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OPINION: Science funding for the bulwark of the nation, agriculture, is in a parlous state and less taxpayer money is shelled out for it every year.
So, imagine your old mate's surprise when he heard that instead of increasing funding for such 'colonial science', more is going to projects like 'research' into whether playing whale song to sick kauri trees can fix kauri die-back.
Sounds ridiculous, and yet the project got the green light, was managed by MBIE, and the actual payments were funneled through Landcare Research.
Officials are still refusing a line-by-line breakdown but, in total, this mātauranga Māori-based 'research' cost taxpayers $4,027,020.
Te Tira Whakamātaki Ltd did the 'work'. It's "co-founder and trustee", Melanie Mark-Shadbolt, is also the co-director of the BioHeritage Science Challenge Science - i.e. the government initiative funding the project!
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.
OPINION: The latest update from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) on the state of NZ's primary sector paints a positive picturee about its performance over the past 12 months.
The recently signed free trade agreement with India is an invitation to strengthen relationships between the New Zealand and Indian strong wool industries, says Wool Impact chief executive Andy Caughey.
Strengthening the voice of vegetable growers on "big ticket items" will be the immediate focus of newly formed New Zealand Vegetable Council (NZVeg), says inaugural chair Alison Stewart.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the red meat sector is doing an excellent job promoting our pasture-fed system around the globe.
The European Union ramped up its presence at this year's Fieldays.
Moves are underway to create a single organisation to represent the country's beekeepers.
OPINION: Well-known and politically very neutral RNZ DJ John Campbell may be having politically neutral kittens about the news that…
OPINION: This one will upset the identity-politics obsessed snowflakes in Wellington.
