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OPINION: Your old mate reckons a wake-up call is overdue for the platoons of non-productive (and now unemployed) bureaucrats, researchers and various other bludgers whingeing about the current government putting out the bonfire of taxpayer money that burned so brightly in recent years.
NZ is not in a good financial state (income dropping, debt increasing, etc) and the world order is changing rapidly.
Chinese warships firing live rounds in the Tasman Sea with little to no warning is a good indicator that a future anchored to China buying our produce, or sending us tourists, is not goint to be a winning strategy for much longer.
We need to get the books in order sooner rather than later, and like it or not, up our military contribution compared to our allies.
And, despite the wailing and moaning, that means cutting out the deadwood.
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.
If you find a new consumer in a developed wine market, you are taking them from someone else, says Blank Canvas co-founder Sophie Parker-Thomson MW.
The Government has struck a deal with New Zealand's poultry industry, agreeing how they will jointly prepare for and respond to exotic poultry diseases, including any possible outbreak of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
The conversion of productive farmland into trees has pretty much annihilated the wool industry.
OPINION: Productive whole farmlands conversions into forestry are becoming a thorny issue for the Government.
Thus far in 2025, the Hawke's Bay rescue helicopter crew have completed over 220 missions, resulting in numerous positive patient outcomes.
The New Zealand Food Network's (NZFN) fifth birthday celebrations have been boosted by a whopping five tonne meat donation from meat processor ANZCO.
Pukekohe vegetable growers farewelled 101-year-old Alan Wilcox in late July, celebrating his many achievements and reflecting the widespread respect in which he was held.
