Emergency Response Underway as Cyclone Vaianu Impacts North Island
While Cyclone Vaianu remains off the East Coast of New Zealand, the Waikato Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Group says impacts have been felt overnight.
OPINION: This old mutt has been around for a few years now and it seems these ‘once in 100-year’ weather events are occurring nearly every year.
That doesn’t deter the old “I’ve seen worse, back in my day” comments, but tell that to the poor buggers that have to clean up the mess, year after year.
And that’s the only real silver lining here – seeing how Kiwi communities, particularly in remote rural areas like the recently-hammered Far North, pull together, look after each other and get on with what needs to be done to protect lives, then restore farms and properties when the sun finally reappears.
The Northland Civil Defence chairman rightly praised local coastal communities, saying they were well prepared, worked in with Civil Defence and helped each other out.
The Kiwi Way is alive and well in the provinces!
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson says his party – NZ First - isn’t opposed to the “trade element” of a free trade deal with India.
The managing director of a company seeking to build a solar farm in Canterbury says receiving fast-track approval is a “really positive outcome”.
Retiring MP and dairy farmer Mark Cameron is blasting the Green Party for proposing to ban the use of synthetic fertiliser and cutting cow numbers.
A huge reduction in ACC claims from on-farm accidents over the last five years is due to thousands of small, practical decisions being made in sheds, yards, paddocks and around kitchen tables across the country, says Safer Farms ambassador Lindy Nelson.
Wayne and Ange Moxham of Horowhenua have just been named as Fonterra's top organic performer for milksolids. As well as providing organic milk to Fonterra, the couple also sell Udderly Organic milk to more than 100 outlets in the region and are embarking on another exciting venture producing organic gelato. Reporter Peter Burke went along to see their farming operation.
Certainty and a clear understanding of the needs of rural communities is a critical outcome in the series of government reforms that are taking place at present.