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.
Massey University vice chancellor Pierre Venter says his institute is moving from a period of austerity into a growth phase, based on their new strategy.
With the red meat sector going through a boom time with high prices, the time is right for the industry to step up its investment into developing new food products.
Meat Industry Association chief executive Nick Beeby says there’s now much closer cooperation between meat processing companies than there was many years ago.
A new fruit quality research laboratory has been opened in Auckland by agritech company Hectre to develop pioneering hyperspectral technology.
Farmer lobby Groundswell believes that farmers are worried about the implications of a potential centre-left government.
With less than a week to go before voters choose the next government, Federated Farmers has a simple message to its members - get out and vote.