Originally from: frances fish
                        
This has been sent to you from www.nbr.co.nz by Frances.

Sorry, couldn't resist this one ! common sense prevailed perhapFrances

Fart tax flames out

The government appears to have decided the controversial "fart tax" -- a levy on methane-emitting livestock -- is not worth pursuing despite earlier statements that it was not a question of whether the tax would be imposed, but only how it would be collected.

Animal-generated methane emissions account for more than one-half the total greenhouse gas produced by New Zealand each year. Under the government tax scheme, which drew angry mobs of farmers to protests all around the country, farmers would be charged for each sheep and cow they raised, with the funds -- over $8 million -- going into a research programme the government said was essential to meeting its obligations under the Kyoto protocol.

The Kyoto protocol appears to be mortally wounded by Russia's unwillingness to sign on, but the government says it will go ahead with efforts to meet Kyoto requirements even though the protocol does not ye have the authority of international law and may never be fully ratified.

On that premise, the government maintained that the "fart tax" was necessary -- but farmers have said all along that research programmes funded voluntarily are doing an adequate job.

Until yesterday, the government had rejected that notion.

Then Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson said it appeared the "tax" could be done away with -- that a programme of voluntary funding for research, if funded adequately, would do just as well.

The alternate scheme was proposed by the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, a group backed by Fonterra, Dairy Insight, DEEResearch, Meat New Zealand, Wrightsons and the state-owned AgResearch institute, which has been engaged in methane reduction research for over a year. The move was immediately celebrated by farmers as a victory but the government denied it was in retreat, saying a mandatory levy had always been last on its list of options.

Details of what, exactly, the "new" programme will include -- or cost -- are not yet known, but government and farmers are working through that aspect.

Mr Hodgson said he was confident the two sides were close to an agreement.

Charlie Pedersen, Federated Farmers vice president, said action by farmers, including an MP driving a vintage tractor up the steps of Parliament in Wellington and a 65,000-signature petition, helped "bring the government to its senses."

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