Don Nicolson: Putting the nanny into state

Parliament voted to increase the minimum age for learning to drive to 16.  Together with a recommended 120 hours of supervision, it effectively makes the minimum age for obtaining a full license 17 and a half.

There are some who will have cheered this as a victory for ‘common sense', while others will have hailed it as another step in combatting that scourge of a good night's sleep, the boy-racer.  Yet why is it that Federated Farmers, the Automobile Association and even the youth arm of the Council of Trade Unions, have all expressed concern that increasing the learner starting age is not a silver bullet.

Don Nicolson: Spilt milk

Only in Australasia could milk pricing inspire talkback radio.  Sir Henry van der Heyden, Fonterra's chair, claims the milk we buy is priced internationally.  Dairy farmers meanwhile point to their share of the retail litre being $0.65 with winter milkers earning slightly more.

The clear point is that farmers are not skimming the consumer cream.

Consumers just want to know if they're being ripped off.