Join MJ as he chats to Groundswell founder Bryce Mckenzie about how Groundswell came about, what it stands for, the need for change at this election and the latest Groundswell initiative, Drive For Change.
• seeking solutions to environmental issues which are effective and that can be tailored to regional differences.
• integrated policy framework for all environmental issues to reduce duplication and cost, avoid perverse outcomes, remove policy conflicts, and put a greater focus on environmental outcomes.
• High Levels of efficiency of New Zealand farming and adaptation to climate change.
• DRIVE 4 CHANGE is a trek up the country to raise awareness and to mobilise voters.
Groundswell NZ was founded in 2020 by two southern farmers who were frustrated with unworkable regulations. Now supported by a volunteer group of farmers and rural professionals, they’ve brought the issue of unworkable regulations into the mainstream, and represent an authentic rural voice.
Since its inception they have run a regular and successful campaign to illustrate their point through a series of tractor drives, nationwide protests and a strong media presence that has seen them amass huge support.
Their latest campaign is ‘Drive For Change’
DRIVE 4 CHANGE is a trek up the country to raise awareness and to mobilise voters. Our message is: things are bad, you need to vote, and you need to vote for change. Groundswell co-founders Bryce McKenzie and Laurie Paterson will be getting on tractors in Invercargill on 22nd September and driving all the way to Auckland, finishing with a speaking event at the Ellerslie Racecourse at 1pm Sunday 1 October. Other farmers and food producers will be joining them along the way and you can view when the convey will reach your town here https://www.groundswellnz.co.nz/itinerary.
If you want to join in, Groundswell encourages you do download official signs, avoid any messages that are offensive or discriminatory, decorate your vehicle and join in!
“I’ve had some really great times on the land… But it’s really difficult at the moment. We’re actually doing a drive for change, Groundswell are. We’ve been planning it for months actually, but Laurie and I are going to drive tractors from Invercargill to Auckland. Now there’s a number of people in Auckland, some of them very successful businessmen, who have hired Ellerslie Racecourse for the day of the 1st of October. As we travel up New Zealand, we’ll be speaking at different places. We’ll be encouraging people in their tractors, their trucks, their utes, their cars, their bikes, their scooters, whatever, to just join us driving through the centre of the cities and the towns. What we recommend is posters or banners to be carried. We’ve actually built a website especially for this, which looks at the failures of this Labour government. And it is what it is. It says it is a drive for change. And we’re apolitical. We will not tell anybody who they should be voting for to put in government. All we’re saying is we can not stand three more years of what we’ve got now. It’s just, it’s broken the trust. Its broken people’s will to actually do things. This government has done that much damage in people’s lives. we cannot afford to have them for another three years.” - Bryce McKenzie
DRIVE 4 CHANGE is a trek up the country to raise awareness and to mobilise voters.
Our message is: things are bad, you need to vote, and you need to vote for change
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Mykeljon Winckel is the managing director and editor of elocal Magazine.