Pete Fitz-Herbert: He Waka Eke Noa - science fiction or non-fiction?

Photo / Unsplash / Agnieszka Kowalczyk

Opinion: Manawatū farmer Pete Fitz-Herbert likens He Waka Eke Noa's primary industry representatives to death row inmates discussing their future, as rural New Zealanders are slowly turned into Ewoks while waiting for the Rebel Alliance. Bear with him.

Imagine if death row inmates were allowed to form a committee, to discuss their future.

A committee that also contained people best described as "victims' rights campaigners".

People whose agenda involved ensuring that future is as brief and as painful as logistically possible.

A committee that wasn't allowed to discuss guilt, the death penalty, or even when the execution was to proceed.

The committee was only there to discuss and present a possibility of different options to change the gauge of the needle and its length, for better comfort in the final moments, as the sodium pentobarbital is injected at execution - or maybe death by gas chamber would be more appropriate for this example.

But hey – at least they were consulted, right?

Sounds a bit pointless to me.

Also sounds very similar to He Waka Eke Noa.

If you're involved in New Zealand agriculture and are yet to hear of this great waka, then your execution will be swift.

The committee is looking on as the destruction of agriculture in New Zealand is planned and (through well-understood but apparently unintended consequences) put on the path of Zimbabwe - from the first to the third world - from food basket to basket case.

Or, are the same book-bound geniuses that designed the Emissions Trading Scheme and He Waka Eke Noa actually fans of Star Wars and planning on using He Waka to turn rural New Zealanders into Ewoks?

Ungroomed primitive communities living in tree huts, off the grid, while a totally different and dislocated civilisation whips around in space-age electric wakas, demanding reasonable prices for the last of the naturally-produced protein on earth.

Science fiction or non-fiction? I forget the difference and unfortunately, I think some politicians do too.

They are keen on offering up New Zealand as a sacrifice on the universal altar for the world to see in the fight against carbon dioxide - even though we contribute less than a fart in the global trade winds!

Much like death row, not everyone will be guilty, but the executions will proceed because of "unintended" consequences and poorly designed but well-intentioned systems.

I'm sure sheep/beef and deer farmers will be asking if we really are all in this together as we march into the executioner's chamber, to a standing ovation from the rest of the country forming a guard of honour, with a slowly-contracting mob forcing the last stragglers in for the greater good.

Is this a far-fetched fairy tale, or the start of a story for the future to be told in a distant galaxy far-far away?

Maybe we need a Rebel Alliance before it is too late!

And if that alliance needs a leader - might I suggest Jedi Jane, with assistance from the Groundswellians?

The great irony is that I don't actually know that much about Stars Wars, but even I reckon this government is a bit of a Death Star.