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.
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson says his party – NZ First - isn’t opposed to the “trade element” of a free trade deal with India.
The managing director of a company seeking to build a solar farm in Canterbury says receiving fast-track approval is a “really positive outcome”.
Retiring MP and dairy farmer Mark Cameron is blasting the Green Party for proposing to ban the use of synthetic fertiliser and cutting cow numbers.
A huge reduction in ACC claims from on-farm accidents over the last five years is due to thousands of small, practical decisions being made in sheds, yards, paddocks and around kitchen tables across the country, says Safer Farms ambassador Lindy Nelson.
Wayne and Ange Moxham of Horowhenua have just been named as Fonterra's top organic performer for milksolids. As well as providing organic milk to Fonterra, the couple also sell Udderly Organic milk to more than 100 outlets in the region and are embarking on another exciting venture producing organic gelato. Reporter Peter Burke went along to see their farming operation.
Certainty and a clear understanding of the needs of rural communities is a critical outcome in the series of government reforms that are taking place at present.