Wednesday, 23 April 2025 09:30

Group hug!

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: Forest & Bird and farmers don't often find themselves on the same side of an issue, with F&G's litigious tendencies often pitting the two groups against each other.

However, the Hound reckons the wrong-headed government drive for 'net zero emissions' - using the blunt tool of pinus radiata - has created common ground for these two 'foes'.

F&G is concerned about plans to plant vast areas of conservation and other Crown land in permanent pine forests, in a "desperate attempt to meet New Zealand's net zero emissions 2050 goal".

The official Ministry for Primary Industries modelling indicates that 280,000 hectares of new pine trees could be planted on Crown land and 230,000 hectares of this would be permanent.

You know a tree planting scheme is bad if even professional tree huggers don't like it.

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True Reflection?

A fair question has been raised about how member-funded organisations should conduct themselves when taking a public position on any given issue.

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!’.

Civil Circus!

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.”

Ewe Zealand First

OPINION: After all the criticism that Winston Peters leveled at the India/NZ FTA, it seemed just a trifle ironic to the Hound that the first NZ politician to visit India after Prime Minister Modi's visit was a member of the Ewe Zealand First party.

Wrong focus

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.

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