logo
The young grower winning awards

The young grower winning awards

RNZ News27-05-2025

Jack Haddon, 22, has won the Pukekohe 2025 Young Grower regional title. The awards are for commercial fruit and vegetable growers from across the regions, up to the age of 30. Farm and operations manager Jack joined agriculture outfit Balle Brothers aged 17 and he now manages 200 hectares of cauliflower and cabbage. He beat three other contestants to win the award and will now compete in the national awards in Christchurch in September. Jack Haddon speaks to Kathryn.
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Carrington Resort trial: Former manager defends actions in court
Carrington Resort trial: Former manager defends actions in court

RNZ News

time9 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Carrington Resort trial: Former manager defends actions in court

By Shannon Pitman, Open Justice reporter of Belle Mumby (inset) defended forgery charges related to her time working at Carrington Resort. Photo: Supplied / NZME / Open Justice A judge-alone trial against a former manager of a luxury resort accused of fraudulent behaviour has wrapped up but not before she had her say, painting a picture of mounting workloads and rightful entitlements. "I could foresee it would get worse," Belle Mumby said, defending the long hours she claims were justified, despite the resort's insistence otherwise. The former Carrington Resort operations manager has spent the past two weeks facing charges of theft, deception, and forgery in a judge-alone trial in the Whangārei District Court. The Crown alleges Mumby photocopied CEO Jing Ma's signature on an overtime form and claimed payments she wasn't entitled to. She is also accused of using the company account for personal purchases and selling resort-owned equipment - a trailer and post rammer - for $3000 and keeping the proceeds. Mumby maintains Ma approved the photocopied overtime document because she was often unavailable to sign off. She also claims the purchases were for the resort and argues the equipment was unusable, with Ma allegedly pocketing some of the funds. The prosecution's key witness, Ma, faced five days of cross-examination by defence lawyer Wayne McKean. She repeatedly asserted Mumby had stolen from the resort and that none of the overtime claims, purchases, or equipment sales were authorised. Before Mumby took the stand on Tuesday, the resort's payroll clerk, Wendy Weng, said all the overtime forms needed approval with a higher authority signature. Weng was presented an email from Mumby which stated Ma was happy for her to sign off her leave forms from now on. Weng also assumed this included overtime as well. "I saw Jing was included in this email so I assumed Jing was in agreement and she didn't reply otherwise," Weng said. Mumby, taking the stand on Tuesday, said she foresaw her overtime hours increasing as summer approached and waiting for the CEO to sign off was impossible as she was never there. Belle Mumby said she was authorised to do the overtime and purchase items. Photo: Supplied / NZME / Open Justice She claimed Ma suggested signing blank forms that she could later photocopy and complete based on hours worked. "She indicated to me she would come less and less in the future so I [asked] her 'So what happens to my overtime?' I need the verification'," Mumby said. "She suggest[ed] no need to worry about that, she would sign on the blank form and I would go to photocopy it and fill out whatever hours I did, then I can claim it." Mumby said she followed the procedure she was told to do. Regarding the alleged unlawful purchases such as AirPods, iPads, a phone, security cameras and Oral B electric toothbrushes, Mumby insisted they were for the resort or for her job productivity. Ma had previously given evidence that the post rammer and trailer that Mumby allegedly sold were valued at $100,000. But Mumby said both the items were sitting with a pile of rusted machinery, were of no use and sold for $3000. During cross-examination by Crown lawyer Danica Soich, it was suggested to her that clients would never use Oral B electric toothbrushes that may have been previously used by others. Soich pointed out that several items purchased on the resort's account were found at Mumby's house or in her car, including an unopened security system. "There was never a plan to return those items, was there?" Soich asked. "No, I was going to bring them back after sorting myself out from Hong Kong," Mumby replied. "You felt entitled to more than what you were receiving from Carrington?" Soich pressed. "No, I'm happy," Mumby responded. "You bought those items for yourself," Soich alleged. "No, that is wrong," Mumby countered. Mumby said that upon her return from her trip to Hong Kong, she was brought into Ma's office, fired and promised a discussion that never happened. The trial closed on Thursday and Judge Taryn Bayley has reserved her decision. * This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

Māori, Pacific removed from extra education funding priorities
Māori, Pacific removed from extra education funding priorities

RNZ News

time13 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Māori, Pacific removed from extra education funding priorities

The Tertiary Education Commission warns it doesn't have enough money to cover enrolment growth next year. Photo: AFP The government will remove extra funding for Māori and Pacific enrolments in vocational courses, and trim funding for workplace training. The Tertiary Education Commission told institutions this week it was "reprioritising a small amount - approximately 8 percent - of learner component funding towards provider-based delivery rates, through the removal of Māori and Pacific learners as an eligible category". The weightings for Māori and Pacific enrolments were worth $152 for each student enrolling in work-based level 1-2 certificates and courses at levels 3-6, and $364 per student in non-degree level 7 courses. However, the $1327 weighting for disabled students and students with low prior educational achievement would continue. The payments were added to subsidies for courses offered by polytechnics and private providers, ranging from $6584 for humanities and business courses to nearly $11,786 for health, science, engineering and agriculture, and $19,753 for special agriculture. The commission said funding for work-based training and education would drop 10 percent, while also repeating warnings from earlier in the year that it would not have enough money to cover enrolment growth next year . "Current forecasts indicate the demand for funding will be greater than what we have available to allocate," it said. "Given the multi-year nature of much education and training, we will need to prioritise our future investment." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

Call for govt action to prevent repeat of warship internet outages
Call for govt action to prevent repeat of warship internet outages

RNZ News

time15 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Call for govt action to prevent repeat of warship internet outages

Photo: Unsplash / RNZ Internet experts say the government must do more to avoid internet outages, after a warship knocked out services to Taranaki and Marlborough. Interference from an Australian warship's navigation radar caused internet and radio services to fail in those regions on Wednesday. The 230-metre HMAS Canberra was sailing through Cook Strait when its systems disrupted 5 GHz wireless access points. The HMAS Canberra which has been visiting New Zealand this week. Photo: AFP The chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association, Craig Young, said it showed the vulnerability in the country's network. "It was fixed quite quickly once they figured out what was going on," he said. "But it does show that we do have a weakness in the current way that radio spectrum, this is what's used for broadband and regional New Zealand, can be overridden by a stronger signal in an area where this frequency can be used by other users." Young said that in New Zealand, like anywhere in the world, radio frequencies were used for delivering all sorts of services, including mobile and broadband. "And what happened was, in this case, a radio signal that was stronger than the one that was being used to provide broadband was interrupting the broadband," Young said. "It was the ship with the radar and they were using the same frequency, unaware that in New Zealand that frequency was used for delivering broadband to users." He said rural and regional areas were particularly vulnerable and actions from the government were needed to avoid disruptions from happening in future. "We need a better way to allocate certain parts of the spectrum to people like these broadband providers so they don't get interrupted." Sam James, a technical manager at TPNET, which provides broadband services across the Tasman and Marlborough areas, said his services were affected on Wednesday. "This kind of event is rare, and to be fair, no one really did anything wrong. The equipment behaved exactly as it's designed to - it's just that a visiting warship doesn't normally show up in the spectrum plan," he said. "Once the source was identified, we understand the ship adjusted frequencies to reduce disruption, and things settled down pretty quickly. "That said, the incident does highlight how fragile rural networks can be when built entirely on a shared or congested spectrum." James said Australia and the US were opening up new spectrum bands like 3 GHz and 6 GHz to give regional providers more room to build high-capacity, resilient links. "But here in New Zealand, those same bands remain mostly off-limits or underutilised - even though the gear is available and the need is growing." A serious conversation was needed about "spectrum access, infrastructure resilience, and making sure critical services aren't just one radar sweep away from a dropout", James said. Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith told RNZ he would be "discussing the matter with officials". Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store