New rural Heartland party challenges climate change and water restrictions
A new political party has emerged from the rural heartland to rail against our most recent environmental regulations and New Zealand's ban on oil and gas exploration. Mark Balls a farmer's farmer, a man well known in Auckland's rural south. The ex-cop and Franklins former mayor is loud, brash and charming its easy to see why hes been chosen as the Port Waikato candidate for The Heartland Party, one of the newest political groups to emerge before the September elections. Their policy platform certainly isnt for everyone, aimed at rural interests and scaling back what Ball labels overbearing and nonsensical environmental policies. READ MORE: * Why a new rural political party is likely to fail * Climate Change: Everything New Zealand needs to do to get to zero * Emissions trading reform Bill passes, hard work ahead First, there's the Emissions Trading Scheme, which incentivise foreign investors to grow quick, useless greenery for carbon credits, according to Ball, while not producing anything else of value. Then there's the Zero Carbon Bill. Why do we have to be world-leading when we are a pimple on the world stage and our other major trading partners arent burdened with the same responsibility? Put simply, these regulations are expensive, says Ball, and right now we can't afford it. If we just adopted all of [The Paris Agreement] we would be shutting up shop with the last one out - shoot themselves. In fact, he says, we should take another hard look at offshore oil and gas exploration, which was banned in 2018. We have a pretty good infrastructure for oil and gas at the moment... so we would be willing to look at working with all types of businesses to get us through this time. They also take issue with the regulations under the governments proposed Action for healthy waterways. Just like four out of five kiwis, most farmers also want cleaner lakes and streams, says Ball. But the government should set the environmental targets, not the rules and regulations. Leave that to the regional councils and farmers groups, who know the best way to manage their land. He's got quite a good point there actually, says Guy Salmon, an executive director of Ecologic a non-profit foundation that promotes sustainable development. Salmon says The Land and Water Forum, recommended this approach in 2012, which was then trialled in the Waikato with some success. However, delayed negotiations over iwi water rights stalled the policy from going nation-wide. Good luck to them if they can make it work, says Salmon. But while Salmon says the Heartland freshwater ideas make some sense, the same cant be said for their stance on climate change. Our current policies have room for improvement, he says, but if New Zealand seriously scaled back its emission regulations we'd be at risk of violating our international obligations. In 2015 we signed The Paris Climate Agreement just like every other country. And while theres a price to pay for the country as a whole, our current legislation has been designed to minimise disruption to our most vulnerable industries, otherwise known as EITEs. Ninety per cent of their emissions are exempt. This will gradually decline by one per cent each year until the latter half of the century... but they've got a form of protection from competition under the existing law. And these regulations have led to the growth of new green technologies. In Taranaki for example, a new industry is paving the way for the use of clean hydrogen energy, thanks to the expertise of ex-oil and gas engineers. So when we have to be careful when we react to recent changes, as [The Heartland Party] appear to be, that we dont stand in the way of progress.