Butter Should Be Cheaper in New Zealand

In New Zealand, the land of dairy abundance, the price of butter has become a bitter pill for Kiwis to swallow. A 500g block now costs an arm and a leg, a staggering 46.5% increase in the year to June 2025 and a jaw-dropping 120% higher than a decade ago. The stats are even worse when you compare the April 2024 with April 2025 prices, a 65.3% increase. For a nation that produces a third of the world’s trade in dairy products, this is nothing short of scandalous.

The National-led coalition, under Chris Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis, has failed to address the cost of living crisis, with the price of butter in particular an affront to household budgets, instead offering hollow platitudes and tax tricks while the ability of voters to purchase basic necessities worsens. It’s time to demand real relief, starting with making butter affordable again.


On August 6, Stuff reported:

 

Global butter prices have dropped by 3.7%, this is what it means for us

The Global Dairy Trade (GDT) revealed that butter prices had dropped 3.8%, but what does that mean for shoppers?

Butter prices are up around 47% annually in the past year according to Stats NZ, with the average price of 500g sitting upwards of $8.

A tub of butter worth a whopping $18.29 was even spotted at an Auckland supermarket in early July.

Brad Olsen, Chief Executive and Principal Economist of Infometrics, said butter prices dropped or held steady during the last three GDT auctions, declining around 8.6% since the second half of June.

So if global prices have fallen, will we start to see cheaper butter?

Nowhere, not immediately at least.

New Zealand’s dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is a global powerhouse, yet ordinary Kiwis are paying international prices or higher for a staple produced in their own backyard. Export parity pricing means we’re hostage to global market rates, driven by demand from China and the Middle East, despite our five million dairy cows grazing local pastures and polluting local rivers. We're paying a premium to ship our own dairy products abroad.

This system prioritises Fonterra’s yearly NZ$22.82 billion revenue over the needs of New Zealanders struggling to afford the basics.

Nicola Willis, whose past ties to Fonterra as a senior manager raises questions, has become conspicuously silent on challenging this dishonest pricing model. Her refusal to consider a fairer two-tiered system, where domestic consumers pay less than export markets, smacks of loyalty to corporate interests over constituents, and flies in the face of their pre-election promises.

Willis’ claim that supermarkets, not Fonterra, set retail prices dodges the core issue: a lack of competition in the grocery sector, dominated by Foodstuffs and Woolworths, allows unchecked margins to inflate costs further. But all we get from the coalition of chaos is promises of doing something, not any real quantifiable action.

The National-led coalition’s broader economic mismanagement has only worsened the cost-of-living crisis. Luxon’s repetitive mantra, “people are doing it tough,” rings hollow when paired with policies that fail to deliver any tangible relief. Two-thirds of New Zealanders, according to ConsumerNZ, have low confidence in this government’s ability to tackle the affordability of basic necessities...and they're not wrong.

Removing GST from dairy, as some have suggested, was dismissed by Willis due to a supposed $3.3bn–$3.9bn revenue hit, an excuse that prioritises fiscal optics over struggling families, struggling families that will still spend any savings from cheaper butter on other basic necessities. In effect there's no net loss for the government in making butter prices cheaper for consumers, raising a valid question about whom exactly Nicola Willis serves?

The coalition’s tax cuts, touted as relief, have done nothing for low-income households facing skyrocketing prices for essentials like butter, which isn't just a spread but a cultural staple in Kiwi baking and cooking.

In a country that produces enough food to feed 40 million people, no one should be going hungry. Yet 500,000 New Zealanders are accessing food banks or food support services each month, indicating a complete failure by the current system to distribute the nations wealth equitably. Impoverished kids, people the Prime Minister views as "bottom feeders," cannot simply make a Marmite sandwich when their school lunches are inedible if there's no butter in the house, Mr Luxon.

Small businesses, like Kayes Bakery in Southland, are being crushed, forced to import cheaper Australian butter or raise prices, risking declining revenues and closure. This irony, importing butter into a dairy nation, highlights the absurdity of the status quo, and the absurdity of National's neoliberal policies that ensure many New Zealanders miss out.

Consumers are resorting to desperate measures, from driving hours to Costco to churning butter at home, reflecting a deep frustration with a system that feels entirely rigged.

Then there's the environmental cost of intensive dairy farming (polluted rivers, cancer causing aquifers and increased climate emissions) adding insult to injury, as Kiwis pay a premium while bearing the ecological fallout and costs.

The high butter prices aren't helping to pay for the cleanup. Instead, they're effectively subsidising the dairy industry’s massive profits and increased farmer payouts, which aren’t being spent in the struggling economy. Instead, much of these profits service debt, which only enriches foreign-owned banks.

Luxon’s rhetoric and Willis’s inaction are emblematic of a government out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders. We need bold action: regulate supermarket margins, explore domestic price controls, remove GST off of essential items and challenge Fonterra’s export-driven model that is turning New Zealand into a wasteland, all while providing dairy products only the wealthy and sorted can afford.

Willis’s Fonterra connections demand scrutiny...her reluctance to confront the dairy giant suggests a conflict of interest that undermines public trust. But the crux of the matter is that butter should be cheaper in New Zealand, not just for affordability but as a matter of fairness in a dairy-rich nation.

Butter Economics: The Great Kiwi Rip-Off Exposed

The dairy industry's spin machine has been working overtime lately, desperately trying to convince New Zealanders that paying through the nose for butter is somehow good for us.

Media personalities like Ryan Bridge and industry apologists such as Dr Jacqueline Rowarth have been peddling this economic fairy tale with all the enthusiasm of a Fonterra shareholder.

Their argument essentially boils down to this: high butter prices mean more export revenue, which creates jobs and drives economic growth. Bridge claims that because New Zealand exports 441 tonnes of butter compared to Australia's 9.4 tonnes, we're simply "more susceptible to international market prices."

Meanwhile, Rowarth touts the magical multiplier effect, claiming every dairy dollar generates seven times its value in the economy and creates over eight full-time equivalent positions. 

But scratch beneath the surface of these cherry-picked statistics, and you'll find an economic model that's fundamentally broken for ordinary New Zealanders.
 

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Dairy exports vital for NZ economy despite butter price concerns: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth

A considerable amount of time and energy is spent marketing and positioning to achieve the best price possible for the product.

The money keeps people in employment, funds repairs, maintenance and infrastructure development, and also funds research into new products.

The bulk of the export income goes to the dairy farmers so that they, too, can employ people and create vibrant businesses, while also funding farm research through their levy contribution to industry good bodies such as DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb NZ.

The most damning evidence against the "high prices are good" narrative is the stark reality of food insecurity, a travesty in a country that produces enough food to feed 40 million people. 

Research shows that economic changes since the 1980s, combined with global dairy demand, have created an environment where a significant proportion of New Zealanders now experience financial difficulty purchasing basic dairy products like milk. 

When butter prices surge 65.3% in twelve months, jumping from $4.48 to $6.67 for a 500-gram block, we're witnessing the export success model pricing out locals from their own food production.

 

The income streams give everybody more choice, including the Government through tax-take investment.

Every dairy dollar created by New Zealand cows and sold offshore generates over seven times the value in New Zealand and increases employment by over eight Full Time Equivalent positions.

The $27 billion in export dollars is $5400 for every New Zealander, which multiplied by seven is almost $40,000.

The claimed seven-times multiplier effect that Rowarth champions lacks any credible verification and sounds like more trickle down economics rubbish! If dairy's $18.6 billion export value truly generated seven times its worth, it would represent over 35% of New Zealand's GDP. It obviously doesn't. In reality, dairy represents 5.3% of nominal GDP and 23% of total export values, which is somewhat impressive, but hardly the economic miracle being portrayed.

What Bridge and Rowarth conveniently ignore is the regressive nature of high food prices. A 65% butter price increase represents a devastating blow to lower-income households who spend a higher percentage of their income on food. We're essentially witnessing a wealth transfer from consumers, often those who can least afford it, to dairy industry stakeholders and shareholders.


Last month, Newztalk ZB reported:

Ryan Bridge: Why expensive butter prices are actually a good thing

1) We export a hell of a lot more to the world than the Aussies do.

In 2023, they exported 9.4 tonnes. We exported 441 tonnes. They exported 2% of the quantity we did.

That means our price is more susceptible to the international market price. We export most of our butter, we pay the international price.

Australia on the other hand, eats a lot more of its own and exports less.

This is good and bad. It mean we pay the trade price, yes, but it also means when the price is high, as it has been lately, our largest company Fonterra does well. Our farmers do well. They spend money here and drive growth in our economy which we all benefit from.

The environmental costs of this export-obsessed model are equally damning and largely subsidised by the public. Since 1990, nitrogen fertiliser use, often sourced from questionable providers, has increased by 629%, from 62,000 to 452,000 tonnes annually. The result? Two-thirds of monitored rivers and streams now suffer from impaired ecological health. About 85% of waterways in farming catchments are now polluted, with some areas seeing sensitive species disappearing entirely because of pollution from dairy farms.

The true cost of producing a litre of milk can reach up to 11,000 litres of water when accounting for nitrate pollution impacts. Meanwhile, 40% of New Zealanders rely on groundwater for drinking water, with nitrate contamination worsening in many aquifers. These environmental and health costs, from water treatment to ecosystem restoration to cancer treatments (consumption of nitrate in drinking water is associated with several cancers), are borne by New Zealand taxpayers, not the dairy industry.

The employment argument also falls apart under scrutiny when we consider opportunity costs. Could the same land, capital, and labour create more jobs or higher wages in other sectors? The industry presents their employment figures without comparative analysis, ignoring what economists call the "opportunity cost" of resources tied up in dairy production.

How do we stage an intervention? Someone posted today that NZ butter is as low as $3 in some paces in Australia. Can we organise a butter protest? 😅😭 pic.twitter.com/S5ehKVsTrc

— Don't be a dick 🐦 (@fizzanddumpling) April 28, 2025

Perhaps most galling is the disconnect between domestic and export markets. While New Zealand dairy products command premium prices internationally for being "grass-fed" and "sustainable," Kiwi families are forced to pay international prices for locally produced essentials. This suggests fundamental market failure where domestic consumers subsidise export profits.

The reality is that the dairy industry's argument represents a classic case of privatising profits while socialising costs. Export success benefits shareholders and industry stakeholders while ordinary New Zealanders face food insecurity and environmental degradation. A truly beneficial economic model would balance export success with domestic affordability, ensuring New Zealanders aren't priced out of their own country's food production.

Bridge's comparison with Australian gas contracts is particularly revealing, acknowledging that producers often prioritise large international contracts over domestic needs. This isn't a bug in the system; it's a feature. The question is whether New Zealand's economic model should prioritise export revenue over the basic nutritional needs of its own citizens.

The dairy industry's propaganda machine wants us to believe that expensive butter is a sign of economic success. In reality, it's a symptom of an economic model that has lost sight of its primary purpose: serving the people of New Zealand, not just the balance sheets of multinational corporations.

Farmers shouldn’t fear the Greens

The Green party often comes up with policy solutions that the two main parties end up adopting. In fact they’ve been a very politically influential party on the cross-benches, helping government’s develop and implement good social and environmental ideas into workable solutions.

Their Clean water, great farming (PDF) policy is no different, and will likely be embraced by the next National (to a degree) or Labour led government, even if the Green’s aren’t a part of it. In this way the Green's have been the most effective opposition party in New Zealand's short political history.

On Saturday, Stuff reported:

Greens to tax pollution to help fund sustainable farming

The Greens are promising a tax on pollution, set to raise $135 million to be reinvested back into sustainable farming.

Green Party leader James Shaw said the policy would introduce a nitrate pollution levy charged on dairy farmers who "continued to pollute our soils and waters".

"There's no point spending money cleaning up rivers if you don't look at what's making them dirty in the first place," Shaw said on Saturday.

Shaw said the revenue from the levy on nitrate pollution from agriculture would raise about $136.5m a year, starting with intensive dairying, and would fund a package of "game-changing support measures" farmers could use to reduce their impact on the environment.

This is a fantastic and practical policy that will actually help farmers pay for things like riparian planting and other measures to reduce nitrates entering our waterways.

By rolling the policy out over a number of years the government could boost farmers who are already working towards sustainable farming practices.

In fact the farmers who are reducing their pollution levels now will be rewarded under the Greens’ scheme.

The levy would initially be set at $2 per kilogram of nitrate that was lost to land and water per hectare of farm, per year. Initially, the levy would apply only to dairy farms but a "fair pollution levy" would be extended to all forms of agriculture and horticulture over time.

"Dairy intensification over the last three decades is directly linked to rapidly declining water quality," Shaw said.

In other measures, the Greens would extend the Sustainable Farming Fund with an extra $20m a year and invest $210m over three years to create a Transformational Farming Partnership Fund, to focus on issues such as farming for clean water and adapting to climate change.

The party also promised to increase funding to the Landcare Trust to $16m over three years, reward tree planting by farmers and landowners, allow accelerated depreciation on dairy farm equipment to help farmers free up capital, and support organic farming through a new national certification scheme with new funding of $5m a year.

As well as being good for the environment, this policy looks set to help add value to our dairying sector. The world is crying out for organic products, which gain a premium price wherever they're sold.

Of course the largest lobbying group for farmers has opposed any type of restriction on nitrates from entering our waterways.

On Saturday, Radio NZ reported:

Farmers reject Greens' farming-pollution policy

Federated Farmers has slammed a Green Party plan to put a levy on nitrate pollution from dairy farming, saying it would actually cost the environment.

Federated Farmers vice president Andrew Hoggard said the idea was "unfair", "full of holes" and likely to actually cost the environment.

"They also come from other types of farming and they also come from urban sewage treatment plants. So if we're going to be fair about this than you've got to tax all of those, not just tax one sector of society.

I don’t see a problem with starting at the top first. Intensive dairying is by far the worst polluter, and should help pay to clean up the environmental damage they're causing.

It seems as though Hoggard didn’t actually read the policy release properly, because the levy would eventually be extended to all forms of agriculture and horticulture.

Furthermore, urban sewage plants treat their waste in a process that reduces environmental impacts. Invariably, people pay for that waste through their rates, so what is Hoggard talking about? It’s the leaching of nitrates directly into waterways that needs to be addressed.

Mr Hoggard said DairyNZ and others already offered research and expertise, and no government fund would be able to give better advice.

The levy isn’t just about advice… it’s about remedial measures to actually reduce pollution.

"Farmers are actually doing a hell of a lot in this space already, we're already doing quite a bit of work on this and if we're just going to be taxed for it, it's going to take away money which we would otherwise have spent on the environment and quite frankly I think they'd probably end up spending most of the revenue they get on policing it."

He said by his calculations it would cost his farm $12,000 a year, which could be spent on solutions.

What is Hoggard talking about? The money raised will go towards solutions, like making our waterways swimmable again by giving farmers a financial incentive to reduce pollution.

The problem for National is small farm holders will actually benefit from this policy. Most farmers will have additional funds available and any development to reduce pollution they undertake will likely increase their properties value.

A majority of farmers, especially those who adopt the scheme early, will reap the rewards of becoming more eco friendly businesses.

Most farmers have nothing to fear from the Greens' clean water policy. It’s large-scale intensive dairying that is being targeted with this great Green party initiative.

Marlborough's water woes

You would expect New Zealand, with its unparalleled natural resources, to have some of the best water supplied to households in the developed world.

However because of bad planning, a lack of development, lacklustre testing and infrastructure that is seldom properly maintained, our tap water throughout the country is often too contaminated to drink.

That appears to be the case in Seddon, where they’ve even managed to cultivate a new type of super algae.

Yesterday, the Marlborough Express reported:

New algae in Seddon stream survives without sunlight

The algae clouding Seddon's water has never before been found in the stream where the town sources its drinking supply.

Small, brown bits of algae have plagued the town's water for the past month, and Marlborough District Council scientists say the algae strain is a new discovery in the Black Birch Stream.

The outbreak is the first of its kind to affect the town's water, and has been clogging up pipes and blocking water filters.

This might seem like a small issue, but a new strain of algae that can survive where others previously haven’t has huge implications for New Zealand, especially if it migrates to other waterways.

The supply did not provide clean filtration for households, and a boil water notice was in place for the township.

The chemical composition of the stream had changed since the November earthquake, with a rise in alkalinity noted by council scientists.

"That change may be encouraging or making the water more favourable for this type of algae," Rooney said.

It remained to be seen how the algae strain was introduced to the stream, Rooney said.

The council maintained there were no health concerns with the algae.

There are no health concerns but there’s a boil water notice? This contradiction is ridiculous and just goes to show how inept most council’s are at dealing with polluted water supplies.

So what exactly is the Marlborough District Council doing to contain this new algae strain?

The algae was an inconvenience to people and the council was working to remove the organism from the water supply, Rooney said.

Machinery to deepen the stream's intake pipe would be at the site within the next fortnight. It was hoped this would prevent the algae from entering the water, Rooney said.

Hope isn’t a word I like to see when it comes to construction techniques to try and eradicate biological invasions.

The council really should be looking at other sources of contamination for this type of problem… because without knowing the exact cause, the Marlborough District Council cannot really hope to fully eradicate the new type of algae.

When pipi beds, mussel and ouster farms are having to close all over New Zealand because of similar water contamination and parasite problems, you would expect authorities to be doing something substantial to ensure these industries survived. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case.

Perhaps the National led government just doesn't give a damn about our waterways and the industries that rely on them?

Cost cutting an expensive mistake

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

New Zealand may boost the number of trade specialists in Asia in the wake of Fonterra's botulism and DCD scares, Prime Minister John Key says.

But Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Phil Goff says Mr Key's comment is "deeply ironic" given it was Foreign Minister Murray McCully's restructuring at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) last year that led to the loss of key trade staff.

Cost cutting that led to the mislabeling of suspect meat exported from New Zealand that sat on China's wharves for months on end. In fact hardly a week goes by without us learning of another export market stuff up likely attributable to MFAT cutbacks.

Mr Key yesterday faced questions about protests over contaminated milk which have forced Fonterra to pause operations in Sri Lanka. Those questions came as the Herald reported a range of New Zealand dairy products remain stranded on Chinese wharves more than three weeks since the botulism crisis erupted.

New Zealand officials have been trying to reassure the Chinese that everything is fine. However, the Chinese are doing more testing on various products because they no longer trust the safety of New Zealand's exports. With so many incidents of contamination, who can blame them?

Mr Key said the botulism scare and the previous DCD scare which has prompted the Sri Lankan protests had sparked debate amongst ministers "about whether we need to have bigger footprint offshore in some of those critical markets".

"If you think about China, we've gone from about $2 billion worth of exports in recent times to about $7 billion and maybe our footprint needs to be a bit bigger there."

In 2008, New Zealand was exporting around $500 million worth of dairy products to China. By 2012, that had increased to $2.5 billion mainly because China was looking for sources that it believed could supply safe product.

If Key is talking about total exports to China, then his figure is also wrong! Total exports to China to December 2012 were $8.1 billion. If he is talking about merchandise exports he is once again wrong, but only by $114 million this time.

Even though our multimillionaire Prime Minister is inaccurate by hundreds of millions of dollars, who cares? Certainly not those right wing propagandists who claim that he's good with numbers.

The prospect of more money for MFAT comes little more than a year after cost-cutting proposals at the ministry prompted criticism from top diplomats, a number of whom left.

You've got to wonder why National gutted MFAT at a time exports were increasing so dramatically?

With export volumes to China increasing by 190% between 2008 and 2012, surely it's complete mismanagement to decrease administrative oversight. This is especially the case if you consider that MFAT didn't have the capacity to deal with their workload when the restructuring occurred.

It's almost as if the Natz wanted to stuff things up.

Former Foreign Minister Phil Goff said MFAT lost some of its best trade personnel as a result of Mr McCully's restructuring, "because they were utterly disillusioned with the direction the minister was taking the department".

"It's deeply ironic now that the Prime Minister should be saying we're going to revamp our trade specialists when the actions of his own minister are responsible for gutting that ministry of its best people."

Phil Goff was one of the people warning the government that cutting MFAT would lead to problems. He's rightfully justified in his criticism both then and now.

National's ideological drive for a smaller government and cost cutting has once again led to disaster! The cost of their mismanagement on our economy that relies heavily on a strong export sector will be significant.

Even though National knew China's demand for dairy products was going to keep on increasing, they still went ahead with gutting MFAT anyway, which has clearly caused a lack of proper oversight.

The same thing occurred when National instructed Solid Energy to increase debt at a time coal prices had fallen dramatically. In effect National couldn't organise themselves out of a paper bag. They are entirely incompetent and not fit to govern.

100% Pure festering sore

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

China's state-run news agency has delivered a sharp critique of New Zealand in the wake of Fonterra's contamination crisis, describing this country's 100 per cent Pure tourism campaign as a "festering sore" and saying free market ideology resulted in Kiwi homes becoming damp, leaky and uninhabitable.

Clearly the 100% Pure marketing campaign is aspirational at best. With 61% of our waterways being too polluted to even swim in, mainly due to farm runoff, the government simply cannot keep promoting New Zealand in such an obviously dishonest way.

John Key even acknowledged that the 100% Pure brand isn't real when in April this year he compared it to McDonald's "I'm Loving it". Clearly such slogans should be taken with a 'pinch of salt'. However, it is doubtful that the Prime Minister will ever admit that the leaky building debacle was caused by free market ideology...similar ideology to that being once again argued for by National. They want to open up more land and reduce the consent process for new housing projects, measures that will only benefit the developers. The end goal is to make even more money while the public is left with an inferior and in many cases dangerous product.

It's little wonder then that other countries are noticing the failure of New Zealand's capitalist system. Governments in places like China clearly don't see any distinction between Fonterra and our current government, and quite rightly so. Deregulation and a lack of safety checks is likely to blame for this latest failure, a failure that will cost New Zealand millions if not billions of dollars in lost trade.

In an editorial article published on a number of major Chinese news websites overnight, Xinhua says the time has come to ask the New Zealand Government, "Where is the quality control?"

The news agency, regarded as a mouthpiece of China's Government, says this country's food safety problems are not "mere details" - they are beginning to look systemic.

"One could argue the country is hostage to a blinkered devotion to laissez-faire market ideology. Many New Zealanders fell victim to this when the construction industry was deregulated two decades ago resulting in damp and leaky homes that quickly became uninhabitable," Xinhua said.

"While it's true the government isn't responsible for the contamination of Fonterra produce, it should be held accountable for the fact that nothing was done to identify the problem before it was dispatched to export markets and domestic customers."

With the previous Melamine and DCD contamination problems which were both similarly badly handled by Fonterra, no wonder the Chinese government perceives there to be serious endemic faults with our deregulated system. The main issue here is why has it taken so long for Fonterra to inform the public about the potential for botulism in their baby products? Also, why haven't the authorities managed to properly inform the public about what products are likely contaminated?

In light of this more recent failure, Russia and China halting all imports of New Zealand made dairy products is justified. However, Tim Groser isn't saying this because he accepts there to be widespread issues with our system and its oversight. He doesn't care that the proper tests are lacking. The Minister of Trade along with John Key only cares about trying to quieten the latest round of discontent from our export markets. It is pretty obvious that National has no long-term plan to increase safety and it won't be until we have a change in government that any progressive and positive change is implemented.

So, how exactly will New Zealand repair the damage caused by a lack of proper regulations and how will we diversify our production base to create a more robust economy? Simply swapping brands isn't going to fix anything...because it's the New Zealand brand that is now tainted.

Firstly, we must ensure that appropriate regulations are implemented as soon as possible. These regulations must ensure that the proper checks and balances are in place to reduce the risk of further contamination occurring. New Zealand must also diversify into cleaner and greener production techniques that don't have such a serious detrimental impact. One industry springs to mind, organics. Reducing the amount of chemicals used will reduce the risk of contamination and also mean our 100% Pure branding actually stands for something. Because at the moment, under this failed National government, it effectively means nothing!

Time to sack Fonterra

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Authorities have recalled up to 1000 tonnes of dairy products across this country and seven others after Fonterra announced tests had found a bacterium that could cause botulism.

The Ministry of Primary Industries said the tainted products included infant formula, sports drinks, protein drinks and other beverages. Countries affected beside New Zealand included China, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

The botulism bacteria scare is likely to cause "sheer, absolute panic" in China as the news filters through the world's second biggest economy, says a Kiwi involved in the dairy trade.

Gregg Wycherley, managing director of Auckland baby milk brand Fresco Nutrition, said he anticipates "wholesale removal of New Zealand infant formula off Chinese supermarket shelves" by tomorrow morning.

The New Zealand Dairy industry was only just recovering from a severe drought, so this is really bad news for the sector.

Couple this latest botulism scare with the 2008 melamine scandal that killed far more infants than China disclosed, a terrible case of corporate manslaughter that Fonterra was implicated in, and there's no doubt that our clean and green image in terms of dairy products has been badly damaged.

There was also the DCD contamination and the radioactive milk scare earlier this year, whereby Sri Lanka’s Atomic Energy Authority was pressured by New Zealand officials to suspend testing milk powder for radionuclides. In light of these events, the public is clearly justified in having serious concerns about the safety of milk products produced in New Zealand.

The lesson to learn here is to not have all your eggs in one basket. New Zealand must diversify its production base away from dairying to provide better economic security. Not only will this help to repair some of the environmental damage caused by an improperly regulated industry, it will also mean our exporting income is resilient and can handle any future changes in worldwide markets.

In the meantime, the idiots over at Fonterra who've allowed these multiple milk contaminations to occur should be sacked. In fact let's just sack Fonterra altogether. The so-called cooperative clearly isn't working in the best interest of farmers, the general public or our export markets. It's time for a change.

Fonterra's fracked milk

Today, the Taranaki Daily News reported:

Dairy giant Fonterra will not collect milk from any new landfarms.

Taranaki has a number of landfarms where oil and gas drilling waste is stored in pits and then spread over paddocks.

The practice has attracted critics who claim the landfarms may contain toxins in the soil that could have an effect on the milk produced by cows that graze on the grass.

May contain? Does contain more like. Not only does fracking waste contain a number of highly toxic chemicals, some of which are known to cause cancer, it also contains Radium 226, often well above safe levels.

The fact that this hazardous practice was allowed to occur in New Zealand at all is astounding!

Fonterra already accepts milk from six farms but has said no more will be taken on, Radio New Zealand reported this morning.

Thankfully Fonterra have finally realised that accepting milk from any new landfarms will be detrimental to their clean and green image, something the dairy industry relies heavily upon for much of its profits from overseas markets.

Let's hope they also decide to stop accepting milk from the existing six landfarms. With most countries not having a bar of it, surely having any contaminated milk product because of landfarming will be detrimental to Fonterra's bottom line.

The company said the cost of testing the milk is too expensive at about $80,000 per year, and the need to have a public perception of a safe clean dairy industry was also taken into consideration.

Pity it's just a perception, not a reality. With Fonterra being associated with the Chinese melamine scandal in 2008 and growth hormone scandal in 2010 plus the more recent contamination from soil-treatment product DCD found in 371 New Zealand milk samples, a safe and clean dairy industry is clearly not happening.

Unfortunately milk produced in New Zealand isn't being tested for Radium 226 at all. Fonterra is talking about testing for other toxins and Cesium 137, which is a requirement by most of our main overseas markets. With the milk and farms themselves not being tested for Radium 226, there can be no real assurance that consumer’s health isn't being put at risk.

The Taranaki Regional Council says landfarming is safe and has no environmental effect except to improve coastal sandy soils for productive farming.

But they admit there is limited information to inform their decisions.

There's no scientific information to show that landfarming "improves coastal sandy soils" or is in fact safe, and a number of reports from overseas that show it isn't safe and has adversely affected people's health. That's why many countries have moved to ban the practice outright.

Being that the Taranaki Regional Council consists mainly of people associated with the oil and gas industry, we should be sceptical about anything they claim.

In my opinion, any potential threat to people's health through contaminated milk products should be eliminated, and therefore landfarming and likewise fracking in general should be halted forthwith. The potential adverse affects clearly don’t outweigh the benefits.

Fracking waste leaching from BTW's Browns Road landfarm in Taranaki - June 2013.

Nathan Guy MIA

Today, the NZ Herald reported on Primary Industries Minister, Nathan Guy, deciding to stay in South America instead of returning home to contend with the drought.

"I can't make it rain. This is a very important trip and we're opening doors to getting our products into these markets. What I can tell farmers in New Zealand is that I am getting a regular update. The areas I have declared a medium drought event support is flowing.

Support is flowing? The Herald also reported:

A spokesman for Work and Income said no rural assistance payments had been made since drought had been declared. The payments are equivalent to the unemployment benefit and are available in extreme hardship.

So, despite no support payments being made to farmers, Nathan Guy thinks support is flowing? What an idiot!

It appears that National is trying to minimize the effects of the drought as best they can because to do otherwise might mean they had to acknowledge one of the main reasons for its severity; climate change.

Instead of waking up to the reality of anthropogenic climate change and realising that agriculture is not immune, National are simply burying their heads in the sand... What a pack of dipshits!

How climate change is destroying the Earth

Created by: LearnStuff.com

Logan Dawson - Asshole of the Week

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

A young farmer who encouraged his dogs to attack boars at his property and then filmed the attack has walked free from court.

Logan Dawson pleaded guilty to two charges of ill-treating a boar, and two charges of baiting a boar - charges which have never before been laid in New Zealand, the RSPCA said.

The 24-year-old was discharged without conviction, but ordered to pay almost $8400 in reparation and a $500 donation to the RSPCA when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court today.

Dawson admitted encouraging his dogs to attack a number of boars at his Waikato property to train them for pig hunting.

It's true that you can use a real pig to start training a dog to hunt, but they're meant to be kept from actually attacking the pig. So let's get something clear, this has absolutely nothing to do with how you're meant to train a pig dog. There simply doesn't need to be any blood shed to start training a pig dog properly.

That makes Dawson's excuses for why he was particularly cruel to a number of wild pigs entirely unacceptable. To actively torture an animal in that way displays a level of inhumanity that should not be tolerated. But to then film and promote that cruelty online shows that Dawson is a complete sadist!

In fact to maim or kill because one desires to see the pain of an animal shows that Dawson is sick in the head, and the judge should have at least ensured he was psychologically assessed to determine if there was any further risk. Who is Judge Riddell to say Dawson won't do the same thing again but keep it secret, or perhaps even move onto torturing humans?

Another thing that's pissing me off about all this is the way in which it's been reported. The granny Herald's article for instance is written to ensure Dawson is painted favourably. The online version is also half the size of the print edition FFS! That's not proper journalism, that's biased reporting... Here's a bit of what they didn't bother to publish online for some reason:

Once a person had an animal in captivity after catching it in a wild state, that person became the person in charge of the animal and subject to the Animal Welfare Act 1999.

Being that Dawson is guilty of killing an animal in such a manner that the animal suffers unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress, he should have been charged according to what the Animal Welfare Act 1999 (PDF) actually states:

25 Penalties

(a) in the case of an individual, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding $50,000 or to both.

Clearly the fine given to Dawson by Judge Riddell is a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket in comparison to his crimes and what should have been handed down. Such a pathetic punishment will likely not change his nasty behaviour at all.

Dawson's lawyer Thomas Sutcliffe told the court his client was a novice hunter and had taken advice on training his dogs from hunting books, television and off the internet, Radio New Zealand reported. Dawson never knew what he did was wrong.

That's because Logan Dawson is a sadistic asshole! There's also the fact that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Judge Rosemary Riddell ruled that a conviction far outweighed the gravity of the offence and would seriously affect his career prospects in farming.

A conviction would seriously affect Dawson's career... Good job. Why would we want a fuckwit like Dawson who has displayed such a complete lack of empathy towards animal's suffering working on a farm?

New Zealand has a serious issue with animal cruelty with a lack of proper law enforcement which allows it to continue. Until we properly ascribe punishments that fit the crimes, animal cruelty will be an unresolved issue and a blight on our international reputation.

Farmers should oppose fracking

Today, Stuff reported:

A Taranaki farming couple are "shellshocked" after 120 of their cows dropped dead one by one in their paddock.

Around 20 vets who rushed to the Oeo farm of Chris and Catherine Cook on Tuesday could not save the animals, part of a herd of 600.

Mrs Cook's brother, John Murphy, speaking for the family, said the loss of the cows was a devastating blow.

"The farmer was out there topping up the water troughs and minutes later the cows were falling to the ground," he said.

Although there are a number of possible explanations for the deaths of the 120 cows, there's one that's obvious because of its absence from the article... The water and or land were contaminated by fracking. The questions that should really be asked is was there land farming occurring and where did the farmer get the water from?

The potential for fracking to pollute pasture and water supplies in Taranaki isn't just speculation... Documented evidence shows that blow-down pits at the Kapuni site had polluted the groundwater which was no longer fit for human or stock consumption. The BETX (benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylenes) contaminated water also didn't meet the criteria for irrigation, meaning it was highly toxic.

Of course Shell Todd Oil Services, which owns Kapuni, and the complicit regional council say there's no link with the fracking that's occurred in the area and the groundwater contamination, however BETX has been regularly used in fracking around Taranaki and there's no other reasonable explanation for it to be found in the groundwater other than unsafe storage of well fluids in fracking blow-down pits.

The problem here is that the oil and gas industry and the complicit Taranaki regional council are being secretive about the amount of pollution that has occurred and is still occurring in Taranaki because of fracking. They certainly won't be telling farmers when and where their water supplies have become contaminated with highly toxic chemicals that can kill their herds and impact on their livelihoods.

He said the cows were worth around $400,000, and their deaths would probably mean around another $300,000 loss of profit for the season.

"Cows are just so important and so close to farmers. It's like losing a loved one. In this case it's like losing multiple loved ones," Mr Murphy said.

That's why farmers should be against fracking... There's very little benefit compared to the potential adverse impact on our most profitable industry.

This cow died after drinking frack-contaminated water.

Mike Joy - Hero of the Week

Today, the NZ Herald reported (not online):

Correction 

Monday's editorial criticised the 'timing' of comments made by Massey University scientist Mike Joy to the New York Times ahead of The Hobbit launch and a new Tourism NZ campaign on 100% Pure.

Dr Joy points out that he made the comments one month before they appeared in print. Another statement by Dr Joy that New Zealand would not be 'in the top half of countries in the world when it comes to clean and green' was made to the Herald in a follow-up, not to the Times itself as stated in the editorial.

So basically the NZ Herald editorial against Mike Joy was inaccurate and made a number of unfounded and baseless accusations. With no real apology forthcoming, I hope that Mike Joy writes a complaint to the New Zealand Press Council about the misreporting that has clearly maligned him.

Unfortunately Mike Joy has received a large amount of abuse and undeserved ridicule for letting the public know the details of his research... Abuse that's designed to try and keep the scientist quiet about New Zealands environmental degradation.

Thankfully Dr Joy has a good sense of what's wrong or right and has used the media to focus attention on the things that are important, namely 90% of our lowland rivers are too polluted to swim in, 60% of our native freshwater fish are threatened and the current government is doing nothing about these problems.

In fact National is ensuring further environmental degradation through a $400 million fund for regional irrigation schemes that will ensure even more diffuse nutrients derived from agricultural sources will end up in our waterways.

National has even removed a democratically elected council to ensure the regional irrigation schemes are fast-tracked and made changes to the RMA that mean it will not properly protect the environment for future generations. Clearly short term profits are the only thing they care about.

The environmental problems Mike Joy highlights have been recognised by many scientists and environmentalists as well as concerned citizens who don't want their outdoors way of life further impacted by polluting industries. However the concerns they have raised have been totally dismissed by National politicians and their propagandists... In most cases they don't even acknowledge there's a problem at all.

Thankfully New Zealand has a hero in the form of Mike Joy who's justifiably outspoken about protecting the environment and is infinitely qualified to be heard. He's undoubtedly a patriot to his country and deserves praise for working to protect it from polluting industries and deluded politicians. So well done mate, that's why you've won this weeks Hero award. Keep up the good work.

Business as usual for fracking industry

Today, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, released her interim report Evaluating the environmental impacts of fracking in New Zealand (PDF), which was obviously released to the oil and gas industry spin doctors earlier this week.

Here's the conclusion and some interim findings, plus a few other excerpts worth highlighting:

The high-level conclusion from the work done to date in this investigation echoes, and is broadly consistent with, the reviews of fracking that have been done elsewhere in the world. That conclusion is that the environmental risks associated with fracking can be managed effectively provided, to quote the United Kingdom Royal Society, “operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation”. But at this stage I cannot be confident that operational best practices are actually being implemented and enforced in this country.

Firstly, operational best practice has clearly not been adhered to and this has resulted in numerous accidents and toxic chemical spills in New Zealand. For Jan Wright to say she's not confident that; 'operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation' is putting it incredibly lightly.

The second issue is that even if operational best practices are followed, the environmental problems inherent in fracking technologies remain. These problems outweigh the benefits fracking can impart such as job creation, security of energy supply and economic welfare, all of which have been incredibly overstated by the oil and gas industry as well as the current New Zealand government.

Some of the problems inherent in fracking technologies include a potential for irreparable water contamination that could affect drinking water supplies and other productive industries, adverse health effects of the general population through contamination, an increased likelihood of earthquakes leading to further tectonic instability in an already tectonically active country, gas leaks and continued reliance on fossil fuels contributing to climate change and the damage done to our clean and green image worth billion's to our economy each year. The cost analysis of any one of these things clearly outweighs the economic benefits from continuing to frack New Zealand.

Unfortunately the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment hasn't adequately looked into these matters to be able to make any authoritative conclusion on the matter. She does however touch on the subject of deregulation.

It may be that light-handed regulation of the oil and gas industry is working well, but this cannot be assumed. In August 2012, speaking about fracking, the Executive Director of the IEA was reported as saying that the industry’s 'just-trust-me approach is fuelling public skepticism.' Such skepticism is one of the real challenges for the industry.

Such a statement makes me wonder if Wright is even aware of the documented evidence showing numerous events of fracking failures in New Zealand. Of course regulatory measures haven't been effective in protecting the environment from industry cowboys, and it's not simply the just-trust-me approach that's fueling skepticism; it's the documented cases of fracking "accidents" and environmental pollution.

It's also the human cost to yet another dirty fossil fuel based industry that must be considered. South Taranaki District councilor, Michael Self, was one of the first people to link environmental pollution with the adverse health effects of many people and animals living in close proximity to fracking sites in the region. The high rate of cancer in Taranaki for instance is likely a result of pollution from the rampant expansion of and improperly regulated oil and gas industry.

Unfortunately there’s been no independent scientific study into this, mainly because of collusion between the industry and government officials to ensure secrecy. Clearly they only care about the money to be made and keeping things like the high levels of cancer in Taranaki under wraps is the only way they’ll ensure their ill-gotten gains continue.

Of course Jan Wright completely ignores the fact that corruption is one of the main problems, instead recommending:

Increasing public understanding of the technology should help address some concerns.

What a load of tosh! Gaining a better understanding of the problems inherent in fracking technologies has increased people's concerns. It's only through a secretive agenda and propaganda that the oil and gas industry has been able to carry out such environmentally unsafe practices. If the public knew the extent of the damage that has already occurred in New Zealand from hydraulic fracturing, it would not be tolerated... It's as simple as that.

On the whole the interim report is highly disappointing, weak, disjointed and not very thorough. Unfortunately the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment omits some very relevant and important aspects to the fracking debate and cherry-picks what information is included. Jan Wright also seems to think that a moratorium on fracking isn't required because the oil and gas industry will somehow magically clean up its act... Yeah right!

The industry has already proven through many instances of negligence that it cannot be trusted. The current local and central governmental bodies that are meant to be responsible for oversight have shown that they're not concerned in the slightest with properly enforcing consent requirements, thus proving they also cannot be trusted.

Fracking is not a safe technology and therefore all new developments should be halted. Furthermore the industry should be made to decontaminate and decommission existing sites. In my opinion, New Zealand should follow the example of many other countries around the world and ban the environmentally destructive practice immediately. The fracking pros simply don't outweigh the cons.

100% pure with a pinch of salt

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Mr Key insisted today that he did not believe the marketing slogan was inaccurate, but also emphasized that it was not to be taken literally.

"Overall, 100% Pure is a marketing campaign. It's like ... McDonalds' 'I'm Lovin It!' - I'm not sure every time someone's eating McDonalds they're lovin' it.

"Maybe they are, but they're probably not every single occasion. It's the same thing with 100% Pure, it's got to be taken with a pinch of salt."

I guess they'll have to change all that false advertising then...

Mark Unsworth - Asshole of the Week

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported:

Dr. Joy said that for a country purporting to be so pure, New Zealand seemed to be failing by many international environmental benchmarks.

Last month, the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment released a survey showing that more than half of the country’s freshwater recreational sites were unsafe to swim in. Fecal contamination of waterways, caused largely by dairy farming — the source of 13.9 billion New Zealand dollars, or $10 billion, in annual exports, nearly a quarter of New Zealand’s total — was widespread.

The survey showed that people who swam in those rivers were at a high risk of illness, including serious diseases like giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis and campylobacteriosis. The waterways were the cause of 18,000 to 34,000 cases of waterborne disease each year.

On Thursday, the NZ Herald reported:

A prominent government lobbyist is standing by his leaked comments which slam leading scientists for speaking out about New Zealand's poor environmental record.

Mark Unsworth, of government relations consultancy Saunders Unsworth, e-mailed Massey University environmental scientist Dr Mike Joy on Wednesday in reaction to Joy's comments to the New york Times on New Zealand's 'fantastical' 100% pure image.

Mr Unsworth's email - which was sent at 12:15am under the subject line 'Ego trip' - was posted by Green Party co-leader Russel Norman on his Facebook page today.

In the emails, Mr Unsworth said although he was an academic, Dr Joy had "let his ego run riot worldwide" while risking jobs and incomes from decreased tourism.

"You guys are the Foot and Mouth Disease of the tourism industry. Most ordinary people in NZ would happily have you lot locked up," he wrote.

"You may not care given your tenure in a nice comfy University lounge, but to others this affects income and jobs.

"Give that some thought next time you feel the need to see your name in print in New York. And possibly think of changing your name from Joy to Misery-its more accurate [sic]."

It's very disappointing to see this sort of thing happening in this day and age. Instead of actually doing something about the problem, Unsworth is only concerned with hiding the fact that over half of our freshwater recreational sites are too polluted to swim in.

This is an unacceptable position considering the amount of people who are becoming unwell because of that pollution. How much that costs New Zealand in lost productivity isn't known, but it's likely to be in the millions if not billions of dollars.

In my opinion, scientists should be allowed to speak out about important topics of public interest, especially when it might increase people's awareness about the problem and help promote change for the better.

To use a position of power to try and close somebody down just because of what they're saying is disgusting enough, but especially so when what they're saying is the truth. Only a real asshole would do that.

On Friday, the NZ Herald reported:

Mr Unsworth said he did not wish to comment further. He stood by the emails and they were his own personal views. Saunders Unsworth clients include Caltex, British Gas and Air New Zealand.

Mark Unsworth is clearly a deluded old fool! Saying that somebody is akin to foot and mouth disease and then not retracting that insult is entirely unacceptable behaviour.

But what makes Unsworth's criticism all the more repugnant is that responsibility for any negative press doesn't lie with the whistle-blower, it lies with the industry that is causing the environmental damage. They're the ones who are causing New Zealand's reputation as a clean and green nation to be degraded, and they are therefore costing us billions in lost tourism revenue.

Responsibility also lies with the government who are ensuring the environment continues to be damaged by not requiring farmers to clean up their acts. In fact they're causing further environmental degradation of our lakes and rivers through more intensive farming and increasing irrigation, irrigation that the taxpayers are paying for.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

But Dr Joy said his detractor had taken aim at the wrong target.

"If he wants to have a go at somebody, he should have a go at those who are polluting our rivers, not the guy researching it," he said. "I'm pretty disgusted . . . I have been quoted in this article commenting on the state of the environment and people have called me a traitor to this country. I'm just the one doing the research."

[...]

"I have dedicated my life to trying to save the environment . . . to have someone label me a traitor is pretty horrible."

"It's up to independent scientists like me to highlight the real issues because no one else is going to and that is part of my responsibility as an academic."

Clearly Mike Joy is not a traitor to his country. In fact it appears that he has New Zealand's best interests at heart. Only a true patriot would work tirelessly to protect the environment, which New Zealand relies on for our way of life and economic wellbeing.

Mark Unsworth on the other hand is a lecherous cretin who places more importance on the short-term interests of big business over people's health and the environment. He's undoubtedly a capitalist running dog who has had his day.

A guest post by Susan Krumdieck

Kia Ora,

There are some important things that I want to be up-front with you about.

The oil supply has peaked and is in decline. It will be expensive forever. You will want to be planning to organise yourself, your family, and your business to be able to use less petrol.  The amount we use will need to decline about 4-6% each year, which should be doable just by improving things. But we really need to get to work now.

The amount of diesel we use to freight Chinese junk and rubbish around the country is a joke. You are going to have to work out how to grow local businesses to supply more of what you need and to generate less waste. Yes, things will cost a bit more. But what goes around in our country comes back around. And if more of your neighbours have jobs they can buy more from you. The government should not be developing more roads, and we'll be doing well just to keep the roads in decent shape, so we're going to need to start restricting how many trucks can move on the roads. The Ausi supermarket chains are going to have to re-think their sourcing and warehousing to reduce truck traffic.  The government should be setting up new regulations for towns and cities to designate local weekend market areas, product testing and local currencies. This local market growth initiative could add at least 1-2 new professional jobs per town, and spur growth in new local production and manufacturing enterprises.

We rely quite heavily on gas.  There will never be another Maui gas field. The supply is going into decline. We are building more geothermal plants, but you and your families and businesses are going to have to start making energy management plans for how you can cut back on electricity use when needed.  You will want to improve efficiency wherever possible because the price is going to continue to climb. The government should be supporting new training and professional enterprises in energy management and transition engineering. This could add 1-2 new professional jobs per 5000 population all across the country and help you sort out how to get all of your good ideas going. We will also be putting a hold on gas fracking in New Zealand. There is nothing we could do with gas today that is worth the risks of irreversible damage to underground structures.

To be honest, coal is really dirty dangerous crap. Mining coal, and well, really mining anything, is guaranteed to be an environmental disaster for more than just one generation. The thing is that we can't have any kind of industrial society without coal. So, what we are going to have to do is recognise that coal use is going to decline, it's going to get more expensive, we are going to have to spend 50-90% more on technology when we mine it and use it to make sure we don't muck things up, and we are going to have to make hard choices about what we really need and don't need. What is really worth burning coal for and what isn't.  We are not going to burn coal for electricity.  Those days are over.  We are not going to sell our coal resources off-shore.  Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will need some coal some day. They will also be much more sensible about balancing their fossil energy use against the irreversible climate rupture we have created. We start now to face up to the facts about coal and we are going to do everything we can to reduce what we dig up - including a 10 year moratorium on new coal mining as a period to take stock, get the international corporations jaws un-clamped from around our necks, and decide what we really need to do.

There are no substitutions; there are no technology fixes. You were probably thinking that we could use wood or wind or solar or some other green thing to substitute for coal and oil and gas. But the truth is, while we support the development of renewable energy, and it might add some more jobs, the reducing fossil fuel supplies mean big changes. No amount of renewable energy development will change that fact. You're going to have to get much more efficient, and waste of any kind of resource will become a Kiwi anathema rather than a Kiwi norm.

We need to work together to restore our environment and build resilience wherever we can.   Every town needs to get busy organising groups to look at the local resources and start working with people to come up with solutions.  We have programmes with the universities to help out with assessing, planning and organising.  This will mean jobs for some of your local, uni educated young people back in their home towns planning and managing and monitoring the local reserves, and organising the new tourism opportunities, like connecting up reserves by bike trail.

I have told you the truth about energy resources and how we are going to adapt to use less energy. Now I am going to be honest with you about the economy. The economy is not something separate from us. The economy is actually just people who do a good job getting fair compensation for their work from the people who benefit from their labours. This is why there are different wages for different capabilities. We all pay taxes in order to live in a country that has high quality services and infrastructure. The people who are profiting the most should also do the most to make this country a better place. 

We need to figure out how to innovate so that we can build wealth - not from spreading ourselves open to the rest of the world to come and take what we've got - but by building real, sustained value, by having high quality of life, by long term thinking and by participatory, strongly democratic, fact-informed planning.

Prince Charles looks at sheep

Kennedy Graham vs Tim Groser

National guilty of ecocide

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

The National-led Government has been "charged" with ecocide for passing a law which watered down New Zealand's obligations to reduce carbon emissions.

The final reading of a bill which amended the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) drew impassioned speeches from MPs, in particular Green Party climate change spokesman Kennedy Graham.

Kennedy Graham's speech was indeed passionate, and in my opinion entirely justified.

However there was unfortunately no adequate response from the government, mainly because one particular MP, Tim Groser, was conspicuous by his absence from the debate. The Minister for Climate Change Issues entirely failed to speak to his Climate Change Response (Emissions Encouragement) Amendment Bill in its final reading, showing a level of arrogance rarely seen in parliament, even by his fellow National MP's.

Dr Graham levelled mock criminal charges at the Prime Minister and Minister for Climate Change.

"I charge the leaders of this Government with the moral crime of ecocide. I trust that in due course that they stand accountable before the children of this world, the children of John Key, the grandchildren of Tim Groser and mine."

He went further: "The leaders of this government ... are committing us to purgatory and thence to hell. Purgatory is the next decade, and hell the decade after."

Some might claim that this is a bit over the top, but I don't think so. Anybody who has been keeping up to date with developments concerning climate change would likely agree with Graham whole-heartedly, and commend him for his forthright and compelling oratory.

There are a number of truths about climate change that cannot be ignored. In fact only the most ardent climate change deniers are now sticking to their guns, namely those with a vested interest in not reducing GHG emissions.

Let's take two examples of what climate change deniers often like to ignore; the increased cost of not doing enough to reduce GHG emissions, and the increased speed at which climate change is affecting the environment we all live in.

The exact cost to worldwide economies from climate change is a difficult thing to quantify, mainly because the phenomenon is unprecedented and the variability of the changes as they impact on civilization is a dynamic process. However there have been a number of comprehensive studies to show the true financial cost of climate change.

Here are some excerpts from a recent report intended for the insurance industry, called Severe Weather in America (PDF):

In the long term, anthropogenic climate change is believed to be a significant loss driver, though it influences various perils in different ways. For instance, it particularly affects formation of heat waves, droughts, thunderstorms and – in the long run – tropical cyclone intensity. Short and mid-term natural climate variability also play a crucial role in the latter. Climate-related changes in hazard – other than increases in exposure – are not automatically reflected in the premiums.

I find it astounding that the insurance industry recognizes climate change, while our government is doing its damnedest to ignore it. How they're able to live in complete denial is beyond me, considering the increased amount of severe weather events that have occurred in recent years. The report continues:

In response to Hurricane Andrew, several organizations partnered with the insurance industry to develop models to assess the risk and estimate maximum losses from wind related events. However, loss events like Hurricanes Ivan (2004), Katrina, Rita and Wilma (2005), Ike (2008) and the Joplin tornado (2011) proved that wind-related loss potential was often greater than what the models predicted.

[...]

When global warming combines with natural weather cycles such as the El Niño/La Niña phenomena, the risk of severe weather is intensified and these factors will result in even larger loss costs from natural peril events than what we have seen so far.

The up-shot of this is that insurance is going to get more expensive because more things will be damaged from severe weather events, but that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the cost of climate change.

What National obviously fail to understand is that the cost of reducing GHG emissions, which is a required expense to reduce the effects of anthropomorphic climate change, might not be cheap... But the cost of failing to act will be even more expensive.

A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2008 entitled What We’ll Pay if Global Warming Continues Unchecked (PDF) found that:

New research shows that if present trends continue, the total cost of global warming will be as high as 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Four global warming impacts alone—hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, and water costs—will come with a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today’s dollars) by 2100.

These projections are now outdated, with a comprehensive report by the DARA group entitled Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of A Hot Planet (PDF) published in September this year, finding:

Climate change causes 400,000 deaths on average each year today, mainly due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries. Our present carbon-intensive energy system and related activities cause an estimated 4.5 million deaths each year linked to air pollution, hazardous occupations and cancer.

Climate change caused economic losses estimated close to 1% of global GDP for the year 2010, or 700 billion dollars (2010 PPP). The carbon-intensive economy cost the world another 0.7% of GDP in that year, independent of any climate change losses. Together, carbon economy- and climate change related losses amounted to over 1.2 trillion dollars in 2010.

The world is already committed to a substantial increase in global temperatures – at least another 0.5° C (1° F) due to a combination of the inertia of the world’s oceans, the slow response of the carbon cycle to reduced CO2 emission and limitations on how fast emissions can actually be reduced.

The world economy therefore faces an increase in pressures that are estimated to lead to more than a doubling in the costs of climate change by 2030 to an estimated 2.5% of global GDP.

[...]

Continuing today’s patterns of carbon-intensive energy use is estimated, together with climate change, to cause 6 million deaths per year by 2030, close to 700,000 of which would be due to climate change. This implies that a combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade.

Sobering reading indeed. In my opinion, if New Zealand isn't willing to play its part in reducing GHG emissions, then we're partly responsible for those estimated 400,000 deaths worldwide that will occur in 2012 because of climate change.

Let me be more specific; when I say we're responsible, what I really mean is the politicians who have made the decision to put the economic welfare of polluting industries ahead of their responsibility to reduce emissions are responsible.

National’s obstructive role at the recent United Nations climate summit in Durban has been widely condemned by scientists and climate activists alike. It was reported that New Zealand attempted to “water down the integrity of market mechanisms” for reducing emissions and adopted a “deliberately inconsistent” position on extension of the Kyoto Protocol.

In light of these events, New Zealand is not only failing to meet obligations on a national level, the current government has attempted to reduce the effectiveness of climate change negotiations worldwide. This is entirely unacceptable from politician's that are meant to represent the people of New Zealand, a country previously known for environmental responsibility and leadership.

As Minister for International Climate Change Negotiations, Tim Groser was New Zealand’s lead representative at those talks. He's also the Minister responsible for severely watering down the ETS so it's effectively useless! Nationals changes to that legislation mean GHG emissions will not reduce to ensure New Zealand meets its international obligations under previous agreements.

Therefore the charge of ecocide leveled at Tim Groser and the rest of the National party climate change deniers is justified. People like them should be held to account for putting the short-term profits of polluting industries ahead of the ability of future generations to survive on planet earth. One day their crimes of ecocide will be acted upon... The world will demand accountability.