By Alan Emerson

Copyright farmersweekly

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The much reported statement by Mike Joy on social media was in response to a post about child murderer Minnie Dean, who was hanged for her crimes. It read:

“Minnie Dean was hung for killing babies in Southland but our dairy industry is currently putting babies (and adults) at risk with nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater. How about we bring back hanging for industry CEOs.”

I found Joy’s statement on nitrate contamination stupid and unfounded.

Subsequently talking about bringing back hanging for (dairy) industry CEOs was exceedingly arrogant and deeply offensive.

When questioned by Stuff some weeks later he was “unrepentant”. He was asked if he thought the comment had gone too far to which he replied that “he hadn’t and he agreed he was comfortable with the way he phrased it”.

I’m sure if I’d have suggested hanging academics for corrupting young minds there would have been a universal outcry but if it wasn’t for the excellent work by Federated Farmers he’d have got away with it.

Joy’s response to Feds was. “Federated Farmers are trying to make me out to be nuts so that they can avoid the facts.”

I didn’t think Feds even needed to make him out to be nuts and I found the response arrogant.

I’d further suggest that the Joy statement was inciting violence and briefly considered complaining to the police. I decided not to as the police have more important things to do than react to the crass statements of a person I consider a complete and utter idiot.

Joy is employed by Victoria University and paid by the Morgan Foundation, who I presume are happy with the statements.

Victoria Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith went on to apologise “to everyone affected by his comments”. Matey, an entire industry was affected. Subsequently Joy apologised.

My simple question to Victoria University is to ask what they’re going to do about it. At this point the answer is nothing, which is criminal. Academic freedom is one thing, inciting violence is another. Their reaction to the Joy rant is pitiful and suggests to me that in the hallowed halls of Victoria Uni slagging farmers is okay.

I was impressed with Feds’ new dairy chair, Karl Dean. His comments have been succinct.

He said that “most reasonable Kiwis expect our universities to be places of learning and constructive debate – not platforms for fringe activists to make dangerous and hateful comments”.

That the university’s response to Feds’ complaint was “nothing short of a tacit endorsement of Dr Joy’s shameful comments”, and that the university “had effectively signalled that such extreme views are acceptable”.

Dean added that Joy’s apology was clearly insincere. I agree.

Finally, Joy’s fact checker is obviously redundant. Blue baby syndrome can be caused by excessive nitrates. There were two hospitalisations for the syndrome in New Zealand between 2012 and 2021 and, according to the Ministry for the Environment, it isn’t known if the cases “were caused by nitrates or other causes”.

And for that Joy suggested dairy CEOs should be hanged.

I’ll be following the saga with interest.