Fonterra celebrates at the Best Site Cup Awards
Content brought to you by Fonterra
Fieldays wasn't the only big event this month; Fonterra held its annual Best Site Cup Awards.
Now in its 19th year, the Best Site Cup Awards brings together nearly 200 representatives from the co-op's sites across New Zealand.
Chris Kane, Fonterra's Director of New
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RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Petroleum law passes, with a last minute twist
File photo. Photo: 123RF The exploration and extraction of petroleum in New Zealand will be more accessible from this week with the government's Crown Minerals Amendment Bill having received a third and final reading in Parliament this afternoon. The Bill (soon to be an Act pending Royal Assent), is the brainchild of Minister for Resources Shane Jones. It removes the 2018 law passed by the Ardern government which limited new petroleum exploration permits to onshore Taranaki. On Tuesday, the Clerk announced the commencement of the third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, but rather than beginning that final debate, a last-minute motion from Jones meant the Bill was sent back to the committee stage in what is called a recommittal. Recommittals, although not unprecedented, don't happen all that often, and if they do occur, it's usually when a member's bill is being considered. (Member's Bills without the significant drafting resource possessed by a government are more likely to have oddities that need tidying up.) The process of returning a bill to an earlier stage enables the bill to receive further refinement. This may be necessary for several reasons - perhaps a fault or loophole has been discovered, or the government has had a last-minute change of mind regarding a specific provision. In any case, to make these changes, the bill is sent back to the Committee of the whole House stage, where amendments can be put forward. After reportedly spotting a loophole, Jones had tabled a significant amendment at 5pm on Monday which was then debated less than 24 hours later in Tuesday's recommittal. The change itself related to who pays the cost of decommissioning and cleaning up oil wells once production has ceased. The amendment paper, which was successfully included in the bill, places the power for determining who pays for decommissioning costs in the hands of the Minister for Resources and the Minister of Finance (currently Shane Jones), replacing the model of trailing liability. This is the third policy iteration within the current amendment bill. The Opposition spent most of Tuesday evening drilling into the last-minute switch, trying their best to extract answers from the Minister about why it was decided and who he had consulted with about it. To listen to some of those exchanges, click the link to the audio version of this story at the top of the page. *RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
The world wants our excellent butter
One of our favourite butter brands recently took home a prestigious award from the International Cheese and Dairy show, the oldest and largest such show in England. According to the judges, compared with other competing countries, our butter is creamy, velvet and rich, without being greasy. It carries flavour and can soak up all the spices, aromatics, and seasoning in our cooking. It is more yellow and has a higher fat content than the pale, grain-fed American butter — consequently, along with the judges and countless top chefs, they just can't get enough of it. Butter is one of the purest foods in the world, and we make lots of it. New Zealand is the largest exporter of butter, and last year we exported 525,000 tonnes which is a third of the global market and worth $2.54 billion, making it our second-largest export earner. China is our biggest buyer, purchasing $786 million worth in 2024. Chinese people have some trust issues with their dairy products, and New Zealand is the most trusted and the butter considered to be of high quality. Other large importers of butter are the US, Australia and the Philippines, but it's almost unbelievable that we import about $3.69m worth each year, mainly from Denmark, India, Australia, France and Fiji. The dairy export industry started from humble beginnings, with a few barrels of salted butter manufactured at the Edendale Dairy Co shipped to England on board SS Dunedin in 1882 alongside its cargo of frozen mutton. Today the industry employs 55,000 people, there are seven different brands of butter and New Zealanders on the global scale are the highest consumers of the product. Hogging various media headlines at the moment is the price, as it is at an all-time high, and some seem to be trying to give Fonterra a guilt complex as if it sets the price and is responsible — but it is the global auction that sets the price. Fonterra's chief financial officer Andrew Murray stated our butter costs a lot less than you pay in Europe. Is there an irony in all this? Farmers have been improving their environmental image, animal welfare, our clean and green brand and, of course, animals are grass-fed, with the long-term view that premier products attract high-spending customers which in turn help not only the farmer but the country — but we could struggle to afford what we produce. Butter is 49% higher than a year ago and could it be beef and lamb next, which is 50% higher than five years ago. However, what goes up usually comes down.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Last-minute change puts oil and gas cleanup decisions in ministers' hands
Resources Minister Shane Jones has vowed to restart the oil and gas industry. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii The government is set to repeal the oil and gas ban this week, after a significant 11th-hour change handing discretionary powers to two ministers. A 25-page amendment was published at 5pm on Monday, leaving opposition MPs less than 23 hours to prepare for the debate. The change largely deals with the rules for decommissioning oil and gas fields, and who is responsible for paying for the cleanup. Taranaki's Tui oil field was abandoned in 2019 after its Malaysian owner Tamarind Taranaki went bust, costing taxpayers a total $293 million to clean up, with work concluding just last month. The government initially set aside up to $343.4m for the project. The Labour government in 2021 introduced a law to prevent the government being lumped with such costs again in future. Resources Minister Shane Jones has vowed to restart the oil and gas industry . He said the aim of the amendment was to close a loophole in that 2021 law. "It did not seem correct or moral that the Crown should be left with that liability and the people [at fault] - with some very shrewd manoeuverings of script - would escape liability. We have solved that problem," he told the House. Taranaki's Tui oil field was abandoned in 2019 after its Malaysian owner Tamarind Taranaki went bust. Photo: MBIE / Supplied The changes replace the process of going through the list of previous permit-holders to figure out who pays for decommissioning, instead putting that decision in the hands of the Resources Minister and the Finance Minister. The amendment also removes several clauses from a previous amendment the minister made to the bill, which itself amends the Crown Minerals Act. Labour's Energy and Resources spokesperson Megan Woods led the 2021 law change in response to the Tui Oil Field debacle, and told the Parliament the changes showed the government capitulating to the industry's wishes. "They have bowed to the suggestions of the oil and gas companies and done what they wanted. They have further bowed to the interests of the oil and gas companies in taking eight months to sit with them, find out what they wanted and then bring a bill back to the House. This is not a government that is putting New Zealand first." Labour's Deborah Russell pointed out the Regulatory Impact Statement referred to consultation with affected stakeholders. "Those consulted preferred ministerial discretion to the current act and approach in the bill. In other words, these shadowy participants in the oil and gas industry - a dying industry - who we don't know who they are, much prefer to be able to lobby a minister." Labour MP Deborah Russell. Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER Jones was unapologetic about those he consulted with. "Why would you not engage with the stakeholders, the risk-takers, the providers of what precious little gas we have, ruined by the cancel culture." He was unapologetic about a lack of consultation with others, including iwi. "So in the future the engagement will happen. This highly technical matter was not the subject of consultation in a detailed way, it was dealt with with a great deal of confidentiality. And in terms of providing a Māori dimension, I interviewed myself." The amendment passed with the coalition parties in support, with the opposition parties opposed. The third reading, which would see the oil and gas ban repealed, is expected on Thursday. A gas company warned investors would be cautious about coming back to New Zealand without broad political consensus - and with the opposition parties currently staunchly opposed that consensus seems vanishingly unlikely. The government also has a $200m fund set aside in this year's Budget to allow the government to co-invest in new gas fields. It last month pulled out of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance , an international coalition for phasing out fossil fuels, in a move the local World Wildlife Fund called an "international embarrassment". That was despite the Climate Minister, Simon Watts, previously saying New Zealand would not need to exit the group. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
