Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:14

Clear as mud

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: Following Beef + Lamb NZ's rather testy annual meeting - and the ousting of former chair Andrew Morrison - the organisation decided to go on a charm offensive in an effort to get farmers back onside.

It has run a number of farmer meetings around the country to get feedback on key issues - including the widely unpopular HWEN.

However, B+LNZ's new 'open and transparent' mode appears to be about as murky as Michael Wood's share portfolio, with media banned from attending the meetings.

B+LNZ claims banning media from the meetings would encourage farmers to be more 'open' about their concerns.

However, as one appalled farmer told yours truly, the ban made B+LNZ "more like the Freemasons by the day".

He believes the reason media attendance was thwarted was because it would have recorded and reported the real discussion.

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The canine crusader always has his nose in the air for more media maleficence, so was pointing as soon as he saw the Stuff headline: ‘Wellington residents respond to PM saying he doesn’t need his job!’.

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OPINION: It really is getting harder to lampoon government bureaucrats when they do such a good job of it themselves.

Anyone in the primary sector will know about the clowns covering the countryside in the red tape we all have to wade through.

Spare a thought then for media outfit Stuff who were threatened with fines up to $200,000 by a snivelling civil servant from the MoH for illustrating a quiz question with a photo of part of the cover of a 45-year-old copy Playboy.

As Stuff notes, “It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. No, it was the back page which… featured an advert for a cigarette brand”.

As Regulations Minister David Seymour notes, “The real scandal here is, well, no wonder we’ve got problems in healthcare when they’re doing the Stuff quiz during work time.”

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