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OPINION: It's good news that Finance Minister Nicola Willis has slashed $1.1 billion from new spending, citing "a seismic global economic event" - Donald Trump's trade tariffs - and unsustainable debt, but with the Government reportedly borrowing $500 million a week, interest costs now exceed the combined budgets of Police, Corrections, Justice and Defence.
New spending will drop from $2.4b to $1.3b though, with Willis wary of the interest bill spiraling out of control.
She criticised "extravagant" wage demands such as the 12% claim by striking senior doctors.
Some commentators opined that savings are likely to come from stalled programmes and unfilled vacancies - not mass redundancies.
Your old mate reckons the public service needs to wake up and realise the country's coffers have been left in a right state and some spending demands are necessarily off the table for the foreseeable.
Trade Minister Todd McClay says his officials plan to meet their US counterparts every month from now on to better understand how the 15% tariff issue there will play out, and try and get some certainty there for our exporters about the future.
OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis could have saved her staff and MBIE time and effort over ‘buttergate’ recently by not playing politics with butter prices in the first place.
"Unwelcome" is how the chief executive of the Horticulture Export Authority (HEA), Simon Hegarty, describes the 15% tariff that the US has imposed on primary exports to that country.
New Zealand's dairy industry is right to call out Donald Trump over the damage the additional 15% tariff the US is imposing on our exports but also imposition on lower tariffs on our competitors.
Donald Trump's uncompromising tariff policy is set to put New Zealand dairy exports to the US under huge pressure.
Independent Waikato milk processor Tatua has set another new record for conventional farmgate milk price paid to New Zealand farmers.
OPINION: Environment Canterbury's (ECan) decision recently to declare a so-called “nitrate emergency” is laughable.
An early adopter of a 10-in-7 variable milking regime, the Lincoln University Demonstration Dairy Farm (LUDF) is tweaking the system this season in search of further boosting farm performance and profitability.
The dairy sector is in a relatively stable position, with strong milk price payout forecasts continuing to offset ongoing high farm costs, according to DairyNZ.
A shameless political stunt is how Federated Farmers is describing the Canterbury Regional Council decision to declare “a nitrate emergency” on the back of its latest annual groundwater quality survey.
Fonterra has delivered a fifth straight year of record organic milk price for farmer suppliers.
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