Dairy polluters win again

Greens outraged at 'conflict of interest'
Advocates for New Zealand's biggest water polluters have been handed a contract to write a 10-year Government water strategy. The Green Party is outraged DairyNZ, which represents dairy farmers, received the uncontested contract to do the work for the state-funded Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST) in what MP Jeanette Fitzsimons says is "such an obvious conflict of interest". DairyNZ is funded by a levy on milksolids. The Greens are also angry that no environmental or recreational non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were consulted. DairyNZ employee and former FRST investment strategy general manager David Johns will conduct the review. DairyNZ says Johns is doing the work in a private capacity, not as a DairyNZ staff member.

What a joke! The Dairy Industry, one of the biggest polluters of water ways in NZ gets to write the 10 year water plan for the Government? It would be shocking if the Dairy Industry hadn’t always had this type of power regardless of which political party is in power, under Labour the decade long report on the environment came out a couple of years ago, chapter 13 of that report was a damning attack on the Dairy industry and the pollution they create, the Industry was so strong that it forced the final report to censor chapter 13 altogether. Federated Farmers was once headed by a Charlie Penderson who described the environmental movement as a ‘war against humanity’. The Agricultural industry do not care about our green image enough to actually protect it and allowing one of the largest water polluters to write the water rules is just a complete joke.

Business as usual in NZ.