New Zealand postal service changes leave rural communities disappointed
Changes to New Zealand’s postal service has left rural communities disappointed.
OPINION: Town and country find themselves on the same page when it comes to anger over price hikes from NZ Post.
Fed Farmers and others have made a hue and cry about the July 1 hikes of 19% for unaddressed bulk mail and an extra 70c to post a letter.
Constant price hikes by NZ Post have seen their rate rises far outstrip inflation, or any other service or commodity, as our mates at the Magazine Publishers Association point out: "These aren't normal price increases. They are multiples of inflation, compounding year after year, imposed by a monopoly provider with no regulatory oversight of its pricing," says MPA chair Stuart Dick.
As he says, no other essential infrastructure service in NZ operates without independent price scrutiny.
Gas, electricity, broadband all have some level of oversight or controls.
Postal services should too.
New Zealand dairy farmers are set to be the first in the world to receive access to a new digital physical milk pricing tool that enables them to fix the price for their physical milk.
State farmer Pāmu is opening its farm gates this summer in an effort to give the rural sector the opportunity to see how large-scale, multi-system farming is delivering productivity and profitability across New Zealand.
A five-year study has found that the cost of reducing emissions without technology may be significant and unsustainable for Northland dairy farmers.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.

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