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OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis has targeted cuts in the public service to balance the books, particularly the spend on consultants, drawing trenchant criticism from... consultants.
The Hound notes Willis set the public service a target of eliminating $400 million in operating expenditure on contractors and consultants by 2024/25.
In 2023/24, savings of $274 million were achieved.
Last year the public service was on track, after the first quarter, to achieve savings of about $500 million - savings forecast to continue over the next three quarters, which means savings over the two-year period could total more than $800 million.
It shows operational expenditure by departments on contractors and consultants fell a further 46% in the September quarter on an annualised basis.
Great news, unless you're an overpaid consultant!
Trade Minister Todd McClay says his officials plan to meet their US counterparts every month from now on to better understand how the 15% tariff issue there will play out, and try and get some certainty there for our exporters about the future.
OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis could have saved her staff and MBIE time and effort over ‘buttergate’ recently by not playing politics with butter prices in the first place.
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.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change would be “a really dumb move”.
The University of Waikato has broken ground on its new medical school building.
Undoubtedly the doyen of rural culture, always with a wry smile, our favourite ginger ninja, Te Radar, in conjunction with his wife Ruth Spencer, has recently released an enchanting, yet educational read centred around rural New Zealand in one hundred objects.
Farmers are being urged to keep on top of measures to control Cysticerus ovis - or sheep measles - following a spike in infection rates.
For more than 50 years, Waireka Research Station at New Plymouth has been a hub for globally important trials of fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, carried out on 16ha of orderly flat plots hedged for protection against the strong winds that sweep in from New Zealand’s west coast.
There's a special sort of energy at the East Coast Farming Expo, especially when it comes to youth.
OPINION: Your old mate welcomes the proposed changes to local government but notes it drew responses that ranged from the reasonable…
OPINION: A press release from the oxygen thieves running the hot air symposium on climate change, known as COP30, grabbed your…
