Farmers' ETS bill will be $3000 each, says Key

Polution taxes for farmers

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Prime Minister John Key has put a price to farmers on their contribution to an emissions trading scheme.

The cost of paying for stock emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in 2030 would be around $3000 a farmer, he told a Federated Farmers meeting in Wellington yesterday.

This compared with $30,000 under Labour, he said. New Zealand has about 25,000 livestock farmers.

The Government proposes to alter the scheme introduced by Labour before the last election to delay agriculture's entry by two years to 2015 and to ease it into the scheme at a slower rate.

However, the federation remains against the scheme and president Don Nicolson yesterday repeated his call for it to be scrapped. He criticised the "horse trading" between parties to get the amendments passed as an "absolute nonsense" that was bending the National Party out of shape.

"The original ambition was to change people's behaviour, to use resources efficiently. That has now turned into a complex accounting nightmare where even the accountants can't agree on the figures."

Mr Key said the Government was protecting New Zealand environmental credentials.

One of the federation's objections to an ETS was based on Australia's decision not to include agriculture in its scheme, but New Zealand had to be careful about comparing the two countries' farming sectors.

"Agriculture accounts for just 16 percent of Australia's emissions, but it's 48 per cent of ours," Mr Key said.

- © Fairfax NZ News