Almost 20 years ago, hundreds of furious New Zealand farmers jumped into their tractors, farm bikes and trucks and ploughed up Wellington’s main street towards parliament to kick up a stink against the so-called “fart tax” – a levy on livestock methane gases, proposed by the then-Labour government to reduce emissions.
A cow named Energy was led up the building’s granite steps and left an unwelcome mess in her wake. In doing so, she provided the opposition movement with a powerful, if indelicate, visual metaphor: rural New Zealand was ready for a mudslinging match with the capital. Just months later, the government abandoned the tax.
