Groundswell is referring to the events collectively as 'A Howl of a Protest'. In a 'position statement' in advance of the protests, the group said: "Farmers and growers will be joined by industry support people, tradespeople, contractors and councils in the unprecedented nationwide demonstration."Central Auckland right now #FarmersProtest @1NewsNZ pic.twitter.com/jLmmi9gNwx
— Emily van Velthooven (@emvanvelthooven) July 15, 2021
The group is making its demands "with a sense of absolute urgency", it said. The group has seven demands of the country's government, revolving around recently adopted environmental policies which they say restrict farming activity.#groundswell farmers' protest in central #Auckland#NewZealand pic.twitter.com/UmBRcqUPlN
— Jo McCarthy (@KinenPhotog) July 15, 2021
The demands are:Yes, you're actually seeing this 😲: Auckland's Queen St has been overrun by tractors and utes https://t.co/r9mLpbwxqb #Newshub pic.twitter.com/VTZtFLY13Q
— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) July 15, 2021
- Scraping a national water policy and having freshwater quality guidelines implemented on a regional basis with catchment groups;
- Removing or rewriting rules on natural areas such as wetlands to allow landowners place these lands in trusts voluntarily, rather than being forced into it, which the farmers regard as a "land grab" by government;
- Scrapping a national policy on biodiversity in favour of voluntary, landowner-led measures on a regional basis;
- Classifying rural and agricultural workers from overseas as skilled manual labourers rather and unskilled labour (these workers are an important source of labour in the dairy and horticulture sectors);
- Removing an emissions trading system which the protestors say is "seeing large areas of farmland incentivised into pines and [is] a significant cost burden";
- Lifting the burden of environmental regulation on high country (elevated pastureland); farmers;
- Scrapping a tax on utes, as these vehicles are "essential to New Zealand's economic heavy lifters", including farmers, horticulturists and tradespeople.