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OPINION: Your canine crusader sees that the fun police have struck again and killed off an iconic rural event.
After 20 years of successfully running the iconic Te Kuiti Great NZ Muster - which sees a mob of sheep run through the town to coincide with the NZ Shears and attracts lots of visitors - concerns from the local council about health & safety has led it to can the event.
Waitomo District Council has ruled it can no longer hold the event, citing 'health & safety' concerns.
Mayor John Robertson claimed this was a "shame" but "controlling the sheep has been an issue in the past" and that "times have changed" and council had "reluctantly" opted to close the event for good.
This is despite the fact that the council has conceded not having the event "would be a loss that attracted an array of visitors to Te Kuiti".
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: Nothing it seems can be done in the short term to get Donald Trump to change his mind about removing the unfair 15% tariffs that he’s imposed on New Zealand exports to the US.
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North Canterbury pig farmer Steve Sterne has been honoured with NZ Pork's Outstanding Contribution Award, recognising his 27 years of dedication to excellence in the sector.
Hawke's Bay's loss is Canterbury's gain with the opening of a new state-of-the-art soil testing laboratory for the Ravensdown subsidiary ARL (Analytical Research Laboratories) at Rolleston.
