Rural round-up

Farms sell as vendor expectations drop  – Tony Chaston:

The number of farms being bought and sold has recovered in April and May 2011. Sellers may be being more realistic.

An analysis done for interest.co.nz of 29 farms sold in May 2011 in the Canterbury, Otago and Southland regions shows that capital gains have all but evaporated, despite a strong recovery in the number of properties sold.

These 29 transactions represent two thirds of all sales in these three regions. And this sample of five dairy farms and 24 grazing properties turned over for a combined more than $94 million.  . .

Branding the key to lucrative global market – Tony Chaston:

Farmers often feel they are poweless to have any price influence with the goods they produce, but Prof Jacqueline Rowarth disagrees and believes branding is the way to do it.

Some farmers have embraced this idea and Hereford Prime, Angus Pure, Cervena, Just Shorn, Cervena and Icebreaker, are all now well known brands that attract a premium for the product produced.

With this branding comes accountability associated with food safety or quality standards,but if a premium is paid it must be earnt. The strength of the brand is often seen more graphically when product prices ease, and farmers will all know from experiences at saleyards quality always sells . . .

Glenavy farmers tempt Americans – Sally Rae:

When Digger and Lynn McCulloch served up New Zealand lamb in swanky supermarkets in the United States, they had one aim – to get everyone who walked past to try a sample.

The couple, who farm at Glenavy, recently returned from a trip to the United States, which was organised through Lean Meats Ltd . . .

Inconsistent use of term “biodiversity” frustrating - John Aspinal:

I get frustrated by frequent use of the term “continuing loss of biodiversity” being used to justify various decision-making and planning.

What does it mean? Does it refer to indigenous, exotic or both?  It is variously used to describe either or both.

The Government recently produced a draft national policy statement for indigenous biodiversity. It began by listing quite specific ecosystem types, which I have to assume are legitimately under threat. . .

Winter feed crops critical at Cragimore – Gerald Piddock:

CRAIGMORE STATION, the 4000ha sheep, cattle and deer farm located in the foothills behind Cave, has been owned by the Elworthy family since 1864.

It is managed by Dan Chaffey and agricultural manager Andrew Fraser.

The station runs 6000 romney sheep. It breeds its own replacements and produces meat and wool . . .

Ngai Tahu ready for dairy move – Annette Scott:

A plan to invest in dairy has taken off for big South Island iwi Ngai Tahu that has identified 35,000ha of forestry areas for agricultural development.

New pastures would be a bold initiative but also very exciting, Ngai Tahu Property Ltd chief executive Tony Sewell told The New Zealand Farmers Weekly.

“It (development) will be slow and steady but very efficient, and I am very happy with progress to date,” he said . . .

International connections at Fieldays:

International business connections made at last year’s NZ National Fieldays have resulted in New Zealand companies launching a range of rural products into markets such as Germany, the US, and Central America within the past 12 months.

This year, more than 250 overseas business people are confirmed to visit NZ National Fieldays.

Fieldays International Agribusiness Manager, Terry Blackler, says the Fieldays team is committed to helping New Zealand companies make profitable connections with these visitors . . .

Sheep farmers enjoy best price for decades - Jon Morgan:

If you’re driving through the hill country this week, keep an eye out for gumbooted fools deliriously cavorting about.

They are sheep farmers enjoying a sudden upturn in incomes not experienced for half a century.

No-one can remember seeing sheep selling for such high prices. At livestock sales around the country records are being smashed.

Ewes fetched up to $232 each at Temuka last week and prime lambs went for more than $200. At Hastings, a line of top-quality lambs sold at $216 . . .

Just a year ago, $100 was being hailed as nirvana and the year before that farmers were lucky to get $80 for their top lambs.

Irrigation a lifesaver for troubled farm – Jon Morgan:

A failed $17 million dairy conversion in Central Hawke’s Bay is making a comeback.

Under new ownership, the land is getting massive doses of fertiliser and is luxuriating in the element it has missed the most for the past three years – water.

The conversion of 508 hectares of rolling countryside from sheep and beef to dairying in 2008 ran into trouble soon after it was completed . . .

Te Kairanga’s vision as big as Texas – Catherine Harris:

Bruce Clugston is a man who clearly enjoys a good wine. He reckons he’s tasted just about every sauvignon blanc in New Zealand.

“After 30 years, I’ve spent my whole life either selling wine, tasting wine, or as a buyer. When I was in retail, like most good- quality retailers, you’ve always got to taste the wine you’re going to sell to your customers. I’ve tasted so many wines, I couldn’t list them.”

Mr Clugston, a former wine retailer and distributor, now owns his own wine company, Wineinc, and is president of Foley Family Wines New Zealand, which is majority-owned by United States billionaire Bill Foley . . .

Southland ‘land of opportunity’ – Collette Devlin:

Winton dairy farmer Jim Cooper has been the farmers’ spokesman for a group of rural professionals known as Farming in Southland, for nine years. For the past 15 years, these businesses have raised the profile of Southland, promoting farming, lifestyle and educational opportunities to prospective farmers at Fieldays. Mr Cooper will try to encourage north Island farmers to move south, as he did 16 years ago.

“Immediately after I spoke to Farming in Southland, I knew this is where I wanted to farm. At the time, my wife and I were young with small children, so we decided to leave our dairy farm in Broadlands, south of Reporoa on the central plateau,” Mr Cooper said . . .

And a new website PestWebNZ (hat tip Tony Chaston):

PestWebNZ is a free tool to assist farmers and agricultural professionals in decision-making regarding weed and pest identification, biology, impact and management. PestWebNZ contains a number of New Zealand pasture weeds and pests, which have been chosen in consultation with key farming, industry and research personnel . . .

4/10

4/10 in the NZ Herald’s travel quiz - but I reckon they’re going the long way from Timaru to Milton to get the answer they give as the right one for that question.

Freedom is path to happiness

What makes us happy?

Tim Worstall looked at an OECD report Your Better Life  which showed 16 countries ranked better than the USA and found:

The most obvious point is that higher taxes and a larger welfare state don’t provide the answer.

He looked further and found that, with the exception of France, all the countries which were higher up the better life index than the USA also had more economic freedom.

So, now we have it, now we know what it is that makes countries happy, happier than the United States. Free trade, property rights and the rule of law.

When it’s as simple as that, why would anyone try to block free trade, weaken property rights or undermine the rule of law?

P.S. The Better Life Index for New Zealand is here.

Protectionism favours few, costs many

Unions and some of Dunedin’s citizen’s are agitating for KiwiRail to buy new wagons from Hillside Workshop.

Roger Kerr explains what’s wrong with that:

Here we are seeing the same old protectionist fallacy. Assuming KiwiRail has got its numbers right, building rolling stock here at higher cost would mean its customers would face higher prices across the board. They would grow less and create fewer jobs.

Many of the customers would be in the export sector. The badly needed rebalancing of the economy would be hampered. And of course KiwiRail would be an even bigger drain on taxpayers.

More than 20 years after the painful but necessary reforms of the late 1980s and early 90s some people still haven’t got the message – protection favours few and costs many.

This is a lesson Candians have yet to learn too. Dan Gardner writes about Canada’s failure to make the most of its potential for increased food production:

Canadian consumers pay far more for dairy and poultry products than they would in a free market. Supply management also makes it difficult or impossible for producers to achieve the economies of scale needed to drive costs down. Perhaps worst of all, it impedes trade liberalization.

“Our government will also continue to open new markets for Canadian business in order to create good jobs for Canadian workers,” the Conservatives promised in the Speech from the Throne. That’s good. Canada is a trading nation and the steady expansion of free trade is very much in our interest. But then came this: “In all international forums and bilateral negotiations, our government will continue to stand up for Canadian farmers and industries by defending supply management.”

And what’s the affect of supply management?

Who pays? Consumers who often don’t know they are. Who benefits? A small number of farmers who are highly organized and concentrated in certain ridings. Politicians who swear to defend the status quo get the gratitude of the former without incurring the wrath of the latter — while any politician who dares to even consider change gets no gratitude and lots of wrath.

“Look at us,” Larry Martin suggests, “and look at New Zealand, sitting out there in the middle of the ocean, not close to anything.” In the world of food, New Zealand is a “superpower.” And yet, thanks to daring reforms in the 1980s, New Zealand’s farmers owe almost none of their income to government support. “You think, ‘if we could do even half of what they have done wouldn’t we be in great shape?’”

Yes, those “failed” polices of the 80s made our economy freer and are one of the major reasons we’re getting the benefits from increased demand for commodities.

Instead of producing things the world doesn’t want or need at considerable cost to the domestic economy through subsidies, we’re following market signals to produce what the world wants to buy.

Hillside  workers should stop wasting their energy trying to return to the bad old days of protectionism. Instead, they should concentrate on developing the flexibility to produce what someone wants to buy at a price they’re prepared to pay.

KiwiRail is already costing the country too much, we can’t afford to add to those costs by subsidising Hillside.

Hat tip: Offsetting Behaviour & Something Should Go Here who both discuss Gardner’s piece.

June 19 in history

1179 The Norwegian Battle of Kalvskinnet -  Earl Erling Skakke  was killed, and the battle changed the tide of the civil wars.

1269 King Louis IX of France ordered all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

 

1306 The Earl of Pembroke’s army defeated Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven.

1566 King James I of England and VI of Scotland, was born  (d. 1625).

 

1586 English colonists left Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in America.

1770 Emanuel Swedenborg reported the completion of the Second Coming of Christ in his work True Christian Religion.

1807  Admiral Dmitry Senyavin destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Athos.

 

1816  Battle of Seven Oaks between North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company, near Winnipeg.

1821  Decisive defeat of the Philikí Etaireía by the Ottomans at Drăgăşani (in Wallachia).

 

1846 The first officially recorded, organized baseball match was played under Alexander Joy Cartwright’s rules on Hoboken’s Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1. Cartwright umpired.

1850 Princess Louise of the Netherlands married Crown Prince Karl of Sweden-Norway.

1861  Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, British Field Marshal and Commander of British forces in WW I, was born (d. 1928).

1862  The U.S. Congress prohibited slavery in United States territories, nullifying the Dred Scott Case.

1865 Dame May Whitty, English entertainer, was born  (d. 1948).

1865  Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, were finally informed of their freedom.

1867  Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire was executed by a firing squad in Querétaro.

1870  After all of the Southern States were formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceased to exist.

1875  The Herzegovinian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire began.

1896 Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, was born (d. 1986).

1910  The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1915  The USS Arizona (BB-39) was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York..

 

1929 Thelma Barlow, English actress, was born.

1934  The Communications Act of 1934 established the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

1940 The trans-Pacific liner Niagara was sunk by a German mine off the Northland coast..

1943  Race riots  in Beaumont, Texas.

1944  World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1947 Salman Rushdie, Indian author, was born.

1953  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

1961  Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom

1963 Rory Underwood, English rugby union footballer, was born.

1964  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.

1966 Shiv Sena was founded in Mumbai.

1970  The Patent Cooperation Treaty was signed.

1977 Rebecca Loos, Dutch model, was born.

1981 Moss Burmester, New Zealand swimmer, was born.

1982  In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped.

1982 – The body of God’s Banker, Roberto Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1987  Basque separatist group ETA committed one of its most violent attacks, in which a bomb is set off in a supermarket, Hipercor, killing 21 and injuring 45.

1990 The international law defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, was ratified for the first time by Norway.

2006  Prime ministers of several northern European nations participated in a ceremonial “laying of the first stone” at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Spitsbergen, Norway.

 

2009  British troops began Operation Panther’s Claw, one of the largest air operations in modern times, when more than 350 troops made an aerial assault on Taliban positions and subsequently repelled Taliban counter-attacks.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Palpebrate – having eyelids; to blink or wink, espeically repeatedly.

Mystery solved?

Roarprawn has a biscuit mystery:

Kayes Kitchen in Southland is producing rugby ball-shaped bikkies but they’re not saying who the client is.

But Credo Quia Absrudum Est reckons he’s worked it out.

 

 

Saturday smiles

A traveller drove his car into a ditch in a isolated area. A local farmer came to help with a large draught horse.

She hitched the horse up to the car and yelled, “Pull, Nellie, pull.” The horse didn’t move.

Then the farmer hollered, “Pull, Buster, pull.” The horse didn’t respond.

Once more the farmer commanded, “Pull, Jennie, pull.” Nothing happened.

Then the farmer nonchalantly said, “Pull, Bullet, pull.” The horse pricked its ears, slowly inched forwards and dragged the car out of the ditch.

The motorist was very appreciative and very curious. He asked the farmer why she called her horse by the wrong name three times.

The farmer said, “Well now, Bullet is blind, and if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn’t even try”

Lost case but gained publicity

OurNZ  failed to gain an injunction against TVNZ for not including its co-leader and candidate for Te Tai Tokerau, Kelvyn Alp, in a by-election debate.

But the party and Alp gained publicity in the process which was porbably the object of the exercise.

 

Youth rates provide opportunity

If you had two applicants for the same job with little between them except that one had some work experience and was a bit older than the other which would you take?

At the moment most employers would take the older applicant which is why the youth unemployment is so much higher than that of the rest of the population.

But if you were able to pay the younger, inexperienced worker a bit less while they gained some work experience and work habits and grew up a bit, which would you take?

Youth rates might be enough to give the younger applicant a chance which is why National’s indication that youth rates might be on its election agenda should be welcomed by would-be workers and employers.

Our staff range from late teens to 81 and none is on the minimum wage so re-introducing youth rates is unlikely to impact directly on us.

But there are a lot of businesses where being able to employ a younger person on youth rates would make a difference.

The first job is often the hardest to get. Requiring employers to pay immature, inexperienced people the same as older workers makes it much harder for younger ones to get that first job.

Planet wins but doesn’t beat us

This week we’ve been reminded again that nature rules, or as Jim Hopkins said:

No power on earth can regulate the power of earth. The planet wins. It always does. And has for 4 billion years.

The ground beneath us quaked and the air above us was full of ash.

Australia to the west or the islands to the north come most readily to mind when we talk of neighbours. But the eruption of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle reminded us that over the fence and across the sea to the east is South America and what happens there can affect us here.

And when things happen we like to do something about it. To quote Hopkins again:

Fatalism does not sit well with Kiwis. We’re a DIY, GSI (Get Stuck In) bunch, wedded to the optimistic idea that there’s nothing a bit of No. 8 wire can’t fix or recreate.

Much as we’d like to we can’t stop the earth shaking nor can we stop the volcano spewing.

But bad as this week has been for so many, there have also been many reminders that nature’s worst encourages people’s best:

 ”Stuff happens. We’ve just got to deal with it.” And we do. And we will. Because we can. That much we do control. The best time to laugh is when you want to cry.

The planet always wins but it doesn’t always beat us. People whose homes are in ruins, who are living without power, running water, functioning sewers or dealing with the frustrations of cancelled flights have shown that they can not only bear the unbearable they can keep on doing it. 

They couldn’t control what happened but they can and do control how they react.

This week there have been understandable tears and tantrums. But even when people have had more than enough they have also been strong, resilient, selfless, determined and shown that while the planet won they haven’t been beaten.

June 18 in history

618  Li Yuan became Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang Dynasty rule over China.

1178  Five Canterbury monks seawwhat was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon’s distance from the earth (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.

1264 The Parliament of Ireland met at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.

1429  French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeated the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay.

1757  Battle of Kolín between Prussian Forces under Frederick the Great of Prussia and an Austrian Army under the command of Field Marshal Count Leopold Joseph von Daun in the Seven Year’s War.

1767  Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sighted Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.

1778  American Revolutionary War: British troops abandoned Philadelphia.

 

1812  War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declared war on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1815  Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo leads to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and last time.

1830  French invasion of Algeria

1858  Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own.  which prompted Darwin to publish his theory.

1859  First ascent of Aletschhorn, second summit of the Bernese Alps.

1873  Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1886 George Mallory, English mountaineer, was born  (d. 1924).

1887  The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia was signed.

1895  Minnie Dean’s trial for murdering a baby placed in her care began at the Invercargill Supreme Court.

1900  Empress Dowager Longyu of China ordered all foreigners killed.

1904 Manuel Rosenthal, French conductor and composer, was born  (d. 2003).

1908 Japanese immigration to Brazil began when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the Kasato-Maru ship

1908  The University of the Philippines was established.

 1913  Sylvia Field Porter, American economist and journalist, was born  (d. 1991)

1915  Red Adair, American firefighter, was born (d. 2004) .

1920 Ian Carmichael, English actor, was born (d. 2010).

1923  Checker Taxi put its first taxi on the streets.

 

1927 Paul Eddington, English actor, was born  (d. 1995).

1928  Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger,Wilmer Stutz was the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).

1930  Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute were held.

 

1936 Denny Hulme, New Zealand race car driver, was born  (d. 1992).

1936 Ronald Venetiaan, President of Suriname, was born.

1940  Appeal of June 18 by Charles de Gaulle.

1940   “Finest Hour” speech by Winston Churchill.

1942 Paul McCartney, British singer, songwriter and musician (The Beatles, Wings), was born.

1945  William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was charged with treason.

 

1946  Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist called for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa.

1953  The Republic of Egypt was declared and the monarchy abolished.

1953  A United States Air Force C-124 crashed and burned near Tokyo killing 129.

1954  Pierre Mendès-France became Prime Minister of France.

1959 Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long was committed to a state mental hospital; he responded by having the hospital’s director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeded to proclaim him perfectly sane.

1965  Vietnam War: The United States used B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.

1972 Staines air disaster – 118 were killed when a plane crashes 2 minutes after take off from London Heathrow Airport.

1979 SALT II was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.

 

1981 The AIDS epidemic was formally recognised by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.

1983 Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

1984 A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-1985 UK miners’ strike.

1994 The Troubles: the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) opened fire inside a pub in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland, killing six civilians and wounding five.

1996 Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, was indicted on ten criminal counts.

2001 Protests in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India.

2006  The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat wa launched.

Sourced from NZ Histroy Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Objurgation – harsh rebuke or criticism,  earnest denunciation, rebuke, scolding.

One person’s trash not always another’s treasure

Thrift shops complain that people dump unusable junk on them to save paying dumping fees.

After many hours sorting books for the Rotary Club of Oamaru’s annual Bookarama I know what they mean – one person’s trash isn’t always another’s treasure.

Some books which are donated look as it they’ve never been opened, others are well-read but still in good condition some are simply rubbish.

One of the supermarkets which was collecting books on our behalf phoned to say someone had just dropped off 17 boxes full. The donor’s intentions might have been good but only a handful of the dozens of books inside them were of any use.

Memo to self: go through book shelves regularly and never store books outside.

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Who said: “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ”?

2. Who composed The Four Seasons?

3. It’s espoir in French, speranza in Italian,  esperanza in Spanish and manawa ora in Maori, what is it in English?

4. What was a tamarillo’s former name?

5. Where (more or less)  does the 45th parallel cross State Highway 1?

Points for answers:

PDM got one and a bonus for honesty – though he didn’t look closely enough because as Raymond points out Cromwell though at a similar latitude isn’t on SH 1.

Andrei got four and a near-enough since I did say more or less for #5 which earns an electronic batch of muffins.

Raymond got three with a bonus for being specific about #5 (local knowledge helps).

Cadawallader also got three and a bonus for being specific.

Paul got three, a not quite near enough (on the wrong side of the Waitaki) a bonus for wit and yes I got it.

Adam got three and a bonus for the E (which prompted me to check my spelling).

UPDATE:

I had allocated marks last night, knowing I’d be at the Bookarama all day and therefore missed Gravedodger’s and Mort’s asnwers:

GD got four right (it would be a very brisk walk) with a bonus for listening ot SWMBO.

Mort got five right which earns an electronic batch of muffins too.

Answers follow the break:

Private and public

Had Darren Hughes not been an MP the complaint against him might not have been reported.

It certainly wouldn’t have been reported in as much detail as it was and that prompted Phil Goff  to say he was subjected to  trial by media.

Some media went too far in pursuing the complainent, whose name is suppressed. But you can’t blame journalists for trying to get a story like this when it concerned an MP.

He will not be charged but that is not the same thing as clearing his name, especially when police said they had no concerns about the validity of the complaint.

This has led to calls for him to explain what happened on the night in question.

The private life of public figures is not as private as that of other citizens, especially if what they’ve done reflects on their judgement.

But Hughes has resigned as an MP, is no longer a public figure and therefore is under no obligation to explain anything.

If however, he wants to return to public life he will need to make an explanation and an apology for what could be described in the kindest light as a serious lapse of judgement.

Unless he does any suggestion of a return to public life will be overshadowed by doubts and questions.

If a story like this had broken on almost any other MP there would have been at least a few people willing to twist the knife or spill some dirt. That there wasn’t shows an unusual degree of affection for him from colleagues, not just on his side of the political divide, and the media.

But if he wants to return to public life he can’t rely on his likeability to prevent this episode coming back to haunt him unless he fronts up about it. And if he is considering a come-back then the sooner he explains and apologises the better.

Who else has got the number?

The man taking my booking for a hotel room asked if I’d stayed there before.

I had, he looked up the records,  confirmed the information he found was mine and checked that the details were up to date.

Then we got to requiring a credit card to secure the booking and he told me he had my number and asked if it was alright to use that card.

I am sure I had never been asked if the hotel could keep a record of my credit card.

I wonder how many other businesses routinely keep credit card and other information without telling the owner?

Given how easily Whaleoil was able to access personal information from a Labour Party website I’m not entirely relaxed about the idea that credit card numbers and other data might be stored by people who have a similarly lax attitude to security and privacy.

Whaleoil has said:

I have decided to with­hold the vast bulk of mate­r­ial that I found, because I absolutely agree that as the law stands,  every­day New Zealan­ders should be free to con­tribute to polit­i­cal par­ties with­out fear of their name being made public.

Not everyone who comes across private information would resist the temptation to use it, especially if there was the potential to gain from doing so.

Goff sticks gumbooted foot in mouth

Jamie Mackay dubbed West Coast dairy farmer Andy Thompson a National Party lackey on the farming Show on Wednesday.

But he later went on to speak about Andy’s quest to find a Labour voter at the Fieldays and said it would be difficult.

He was joking but if ever there was a time for farmers and the wider rural community to support the National Party it is now both because of what it has done in government and what Labour is threatening to do should it win the election.

Sadly, from my point of view, not all farmers understand that. Although many are more likely to support National than members of some other groups, not all of them do.

However, Phil Goff would have helped National’s cause and harmed his own when he stuck his gumbooted-foot in his mouth :

Labour leader Phil Goff has angered industry leaders at the National Agricultural Fieldays by suggesting that Federated Farmers were considered the National Party in gumboots.

The comment was in response to being asked how important the agricultural vote was to Labour, in election year, during his Fieldays visit yesterday.

“In financial terms agriculture is hugely important, in political terms someone once said that Federated Farmers is the National Party in gumboots, it’s always been that way and we have to accept that,” Mr Goff told Waikato Times.

Feds took understandable exception to that:

However that comment hasn’t gone down well with Federated Farmers dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie who said the organisation was staunchly apolitical.

“We have always said that we will work with whoever is in power it’s very simple,” Mr McKenzie said. “I spoke at a Labour Party conference two years ago and held two workshops which were both full.”

Unlike some unions which are affiliated to and have special, undemocratic privileges in, the Labour Party, Feds is an advocacy group which keeps a respectable distance from party politics.

It works to advance the interests of its members in the knowledge that governments come and governments go and its voice is stronger for not favouring or attaching itself to any party.

Goff could have mended a bridge or two with farmers and got some positive publicity at the Fieldays. Instead he gaffed again with a defensive, and ill-judged quip.

June 17 in history

1239 Edward Longshanks, English king, was born (d. 1307).

1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge – forces under King Henry VII defeated troops led by Michael An Gof.

1565  Matsunaga Hisahide assassinated the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.

 

1579  Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called Nova Albion (modern California) for England.

 

1631 Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

1691 Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Italian painter and architect, was born  (d. 1765).

1704 John Kay, English inventor of the flying shuttle, was born  (d. 1780).

 

1773 Cúcuta, Colombia was founded by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.

1775 American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill.

 

1789  In France, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly.

1839 In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issued the Edict of toleration which gave Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands.

1843 The Wiarau Incident: New Zealand Company settlers and Ngati Toa clashed over the ownership of land in the Wairau Valley.

1863 Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

1867 Henry Lawson, Australian poet, was born  (d. 1922).

1876 Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud – 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook‘s forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1877  Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon – the Nez Perce defeated the US Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.

 

1885 The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbour.

 

1898  The United States Navy Hospital Corps iwa established.

1900 Martin Bormann, Nazi official, was born  (d. 1945).

1901  The College Board introduced its first standardized test.

1910 Aurel Vlaicu performed the first flight of A. Vlaicu nr. 1.

 

1930  U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.

 

1932  Bonus Army: around a thousand World War I veterans amassed at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considered a bill that would give them certain benefits.

1933 Union Station Massacre: in Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.

1939  Last public guillotining in France. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles.

1940  World War II: Operation Ariel began– Allied troops started to evacuate France, following Germany’s takeover of Paris and most of the nation.

1940 – World War II: sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe.

1940 – World War II: the British Army’s 11th Hussars assaulted and took Fort Capuzzo in Libya from Italian forces.

1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell under the occupation of the Soviet Union.

1943 Barry Manilow, American musician, was born.

1944  Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic.

1945 Ken Livingstone, English politician, was born.

1947 Paul Young, English singer and percussionist, was born  (d. 2000).

1948  A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashed near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

 

1950 Lee Tamahori, New Zealand film director, was born.

1953  Workers Uprising: in East Germany, the Soviet Union ordered a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

 

1957 Phil Chevron, Irish musician (The Pogues, The Radiators From Space), was born.

1958  The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing being built connecting Vancouver and North Vancouver, Canada, collapses into the Burrard Inlet, killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others.

1958  The Wooden Roller Coaster at Playland, in the Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver, opened.

1960  The Nez Perce tribe was awarded $4 million for 7 million acres of land undervalued (4 cents/acre) in the 1863 treaty.

1961  The New Democratic Party of Canada was founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.

1963  The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer in public schools.

1963  A day after South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communique to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2000 people breaks out, killing one.

1972  Watergate scandal: five White House operatives were arrested for burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee

1987  With the death of the last individual, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow became extinct.

1991  Apartheid: the South African Parliament repealed the Population Registration Act, which had required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

1992  A ‘Joint Understanding’ agreement on arms reduction was signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

1994 O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Sourced from NZ history Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Nebulochaotic - chaotic, confused, hazy.