“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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Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
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:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
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 ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
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. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
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 A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
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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