increase font size
OPINION: The Hound always considered the Government's $3 million propaganda - sorry, advertising - campaign, last year, to promote its takeover of local councils' Three Waters assets a huge waste of taxpayer money.
However, it appears the big spending campaign actually turned more people against the Government's proposals that in favour of them.
Remember the TV ads - those inane cartoons showing green slime coming out of the taps and how all this would be miraculously cured if Nanaia Mahuta got her way.
Well, according to an OIA by news outfit BusinessDesk, the more the Government promoted its reforms with nationwide advertising, the more public opinion turned against it.
So, by the time four months of television advertising was finished, opinion moved against the reforms.
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.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) is calling for nominations for director roles in the Eastern North Island and Southern South Island electoral districts.
Going one better than a frustratingly close second place finish at last year's event, the country's top axeman, Jack Jordan of Taumaranui, last weekend won the Stihl Timbersports World Championship individual event in.
Canterbury A&P Association (CAPA) show president Brent Chamberlain says a big development for this year is the Wool Zone, first introduced two years ago as a showplace for everything produced from wool, but now greatly enlarged with its own Wool Marquee and more than 30 trade sites.
Salmonellosis is a serious disease in cattle.
Drench resistance is already hitting farm profits; it's not just a future problem.
Applications are open for Horticulture New Zealand's (HortNZ) 2026 scholarship programme, with 20 funding opportunities available.
