Good Ol' Days
OPINION: NZ First knows its market and feeds it a constant diet of how ‘good’ the good old days were, promising to resurrect policies and icons of a bygone era.
OPINION: The latest travel receipts for MPs are in (April – June 2024).
Running the cutter, we have National on a total of $697,315 - an average of $13,946 for its 50 MPs.
Act spent a modest $103,536 for an average of $9,412 for 11 MPs. NZ First spent a total of $70,566 or $8,820 for eight MPs.
Labour averaged $21,156 for 35 MPs - a total of $740,481.
The Greens are usually big carbon emitters, and this year is no exception.
They spent no less than $284,780 for an average of $17,798 for 16 MPs. Te Pāti Māori spent $188,887 - the highest average of $31,481 for its six MPs.
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer easily burned the most jet fuel, spending $60,990 – a lot for an MP who is in Opposition and hates oil and gas exploration.
A Waihi dairy farmer, Keith Torrens, has been convicted and fined $39,000 for the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent following a prosecution taken by Waikato Regional Council.
Taranaki's sunshine and energy sector expertise are powering a new approach to renewable energy, with the launch of BlueGreen Frontiers.
Meridian Energy says it welcomes the Fast-Track Panel's draft decision proposing the easing of access restrictions on Lake Pūkaki hydro storage for a three-year period.
The science underpinning New Zealand's dairy, beef and sheep grazing systems was largely established from the 1950s onward, but new analysis shows that the climate those systems were built for has shifted significantly.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) has unveiled a new tool to help sheep farmers better understand the genetics in their flock and make more informed decisions.
Classified as an unwanted organism under the Biosecurity Act, the invasive weed velvetleaf can be resistant to many herbicides, making it difficult to control, while statistics note it has the potential to reduce yields by up to 70%.

OPINION: While we're on the topic of lumberjacks, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard has no doubt used a chainsaw hundreds of…
OPINION: To a chorus of crying greenies, and not a minute too soon, the Government has moved to put the…