New Zealand Enacts “Flatulence Tax” and Finds Farmers Give a Shit

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Tax sparks protest moo-vement

Angry New Zealand farmers are reportedly sending parcels of cattle manure to cabinet ministers in a campaign against a so-called “flatulence tax” on their animals.

New Zealand Post said it was treating the campaign “as seriously as cyanide”, and police are threatening to prosecute farmers who vow they will not pay the tax, which is designed to fund research into global warming.

Methane gas from cattle and sheep accounts for more than half of all New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the government says farmers should help pay for research to reduce it.

Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton, a target of the manure missives, told Radio New Zealand the guilty farmers were “clowns who engage in this sort of stupidity” and said it would be unfair to make all New Zealanders pay higher taxes to fund the research.

He also said it was “contemptible” of the farming newspaper Rural News to encourage mailing manure to politicians through its “Raise a Stink” campaign.

The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

Tax Resistance.

Glasgow.

Miss [Janet Legate] Bunten, the hon. treasurer of the Glasgow Branch of the Women’s Freedom League, has had some pictures seized by the authorities in consequence of her refusal to pay taxes levied without her consent. The date of the sale is not yet fixed. A protest meeting will be held, at which Miss [Anna] Munro will speak.

St. Leonards.

One of the most successful and effective Suffrage demonstrations ever held in St. Leonards was that arranged jointly by the Women’s Tax Resistance League and the Hastings and St. Leonards Women’s Suffrage Propaganda League, on , on the occasion of the sale of some family silver which had been seized at the residence of Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison for non-payment of Inhabited House Duty. Certainly the most striking feature of this protest was the fact that members of all societies in Hastings, St. Leonards, Bexhill and Winchelsea united in their effort to render the protest representative of all shades of Suffrage opinion. Flags, banners, pennons and regalia of many societies were seen in the procession. Not the least satisfactory feature was the courtesy and respect shown by the authorities, the general public, and the Press towards the demonstrators. The hearty response from the men to Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes’s call for “three cheers for Mrs. Darent Harrison” at the close of the proceedings in the auction room, came as a surprise to the Suffragists themselves.