“Climate Change Minister James Shaw has flipped the bird at farmers, arrogantly ignoring questions about their livelihoods”, says ACT’s Primary Industries spokesperson Mark Cameron.

“It follows Shaw flip flopping on whether he would like to see a reduction in the number of cows.

“Pressed in Parliament and by the media, Shaw has taken both the position that we don’t need to cut the size of the national herd, and the position that we do.

“Today, in an arrogant performance in Parliament, Shaw simply ignored the question.

“Farmers deserve a straight answer from the Government. We’re talking about thousands of livelihoods here.

“Cutting the size of the national herd would just force production overseas to countries with poorer environmental records. It would deprive the 40 million people New Zealand farmers feed of high-quality produce and farmers of income.

“ACT says farmers shouldn’t be forced to cut the number of cows, or be forced into an emissions pricing scheme, until there are credible and practical methane mitigation technologies available.

“The Government needs to do what it can to reduce barriers to the uptake of those technologies. It could start by approving the application for Bovaer that has been sitting on the desk of the EPA for 13 months.”

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