Waituna farmers talk turkey to Tuckey

In fact, it's not all Waituna farmers, and they're addressing everyone at Environment Southland, we councilors in particular, but we don't want to hog the headline :-)

 "We will not tolerate being railroaded with Draconian regulations, and ES needs to develop a positive attitude toward farmers.
"We are sick of the insinuation that we are ALL polluters."

Ray McCrostie lets fly in today's Opinion column of the Southland Times, and batters the regional council around the paddock for a bit, before declaring that his new group, Waituna Farmers United, are up and running and will sort the Waituna lagoon issue, unlike those inactive procrastinators in the 'bureaucratic black hole that is the ES boardroom.' (Does Mr McCrostie write this stuff himself, or is Don Nicholson moonlighting as his ghost-writer?)
It's stirring stuff and there are great lines from the group's spokesperson.

"At that point, those in the farming fraternity said, "Whoa".

"Now there's more than one way we can play this".

"We are up and running at a time when ES was banking on us being too busy to care".

What this all adds to the debate is unclear, but there's a website we can visit to learn more.