Word of the day

Dacryops – excess of tears int he eye; moistness of the eye; a watery state of the eye; distention or swelling of a lacrimal duct by contained fluid; cyst of a duct of the lacrimal gland.

Rural round-up

Desire signalled to rebuild farmer trust – John Gibbs:

The Otago Regional Council is keen to repair the damaged trust between some of the region’s farmers and the council after concerns about rising charges and communication issues were highlighted this week.

That message came through clearly yesterday as an ORC hearing panel began discussing the ORC’s proposed long-term plan, and in submissions made on the plan at public hearings earlier this week.

The panel yesterday completed nearly a week of hearings involving submissions on the ORC’s proposed 2015-25 long-term plan, including Dunedin hearings on Wednesday and Thursday. . .

Benefits from Chinese investment extend beyond the farm gate to NZ Inc.:

The benefits of Chinese investment extend beyond the farm gate and into the New Zealand economy according to the CEO of Pengxin International, Gary Romano.

Romano made these comments when Shanghai Pengxin subsidiary, Milk New Zealand Holdings, was named the supreme winner at the 2015 HSBC NZCTA New Zealand China Business Awards. The company also took out the DLA Piper category ward for Inward or Outward Investment with China.

The awards follow success earlier this year when Milk New Zealand Holdings won the Emerging Business Award and then the overall Supreme Business Award at the BNZ New Zealand Chinese Business Awards. . .

Texel coming of age – Sally Rae:

Geoff Howie was one of the original breeders who invested in Texel sheep when they were released from quarantine in 1990.

The South Otago farmer always liked to look at something new that had a promising future and he had also been ”right into meat and something outside the square”.

”Texels took my eye right from the start,” he said. The Texel originated on the island of Texel to the north of Holland in the North Sea. The sheep imported into New Zealand were sourced from Denmark and Finland. . .

Greenfeeds contest highly successful – David Bruce:

More than $30,000 will go to two beneficiaries from North Otago’s first farming greenfeeds competition, aimed at finding the best winter crop.

The competition was organised by the Waianakarua and Waiareka Valley Lions Clubs.

The overall winners, Matt and Julie Ross, of Kokoamo Farms in the Waitaki Valley, were announced on Friday at a dinner, auction and award presentations attended by more than 250 people. . .

Exclusive contract ‘crucial’ for Otago fine wool grower–  Rob Tipa:

An exclusive contract to supply a leading Japanese fine wool suit manufacturer with ultra-fine merino wool has proven to be a crucial business move for Maniototo fine wool grower Tony Clarke, of Closeburn Station.

Konaka Co is one of the top three suit manufacturers in Japan, it is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and has more than 450 retail stores.

Closeburn Station hosted a visit by 21 of the company’s top executives and sales people last week during a five-day tour of New Zealand to acquaint them with the exclusive source of fine wool used to make top-of-the-line fashion suits they sell. . .

500,000 shades of grey beef trade – Andrew Marshal:

CHINA’S much talked about and unofficial beef ‘grey trade’, accounting for between 500,000 tonnes and 750,000t of the nation’s annual imports, is unlikely to fade away any time soon says ANZ’s global agribusiness research head Michael Whitehead.

Despite Chinese government efforts to clamp down on back door red meat and seafood imports which avoid tariffs and government biosecurity scrutiny, he doubted the social upheaval caused by any serious restrictions would be worth the gains they achieved.

Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and Bangladesh were expected to continue supplying China’s grey trade with beef – largely from Brazil, India and the US – despite Chinese authorities still campaigning against the trade. . .

B.B. King 16.9.25 – 14.5.15

Blues musician B.B. King died last week:

B.B. King, the singer and guitarist who put the blues in a three-piece suit and took the musical genre from the barrooms and back porches of the Mississippi Delta to Carnegie Hall and the world’s toniest concert stages with a signature style emulated by generations of blues and rock musicians, has died. He was 89.

The 15-time Grammy Award winner died in Las Vegas, his attorney said. He had struggled in recent years with diabetes.

Early on, King transcended his musical shortcomings – an inability to play guitar leads while he sang and a failure to master the use of a bottleneck or slide favored by many of his guitar-playing peers – and created a unique style that made him one of the most respected and influential blues musicians ever. . .

Bank, govt aim at demand, what about supply?

The Reserve Bank and the government are both trying to take the heat out of the Auckland housing market.

The Bank announced proposed changes to the loan-to-value ratio (LVR) policy to take effect from 1 Octobere:

They will:

• Require residential property investors in the Auckland Council area using bank loans to have a deposit of at least 30 percent.

• Increase the existing speed limit for high LVR borrowing outside of Auckland from 10 to 15 percent, to reflect the more subdued housing market conditions outside of Auckland.

• Retain the existing 10 percent speed limit for loans to owner-occupiers in Auckland at LVRs of greater than 80 percent.

The government is  taking extra steps to bolster the tax rules on property transaction.

FInance Minister Bill English and Revenue Minister Todd McLay say the Government is taking extra steps to bolster the tax rules on property transactions – including those by overseas buyers – and to help Inland Revenue enforce them.

The tax measures are also expected to take some of the heat out of Auckland’s housing market and sit alongside the Reserve Bank’s latest moves to address associated financial stability issues, Mr English says.

“Taken together, they will help Inland Revenue enforce existing tax rules, provide it with extra resources and ensure that property investors pay their fair share of tax – whether they’re from New Zealand or overseas.”

The Budget this week will confirm that, from 1 October this year, the following will be required when any property is bought or sold:

• All non-residents and New Zealanders buying and selling any property other than their main home must provide a New Zealand IRD number as part of the usual land transfer process with Land Information New Zealand.
• In addition, all non-resident buyers and sellers must provide their tax identification number from their home country, along with current identification requirements such as a passport.
• And to ensure that our full anti-money laundering rules apply to non-residents before they buy a property, non-residents must have a New Zealand bank account before they can get a New Zealand IRD number.
• In addition, a new “bright line” test will be introduced for non-residents and New Zealanders buying residential property, to supplement Inland Revenue’s current “intentions” test. Under this new test, gains from residential property sold within two years of purchase will be taxed, unless the property is the seller’s main home, inherited from a deceased estate or transferred as part of a relationship property settlement.

“Tax rules are complex and affect people in different ways, so we will consult on these measures before they take effect on 1 October,” Mr English says.

The “bright line” test will then apply to properties bought on or after 1 October.

To further ensure overseas property buyers meet both existing tax requirements and those of the new test, the Government will investigate introducing a withholding tax for non-residents selling residential property.

Officials will consult on these details with a view to this withholding tax being introduced around the middle of 2016.

Mr English reiterated owner-occupiers of residential property will not be affected by the new measures when they sell their main home, or if property is inherited from a deceased estate or transferred as part of a relationship property settlement.

“It’s important to reiterate that these changes will not apply to New Zealanders’ main home, although existing tax rules will still apply in  addition to these new measures,” Mr English says.

“It’s equally important that people buying residential property for gains meet their tax obligations, whether they are from New Zealand or overseas.

“The combination of collecting IRD numbers and introducing this new bright-line test will help ensure that non-residents pay their fair share of tax in New Zealand.” . . .

These measures should go someway to dampening the demand side of the pressure on Auckland property prices.

More needs to be done to increase the supply of houses.

This could be done by building more houses and by people moving from Auckland to other areas.

Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse is considering incetivising immigrants to settle in the regions:

The Government is set to give skilled migrants, investors and those planning to bring businesses to New Zealand extra points if they settle outside of Auckland.

Skilled migrants and those applying to live in New Zealand under entrepreneur visas already gain 10 points in the immigration points system if they say they intend to settle outside of Auckland. That could soon get a boost.

“Those entrepreneurs, those innovators who could make a contribution to regional development, it is possible for us to bump up the points settings to incentivise that,” says Mr Woodhouse. . .

 It’s not just immigrants who could make a contribution to regional development.

If some of those bemoaning property prices in their home city opened their eyes to opportunities outside Auckland they could move out of Auckland.

They would get a house for much less than they could hope to pay in the city, find how much easier life is when there are fewer people clogging the roads and in improving their lives would free up houses in Auckland for those who can’t or won’t move.

Quote of the day

“Politics is not entertainment,” he says. “That’s a mistake of people who are acute followers of politics as commentators or people from withinthe Westminster village.

“For the voters it’s not entertainment, it’s a serious issue, it’s a serious thing that means a great deal to their lives. It is their future.” – Lynton Crosby.

He was referring to British politics and those who comment on it.

His words could just as easily be about politics and at least some commentators here.

May 18 in history

1048 Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, poet and philosopher, was born (d. 1131).

1152  Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine.

1268  The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, fell to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Battle of Antioch.

1302 Bruges Matins, the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by members of the local Flemish militia.

1498 Vasco da Gama reached the port of Calicut, India.

1593  Playwright Thomas Kyd‘s accusations of heresy led to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.

1652 Rhode Island passed the first law in North America making slavery illegal.

1765  Fire destroyed a large part of Montreal.

1783  First United Empire Loyalists reached Parrtown, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after leaving the United States.

1803  Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revoked the Treaty of Amiens and declared war on France.

1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.

1811  Battle of Las Piedras: The first great military triumph of the revolution of the Río de la Plata in Uruguay led by Jose Artigas.

1812  John Bellingham was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.

1843  The Disruption in Edinburgh of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland.

1848  Opening of the first German National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) in Frankfurt.

1860  Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination over William H. Seward.

1863  American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg began.

1868 – Nicholas II of Russia, was born (d. 1918).

1896  The United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal is constitutional.

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of  Tsar Nicholas II resulted in the deaths of 1,389 people.

1897  Dracula,  by Irish author Bram Stoker was published.

1897  Frank Capra, American film producer, director, and writer, was born  (d. 1991).

1900  The United Kingdom proclaimed a protectorate over Tonga.

1910  The Earth passed through the tail of Comet Halley.

1912 – Perry Como, American singer, was born (d. 2001).

1917 World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.

1919  – Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer, was born  (d. 1991).

1920 Pope John Paul II was born (d. 2005).

1926 Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared while visiting a Venice, California beach.

1927  The Bath School Disaster: Forty-five people were killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan.

1933 New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1937 New Zealand nurses René Shadbolt, Isobel Dodds, and Millicent Sharples were detained at Auckland police station before leaving for the Spanish Civil War as recruits for the Spanish Medical Aid Committee.

1944  World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino – Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger) evacuated Monte Cassino.

1944  Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union  government.

1948  The First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convened in Nanking.

1949 Rick Wakeman, English composer and musician (Yes) was born.

1949 – Bill Wallace, Canadian musician (The Guess Who) was born.

1953  Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1955  Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ended.

1956 First  ascent of Lhotse 8,516 metres, by a Swiss team.

1958 An F-104 Starfighter set a world speed record of 2,259.82 km/h (1,404.19 mph).

1959 Launching of the National Liberation Committee of Côte d’Ivoire in Conakry, Guinea.

1966 Koroki Te Rata Mahuta Tawhiao Potatau Te Wherowhero, the fifth Maori monarch heading the Kingitanga movement, died.

1969  Apollo 10 was launched.

1974 Nuclear test: Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.

1974 – Completion of the Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time.

1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens: killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

1980 Gwangju Massacre: Students in Gwangju, South Korea began demonstrations, calling for democratic reforms.

1983  In Ireland, the government launched a crackdown, with the leading Dublin pirate Radio Nova  put off the air.

1990 In France, a modified TGV train achieved a new rail world speed record of 515.3km/h (320.2 mph).

1991 Northern Somalia declared independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland but is unrecognised by the international community.

1993  EU-riots in Nørrebro, Copenhagen caused by the approval of the four Danish exceptions in the Maastricht Treaty referendum. Police opened fire against civilians for the first time since World War II and injured 11 demonstrators.

1998 United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states filed an antitrust case against Microsoft.

2006 The post Loktantra Andolan government passed a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country.

2009  Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE were defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.

2011 – 22 people were killed when Sol Líneas Aéreas Flight 5428 crashed in southern Argentina.

2012 – Facebook, Inc. began selling stock to the public and trading on the NASDAQ.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.