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OPINION: A mate of the Hound's reckons Westpac agri economist Nathan Penny is dreaming with his latest reckons about on-farm inflation.
Penny claims current on-farm inflation is now sitting at aroun 13% - down from 15% at the end of last year.
However, this old mutt's mate is not sure what Penny has been smoking, because the Westpac man reckons on-farm inflation will be down to 4% by the end of this year and down to 2% by the end of 2024.
The Hound's mate suggests Penny needs to get out of Westpac's ivory tower on Auckland's Queen Street and out on the farm more often.
He reckons Penny would then find that the chances of on-farm costs falling to 4% by Christmas this year are about as likely as Westpac offering 3% mortgage rates at the same time!
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.
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