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OPINION: The Greens aren’t serious people when it comes to the economy, so let’s not spend too much on their fiscal fantasies.
It’s worth noting though that NZ’s merchandise trade surplus in April 2025 was $1.4 billion, compared with a deficit of $12 million in April 2024, according to Stats NZ. New Zealand has had only four monthly surpluses over $1 billion.
This surplus, and the others, are thanks to farmers. And yet, the ‘Green Budget’ includes a 2.5% annual tax on a couple’s net assets over $4 million and a 33% tax on inheritances over a $1 million threshold.
This would see land held within the family for generations sold off just to pay the tax bill and, as Andrew Hoggard says, we’d see “a scarring effect on rural communities, a sledgehammer to rural investment, and food production shifted offshore”.
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.
OPINION: Your old mate's ear has been chewed off recently by farmers voicing their displeasure with the National Party, particularly relating to how they're treating their farmer base.
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.
