The Prime Minister has hit back at claims made by an ACT MP that farmers are irate with the National Party over its Paris Agreement climate commitments.
In a recent interview with Reality Check Radio, ACT’s agriculture spokesperson Mark Cameron said farmers had been telling him that National was out of touch and he believes the party risks losing a substantial portion of the rural vote.
“Farmers are saying, you know, given the fact that (Climate Change Minister) Simon Watts and his crew have signed this up to 51% reduction by 2035 well that’s worse than (former Climate Change Minister) James Shaw, has been the tonality that is offered to me and farmers are lamenting that National is out of touch.”
Cameron told the radio station farmers are furious.
“They’re irate, they’re genuinely irate, many cannot reconcile the angst they now feel.”
He said the feedback he’d been getting from farmers was that it is the two smaller parties in the coalition government, ACT and New Zealand First, who are doing the heavy lifting and that many are “now disgruntled with the big team in the middle”.
Asked about the criticism while on his India trade trip National’s leader Luxon dismissed it.
“Oh that’s rubbish, farmers tell me they do not want multi-national companies and countries that compete with New Zealand on dairy, kicking our products off the shelf.
“And I tell you, I act brutally in New Zealand’s national interests and as a result it is entirely appropriate that we are part of the Paris Agreement.”
The Prime Minister has hit back at claims made by ACT MP Mark Cameron that farmers are irate with the National Party over its Paris Agreement climate commitments. (Source: 1News)
New Zealand could be in breach of its EU and UK Free Trade Agreements if it doesn’t hit its climate targets and could potentially face sanctions and lose access.
Luxon said he’d been talking to farmers recently at the Wanaka A&P show.
“They tell me they do not want our products kicked off shelves by companies and competing countries who would love us to withdraw so they could do exactly that.”
A spokesperson for ACT told 1News Cameron’s views were formed after talking to farmers at recent agricultural Field Days events in Dargaville and Feilding and from conversations with farmers at ACT’s town hall meetings.
ACT’s leader David Seymour told media yesterday that he supports remaining in the Paris Agreement, for now.
“I believe we should be because the trade retaliation from not being in it would be greater than the cost of being in it. That may change, maybe it’ll be different in the future,” he said.
Seymour said if more countries withdraw from the Paris Agreement New Zealand should reconsider its position.
But for now, he said Watts was choosing to do “the minimum viable option within the agreement that James Shaw has signed us up to”.
Cameron also told Reality Check Radio he had a “healthy scepticism” about climate change and described the Paris Agreement as a “globalist mantra”.
The Paris Agreement is striving to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century to avoid “unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall”.