Junket?
OPINION: The Hound notes that the Taxpayers’ Union recently revealed that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) spent more than $125,000 for its presence at this year’s Mystery Creek Fieldays.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor told Rural News on the first day of the event that he detected a very positive mood.
A total of 24,633 visited on day one to see the 1400 sites in this 50th year of the farming event now recognised as world-leading.
“For a start, the sky hasn’t fallen in with advent of the new government. I have been amazed at the number of people here,” O’Connor says. The better payout has helped and people are enjoying getting out to see what is always a better event because they try harder every year to improve things.”
Waikato farmer John Kneebone, a co-founder of the Fieldays Society, remarked to Rural News on the “amazing evolution” of Fieldays and said it never occurred to him in 1968 that it would become what it is today.
Farmers, exhibitors of equipment and services, and politicians of every hue have made Fieldays a must-attend on their ‘press-the-flesh’ calendar. – Peter Burke
