Domestic Focus
OPINION: After hogging the media limelight for telling a NZ Chinese MP to "go back home", Winston Peters has decided to focus on a domestic issue - oil and gas drilling.
OPINION: Your canine crusader shakes his head at the complete lack of practical and real-world knowledge in both government and the bureaucracy.
Even blind Freddy could have seen that the impact of Covid on getting foreign workers would be a major problem for the horticulture sector and lazy locals would not do the job.
However, instead of making plans to fast-track ways for international workers to come into the country, government – in their infinite wisdom – decided unemployed New Zealanders would fill the gap.
They developed a scheme, available to anyone who moved off a benefit, offering up to $200 a week for accommodation costs and a $1,000 incentive payment for workers, who completed jobs of six weeks or longer.
Guess how many unemployed locals took up the scheme? A staggering 54! Not so much unemployed, but unemployable!
Pāmu has released its FY26 Integrated Annual Report, reporting a Net Operating Profit of $113 million, more than double the $49 million recorded in FY25.
Meat Industry Association data, released alongside the Red Meat Sector conference in Wellington, shows export value climbing across the US, China, UK and Canada.
Applications are set to open for the 2027 Zanda McDonald Award, a trans-Tasman award recognised for identifying and fast-tracking talented young leaders in agriculture and agribusiness.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (the College) and Hauora Taiwhenua Rural Health Network are calling for investment in a proposed new training pathway for rural GPs, warning that many rural practices are struggling to recruit while a large share of the existing workforce nears retirement.
Federated Farmers has called on Central Otago District Council (CODC) to drop or vote down a plan to truck sludge from Alexandra and Cromwell to farmland near Lauder, warning it would compound an "outrageous" situation created by a separate council's decision weeks earlier.
Synlait has swung to second-half profit as operations stabilise, but the dairy processor still posted a $75.4m annual loss.

OPINION: The same mainstream media muppets that brought you Jacindamania in 2017 have been flat out pimping for the Opportunities…
OPINION: Your old mate reckons the atrocious way farmers in the UK are treated by their lords and masters in…