Disunity is death
OPINION: Staying with politics, with less than nine months to go before the general elections, there’s confusion in the Labour Party when it comes to working with the divided Maori Party.
OPINION: Your old mate was a little confused by Maori Party MP Rawiri Waititi’s stance over not wanting to wear a tie in Parliament’s debating chamber.
Waititi was booted out of Parliament on the first day back this month, after a dress code scuffle with Speaker Trevor Mallard.
As he was leaving the house, after being ejected by Mallard, Waititi said: “This is not about ties, it is about cultural identity.”
The Hound suggests Waititi may very well have had a valid point about the archaic rule around wearing neck ties in Parliament, which has now been relaxed.
However, he suggests if Maori Party co-leader is going to pull the old ‘cultural identity’ claim then he’d probably have more truck and ‘mana’ if he were not wearing his omnipresent, ridiculous-looking cowboy hat, which is hardly traditional Maori garb!
Matt McRae, a farmer from Mokoreta in Southland who runs a sheep, beef and dairy support business alongside a sheep stud, has been elected to the Beef +Lamb NZ Board as a farmer director.
Ravensdown's next evolution in smart farming technology, HawkEye Pro, was awarded the Technology Section Award at the Southern Field Days Farm Innovation Awards in February 2026.
While mariners may recognise a “dog watch” as a two-hour shift on a ship, the Good Dog Work Watch is quite a different concept and the clever creation of Southland siblings Grace (9) and Archer Brown (7), both pupils at Riverton Primary School.
Philip and Lyneyre Hooper of the Hoopman Family Trust have tonight been named the Taranaki Regional Supreme Winners at the Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
We are not a bunch of sky cowboys. That was one of the key messages from the chairperson of the NZ Agricultural Aviation Association (NZAAA) Kent Weir, speaking at an education day at Feilding aerodrome for 25 policymakers and regulators from central and local government and other rural professionals.
New Zealand's dairy and beef industries say they welcome the announcement that the Government will invest $10.49 million in the Dairy Beef Opportunities (DBO) programme.

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