Dairy NZ’s economic modelling of the Government’s freshwater package shows the enormous cost the proposed regulations will have on the farming sector, National’s Agriculture spokesperson Todd Muller says.

“The Government failed to provide any economic analysis in their discussion document, which has meant organisations such as Dairy NZ have been forced to do their work for them.

“Dairy NZ’s analysis shows a potential annual $6 billion hit to our GDP by 2050, due to an estimated 24 per cent drop in milk production and 5.2 per cent drop in national exports. As well as 15 – 20 per cent fewer jobs in the dairy industry.

“Farmers’ confidence has been plummeting recently as a result of this Government’s policies, and the scale of these economic projections will only cause it to drop even further.

“The Government should have provided national level analysis showing what the proposals will do to New Zealand’s economy and regional level analysis that considers what they will mean for rural communities.

“Organisations such as Dairy NZ, Local Government New Zealand, AgFirst and others have conducted good work into the proposals and provided key economic analysis where the Government has failed to.

“Farmers who will be affected by these proposals deserve to have the facts in front of them and the Government should have been providing them from the start.”

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