Fed Farmers has laid a complaint with Charities Services, asking it to strip Greenpeace of its charity status, claiming a “repeated involvement in premeditated unlawful protest activity”.
It says that disqualifies Greenpeace from being registered as a charity.
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman isn’t bothered.
“Under current law they don’t have a leg to stand on,” he says.
Greenpeace’s non-violent protest at Port Taranaki in April, where protesters were arrested during a bid to prevent the unloading of palm kernel animal feed, presented the farmer lobby group with an opportunity to strike a blow after months of intense criticism from the environmental group.
“We intend for them [Greenpeace] to lose their charitable status,” McIntyre told The Post, and did not rule out court action, if Charities Services declines its complaint.
But Norman is certain Greenpeace has the law on its side, though fears Federated Farmers may have the influence in the corridors of power to have the law changed to restrict non-violent protests by charities.
“Fed Farmers’ job is to advocate for more pollution,” Norman said. “Our job is to try to protect the environment against them, so there’s been a lot of conflict between Fed Farmers and the environmental movement over a very long time. They’re just trying to pressure us, but under current law they don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Norman referred to a 2020 High Court judgment from Justice Jillian Mallon, who found that a small amount of non-violent behaviour that risked “transgressing the law” did not disqualify Greenpeace from being a charity.
“I consider it cannot be inferred that Greenpeace NZ has an illegal purpose from the sporadic breaches of the law that are at the low end of seriousness… that are intended to draw attention to environmental issues, are an exercise of the freedom of expression and the freedom of thought, conscience and belief, and when they make up a very small subset of Greenpeace’s otherwise lawful activities.”
Justice Mallon drew on an earlier 2014 Supreme Court decision that drew the same conclusion.
“I don’t think there’s any risk under existing law because the Supreme Court has made a very clear ruling on that… and nothing has essentially changed since they made that ruling,” Norman said.
Norman said: “It’s a matter of public record the kinds of things that Greenpeace has done for decades because we’ve been in New Zealand now for half a century.”
He said: “Nothing has changed between that Supreme Court decision and today in terms of the way Greenpeace operates.”
Federated Farmers’ complaint alleges that “Greenpeace NZ has coordinated and endorsed premeditated criminal activity”, saying that a “pattern of behaviour reflects a disregard for the legal obligations that govern charitable entities and, in our view, amounts to the promotion of unlawful activities that should disqualify Greenpeace New Zealand from maintaining its charitable status” under the Charities Act 2005.
It lists seven events in the “pattern” dating back to the boarding and occupation of an oil drilling ship in 2012 in Taranaki.
The list also includes a protest in 2017 during which Norman was arrested for swimming in an exclusion zones around an oil exploration ship, but was later discharged without conviction.
McIntyre said: “I’m not trying to destroy Greenpeace, but if they are going to exercise their right to peaceful protect, I want them to do it within the bounds of the law.
“It is really important to have a public discourse, but it’s got to be done respectfully and within the bounds of the law,” he said.
Norman did not accept that argument.
“A lot of the things that we value today, women’s right to vote, for instance, a nuclear free New Zealand… a lot of those causes involved a level of peaceful civil disobedience as part of those campaigns to achieve those things that we now as a nation believe important,” he said.
“If you were to say that it’s completely unacceptable for a charity to support any level of peaceful civil disobedience, then essentially you’re turning your back on centuries of social progress,” Norman said.
While Norman did not fear the Federated Farmers complaint, he did fear Federated Farmers’ influence in Wellington. He feared the Government could be prevailed upon to decide to amend the Charities Act.
“The risk is that you’ve got a group like Federated Farmers which is basically mainlining into the cabinet,” Norman said.
“I wouldn’t put it past people in that cabinet to advocate to change the law to make it harder for charities to do their work,” he said.
There have been several interventions by the Government into activities that threaten economic powerhouses, and several attempts by ruling party backbenchers to limit civil action.
The Government is legislating to protect ANZ and ASB from facing a heavy penalty should they lose a class action lawsuit taken in the name of borrowers, and amended pay equity laws to protect employers, itself included, from pay equity claims in women-dominated industries.
National MP Joseph Mooney wants to pass a law to abolish people’s right to take legal action against companies over climate change, and fellow National Party MP Catherine Wedd would like to to establish a new crime of impeding the use of major bridges, tunnels, and roads by protest groups.
McIntyre said the move against Greenpeace had been popular among its members.
“Taxpayers are funding Greenpeace through tax rebates on donations, and yet they go about disrupting legal businesses,” he said.
The loss of charitable status would effect Greenpeace’s finances.
Federated Farmers also benefits from those tax laws as a collection of incorporated societies, and some of its member farmers have from time to time run afoul of the law, but McIntyre did not accept there was any parallel with the complaint it was taking against Greenpeace.
“We do have members who have not behaved as they should have done, but we don’t support it. We call them out when they do it,” McIntyre said.
There is a perception in some quarters that Federated Farmers has become forthright, both as a result of the election of a right-leaning government, and in reaction to the success of the Groundswell anti-climate regulation farmer movement.
But McIntyre said: “I think we have responded to what farmers have needed.”
However, Federated Farmers had had a change in communications strategy because its members had not always been aware of what Federated Farmers had been doing.
“We are trying to be more forceful in that respect,” he said.
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