Realpolitik!
OPINION: Meanwhile, red blooded Northland politician Matua Shane Jones has provided one of the most telling quotes of the year thus far.
Your canine crusader reckons it is ironic – and highly appropriate – that Shane Jones’ $3 billion electoral slush fund the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has exactly the same initials as the Problem Gambling Foundation (PGF)!
The Hound suggests Jones is just like a gambling addict, but his $3-billion tab is funded by hard-working NZ taxpayers.
While the mouth of the north is spraying around his bets on things like rat traps and bloody awful pine trees – in a desperate attempt to get re-elected – payback from the PGF looks paltry.
Official figures show around $300 million of the fund has so far been spent with only 616 fulltime jobs created; meaning every one of these fulltime jobs cost $484,000 each!
So perhaps Jones should go see the PGF about him gambling away the PGF kitty!
The sale of Fonterra’s global consumer and related businesses is expected to be completed within two months.
Fonterra is boosting its butter production capacity to meet growing demand.
For the most part, dairy farmers in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Tairawhiti and the Manawatu appear to have not been too badly affected by recent storms across the upper North Island.
South Island dairy production is up on last year despite an unusually wet, dull and stormy summer, says DairyNZ lower South Island regional manager Jared Stockman.
Following a side-by-side rolling into a gully, Safer Farms has issued a new Safety Alert.
Coming in at a year-end total at 3088 units, a rise of around 10% over the 2806 total for 2024, the signs are that the New Zealand farm machinery industry is turning the corner after a difficult couple of years.

OPINION: Meanwhile, red blooded Northland politician Matua Shane Jones has provided one of the most telling quotes of the year…
OPINION: This old mutt has been around for a few years now and it seems these ‘once in 100-year’ weather…