“In other words, simply shutting down those farms is likely to be more beneficial to the local economy than letting them continue to operate. And that's without even considering the value of the carbon stored.
Looked at like this, the message is clear: the sooner marginal farms shut down and are converted to trees, the better off we'll all be.”
define marginal?..as stated last night an assessment of where (and what) the forestry needs to occur is the missing piece of the puzzle…what this badly designed policy does is rely on 'the market'…isnt that what has (largely) brought us to this point?
Farmers have long demanded the right to do as they please, run whatever they please, sell whenever they please to whom ever they please.
Why all this anguish now? Forestry isn't forcing farmers to sell. It's the farmers' choice. They are the authors of their own fate, just as they've always professed.
That may or may not be the case but thats not the point…if the purpose of the policy is best possible outcome re climate change and society then it needs redesigning
Rural communities have been gutted by incoming industrial dairying haven't they?
Was Government policy "redesigned" when country halls and schools closed because dairying supplanted sheep farming and the communities that went with that?
On the contrary , rural communities have been growing on the back of the dairy conversion boom…as a Southland Councillor you should be well aware of that…for all the problems associated with dairy, jobs isnt one of them.
Jobs are only one aspect of community. Ask the sheep farmers if their communities are as good as they were before dairying arrived. Go back even further, to when trees were the dominant feature of the landscape; ask iwi if modern communities are better than those that existed before sheep and cattle, deforestation and river-straightening, when deer, rabbits, stoats and possums were the animals of choice.
I have neighbours who vowed never to convert to 'bloody cows'…guess what?, over the past 2 decades everyone of them have succumbed…because they had no choice…land values and inputs increased to a point where sheep and beef were no longer viable.
No need to be slippery Robert…they had the same control over their lives as the rest of us…bugger all. The 'Market' drives the choices whether we like it or not…and the government is supposed to ensure the best outcomes for society (as a whole) by regulating that market….thats where the billion trees programme falls over
Perhaps the imperative to plant trees rather than run livestock is bigger than the market?
I do know what you are getting at, Pat, but the details need to be thrashed out, I reckon, as the final result is critical to us all. Pines are the problem here, I reckon, but I have a theory about all this and it doesn't fit anyone else's, involving the short time we have to get trees of any sort into the ground and what might happen if things unravel and large forests are left to mature in their own way. Next, we need to talk about wilding pines
Re the billion trees programme , the details should have been thrashed out before implementation…and they argue they were but if thats the case theyre incompetent as it is patently not fit for purpose
If farmers had adopted agroforestry practices that have long been promoted, this situation would not have presented; our landscapes would be treed and stocked; the best of both worlds. Why do you think this didn't happen, Pat? Lack of vision? Fear of trees?
I cant tell you why agroforestry wasnt adopted as the standard practice in years past but might guess it was related to a dearth of clairvoyancy… I can however explain the removal of the multitude of woodlots and sheterbelts that has occurred in tandem with dairy conversions ( compounded by council austerity programmes)….budgets for finance.
Rural land prices increased when the recent governments allowed foreign ownership.Intensification and industrial farming was a response (to reward the investors of managed farms)
Policy response would be to prohibit overseas ownership of rural land.(including forestry)
"Policy response would be to prohibit overseas ownership of rural land."
Farmers oppose that. There's big money overseas and farmers should be able to sell to the highest bidder. Isn't that what farmers have long professed? Weren't they supported by the National Party in that?
But that would reduce food production,which is a no no under the paris agreement.
How would that look on JA cv.
This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by:(a)Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;(b)Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
The agreement doesn't demand no change at all to specific farms or regions, it requires the amount of food produced be kept the same. If food production is doubled in one place it can be halved in another. The choice to sell a farm is the farmers; no one is coercing them to sell. I've heard farmers claim repeatedly that they are feeding the world; has that admirable aim changed, just because forestry money arrived on the scene? In any case; food for whom? Does the Agreement aim to sustain the Chinese appetite for powdered milk, or is it requiring that land feeds those who live on it?
Farmers don't have to sell. If they believe they are morally bound to produce food for the world, they'll stick to farming and tell the rapacious foresters to look elsewhere for land to grow trees. Nobody's forcing them to sell, are they. Nobody's making them go against their ethics, are they?
Having scored truckloads of compensation over mycoplasma bovis, it may be that they have developed a deep and abiding need for the contemporary equivalent of sheep retention money – "Pay us not to plant trees!" – compensation being a crop that eats no fodder at all.
It would be nice to see a bit more in the way of integrating trees with other farming, rather than pretending mutually exclusive monocultures are the only options.
Exactly, Stuart. Once the frothing subsides, your suggestion should come to the fore and be acted upon by those innovative farmers who can famously adapt to any situation.
But of course it won’t Robert. First of all a few generations down the track they will be asking why this generation let our valuable farming land required for food be planted in trees. Our cities have already poured concrete over the best of it. And secondly every twenty years those trees get milled releasing all that carbon again. Solution, plant twice as many on a decreasing land mass to compensate. Doesn’t sound bright to me Robert. But you’re just happy sniping at present day farmers. I guess somewhere in the future we’ll learn how to eat trees Looking forward to that.
I agree with Ian. New View seems to be ironically limited in vision.
The way the climate looks to be going, how can NV assume that there will be any 20-year cycles? We will all be bloody lucky if we can survive one, and by then the second may be but a dream…
Required for food, or required for export dollars, New view?
Cities are not designed to be integral to the land, I agree with you there, but human habitation could be, with designers able to imagine such things creating such habitations. As for 20 years from now, my guess is the situation will be so different from now, the "certainty" of milling will be long overturned and new ways of managing trees capes will be in place. I'm keen to help with that, even at this early stage. As for "sniping at farmers" I'm not doing that at all; farmers have always claimed the right to sell and I'm not criticising them for that, just citing the behaviour.
Not much of your reply makes sense to me Robert. We need the land for food production. Exports of timber are ok if you’re not importing inferior food. As for farmers selling this land to foresters for a fat profit, that’s only one side Robert. That means that the foresters are out bidding any farmers for land. It’s putting an unsustainable value on land. And means that land won’t be used for farming again. You and your mates might think that’s great but future generations won’t thank you. The steeper country is suitable for trees if they can stop the rubbish clogging our rivers and causing massive damage as happened in the Gisborne area. Multiply that problem thousands of times Robert and don’t tell me they’ll have it sorted in ten years. Bullshit they will. But you know what Robert farmers will have their emissions sorted out in ten years and they won’t be relying on your help that’s for sure.
My reply to you, New view, presents a new view and that's why it makes not much sense to you. There is ample land in New Zealand for food production. Some of that is being repurposed for growing trees, a necessary phenomenon globally. You claim that once land is forested, it will never again be used for farming. Kaiangaroa, apparently, shows that to be untrue. All farmland in New Zealand was once forested land, remember. You say, foresters are outbidding farmers as if that's a new phenomenon, but dairying created the same issue; dairy men outbid sheep men, or horticulturalists and sent the price of land rocketing up. Whoever's backed by the banks, favoured by the Government of the day, gets the land. Conventional forestry management is ill-conceived, in my view; there are very effective ways to manage forests and those ways have to become the way forward for humans everywhere. Food comes from forests also, New view; your, "can't eat trees" is petty and simplistic. Ever eaten sago? The fruits and nuts of any trees? Have you ever eaten a leaf? A fungus? You need to let your imagination free, New view, as do we all, in order to see the potential in forests. They're going to be our new home and our hope for the future. There'll still be cows, don't worry, only they'll be creatures of the forest edge, as their ancestors were, feeding on a vast range of vegetation, rather than confined to a paddock and restricted to one or two plants. Farmers might well have their emissions sorted out in 10 years, New view, but farming will have been transformed beyond recognition for that to have happened. That transformation is underway now, driven not by farmers, but by necessity; the approaching collapse of the biological environment and the end of the golden weather. Trees will see us through, if we're smart enough to work with them and learn from their long experience of weathering the storms of change.
Good rolling sheep and cattle country clogged with low profit pine, which is what is happening at present, isn’t the idillic ‘pick the nuts and see the cow sitting under a shady tree’ scenario’. It isn’t what this Government is sanctioning Robert. Nice but delusional.
I know it's not and I said it's not, New view, but the way ahead is forward into trees, not back into livestock. Pinus radiate and it's brutal management is the worst of choices and doesn't represent the model I'm promoting, but neither foes livestock farming. Foresters have a long way to go to up-grade their practices to something appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in now, but at least they are planting trees; moving them from monocultural thinking to multi-faceted, forest-based thinking will be aided by circumstance, in my view; the climate and the change in thinking resulting from that will force changes rapidly and that's what I'm banking on and that's why I cheer-on the planting of trees. Wilding pines reclaiming high country sheep stations is a good example of marginal land being turned into forestry, wouldn't you say?
I’m not against trees Robert, but miss using the use of them can be as damaging as miss used farm land. Wilding pines sounds great until they spread out of control and take even the best flat land. A few years back I was in the Tekapo basin. That iconic area where there was an uproar over the Dairy farming. Well what was evident there was the wilding pines creeping all over that iconic landscape like thistles. Not what everyone had in mind I’m sure, so no I wouldn’t say that’s a good idea.
Trees spreading by their own efforts are challenging alright! The simplistic view sees them as a threat, but utilising their energy and drive to spread would be the wisest approach, in my opinion. Adding to the wilding forests would be the path to take; use the natural force, augment it with seedings of many other trees, have people out there managing those forests, as described before. This is a budding idea, but needs to be explored, given the alternative involves huge cost, enormous use of herbicides (arboricides?) the destruction en mass of trees and the continuation of livestock farming, itself a forest-destroying activity. The iconic Tekapo landscape would surely be a forested one, not a tussock one? I bet there is evidence of forests throughout the area from a time before humans began their landscape modifying burning, bulldozing, grazing and spraying. At what point do we declare something "iconic"?
A natural native forest maybe but certainly not fucking wilding pines. They are about as iconic as the weeds in your garden. As usual we agree on some things and disagree on most.
Wilding pines are not useful in the conventional sense; they don't produce straight timber for a start, but we are not thinking deeply or strategically enough about them. If we regard them as an enemy that has to be destroyed, we will lose the battle we've set ourselves. Better to harness the irrepressible force that they are and use them for our benefit, somehow. It's that "somehow" we have to explore. To date, we just try to poison them to death. That's an approach that has too much collateral damage, imo and reflects a mindset that has brought us to the place we are now in, globally. The destructive thinking; kill, burn, destroy, eradicate, that much of humanity has come to adopt has brought us to the brink of self-destruction; we've applied our smash and grab approach to everything bar the few organisms we like and it's ending badly. I'm suggesting taking a different approach and looking at all the "weeds" of the world, not as enemies, but as allies. It's not immediately apparent how this would work, in specific situations such as wilding pines, but that's because we haven't applied our clever minds to the problem using that lens; we've just stuck with the "bash our way through" mentality and that's left much of the world bashed-up.
I agree. The pine seedlings that were stealthily appearing in the Tekapo basin were having to be chipped out or cut before they seeded. An onerous task. A fine line indeed between them being servant or master. Why do I not have the faith in any Government monitoring that properly. This Government couldn’t even employ contractors capable of keeping tree seedlings alive before they got them in the ground. You are a true optimist Robert. We need that but we also need realists so we embark on projects that will be successful and not a waste of tax payers money.
Those projects you allude to; they need to be conceived in a new light now. There's an imperative, imo, the risk of environmental collapse through species extinction and the risk of ruinous climatic conditions all round. Preventing and/or preparing for those eventualities should be driving all of our projects from here on in. Conventional ways of looking at things and projects based on that thinking have to be re-evaluated in light of the new conditions, I reckon. If we need to quickly grow forests in order to stave-off destructive conditions, then we'll have to think fast and think outside of the box. I know I'm being provocative with my claims about forests, but now is the time for change in how we think and behave. We're at the pointy end now and better act quick-smart if we are not to end up wallowing in regret.
In any case, there's as much carbon in the roots, which don't get milled, as there is in the above-ground part of the tree. That doesn't include the massive, extensive fungal nets below ground that carry carbon to and fro between trees in a forest. So, carbon stays in the soil, in a well managed forestry situation (there are very few of these, btw. Our challenge is to master forest management and lead the world in that. The knowledge is there, or mostly, all we have to do is be awake to the potentials.
True, but as the stump rots down over a decade or so some of the carbon will be lost back to the atmosphere. Timber used in soundly designed buildings however can be held for centuries. I can see the day coming when we build houses log cabin style just to use lots of wood.
The carbon in roots stays put and it's a significant amount, especially when forests are replanted as trees are cut; coppicing of course, is the best way to manage forests; the roots stay in place and wood is grown for use in construction. If we can fill the soil with roots and their associated carbon-bearing fungal networks, while harvesting wood from the tops, we'll be on the way to success. Grass just doesn't do the trick.
Less red meat more vegetables. If the future of humanity requires this then fine by me.
Sorry mate,you need a bigger lifestyle change,the undercarriage has to go.
a child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), vs eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year)
We all need a bigger lifestyle change. This "civilised" lifestyle of ours is wrecking the place. Would you change your lifestyle, Poission, if it meant averting ruin?
yep I drove recently down to murch past Tapawera and was blown away by the hectares of hop posts, mud and development – all along the riverbank for kilometers – hope it doesn't flood
Hmm I'm not sure how beneficial to the local rural economy or community this actually is… Family owned sheep and beef farm, they likely spend money in the local town, kids go to the small rural school etc basically a community with Teachers, a Vet etc etc
Farm gets sold and planted in pine likely to a foreign owned entity who collect the credits etc. Only sporadic low paid work in the forest pruning and the like, people leave through lack of work school closes community dies…
Seen it happen and im not convinced that it's a good thing for NZ.
That's correct, Cricklewood. The present model is poor. A new way with forests is what's required. People have to be living amongst them. Communities have to be integrated into forests, not sidelined by them. The same is true of farming, yet changing farming trends drove people out of the countryside also. The whole model needs to be changed significantly. Small, thriving communities linked by networks of communication and travel need to be established everywhere, with people living meaningful, engaged lives that benefit the environments they're/we're living in. Presently, farms exclude people, aside from the very few rural people who own farms or work on them. This all must change.
Yip farmers can sell to who they like but they are being added and abeted by this government's policy settings subsidising foreign buyers to buy quality land . It would be an easy fix shifting subsidies to class 4 hard hill country or worse.
Supposedly big on community but you do give a fuck if its farmers . We cant all live in the trees sucking the rat payers tit.
They'll be appreciative of that help then, I suppose.
I'd like to see forests being planted on all land that's less than ideal for livestock-farming; the rougher stuff that ought never to have been cleared of forest in the first place.
Agriculture has destroyed much of the planet's forests and the rate of destruction is escalating, taking out vast swathes of what forest remains. There's a need for a re-think. Farmers might like to be part of that review, rather than defending the status quo, particularly because they have dominion over so much land. Townies haven't the same potential to effect change. Then there are those who don't give a rat's tit
We agree then . So you'll be using you considerable skills to get the message out that subsidizing forest owners to purchase good quality farm land so they can blanket plant is bad policy . A more considered approach is needed.
NZF floating an abortion reform referendum is about as dumb as it gets. Time for that was during the coalition negotiations after the last election. Unless their agreement with Labour contains an enabling clause!
News tonite said they will decide by Thursday whether to go for it. Wish someone would tell the truth & call the right to lifers closet fascists. Being polite around that has gone on far too long. I guess the upside of a referendum is it would flush them out into the open.
I hope Winston slaps down his cowboy. If the cowboy isn't alone in the NZF caucus, W may have to use his lawyer stance to remind the loose cannons that their electability depends on adhering to the coalition agreement through to full term. I can't see him using this to establish an independent position for NZF this far out from the election.
The abortion thing has been in the wings for a while, and NZ1 is a traditional conservative party.
One option is that labgrn never talked with NZ1 about the issue. This seems unlikely.
Another option is that NZ1 bit their tongue, but when it was announced everything came to a head within the party and overflowed into the "referendum" stalling tactic. Possible.
Another option is that it's NZ1 differentiating itself (and nabbing some of the fundy vote the nats are hoping for with a new party) in a way that won't affect the outcome – they'll go for a referendum, be outraged it doesn't happen, the thing goes to conscience votes and NZ1 gets outflanked by a few progressive nats. Law change still happens, and NZ1 gets to build its base a bit. Possible – they're not as silly as simon.
Yeah that all seems feasible. Depends if Winston sees more advantage in being partisan than consolidating his gains via constructive politics. If the polls are making him paranoid, the former option gets preference.
I imagine all the idiots in the Labour Party who thought they could go into a Government with Winston will be regretting that they didn't take note of what John Key said.
In 2008, before the election, he said he would not form a Government with Winston's mob because he couldn't trust him. As was always the case Key was a hell of a lot smarter than the fools in the Labour Party. You can't trust Winston. However the Labour Party, at least the sensible ones, preferred to get into the bed with Winston than stay, where they deserved to be, on the Opposition benches. The sillier ones, like the PM, probably believed that Winston really thought she was capable of being PM rather than just be Winston's puppet.
Regardless of what they thought they have simply been reminded of that old saw. If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. Itchy are you Jacinda?
He must be worried about his job or something, I hate the "but it's just a joke" excuse, at least GG Allin was unapologetic and believed he was making some kind of art (& did it first). All the GG copycats are pathetic.
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Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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“In other words, simply shutting down those farms is likely to be more beneficial to the local economy than letting them continue to operate. And that's without even considering the value of the carbon stored.
Looked at like this, the message is clear: the sooner marginal farms shut down and are converted to trees, the better off we'll all be.”
Climate Change: The double benefit of forestry conversions
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/08/climate-change-double-benefit-of.html
define marginal?..as stated last night an assessment of where (and what) the forestry needs to occur is the missing piece of the puzzle…what this badly designed policy does is rely on 'the market'…isnt that what has (largely) brought us to this point?
Farmers have long demanded the right to do as they please, run whatever they please, sell whenever they please to whom ever they please.
Why all this anguish now? Forestry isn't forcing farmers to sell. It's the farmers' choice. They are the authors of their own fate, just as they've always professed.
That may or may not be the case but thats not the point…if the purpose of the policy is best possible outcome re climate change and society then it needs redesigning
Rural communities have been gutted by incoming industrial dairying haven't they?
Was Government policy "redesigned" when country halls and schools closed because dairying supplanted sheep farming and the communities that went with that?
What's different?
On the contrary , rural communities have been growing on the back of the dairy conversion boom…as a Southland Councillor you should be well aware of that…for all the problems associated with dairy, jobs isnt one of them.
Jobs are only one aspect of community. Ask the sheep farmers if their communities are as good as they were before dairying arrived. Go back even further, to when trees were the dominant feature of the landscape; ask iwi if modern communities are better than those that existed before sheep and cattle, deforestation and river-straightening, when deer, rabbits, stoats and possums were the animals of choice.
I have neighbours who vowed never to convert to 'bloody cows'…guess what?, over the past 2 decades everyone of them have succumbed…because they had no choice…land values and inputs increased to a point where sheep and beef were no longer viable.
They had no choice?
Really?
Are we blaming dairying then, in the same way as you're blaming forestry now?
I suppose somebody said the same thing about sheep when they started spreading across the land.
No need to be slippery Robert…they had the same control over their lives as the rest of us…bugger all. The 'Market' drives the choices whether we like it or not…and the government is supposed to ensure the best outcomes for society (as a whole) by regulating that market….thats where the billion trees programme falls over
Regulate the market?
Perhaps the imperative to plant trees rather than run livestock is bigger than the market?
I do know what you are getting at, Pat, but the details need to be thrashed out, I reckon, as the final result is critical to us all. Pines are the problem here, I reckon, but I have a theory about all this and it doesn't fit anyone else's, involving the short time we have to get trees of any sort into the ground and what might happen if things unravel and large forests are left to mature in their own way. Next, we need to talk about wilding pines
Re the billion trees programme , the details should have been thrashed out before implementation…and they argue they were but if thats the case theyre incompetent as it is patently not fit for purpose
If farmers had adopted agroforestry practices that have long been promoted, this situation would not have presented; our landscapes would be treed and stocked; the best of both worlds. Why do you think this didn't happen, Pat? Lack of vision? Fear of trees?
I cant tell you why agroforestry wasnt adopted as the standard practice in years past but might guess it was related to a dearth of clairvoyancy… I can however explain the removal of the multitude of woodlots and sheterbelts that has occurred in tandem with dairy conversions ( compounded by council austerity programmes)….budgets for finance.
Rural land prices increased when the recent governments allowed foreign ownership.Intensification and industrial farming was a response (to reward the investors of managed farms)
Policy response would be to prohibit overseas ownership of rural land.(including forestry)
and that would cause an even larger outcry from the rural community and the banks….theyre all juggling as it is
"Policy response would be to prohibit overseas ownership of rural land."
Farmers oppose that. There's big money overseas and farmers should be able to sell to the highest bidder. Isn't that what farmers have long professed? Weren't they supported by the National Party in that?
Have they changed their minds now?
Coz trees?
Iwi have been priced out in a lot of areas for rural land.(as have share milkers) (shearers etc) the stepping stone industries for farm ownership.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D40BzaHUYAEvwS9.jpg:large
Indeed. The system’s rotten.
Gee rg you've found an article by a like minded fool to back your bias.
They arnt planting marginal land they are planting to quality land thats in range of ports so they can maximize profits while fucking communities.
Who's selling the farms, bwaghorn?
Isn't it a farmers right to sell whenever to whoever the farmer chooses?
The market is king, right?
What's all the complaining about. This is a farmer issue.
But that would reduce food production,which is a no no under the paris agreement.
How would that look on JA cv.
This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by:(a)Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;(b)Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
The agreement doesn't demand no change at all to specific farms or regions, it requires the amount of food produced be kept the same. If food production is doubled in one place it can be halved in another. The choice to sell a farm is the farmers; no one is coercing them to sell. I've heard farmers claim repeatedly that they are feeding the world; has that admirable aim changed, just because forestry money arrived on the scene? In any case; food for whom? Does the Agreement aim to sustain the Chinese appetite for powdered milk, or is it requiring that land feeds those who live on it?
the PA and the IPCC scenario models warn of the need to increase food production to meet raising population growth.
The chinese consumer may not want to buy wood bark soup recipes from N/korea.
Warns of the need?
Doesn't sound like a binding demand.
Farmers don't have to sell. If they believe they are morally bound to produce food for the world, they'll stick to farming and tell the rapacious foresters to look elsewhere for land to grow trees. Nobody's forcing them to sell, are they. Nobody's making them go against their ethics, are they?
Having scored truckloads of compensation over mycoplasma bovis, it may be that they have developed a deep and abiding need for the contemporary equivalent of sheep retention money – "Pay us not to plant trees!" – compensation being a crop that eats no fodder at all.
Less red meat more vegetables. If the future of humanity requires this then fine by me.
And if the future of humanity requires the planting of trees on farms, I'm fine with that. In fact, I'd help plant them.
It would be nice to see a bit more in the way of integrating trees with other farming, rather than pretending mutually exclusive monocultures are the only options.
Exactly, Stuart. Once the frothing subsides, your suggestion should come to the fore and be acted upon by those innovative farmers who can famously adapt to any situation.
But of course it won’t Robert. First of all a few generations down the track they will be asking why this generation let our valuable farming land required for food be planted in trees. Our cities have already poured concrete over the best of it. And secondly every twenty years those trees get milled releasing all that carbon again. Solution, plant twice as many on a decreasing land mass to compensate. Doesn’t sound bright to me Robert. But you’re just happy sniping at present day farmers. I guess somewhere in the future we’ll learn how to eat trees Looking forward to that.
The court jester can't see the wood for the trees .
I agree with Ian. New View seems to be ironically limited in vision.
The way the climate looks to be going, how can NV assume that there will be any 20-year cycles? We will all be bloody lucky if we can survive one, and by then the second may be but a dream…
Required for food, or required for export dollars, New view?
Cities are not designed to be integral to the land, I agree with you there, but human habitation could be, with designers able to imagine such things creating such habitations. As for 20 years from now, my guess is the situation will be so different from now, the "certainty" of milling will be long overturned and new ways of managing trees capes will be in place. I'm keen to help with that, even at this early stage. As for "sniping at farmers" I'm not doing that at all; farmers have always claimed the right to sell and I'm not criticising them for that, just citing the behaviour.
Thanks RG – you said it better.
Not much of your reply makes sense to me Robert. We need the land for food production. Exports of timber are ok if you’re not importing inferior food. As for farmers selling this land to foresters for a fat profit, that’s only one side Robert. That means that the foresters are out bidding any farmers for land. It’s putting an unsustainable value on land. And means that land won’t be used for farming again. You and your mates might think that’s great but future generations won’t thank you. The steeper country is suitable for trees if they can stop the rubbish clogging our rivers and causing massive damage as happened in the Gisborne area. Multiply that problem thousands of times Robert and don’t tell me they’ll have it sorted in ten years. Bullshit they will. But you know what Robert farmers will have their emissions sorted out in ten years and they won’t be relying on your help that’s for sure.
My reply to you, New view, presents a new view and that's why it makes not much sense to you. There is ample land in New Zealand for food production. Some of that is being repurposed for growing trees, a necessary phenomenon globally. You claim that once land is forested, it will never again be used for farming. Kaiangaroa, apparently, shows that to be untrue. All farmland in New Zealand was once forested land, remember. You say, foresters are outbidding farmers as if that's a new phenomenon, but dairying created the same issue; dairy men outbid sheep men, or horticulturalists and sent the price of land rocketing up. Whoever's backed by the banks, favoured by the Government of the day, gets the land. Conventional forestry management is ill-conceived, in my view; there are very effective ways to manage forests and those ways have to become the way forward for humans everywhere. Food comes from forests also, New view; your, "can't eat trees" is petty and simplistic. Ever eaten sago? The fruits and nuts of any trees? Have you ever eaten a leaf? A fungus? You need to let your imagination free, New view, as do we all, in order to see the potential in forests. They're going to be our new home and our hope for the future. There'll still be cows, don't worry, only they'll be creatures of the forest edge, as their ancestors were, feeding on a vast range of vegetation, rather than confined to a paddock and restricted to one or two plants. Farmers might well have their emissions sorted out in 10 years, New view, but farming will have been transformed beyond recognition for that to have happened. That transformation is underway now, driven not by farmers, but by necessity; the approaching collapse of the biological environment and the end of the golden weather. Trees will see us through, if we're smart enough to work with them and learn from their long experience of weathering the storms of change.
Good rolling sheep and cattle country clogged with low profit pine, which is what is happening at present, isn’t the idillic ‘pick the nuts and see the cow sitting under a shady tree’ scenario’. It isn’t what this Government is sanctioning Robert. Nice but delusional.
I know it's not and I said it's not, New view, but the way ahead is forward into trees, not back into livestock. Pinus radiate and it's brutal management is the worst of choices and doesn't represent the model I'm promoting, but neither foes livestock farming. Foresters have a long way to go to up-grade their practices to something appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in now, but at least they are planting trees; moving them from monocultural thinking to multi-faceted, forest-based thinking will be aided by circumstance, in my view; the climate and the change in thinking resulting from that will force changes rapidly and that's what I'm banking on and that's why I cheer-on the planting of trees. Wilding pines reclaiming high country sheep stations is a good example of marginal land being turned into forestry, wouldn't you say?
I’m not against trees Robert, but miss using the use of them can be as damaging as miss used farm land. Wilding pines sounds great until they spread out of control and take even the best flat land. A few years back I was in the Tekapo basin. That iconic area where there was an uproar over the Dairy farming. Well what was evident there was the wilding pines creeping all over that iconic landscape like thistles. Not what everyone had in mind I’m sure, so no I wouldn’t say that’s a good idea.
Trees spreading by their own efforts are challenging alright! The simplistic view sees them as a threat, but utilising their energy and drive to spread would be the wisest approach, in my opinion. Adding to the wilding forests would be the path to take; use the natural force, augment it with seedings of many other trees, have people out there managing those forests, as described before. This is a budding idea, but needs to be explored, given the alternative involves huge cost, enormous use of herbicides (arboricides?) the destruction en mass of trees and the continuation of livestock farming, itself a forest-destroying activity. The iconic Tekapo landscape would surely be a forested one, not a tussock one? I bet there is evidence of forests throughout the area from a time before humans began their landscape modifying burning, bulldozing, grazing and spraying. At what point do we declare something "iconic"?
A natural native forest maybe but certainly not fucking wilding pines. They are about as iconic as the weeds in your garden. As usual we agree on some things and disagree on most.
Wilding pines are not useful in the conventional sense; they don't produce straight timber for a start, but we are not thinking deeply or strategically enough about them. If we regard them as an enemy that has to be destroyed, we will lose the battle we've set ourselves. Better to harness the irrepressible force that they are and use them for our benefit, somehow. It's that "somehow" we have to explore. To date, we just try to poison them to death. That's an approach that has too much collateral damage, imo and reflects a mindset that has brought us to the place we are now in, globally. The destructive thinking; kill, burn, destroy, eradicate, that much of humanity has come to adopt has brought us to the brink of self-destruction; we've applied our smash and grab approach to everything bar the few organisms we like and it's ending badly. I'm suggesting taking a different approach and looking at all the "weeds" of the world, not as enemies, but as allies. It's not immediately apparent how this would work, in specific situations such as wilding pines, but that's because we haven't applied our clever minds to the problem using that lens; we've just stuck with the "bash our way through" mentality and that's left much of the world bashed-up.
I agree. The pine seedlings that were stealthily appearing in the Tekapo basin were having to be chipped out or cut before they seeded. An onerous task. A fine line indeed between them being servant or master. Why do I not have the faith in any Government monitoring that properly. This Government couldn’t even employ contractors capable of keeping tree seedlings alive before they got them in the ground. You are a true optimist Robert. We need that but we also need realists so we embark on projects that will be successful and not a waste of tax payers money.
Those projects you allude to; they need to be conceived in a new light now. There's an imperative, imo, the risk of environmental collapse through species extinction and the risk of ruinous climatic conditions all round. Preventing and/or preparing for those eventualities should be driving all of our projects from here on in. Conventional ways of looking at things and projects based on that thinking have to be re-evaluated in light of the new conditions, I reckon. If we need to quickly grow forests in order to stave-off destructive conditions, then we'll have to think fast and think outside of the box. I know I'm being provocative with my claims about forests, but now is the time for change in how we think and behave. We're at the pointy end now and better act quick-smart if we are not to end up wallowing in regret.
And secondly every twenty years those trees get milled releasing all that carbon again.
How does that work? The trees are made of carbon aren't they?
In any case, there's as much carbon in the roots, which don't get milled, as there is in the above-ground part of the tree. That doesn't include the massive, extensive fungal nets below ground that carry carbon to and fro between trees in a forest. So, carbon stays in the soil, in a well managed forestry situation (there are very few of these, btw. Our challenge is to master forest management and lead the world in that. The knowledge is there, or mostly, all we have to do is be awake to the potentials.
True, but as the stump rots down over a decade or so some of the carbon will be lost back to the atmosphere. Timber used in soundly designed buildings however can be held for centuries. I can see the day coming when we build houses log cabin style just to use lots of wood.
The carbon in roots stays put and it's a significant amount, especially when forests are replanted as trees are cut; coppicing of course, is the best way to manage forests; the roots stay in place and wood is grown for use in construction. If we can fill the soil with roots and their associated carbon-bearing fungal networks, while harvesting wood from the tops, we'll be on the way to success. Grass just doesn't do the trick.
Less red meat more vegetables. If the future of humanity requires this then fine by me.
Sorry mate,you need a bigger lifestyle change,the undercarriage has to go.
a child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), vs eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
We all need a bigger lifestyle change. This "civilised" lifestyle of ours is wrecking the place. Would you change your lifestyle, Poission, if it meant averting ruin?
In the Tasman District, dairy farms are being converted to hops, three farms this year so far out of 180 farms in the district.
"Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis has seen 13 farms in her district sell in the past year."
Who sold them? Who pocketed the money?
If they're heavily indebted dairy farms, the bank.
True (in part). Sad too.
but slowly…cant have a crash
yep I drove recently down to murch past Tapawera and was blown away by the hectares of hop posts, mud and development – all along the riverbank for kilometers – hope it doesn't flood
Hmm I'm not sure how beneficial to the local rural economy or community this actually is… Family owned sheep and beef farm, they likely spend money in the local town, kids go to the small rural school etc basically a community with Teachers, a Vet etc etc
Farm gets sold and planted in pine likely to a foreign owned entity who collect the credits etc. Only sporadic low paid work in the forest pruning and the like, people leave through lack of work school closes community dies…
Seen it happen and im not convinced that it's a good thing for NZ.
We have to find a balance somewhere…
That's correct, Cricklewood. The present model is poor. A new way with forests is what's required. People have to be living amongst them. Communities have to be integrated into forests, not sidelined by them. The same is true of farming, yet changing farming trends drove people out of the countryside also. The whole model needs to be changed significantly. Small, thriving communities linked by networks of communication and travel need to be established everywhere, with people living meaningful, engaged lives that benefit the environments they're/we're living in. Presently, farms exclude people, aside from the very few rural people who own farms or work on them. This all must change.
Yip farmers can sell to who they like but they are being added and abeted by this government's policy settings subsidising foreign buyers to buy quality land . It would be an easy fix shifting subsidies to class 4 hard hill country or worse.
Supposedly big on community but you do give a fuck if its farmers . We cant all live in the trees sucking the rat payers tit.
Farmers are being aided by the Government?
They'll be appreciative of that help then, I suppose.
I'd like to see forests being planted on all land that's less than ideal for livestock-farming; the rougher stuff that ought never to have been cleared of forest in the first place.
Agriculture has destroyed much of the planet's forests and the rate of destruction is escalating, taking out vast swathes of what forest remains. There's a need for a re-think. Farmers might like to be part of that review, rather than defending the status quo, particularly because they have dominion over so much land. Townies haven't the same potential to effect change. Then there are those who don't give a rat's tit
We agree then . So you'll be using you considerable skills to get the message out that subsidizing forest owners to purchase good quality farm land so they can blanket plant is bad policy . A more considered approach is needed.
NZF floating an abortion reform referendum is about as dumb as it gets. Time for that was during the coalition negotiations after the last election. Unless their agreement with Labour contains an enabling clause!
News tonite said they will decide by Thursday whether to go for it. Wish someone would tell the truth & call the right to lifers closet fascists. Being polite around that has gone on far too long. I guess the upside of a referendum is it would flush them out into the open.
Seems like Winston has sucker punched Labour again.
Probably now demanding a referendum on the abortion law to vote for it, after seeming to agree with it.
Telling them who is actually running the place again.
Lol
Not that I think he would actually be needed either way given it is a conscience.
lol you just destroyed your own idiotic comment – nice one
Thought it was more Winston destroying his own posturing tbh.
he can't be running the show if he isn't needed can he?
In this case.
He certainly was with not completely ditching 3 strikes or the 90 day law. Or toning down the employment law, or the promised CGT, or etc etc etc
Unless you can point where he wasn't obviously
well you point out how he can be running the show and not be needed then
Because in this particular issue, there will probably be enough Nat MPs who agree with a womens right to abortion to not need his votes.
It will be the same with the Right to Die bill, but it will be closer, so it is better to have a referendum to not risk it.
And weed one that isn't really needed, but sounds like it means something.
righto so he didn't sucker punch them and isn't showing them who runs the show – thanks for clarifying your original incorrect remarks
Well he tried to again, but it is a bit amateur hour given the circumstances
And yet the nats couldn't cut a deal with an amateur hour macchiavelli. lol
shane jones – the wanker from wayback shoots his mouth off
wow did you think of that all by yourself did you lol what a brainpox you are shaneo thank goodness you've said something lol
Shit next you'll be calling him an uncle Tom!
keep your racist bullshit to yourself – go and make sure your animals aren't being maltreated or abused, in other words do something useful laddie
I spend hours at this time of year looking after 4000 hungry future steak burgers and sausages
what happens on the farm stays on the farm mate that's the rules just like fight club
I personally broke ranks a few years back and told the gm on a large outfit I was at was beating stock . So na some of us speak up.
Ticks all the boxes.
https://twitter.com/dogkeg/status/1158249849952690176
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/114799572/winston-peters-pulls-rug-out-from-under-andrew-little–again
Can we please get consensus before announcing policy or before going to the media with ideas. Ffs did no one learn from the CGT debacle.
I hope Winston slaps down his cowboy. If the cowboy isn't alone in the NZF caucus, W may have to use his lawyer stance to remind the loose cannons that their electability depends on adhering to the coalition agreement through to full term. I can't see him using this to establish an independent position for NZF this far out from the election.
Not so sure about that.
The abortion thing has been in the wings for a while, and NZ1 is a traditional conservative party.
One option is that labgrn never talked with NZ1 about the issue. This seems unlikely.
Another option is that NZ1 bit their tongue, but when it was announced everything came to a head within the party and overflowed into the "referendum" stalling tactic. Possible.
Another option is that it's NZ1 differentiating itself (and nabbing some of the fundy vote the nats are hoping for with a new party) in a way that won't affect the outcome – they'll go for a referendum, be outraged it doesn't happen, the thing goes to conscience votes and NZ1 gets outflanked by a few progressive nats. Law change still happens, and NZ1 gets to build its base a bit. Possible – they're not as silly as simon.
Yeah that all seems feasible. Depends if Winston sees more advantage in being partisan than consolidating his gains via constructive politics. If the polls are making him paranoid, the former option gets preference.
I imagine all the idiots in the Labour Party who thought they could go into a Government with Winston will be regretting that they didn't take note of what John Key said.
In 2008, before the election, he said he would not form a Government with Winston's mob because he couldn't trust him. As was always the case Key was a hell of a lot smarter than the fools in the Labour Party. You can't trust Winston. However the Labour Party, at least the sensible ones, preferred to get into the bed with Winston than stay, where they deserved to be, on the Opposition benches. The sillier ones, like the PM, probably believed that Winston really thought she was capable of being PM rather than just be Winston's puppet.
Regardless of what they thought they have simply been reminded of that old saw. If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. Itchy are you Jacinda?
Key repeated the statement before the 2011 election. Sensible fellow wasn’t he?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10703680
How did this moronic blogger get included on TS list of blog sites?
http://www.averagekiwi.com/2019/08/05/dangerous-human-ending-cult-sweeping-through-civilisation/
Worth reading for a laugh though.
As for the cartoon……….
He was posting here as "Rubbish" and his handle was prescient.
Are you sure about that? BTW, I banned Rubbish.
Rabid misogyny.
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/j5yekp/exclusive-dayton-shooter-was-in-a-pornogrind-band-that-released-songs-about-raping-and-killing-women
He must be worried about his job or something, I hate the "but it's just a joke" excuse, at least GG Allin was unapologetic and believed he was making some kind of art (& did it first). All the GG copycats are pathetic.
We better keep an eye on that HomeBrew chappy.
PEPCON with bells.
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1158371723970064387
Krasnoyarsk Krai (@Liveuamap)
freaky video
https://twitter.com/i/status/1158411308221566976
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49249504
Q – Legit question for rural Americans – How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/05/feral-hogs-memes-twitter-30-50-running-into-my-yard-small-kids
A –https://twitter.com/search?q=feral%20hogs&src=typed_query