji whose island was sacrificed for NZ, Aus & UK development/agriculture/farming/food security.”

Understanding what happened to Banaba is vital for Pacific futures; not just for correcting historical wrongs that can be dealt with a glitzy Town Hall confession of guilt.

Tragic story of Banaba
That said, the tragic story of Banaba and New Zealand’s role in it – and in Nauru – justify a formal state apology but Teaiwa is right to suggest a rather more ongoing process.

Banaba is vitally important for a number of reasons.

First there is the brutal business of not only robbing a people of their land, but also of enforced exile to another part of the world. Sea level rise, alone, may well make this more the norm, than unusual. Banabans, how they were treated and their response, offer much to an endangered low lying Pacific.

And as Pacific states move toward the business of seafloor mining, Banaba offers lessons in issues as diverse as “beware strangers offering lavish gifts” to “and where do we live after the strangers have taken all the riches….?”

What is also alarming about the Banaba story (and Nauru’s) is that their corrupt, illegal and deceptive plunder was done to make, in particular, Aotearoa and Australia rich. The soils of Banaba and Nauru contain motherlodes of phosphate which is needed to grow grass for agriculture.

Here is the rub: almost no New Zealanders know the story of Banaba or Nauru. And when pressed, some will say, reflecting colonial propaganda, that “we paid a fair price for the phosphate”.

No ‘fair price’
A simple reply: no we did not. Never did.

An apology to Banaba is necessary but only after Aotearoa and others come to terms with what they did to around a thousand people who, for centuries, have lived peacefully on a beautiful island.

Its stark ruins today should remind us that just saying sorry is mostly not enough.

Michael Field is a co-publisher of The Pacific Newsroom. This article is republished with permission.

Great to hear. We’ll have to work on some specific recognition and support for Banabans from Kiribati & Fiji whose island was sacrificed for NZ, Aus & UK development/ agriculture/ farming/ food security https://t.co/DndnKPvIiv

— Katerina Teaiwa ???? (@KTeaiwa) August 1, 2021

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It’s nearly a week since the “Howl of a Protest” took place throughout the country, and we’re still talking about the rural revolt. What are the farmers’ concerns? Are they legitimate? Has the rural-urban divide has become too deep, and will any of this have an impact on politics in Wellington?

What’s behind the rural revolt?

One of the best pieces on what’s behind the rural revolt is today’s article by Laura Walters: How real is the rural-urban divide?. She argues division is being stoked between farm and town, including by the media and those who wish to explain the protests as farmers being out of touch. Instead, she paints a picture of farmers who are on board with environmental issues but have problems with a government that they believe isn’t listening.

Walters reports Federated Farmers national president Andrew Hoggard saying: “Everyone agrees with the big picture direction, but these policies, regulations and legislation are coming out in random orders. It’s like there’s not a workplan behind it.” And given that his own organisation wasn’t behind the protests, but instead focused on behind-doors talks in Wellington, Hoggard concedes: “Maybe we’ve just been a little too polite. Maybe we need to be blunter.”

Yesterday, Canterbury farmer Craig Hickman gave a good explanation for the protests in his opinion piece, This might have been our first successful farmer protest.

He starts out by explaining his aversion to such protests: “I’ve never made a secret of the fact I’m no fan of farmer protests; there had never been a successful one in my living memory and there has been a tendency recently for them to backfire and paint farmers in a bad light, usually as ignorant racist misogynists.” But last week was different, as “the sheer volume of frustrated and disillusioned farmers drowned out the minority of fringe idiots, turning them into an irrelevant sideshow.”

Here’s his summary of farmer feeling: “The common theme was that the pace and change of Government reform has been overwhelming and is taking its toll. A relentless tidal wave of change that often seems to occur with little consultation and without any clue as to how they will be practically implemented, and no comprehension of the flow on effects they will have. It was a collective outpouring of anger at being constantly painted as convenient villains for political gain.”

Farmer complaints

Groundswell New Zealand, who organised the protests, has published a list of seven concerns, including policies on freshwater management, the “ute tax”, the lack of overseas workers, changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme, the Significant Natural Areas programme, new rules about indigenous biodiversity, and the high country land reforms. This is explored in depth by Georgia Forrester in her article: What are Aotearoa’s farmers actually protesting about this Friday?.

Farmer Shelley Krieger has usefully outlined Why farmers protested in NZ towns and cities. She explains that some of the more prominent issues aren’t actually so central to concerns: “The ute tax was just an add-on. It was new legislation that came out after the protest had already been organised.”

For Krieger, the Significant Natural Areas rules are a particular concern: “These are areas of people’s farm land or lifestyle blocks that the Government is getting the councils to survey. This is native blocks of land that have wild flora and wild animals that pass through it. Once parts of land are classified as an SNA you lose your rights to that land, cannot farm it or build on it. You have to fence it off at your own cost and still pay the rates on it but you can no longer use it. In some instances it is 80-90 per cent of people’s land.”

For a deeper exploration of this, see yesterday’s article by George Driver: What are SNAs and why are farmers protesting them?.

Looking at the complaints of farmers, Herald political editor Claire Trevett writes: “The ute tax came to be seen as the main thrust of the protest. But for the farmers at least, it was not about the ute tax. The ute tax was simply the salt being rubbed into the wound. It would not have escaped them that the Prime Minister said Cabinet considered exempting farm and work utes from the fee, but decided it was too complicated. Farmers will not have the luxury of opting out of Government regulations because they are too complicated. And that is why the farmers protested. The protest was the rural sector making it clear they felt besieged by the pace and scale of Government reforms” – see: Dismiss protesting farmers as rednecks at your peril, Prime Minister (paywalled).

Trevett explains that farmers aren’t opposed to the Government’s land reform and environmental goals, but rather, some of the details and process: “Farmers have accepted the need for some reform, and have worked with the Government on it. But farmers are caught up in almost all of the various streams of reform on the environment and climate change. They will be hit by moves to reduce transport emissions, pricing on agricultural emissions, higher environmental standards on water, and protection of sensitive land. No matter how well signalled much of it has been, it is now all hitting at once. It is hitting at the same time as other reforms in workplace relations, immigration, the Resource Management Act and local government, all of which also impact on farmers.”

The Herald also ran an editorial explaining that farmers feel they are having to carry too much of the environmental reform effort, while others face fewer sacrifices: “Most of the protesters – likely to number thousands – will be farmers, coming in force to town because they’re fed up with being targeted for spiralling environmental compliance costs and taxes – and as they see it, doing the heavy lifting for New Zealand’s climate change response… They feel dumped on as easy targets and an unappreciated minority” – see: All is not well down on the farm as city people will find out today (paywalled).

Writing in the Herald on Sunday, columnist Kerre McIvor also explained the long list of farmer complaints – from the “ute tax” through to a feeling that the Government is prioritizing other voters in its spending decisions: “It’s the Ashburton Bridge being out of commission with no plans to build a better, safer link to the rest of the South Island, when $785 million has been announced for the Boomers’ Bike Bridge to Birkenhead” – see: Farmers are riled up over everything – and they’ve got a point (paywalled).

Environmentalist rebuttals

There has been some strong pushback against the farmer protests, mostly from those advocating that more needs to be done for the environment, and farmers need to accept the reality of the urgency the country faces on issues like climate change and water reform.

Broadcaster Jack Tame challenged what he sees as farmers being ungrateful for the special treatment they get, given that they are protesting about the lack of government support: “did those protesting farmers feel the same way when their industry received the best part of a billion dollars in support for Mycoplasma Bovis? Did they take to the streets to protest hundreds of millions of dollars they received in irrigation subsidies? Did protestors turn out in anger at drought relief packages, or flood relief, or the Covid-19 wage support? If the agriculture sector is concerned about special treatment, just wait until it hears about the Emissions Trading Scheme” – see: Protesting farmers are hypocrites – but so am I.

He concludes: “the sector has been well-supported for a very long time. I don’t think a few thousand extra dollars for a ute and some environmental compliance expenses are going to be so devastating that they fundamentally threaten farming communities’ way of life.”

Similarly, the Herald’s Simon Wilson points out that farmers are actually doing very well “when beef and lamb prices are strong and Fonterra says there will be another near-record dairy payout” – see: Farm tractors, Ponsonby lattes and the true gulf between us (paywalled).

He argues the Government is going very easy on farmers: “Water reforms have been amended and so have the plans for wetlands. Targets for biogenic methane, aka the belching of ruminant animals, are much softer than they are for carbon emissions. It does rather seem both the Government and the Climate Change Commission have decided the rural sector can’t be asked to carry the main weight of our environmental goals.”

For Wilson, the farmer revolt is simply down to the National Party irresponsibly fostering backward attitudes in the rural communities. Because this has created resistance to change for so long, the Government now has to move more quickly on environmental issues.

Newsroom political journalist Marc Daalder makes some similar arguments, saying that in terms of climate change what the Government is asking of farmers is “no different from the sacrifices that everyone will have to make to decarbonise” – see: Feebate won’t bankrupt farmers, but climate change might. In fact, compared to urban dwellers, Daalder says “farmers, whose footprint is partly made up of biogenic methane from livestock, face a more lenient target.”

And in today’s Otago Daily Times, two environmentalists take issue with the protests in Dunedin, suggesting protesting farmers aren’t sufficiently concerned with climate change – see Mark McGuire’s Climate change denial shocks and Bruce Mahalskiis’ Call to calm rhetoric in face of common climate threat.

For a more sympathetic environmental critique of farmers, see Philip McKibbin’s opinion piece, New Zealand farmers’ demands are unrealistic – but they are suffering and deserve support. In this he agrees that the Government should be doing much more for farmers to help them transition away from the production of dairy and meat.

Danger for the Labour Government

Writing in Stuff newspapers today, centre-right political commentator Ben Thomas asks how much impact the protests will have on the Labour Government: “The demonstrations, in themselves, will not cause the Beehive undue worry. The makeup of the protests (however well attended) suggested few disgruntled Labour voters. And the question of how the organisers, after a logistically impressive first effort, can maintain momentum remains up in the air” – see: Will a winter of discontent prove glorious summer for Judith Collins?. But Thomas concludes that other Government reforms might also start to bite.

Other commentators believe Labour have a lot to lose if they ignore the messages from the protests. In Claire Trevett’s column (cited above), she says that although Labour might hope that the public see the farmers as cranks, this isn’t necessarily happening. What’s more, the farmers might just be the first part of society to start revolting against the Government’s bigger reforms: “Labour has stood accused of failing to deliver in some policy areas, most notably housing and transport. But it is driving ahead with major reforms programmes in almost every sphere of government – and local government. That is now starting to have a cumulative effect. The farmers are simply the first to break.”

Similarly, Kerre McIvor suggests Labour would be “very foolish” to ignore these protests, and she draws a comparison with the “nanny state” messages, especially over the “shower regulations” that helped bring to an end Helen Clark’s government.

For a similar argument in more detail, see Karl du Fresne’s prediction of a provincial backlash where at the next election Labour loses the blue seats it won when the red-tide swept through at last year’s contest: An early prediction for 2023.

The Otago Daily Times’ Mike Houlahan also says Labour should be very concerned about the farmer protests: “the party would be wise not to ignore these rumblings of discontent. The mood of unity engendered by the ‘team of five million’ was never going to endure, but phenomena like Groundswell chip away at the carefully nurtured popularity of the prime minister, and given there are two years before the next election that offers ample time for Labour’s regional party vote to be erode” – see: Labour cannot afford to ignore rural concerns.

Houlahan points to a dangerous tendency of Government ministers to be dismissive of rural concerns, which was epitomised by Climate Change Minister James Shaw dismissing the Groundswell protester organisers as “a group of Pakeha farmers from down south who have always pushed back against the idea that they should observe any kind of regulation about what they can do to protect the environmental conditions on their land”. Houlahan suggests that this comment has only helped drive rural concerns about the orientation of the Beehive, and he argues that Labour can’t afford to be as flippant as Shaw.

The Herald’s David Fisher has also reported on the protests, arguing that Shaw’s words against the protestors have “deepened the divide” between farmers and the Government – see: Howl of a Protest as town and country talk past each other (paywalled). He also argues that Labour isn’t persuading these rural voters about its reforms: “What it signals, though, is that The Great Communicator – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – really needs to work on her communication, or have her Cabinet do so.”

And for another example of how Labour’s dismissive attitude to farmers could alienate rural votes – see the rather patronising blog post by party activist Greg Presland on the pro-Government blog The Standard: Mother Nature gives Groundswell NZ the middle finger. In this, he portrays the recent protest as just a “grumpy” National Party attempt to “disrupt” the country, saying that the farmers just “need to get over it”.

So, what happens next? Officially, the Groundswell protest organisers have given the Government a month to respond to their demands. After that, more protest action is planned. For a useful report on what this might involve, it’s worth reading a media report from one of the early organisational meetings – see Natasha Holland’s Is anyone actually listening to the farmers?.

In this, other protest actions are discussed: “some farmers may boycott rates and or not apply for resource consents”. A mention is made of the 1978 “Bloody Friday”, “when farmers, in protest, ran 1300 ewes down Dee St, Invercargill, before slaughtering them on a Victoria Ave section.”

Finally, for some poetry about the politics of the apparently growing urban-rural divide, see Victor Billot’s An ode for the farmers’ protest.

The supposed end of the 20-year standoff between environmentalists and farmers was announced last week, with the release of the Interim Climate Change Committee’s report on “Action on agricultural emissions”. It was celebrated as an “historic consensus” between farmers and environmentalists, as the agricultural sector was agreeing to pay for part of their methane emissions.

Since then, however, the “devil in the detail” suggests that the situation is much more complicated and disputed than it might have first appeared. There now seems to be a long way to go before a real agreement or consensus is found for getting farmers to pay for emissions.

There should be no doubt that this new stage of discussions is significant. For the best overall coverage of what it all means, see Thomas Coughlan’s news report, Farmers exempt from 95 percent of emissions charges under new proposed rules.

This reports that a consensus now exists for farmers to pay for emissions by the year 2025, with the likelihood that each individual farmer will be brought into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). As Coughlan explains, “The ETS works by forcing polluters to pay a price for their emissions, whilst paying a credit to owners of ‘carbon sinks’ like forests.”.

Coughlan reports that “Labour had campaigned on bringing agriculture into the ETS by 2020 with National claiming the push-back to 2025 was a ‘backdown’.” The reason for this backdown is mostly related to the technical issues. Farmers need to first be able to measure, manage and report those emissions.

According to David Prentice, the chair of the Government’s Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC), “there is significant work involved in developing accounting and reporting systems to enable this… We estimate this to be at least five years off” – see RNZ’s Farmers propose agriculture sector-led approach to emissions plan.

With 2025 agreed upon as the earliest date to bring farmers into a permanent system of emissions payment – probably via the ETS – the main disagreement is currently about what to do in the meantime. The ICCC has put forward one proposal, involving levies to be charged on “processors” of agricultural products – such as Fonterra dairy factories. This money would be funnelled back into research on technologies to help farmers reduce emissions. This system would also involve rebates to farmers who achieve emission reductions.

The second proposal is put forward by farming groups, who want to pay for the research themselves via levies through their traditional sectoral groups. Submissions are now open for four weeks on these two proposals. But the Government has already indicated that it prefers the first option, recommended by the ICCC.

Farmers not keen on Emissions Trading Scheme

Although farmer groups have been reported as welcoming and being amenable to the new recommendations for agricultural emissions charges, the consensus doesn’t necessarily go much further. Certainly, the idea that in 2025 farmers will be part of the ETS is not accepted – see 1News’ Federated Farmers: We have not agreed to any Emissions Trading Scheme.

As this item reports, “Speaking this morning to TVNZ1’s Breakfast programme, Federated Farmers CEO Terry Copeland clarified that while his organisation has agreed to work with the Government to reduce climate change, it has not joined any ETS.”

The traditional “farmer’s friend”, the National Party, is also opposing farming being simply incorporated into the ETS. For example, today one senior National MP is clearly stating that farmers shouldn’t be in the ETS – see: Judith Collins: Government has thrown Kiwi farmers ‘under a bus’.

Richard Harman also reports: “yesterday, Leader Simon Bridges was saying National opposed farming going into the ETS or any levy system until farmers had the technological and mitigation tools that would enable them to reduce their emissions. The party’s Climate Change spokesperson, Todd Muller, said that the Government was saying they had reached a historic agreement with the sector on a five-year work programme before on-farm pricing was established” – see: Now it gets hard – making farmers pay for methane.

Also, according to Harman, “96.5 per cent of Federated Farmers Members have responded to a Feds survey saying they would oppose farming being part of the ETS without significant conditions.”

The Business NZ lobby group is also putting forward the arguments against farmers being too heavily hit by emissions pricing, with its chief executive, Kirk Hope, saying it’s too early: “The problem for farmers is that there is no way currently for them to reduce emissions other than by reducing stock numbers. Science and technology will provide solutions over time – low emission breeds, low emission feed –  but those technologies are not here yet” – see: The risks for farming from emissions charging agreement.

Hope also argues that an overly-aggressive pricing system for farmers would create overall negative outcomes: “If New Zealand’s agricultural production declined as a result of emissions policies, the gap would easily be filled by less efficient agricultural producers overseas. The overall result would be higher global emissions, higher food prices globally, and a poorer New Zealand.”

Consumers are also like to face higher costs as a result, according to Gerard Hutching’s article, Farmers’ greenhouse gas emissions bill will lead to higher food prices. He also points out that the current prices being considered by the Government could rise quite significantly. Examining the prices, Hutching says that based on the current price of carbon ($25/tonne) the average dairy farmer would pay about $2000 a year, and the average beef and sheep farmer about $1000. But many think the price of carbon will rise as high as about $200, leading to about a $20,000 annual payment for the average dairy farm.

And although this is all based on the notion of farmers paying only five per cent of the costs of emissions, Mike Hosking suggests that this rate is likely to rise: “It’s like tax or tolls, once you get the sign off, they do nothing but increase or go up. And so it will be with farmers. Now that they have a sweetheart deal at 95 per cent, that number will only ever go down. Getting them to sign isn’t the end goal, making them pay like everyone else is” – see: Climate change – how can five per cent be a pass rate for farmers emissions deal?.

Criticisms from environmentalists

Although there’s been plenty of celebrations about the consensus, a number of environmentalists are unimpressed by what is being proposed by the Government, and even less impressed with the reaction of farming leaders.

In his article above, Thomas Coughlan reports that the pricing level for emissions by farmers is a “sweetheart deal” because Labour has agreed with New Zealand First to cap that pricing at only five per cent of the cost of those emissions – essentially providing farmers with a 95 per cent subsidy on those pollutants. In practice, “That would equate to a charge of just $0.01c per kilogram of milk solids and $0.01 cent per kg of beef at the current ETS price of $25 a tonne of carbon.”

Is that enough to push farmers to find ways to reduce emissions? Not according to Greenpeace’s Russel Norman: “It’s truly astounding that the strongest option put forward by the Government to deal with our biggest emitter is to delay action for another two years, after which agribusiness will pay a paltry 5 percent of their emissions” – see Zane Small’s Jacinda Ardern defends ‘laughable’ 5 percent tax proposed on farming emissions.

Norman also labels the proposed emission price as “laughable” and says Agriculture must be immediately brought fully into the ETS so that New Zealand’s biggest polluters are finally forced to start paying for their massive climate bill.

The same article quotes Victoria University of Wellington Professor of Climate Change, Dave Frame, agreeing with Norman, calling the level of pricing a “poor idea” and saying “The price implied by the ICCC’s recommended approach is too small a disincentive against further expansion of the dairy herd, because the price is simply too small to change behaviour.”

Similarly, blogger No Right Turn says that the Government’s pricing proposals allow for a continued free pass for fertiliser use, which is a big part of the problem, and should be discouraged through environmental pricing: “rather than subsidising farmers to produce this gas, we should instead be making them pay the full price of the emissions it causes – and removing the artificial cap on ETS prices so that the price can increase to its natural level. Farmers will no doubt complain that if they have to pay the full cost, they’ll have to stop using it” – see: We should not subsidise fertiliser emissions.

A proper market signal about the environmental costs of fertiliser would help ensure it is used wisely: “If there are high-value uses which justify the emissions cost, then they’ll be able to afford to keep using it (or they’ll make out like bandits by switching to alternatives). But for low-value uses, like fertilising marginal grass to grow cows and pollute rivers, we are all better off if people stop doing that.”

Farmers have therefore managed to win some big concessions in their negotiations with the Government, and economist Rod Oram is extremely unhappy, saying “The red meat and dairy sectors are holding New Zealand’s economy, climate, natural environment and international reputation hostage to the political power of the lowest common denominator in their ranks” – see: ‘Let true farming leaders lead’.

Oram argues that although farmers have expressed basic support for paying for emissions, they want only tiny reductions, plus lots of money from the government to pay for this. Therefore, he concludes: “If these are the only climate commitments dairy and meat leaders can come up with the Government and country can’t afford to leave farming’s future and ours in the hands of those leaders.”

Finally, for satire on climate change, see my blog post, Recent cartoons about the environment in New Zealand.

The Weekly Overview is written by Tony Alexander, Chief Economist at the Bank of New Zealand. The views expressed are my own and do not purport to represent the views of the BNZ. This edition has been solely moderated by Tony Alexander. To receive the Weekly Overview each Thursday night please sign up at www.tonyalexander.co.nz

By Vilimaina Naqelevuki in Suva

A resort owner on Kadavu has called on Fijians to urgently assist those on the island after the devastation caused by Severe Tropical Cyclone Keni this week.

Matava Eco Resort director Mark O’Brien said children and women were the most affected and the resort was housing several families who had lost everything in the category 3 cyclone.

“We’re looking after three families at the moment, but I know Vacalea Village lost up to seven houses and most of their houses were damaged as well,” O’Brien said.

READ MORE: Wintry storm batters NZ

He said most of their yaqona plantations were damaged and they were still trying to fix significant damage to their resort.

“Mainly just all kava, all the plantation of the farms are all ruined, literally all ruined,” O’Brien said.

-Partners-

“Even here in Matava, we have 300 banana trees, there’s a big garden so it’s all gone, finished. All the banana trees and all the mango trees and avocado trees are all gone.

“A man I talked to who’s about 80 years old said it’s the worst storm he had ever seen to hit this part of Fiji.”

‘Be prepared’ plea by editor
In today’s Fiji Times editorial, editor-in-chief Fred Wesley, said the revelation that 8147 people on the island of Kadavu were in urgent need of food and water in the wake of severe TC Keni was a concern.

But he also appealed to Fiji islanders to be better prepared for the “harsh reality” of life with cyclones.

Keni swept through the [Kadavu] island, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction. It affected all 75 villages on Tuesday.

“The scenarios that have unfolded on Kadavu are not new. This is the harsh reality of life in our nation,” said Wesley.

“Cyclones are part of our lives. They have not just come out of the woodworks so to speak.

“It pays to be prepared. People of Kadavu said they prepared for the cyclone.

“The system, in the end though, was strong. Our cyclone season extends from November through to April annually.

“It is the way things are in Fiji.

“As we go about our chores today, let us remember those who are less fortunate than us.”

Vilimaina Naqelevuki is a Fiji Times reporter.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz