Another whack at rural NZ

The Herald reports:

Ardern said New Zealand needed to show leadership on the issue.

She said emissions could be brought down without harming agriculture’s contribution to the economy.

How? I guess a working group will tell us the answer in a few years time.

Federated Farmers said the policy would cost the livestock sector at least $83 million in year one, rising to more than $830 million each year when fully implemented.

“Putting NZ agriculture under the ETS, combined with other potential new taxes (water, land, capital gains, wealth and assets) has the potential to cause a lot of cost and upheaval in provincial New Zealand,” the farm lobby group says.

There is a case for agriculture to eventually come into the ETS but the cumulative impact of Labour’s policies will be crushing for rural NZ. Farms get hit especially by both capital gains taxes and land taxes, plus add on the water tax and you get billions of dollars being sucked out of rural NZ to help fund Labour’s spending.