Wednesday, 16 June 2021 13:30

More sunlight

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: Your canine crusader hears that not all is rosy in the world of supposed rural sector congeniality.

Rumour has that the Food and Fibre Leaders Forum - a collective of the 15 main national rural organisations who are 'working together with government' is now down to 14 members.

According to word on the street, one of the groups has left the forum because it was not too happy with what is going on behind closed doors.

However, it is a bit hard to find out exactly what's happened, as the forum is more secretive than the SIS.

Despite being funded by various farmer/grower levies, the forum refuses to release any minutes of its meetings 'on grounds of confidentiality'.

It makes one wonder why this group is so anxious about releasing this information and if it is really 'selling out' the primary sector to the Government and officials behind closed doors.

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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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