2003: The Fart Tax

August 31, 2023

By AHNZ

Twenty years now since the Fart Tax.

Farmers protested on 4 September, 2003, a Labour 5.0 attempt to tax them $8,000,000pa. Labour wanted the money to fund one of their scams under the heading ‘research on stock flatulence.’ The farmers just called it a ‘fart tax’.

Future National 5.0 MPs were prominent in the protest, including Judith Collins, Nick Smith, Lockwood Smith, and Shane Ardern. The most iconic image came from Ardern driving his T-20 Ferg up Parliament steps. For this he was charged, unlike, for example, Labour MP Bob Tizard in 1983 who did exactly the same thing in a later model tractor.

“Almost 20 years ago, hundreds of furious New Zealand farmers jumped into their tractors, farm bikes and trucks and ploughed up Wellington’s main street towards parliament to kick up a stink against the so-called “fart tax” – a levy on livestock methane gases, proposed by the then-Labour government to reduce emissions.” – Nineteen years after the ‘fart tax’, New Zealand’s farmers are fighting emissions, The Guardian (2022)

The fart tax scam was withdrawn, the protest a success.

Ironically enough the iconic driver of the Ferg up Parliament steps challenging what he called a “thieving tax hungry socialist government,” Shane Ardern, was cousin to Labour 6.0 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Comrade, Comrade, Comrade Ardern used one of her parting shots before quitting as PM to launch another Fart Tax in 2022. On this occasion it was from a nice sympathetic Featherston farm as toward the end of her tenure Jacinda was liable to attract angry flash mobs if ever she appeared in public¹.

“Dressed in a pair of clean gumboots and standing behind a podium of hay bales at a Wairarapa dairy farm, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced what she called a “pragmatic” world-first scheme that will require farmers to pay for their agricultural greenhouse gas emissions…emitted mostly through livestock urine.” – ibid

“From 2025, farms will receive an invoice for their annual emissions.” – Agri emissions: What farmers won and lost in the Government’s plan, Stuff (2022)

So, if Labour 6.0 Ministers Damien O’Connor (image, right,) Kieran McAnulty, and James Shaw (Greens) are still in power in 2025 perhaps the Arden Ferg will ride again.

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1 Example: February 2022 when she was trying to promote the old lie that there was such a thing as a “Free Lunch.” Ref. 1867: Tuahiwi, AHNZ

Image ref. Blogger and Polster David Farrar and MP Judith Collins on the scene; flatulencetax.co.nz; Internet Archive

Image ref. Minister Damien O’Connor: Sith Lord of Agriculture.

Ref. Government finally announces agricultural emissions plan – but how’s it gone down? Newshub (2022)

Ref. 21 December, 2005, The Labour government abandoned their proposed carbon tax. Ref. Scoop (2005)

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