NZ's handbrake
OPINION: Your old mate gets the sinking feeling that no matter who we vote into power in the hope they will reverse the terminal slide the country is in, there will always be a cohort of naysayers determined to hold us back.
OPINON: In the latest hysterical press release from Greenpeace, the sandal wearers have unleashed their worst conspiracy theorist tendencies, ranting about “Big Tobacco, Big Oil” and now “Big Meat and Dairy”.
They claim to have ‘proof’ about “Fonterra’s role in derailing climate action”.
The ‘big smoking gun’ is a report from Netherlands-based NGO ‘Changing Markets Foundation’.
However, this NGO is hardly impartial or independent.
Its founders are Joakim Bergman, a professional greenie who spent a big chunk of his career in senior roles for Greenpeace, and Paul Gilding, former “global CEO of Greenpeace”.
And its website is awash with juvenile claims that farmer-led protests around the world, similar to Groundswell, are part of “a transnational far-right movement”.
Brett Wotton, an Eastern Bay of Plenty kiwifruit grower and harvest contractor, has won the 2025 Kiwifruit Innovation Award for his work to support lifting fruit quality across the industry.
Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
OPINION: The phasing out of copper network from communications is understandable.