Andrew Dickens Afternoons

In the aftermath of the farmer protests on Friday, some tempers have been running high as farmers allege city residents don’t understand them.  But in fact, there are many issues that should unite farming and city folk. As I drove in this morning, I heard a farmer on ZB claiming that city folk have no idea of the environmental regulation and the cost of compliance that the farming community have to bear. I thought that was a bit unfair. Currently Auckland Council is spending $1 billion dollars on the interceptor project which is to prevent wastewater from entering the watercourses that crisis across the city. That’s part of the costs of keeping rates high. Then there’s the story of the service station that’s being developed in my suburb.  This is a saga that has rumbled on for years.  The service station operator has now spent more than $500,000 on getting resource consents and will spend just about as much on environmental safeguards. City businesses will complain about compliance costs as much as any farmer