Half-hearted on water

Two aspects have been most noticeable about the Government’s essential freshwater reforms. The first is a lack of detail and the second the absence of ministers or officials visiting the regions to explain the policy.

For a policy that will arguably have the greatest impact on farming in a generation, the effort to explain and convince those it will affect of its merits, can be described as half-hearted at best.

Despite continued widespread condemnation more than two months after its release, there has been little effort by ministers and officials to meet and try to appease those it will most affect.

This is especially true of the policy’s architect, environment minister David Parker. His failure to front farmers and most farming media can only be described as shameful.

His ministry officials have been equally woeful in providing clarity, failing to meet with farmers and shying away from media questions, instead directing journalists to hundreds of pages of policy to find answers.

To be fair, in recent weeks the MFE has held webinars but these have been little more than a regurgitation of the policy, with limited questions and no interaction.

Scheduled to run for one hour, surprisingly the webinar on intensive winter grazing only went for less than 45 minutes, with many questions unanswered.

Officials will be able to tick the consultation box, but in reality, they are leaving farmers angry, frustrated and confused.

This is totally unacceptable and leads to the conclusion that ministers and ministry officials either lack belief in the policy or have so little understanding of its implications that they cannot answer legitimate questions from those it will impact on the most.