Wednesday, 10 May 2023 12:55

Expensive pet food!

Written by  The Hound
Expensive pet food!

OPINION: Your canine crusader was staggered to learn that an investigation by the Taxpayers' Union has revealed that taxpayers and Otago ratepayers have forked out more than $2.76 million to kill just... 18 wallabies!

That's a kill cost of $153,000 per wallaby and it's taken 26,000 hours of work.

An OIA by the Taxpayers Union revealed this was just one of the 'Jobs for Nature' projects funded by the Government's Covid slush fund.

Labour dreamt up the 'Jobs for Nature' scheme - and allocated it $1.2 billion in funding - as a 'make work' programme when it feared NZ would see mass job losses as a result of the pandemic.

According to the Taxpayers Union, 'Jobs for Nature' has continued to dish out taxpayer money to ineffective 'conservation' projects at an average cost of around $200,000 per 'job'.

No wonder the country is facing massive fiscal problems when the Government develops silly ideas like this!

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OPINION: Media luvvies have pigeon-holed the Taxpayers Union (TPU) as some right-wing lobby, but as far as this old mutt can tell, the TPU focuses on shaming poor behaviour and wasteful spending by those that govern us, no matter who's in power.

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The chair of the Otago Rural Support Trust, Tom Pinckney, says he believes that they will be especially busy in the coming months as the enormity of the floods hit home.

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Federated Farmers says it welcomes the announcement of extra Government support for farmers and growers in Southland and parts of Otago after the region was hit by severe wet weather.

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OPINION: Your canine crusader believes the Taxpayers Union is on to a good thing with its latest campaign to get media outlets who took the previous Labour Government’s ‘bribe’ – sorry taxpayer handout – via the highly controversial and discredited Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) to pay it back.

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