The rural vote is a contested vote, and a contested vote is a powerful vote. Since the National Party’s formation in the 1930s, it has been fused with the farming sector, like two cow carcasses flash-frozen together in loving embrace. Now Act and New Zealand First are trying to tear them asunder.
Act boasts former Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard in its caucus, and New Zealand First’s Shane Jones styles himself the Champion of the Provinces. All three parties campaigned on keeping the agricultural sector out of the Emissions Trading Scheme, the government’s primary mechanism for greenhouse gas reduction. This month, they delivered –
