Bob Edlin: Govt favours farming over forestry....

Govt favours farming over forestry – but is it giving a greater priority to growing cities than growing crops?

Just a few days ago, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay was braying about the introduction “of long awaited legislation that will put a stop to large-scale farm-to-forestry conversions”.

This would deliver on a key election promise to protect the future of New Zealand food production.

Mike's Minute: Our farming land is our calling card

An interesting, but good, move on forestry and farming.

It is another example of practical thinking and application in an area that relied, to be frank, on laziness to solve a problem.

Ever since we became obsessed with climate change and we became obsessed with things that might or might address climate change, the low hanging fruit has been trees and carbon markets.

Kerre Woodham: Can pine forestry and livestock farming really coexist in this country?

This is one that has been discussed before and will no doubt be discussed again. Can pine forestry and livestock farming coexist in this country, or does one have to make way for the other?

For the last decade, there have been major concerns about productive farmland, not only being converted into subdivisions, but being converted into forests. These concerns were ramped up in recent times with the previous administration’s One Billion Trees project.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 29/8/24

What’s gone on in climate-change talks with China? Watts is coy while Brown buries his news about raising road revenue

Point of Order is disappointed that Climate Change Minister Simon Watts didn’t tell us much more about his chat with China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu.

Watts said the Chinese minister is departing New Zealand today ”after the Fifth Ministerial Climate Change Dialogue between New Zealand and China…”

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 22/7/24

Karen Chhour can cobble whatever words she likes, but the media are sure to stick to “boot camp”

The government’s official website today serves as much as a ministerial travel guide as a record of governmental decisions.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm not feeling sorry for forestry owners over new slash rules

Here's some good news, we've finally got some new rules around forestry slash that might actually make a difference to places like Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay, which have been absolutely pounded by logs in Cyclone Gabrielle.

The rules are kicking in very soon- just 4 weeks’ time. And they will require forestry owners to remove their slash if it’s over a certain size, and it’s not particularly large.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 3/10/23

Taxpayers might be piste off, as govt lending to ski field is lifted to $50m – but more corporate welfare is announced, too

The distributions of two dollops of corporate welfare have been proudly announced in government press statements today, but neither mentions or relates to the further taxpayer funding for ski fields on the skids.

The government’s official website tells of $7 million being provided to boost aerospace operators and an unstated sum to help forestry processors.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 29/6/23

Ministers busy strengthening relationships with China – but media attention is drawn to Kiri Allan’s office relationships, too

Much of the ministerial action deemed worthy of recording on the government’s official website over the past 24 hours took place in China.

This was reflected in extensive media reportage and commentary.

But there was significant media interest, too, in whatever might have happened in the office of Kiri Allan, Minister of Justice and Regional Development and Associate Minister of Finance and Transport.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 20/6/23

Oops – govt could do better with childhood education initiative (as it admits just a few weeks after Budget Day announcement)

A Government backdown can mean a policy has gone down badly with voters. Or it can mean a programme may not be working as well as was intended, perhaps because of unintended consequences.

In the case of childhood education, a Budget announcement that looked like it was packaged to attract the votes of delighted parents has turned out to have been problematic with its consequences.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/6/23

Statements gush from the Beehive but there’s a dearth of figures for taxpayers who might want to check the costings

A gush of press statements has poured from the Beehive in the past 24 hours.

Ministers, plainly, have been busy. But they were sparing with their information when it came to telling us how much is being spent on the initiatives and what-have-you they were announcing.

Point of Order: 2002 civil defence law had no Treaty clause....

.....but Labour will provide one, along with some guaranteed jobs for Māori

The weight being given to “Treaty of Waitangi” provisions in legislation drafted by the Labour government can be measured by a quick reading of the Emergency Management Bill.

The bill has a Treaty clause. The legislation which it will replace – the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 – made no mention of the Treaty.

The Treaty clause in the Emergency Management Bill “sets out ways in which the Bill recognises and respects the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Point of Order: The rain came down.....

....and so did the debris from logging operations in the flood-damaged Gisborne region

Damien O’Connor, as Minister for Rural Communities, has broken his 2023 duck and issued his first press statement of the year to announce government support for flood-affected farmers and growers in the Gisborne region.

We have yet to hear from Forestry Minister Stuart Nash, but he is bound to have something to say – surely – about the mischief reportedly done by forest companies operating in that neck of the woods. The “slash” from their logging operations blocks rivers and exacerbates the flooding problems caused by heavy rain.

O’Connor’s statement, which kicked off with the language employed by earnest bureaucrats, was headed

Point of Order: Govt curries favour with farmers with climate change investments....

.....but a collaborative strategy (don’t forget) led to Five Waters

Governmental news for the farm and forestry sectors flowed too fast from the Beehive for your Point of Order team to quickly grasp all the implications.

At first blush, we are tempted to wonder if something that looks like good news for farmers has been deftly released to camouflage the not-so-good news buried in these announcements or in some yet to be released.

Point of Order: $236.5m to tackle NZ’s big challenges

Among them, reigniting ‘mauri’ and ‘engaging multisensory experiences’

A press statement which advises that $236.5 million has been bestowed on 71 projects in the latest Endeavour Fund allocations is headed Research projects set to tackle NZs biggest challenges.

The message is reinforced in the first sentence, which says money has been allocated to projects

“… that seek to address some of our biggest challenges such as climate change.”

Researchers working on two methane projects have been granted $999,999 each over three years.

Point of Order: Thanks Minister – we now know what Govt is investing in forestry

But chatting and singing to hasten tree growth shouldn’t cost much

Point of Order’s Beehive monitors couldn’t get too wildly excited by the latest announcements from the Beehive.

A bridge was opened – the press statement calls it the Old Māngere Bridge Replacement, rather than the New Māngere Bridge.

Pacific peoples and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei have welcomed “a new dawn of partnership and prosperity” at a Dawn Raids apology commemoration ceremony in Auckland. Among other things, this suggests the Dawn Raids apology a year ago is to be remembered in commemoration ceremonies every year.

New appointments have been made to the Strategic COVID-19 Public Health Advisory Group and the term of the group has been extended until December.

The Government has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green in response to flooding in the Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough districts.

And progress is being made on another Treaty settlement. Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana and the Crown have signed an Agreement in Principle.