Farmers set to hop the ditch

Farmers who claim Labour's emissions trading scheme will put them out of business say they will hop the ditch to Australia if it is not changed after the election.

Stuart King, who with his Australian-born wife Lorae farms 500 cows at Elstow, near Te Aroha, said the scheme, passed last month, looked like a revisited "fart tax" and would cost his business between $50,000 and $300,000 a year depending on the price of carbon.

"It will drive business out of New Zealand," Mr King, chairman of Te Aroha Federated Farmers, said in an interview published in today's edition of the Waikato Times Farmer.

We don't have to stay in New Zealand and Australia will treat farmers better."

Mr King said New Zealand has got to get back to 1990 levels while Australia only has to get back to 106 per cent of 1990 levels.

- © Fairfax NZ News