It would be remiss of me not to start today, without paying tribute to Friday’s magnificently staged protest. It’s rare for farmers to rise up en-masse, and they have a lot to be riled about.

The turnout was thunderous. Country came to town to express the cry of the heartland. Not just from a group of Pakeha farmers from down South, James Shaw.

Like me, townies by the tractor load stand shoulder to shoulder with their cause.

This was an uprising to the pile on, where farmers quite rightly feel they’ve been thrust into a perpetual state of punishment. They’re under the pump. The onslaught of regulations, restrictions and punitive reforms is insufferable.

The heavy hand of the state is suffocating the heartland. Regulation Strangulation.

The ute tax was a tipping point along with the SNAs, adding to an unseemly, unworkable and unaffordable mountain of red tape and eroded property rights.

It’s just too much. It's intolerable.

It's equally outrageous that many members of this government and their groupies are quite happy to cast farmers as natural-born environmental vandals. That kind of demonisation must stop.

From my experience, the overwhelming majority of farmers are inherently decent people. The most carbon-efficient farmers in the world. And by the large, the best conservationists of their land. If you molest with their property rights, where’s the incentive to be a conservationist?

Our primary sector is not averse to adaptation or change or innovation. They lead the world. But the sheer scale, volume and pace of Labour’s grand designs is just unwieldly.

Stop the strangle. Stop penalising and punishing farmers being so productive. Cut them some slack.

I believe the great outpouring on Friday marks a mood shift is underway. Public sentiment is swinging. And the support from our towns and cities to the heartland on Friday was unmistakable.

The government’s great juggernaut of reforms baring down on the farm is not realistic, it is rabid.

Their relationship with farmers needs a re-set. A relaxation.

If Labour chooses to thumb their nose at those drum beats from the land, they do at their peril.