The Offal Pit: Pardon me for being a farmer

Farmers have accepted our contribution to water quality changes. Photo / Ginnie Matthews-Kinder

How much do we need to take, haven't we done our penance?

We have turned the other cheek for three years now and accepted our contribution to water quality changes and I for one have had enough, but at least we haven't apologised.

As for the new PR method of apologising for everything, this just gives me the shits.

What's the point of going to a meeting and having to spend the first three hours apologising? I apologise for being a dairy farmer, I apologise for employing five people, I apologise for trying to work hard and get ahead, I apologise for my cows not being toilet trained, I apologise for being a farmer, a man or a woman.

I used to like the apology that went along the lines of - if you have taken offence then I am sorry and am not too keen on the current method of actually having to mean it, or say sorry for every little thing I might have done.

The worst thing is that there has to be an inquiry about the delivery of the apology, the body language and the acceptance of the person who might have been offended.

David Cunliffe has taken it to an art form, or being badly advised, and to apologise for being a man was really the final straw.

Doesn't he realise that there are medical interventions that can fix this if he is sorry to be a man. Just don't drag the rest of us down to your level.

Imagine the coalition between Labour, the Greens, Kim Dotcom, Hone and Winston. Can you imagine all the apologies? Then there will be payback for the treatment they endured under the Nats, the tax rises they are going to impose, the increased compliance costs, as well as the expected ones for the maligned, the globe for climate change, the gold card, getting old.

I'm not sorry for being the backbone of this economy, for being a farmer, or for being a man, or for having a good family and I'm lucky that farming in NZ allows this so far.

*The Offal Pit is a contributed column and does not reflect the views or policies of Federated Farmers.