Hawke’s Bay

Agriculture spokesman dressed up as some form of Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy has continued in the path of David Carter and is lying about water.

Today Nathan Guy berates Labour for changing their policy on water storage. Maybe it has never managed to penetrate through Nathan’s monobrow or to the manor born outlook on life but Labour have never agreed to piss away money on bludging farmers. They have never had a policy on supporting a specific project, let alone National’s sop to bludging farmers, the $500m irrigation fund. This lack of insight means Nathan comes up with a particularly moronic statement.

Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy says he is shocked at the Labour Party’s u-turn on supporting the Ruataniwha water storage scheme in Hawke’s Bay, despite previously indicating their support.  Read more »

I’m just going to put this up without further comment

Hawke’s Bay police have found a hatchback crammed with four men and 11 stolen sheep.

A patrol came across the hatchback in a rural area near Hastings at 1am today, a police spokesman said.

The sheep had been hog-tied, and were lucky to still be alive.

“The constables were appalled to find the sheep in this condition.”

The four men have been charged with theft and ill treatment of the animals. They will appear in the Hastings District Court. The sheep have been returned to their owners.

Source: Stuff

The Herald reports:

Two people who stole a charity donation box from a Hastings petrol station have been described as the “lowest of the low” by police.

Security camera footage taken at the Heretaunga St business on January 11 shows two people approaching the counter and asking to buy cigarettes.

While the attendant’s back is turned, one takes a donation box for Riding for the Disabled off the counter and stuffs it inside his hoodie.   Read more »

As a public service:

In House Counsel Position
Campaigning Organisation
Based in Hawkes Bay

A specialist campaigning business is seeking an in house counsel to help with campaigns against councils, government departments and political parties. The role is to ensure that these organisations obey the law, and are held to account if they do not.

The purpose of this role is holding the Hawkes Bay Regional Council to account, and ensuring they act lawfully. Other councils will also be pursued, and there will be a wide variety of interesting legal work in the political field.

The successful applicant will be a young, ambitious and committed lawyer who wants profile and court time. They will likely have political aspirations and will understand that this role is about winning campaigns, not winning cases. They will have a strong work ethic, not be bound by convention, and want regular media coverage talking about issues that matter.

Fearlessness will be a major positive attribute, and a willingness to take on tough cases. This is not a standard lawyers job, and will require flair and imagination and is not for the faint hearted. Coping with pressure from opposing counsel and opposing organisations will be a key part of this role.

Remuneration will be based on experience and ability.

Please contact Whaleoil by email for your details to be passed onto the organisation.

Yesterday I wrote a post about Stuart Nash and the bludger farmers who want to burden ratepayers of the Hawkes Bay for a dam that only they will benefit from. Some commenters passed judgement that I was full of crap and this was investment in infrastructure blah blah blah…then along came Brennan McDonald and his comment:

If the farming sector is so productive and profitable, or would be made so by this dam, why do they need to get every other ratepayer to chip in?

If they really needed it, and weren’t just looking for a handout they’d write the cheque themselves.

The farming sector’s return on assets is dismal. If it wasn’t for capital gains and the tens of billions of dollars banks can’t afford to write down on agricultural debt the loans would have been called in years ago.

Interest cover ratios are abysmal in agriculture.

As for sports stadiums, the economic literature and real world experience is clear they are a waste of money.

There is no difference between saddling Hawke’s Bay ratepayers with a $600 million “productivity enhancing” boondoggle and Dunedin ratepayers $200 million stadium for a rugby union that traded while insolvent.

Both force higher rates in the long term for something they might not even benefit from.

Just look at the Mangawhai sewerage system stuff up!

He is dead right…if this dam is such a commercial genius of a plan then why don’t the farmers form a company, raise funds on the stock market and run it as a commercial venture? Because the plan is crap, the numbers don’t stack up and dollars to donuts there is some dodgy ‘science’ behind the council projections and justifications.

Stu Nash is the man who got away from the Labour Party. They wanted more poofters, maoris and unionists so they looked less like modern New Zealand, and Nashy isn’t any part of this, even if he does appeal to middle New Zealand.

Nashy also struggles in Labour because he isn’t a total socialist. This also means he wouldn’t fit in National who believe in socialised farming, and subsidising the bludgers who want free water and a free right to pollute.

He’s written a good article on why Hawkes Bay shouldn’t be pissing away $600m on an irrigation dam.

The Ruataniwha Water Storage scheme is being promoted by the HB Regional Council as the single biggest economic development project for decades. In terms of total spend, this is undoubtedly true. The question is, however, if given a choice as to how to spend $600 million driving economic development, is a dam the best use of scarce funds?

Nashy just lost the bludging farmer vote, who want the taxpayer to kick in for a big dam so they can get a big capital gain and make bigger profits. And by the sounds of things it won’t bring more work for the unemployed in Hawkes Bay, it will just bring in lots of cheap foreign labour.

The Ruataniwha dam project will create employment, but it will largely be the type of jobs that are currently taken by seasonal labourers on the RSE scheme who come in to pick our fruit. As many will know, we have an immigrant workforce that comes into the Bay around November and leaves once the picking season is over. They are very efficient and the fruit growers love them due to their work ethic and reliability. While I don’t doubt their efficiency, the problem is that nearly every dollar these workers earn is sent back to the homeland. Very little is spent in the local economy.

The Minister of Immigration says it is wonderful for our foreign aid programme. That may be the case, but it is dreadful for our local economy and struggling communities.

The jobs created by the development of the dam may well be the same. Many of the agricultural labouring jobs across the country these days are taken by Filipino workers. Again, because their work ethic is tremendous and they are prepared to work long hours for very little.

Socialism and foreign aid. Sounds like exactly what National pretends to stand for.

Great news for New Zealand and in particular the Hawkes Bay as two oil and gas companies spend their money to increase the jobs and invest in New Zealand.

The Greenies of course will cry fracking hell at the prospect of increased work opportunities, investment in New Zealand infrastructure and increased tax take for the government coffers.

The fact that the Maui gas field is winding down and New Zealand will benefit greatly from increased security of supply of energy sources will be irrelevant.  What they want is for us all to live in caves, walk (or bike everywhere) and promote so called “green technologies” which are economically unfeasible and only work with massive tax-payer funded subsidies (variation of a ponzi scheme).

The licence area sits between two others being explored by fellow Canadian TAG Oil, near Gisborne in the southern Hawke’s Bay, both of which have prompted opposition from local environmental groups who fear TAG and its Texan partner, Apache, plan to use hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, to unlock hydrocarbons held in shale formations.

Oh this will be good.

The lunatic conspriacy theory Greens will attack fracking. But fracking will be shown to be safe and sustainable and cost effective.

The controversial oil and gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is capable of being managed sustainably and without serious risk of groundwater contamination or inducing damaging earthquakes, the Royal Society has found.

One of the world’s most respected independent scientific bodies, the society worked with the Royal Academy of Engineering to produce a report sought by the UK’s chief scientific adviser, John Beddington.

Another greenie myth dispelled and proven to be nothing but a lie based on fear of the stupid and gullible.  I wonder what their next lie will be?

The Labour Party will no doubt be wanting to nationalise any discovery which will be just the trick to encourage more investment in the extraction industry in New Zealand.  After all to do otherwise would be inconsistent with their other policy announcements.  But here is the problem for Labour;  The Greenies will want to plant an organic garden on top of any discovery and shut it all down.  Labour will want the production from any discovery.  How will the two parties reconcile their differences on the future of mining and extraction in New Zealand?

Probably by caving to Green demands to print more money.

It isn’t just dairy farmers that pour shit into rivers. Councils are doing it too.

This has happened for years all over the country, and councils have failed to take action. Usually they put off fixing sewerage schemes so the next council has to raise rates to fund a scheme, and try all sorts of weasel clauses to get out of stopping pouring shit into rivers.

I met some people in Hawkes Bay who have been trying to get the Central Hawkes Bay District Council to stop pouring shit in to the Tukituki and Waipawa rivers since 2004. In 2008 they thought they had an Environment Court ruling and some resource consents that told them they could only pour shit into rivers until September 30th, 2014.

Now they are claiming to ratepayers they have another ten years in their latest newsletter. They don’t. They have to obey the resource consents unless they get approval from the private citizens who litigated against them to get the final date. The chances of the private citizens agreeing to a change apparently is nil, but expect the council to weasel out if they can.

If you don’t think it is good enough to pour shit into rivers you can tell the CHB council by submitting to their draft Long Term Plan.

Tell them you expect them to adhere by the following consents:

Waipukarau Discharge DP030231Wa & DP030859Aa
Waipawa Discharge DP030232Wa & DP030860Aa

You can see where the shit goes into the Tukituki from the settling ponds in the picture below.

The Waipawa has shit poured into it here:

Phil Goff is in serious trouble…he can’t fill a phone box.

Things weren’t looking bright for Phil Goff as he took Labour’s campaign to Hawkes Bay today – the Labour leader has problems with his potential coalition partners.

Winston Peters has ruled him out, and the Greens are now openly out to steal his votes.

Mr Goff was out to attract voters young and old today, following a kindergarten visit with a Grey Power meeting.

Thirty-one people turned up to see him speak at the Hastings meeting, summing up the problem for Mr Goff – Labour has fired most of its policy shots and spent its money for its promises, but halls are still half-empty just 17 days before the election.

Mr Peters recently drew 300 people at the same venue, but while voters might be keen almost every party has ruled him out – except for Mr Goff.

Stuart Nash has already told us that his roots are firmly in the Hawke’s Bay, a huge sigh of relief for husbands nationwide.

However a quick read down his About page shows us one of two things. Either he is studying on the taxpayers tit while being a scum List MP or that his website is nothing but a lazy effort of cut and paste from his rather skinny CV.

Stuart Nash - The Mangrove - Studying on the taxpayer or lazy cut and paste job?

I have also taken the liberty of adding a timer to the right sidebar to see how long it take The Mangrove to change his About page to reflect the truth.