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OPINION: The Reserve Bank’s rate cut is great news, albeit a bit late, but your old mate agrees with Act leader David Seymour that the cut – with more to come – is a “multi-billion dollar mea culpa” by the RBNZ.
It bookends a series of excesses, says Seymour.
The too-easy money of Covid times spiked house prices and inflation.
Then, interest rates shot up, house prices crashed back down. “Interest rates were also driven up by Labour’s Covid spending blowout.
Households responded by making spending sacrifices – and changing the Government.”
No time for Seymour and his coalition cohorts to rest on their laurels though – they need to keep cutting the waste and red tape from Wellington and fast tracking the infrastructure we need to avoid falling further towards third world status.
OPINION: Your old mate reckons townie Brooke van Velden, the Minister of Workplace (or is it Woke Place) Relations is now showing how underemployed she is as a minister by initiating an investigation into whether young children should be banned from collecting eggs on farms and feeding animals.
OPINION: There's an infamous term coined by a US general during the Vietnam war, specifically in reference to the battle of Ben Tre: "We had to burn the village to save it."
OPINION: The sudden departure of Jim Ward, manager of Molesworth Station for 24 years, highlighted some major dysfunction in the way conservation estate is managed in this country - the biggest problem, as the Hound sees it, being idealogues who harp on about "taonga" and use all means possible to block sensible commercial operations on conservation land.
OPINION: While the destruction of NZ's oil and gas industry by Jacinda Ardern's band of merry vandals was virtue signalling on a heroic scale - producing no environmental benefit whatsoever - the politician vowing to make that industry whole again, Shane Jones, is not above a bit of virtue signalling of his own.
OPINION: Your old mate's ear has been chewed off recently by farmers voicing their displeasure with the National Party, particularly relating to how they're treating their farmer base.
The Government has struck a deal with New Zealand's poultry industry, agreeing how they will jointly prepare for and respond to exotic poultry diseases, including any possible outbreak of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
The conversion of productive farmland into trees has pretty much annihilated the wool industry.
OPINION: Productive whole farmlands conversions into forestry are becoming a thorny issue for the Government.
Thus far in 2025, the Hawke's Bay rescue helicopter crew have completed over 220 missions, resulting in numerous positive patient outcomes.
The New Zealand Food Network's (NZFN) fifth birthday celebrations have been boosted by a whopping five tonne meat donation from meat processor ANZCO.
Pukekohe vegetable growers farewelled 101-year-old Alan Wilcox in late July, celebrating his many achievements and reflecting the widespread respect in which he was held.
