Gun-shy
OPINION: Listening to the hysterical reportage of gun law reforms being pushed through by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee, your old mate wrongly asumed the Minister must be planning to hand out free AK-47s.
As many in the know predicted, the police have made a hash of the gun buy-back.
They admit that 35 people had their full details accessed, and “less than 500 people” have had their names and addresses accessed.
The breach occurred when an update to the database -- not authorised by police -- gave a group of gun dealers more access to the database than they were supposed to have.
The Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) advises gun owners who had used the site that they may need to increase their security.
Learning from Treasury’s abysmal handling of the Budget ‘leak’ earlier in the year, the police at least didn’t try to claim the firearms database had been hacked.
Calls for Police Minister Stuart Nash to resign will be ignored, but perhaps he should start listening more closely to the gun community, including the Feds, to avoid making the buy-back fiasco any worse.
Federated Farmers has launched a new campaign, swapping "The Twelve Days of Christmas" for "The Twelve Pests of Christmas" in an effort to highlight the most troublesome farm pests.
The Rapid Relief Team (RRT) has given farmers in the Tararua District a boost as they rebuild following recent storms.
The Government is set to announce two new acts to replace the contentious Resource Management Act (RMA) with the Prime Minister hinting that consents required by farmers could reduce by 46%.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change would be “a really dumb move”.
The University of Waikato has broken ground on its new medical school building.
The avocado industry is facing an extremely challenging season with all parts of the supply chain, especially growers, being warned to prepare for any eventuality.
OPINION: Dipping global dairy prices have already resulted in Irish farmers facing a price cut from processors.
OPINION: Are the heydays of soaring global demand for butter over?