Artificial intelligence key to unlocking New Zealand's economic potential
AI offers an amazing opportunity for New Zealand, if we can push past the fear and see what's possible, Steven Joyce writes. Photo / Getty Images
THREE KEY FACTS
It's always hard to write a Government Budget. As one who had a hand in eight and then wrote one of my own, there are certain immutable facts to be faced.
There are always more interest groups with their hands out than there is money to
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NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
Artificial intelligence key to unlocking New Zealand's economic potential
AI offers an amazing opportunity for New Zealand, if we can push past the fear and see what's possible, Steven Joyce writes. Photo / Getty Images THREE KEY FACTS It's always hard to write a Government Budget. As one who had a hand in eight and then wrote one of my own, there are certain immutable facts to be faced. There are always more interest groups with their hands out than there is money to
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- NZ Herald
Weekend wine guide: Villa Maria's stellar Cellar Selection
The Cellar Selection offers a magnetic combination of quality and value. Photo / Getty Images Michael Cooper has 45 wine books and several literary awards to his credit. In the 2004 New Year Honours, Michael was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. With their familiar gold labels, Villa Maria's widely available, mid-priced Cellar Selection wines have for decades offered a magnetic combination of quality and value. The company's ownership changed nearly four years ago, and 2022 and 2023 were both tricky vintages in Hawke's Bay. Are the wines still delivering great value? Priced above Villa Maria's Private Bin range, which despite the name is made in huge volumes, and below the top-tier Reserve and Single Vineyard wines, the Cellar Selection white wines retail in the $16-$20 range and the reds at slightly more than $20. At those prices, they are well worth buying. Villa Maria Cellar Selection Marlborough Pinot Gris 2024 ★★★★ Bargain-priced, this vigorous, slightly off-dry wine was grown in the Awatere Valley. Full-bodied, it has generous peach and pear flavours, slightly spicy notes and fresh acidity, with a sliver of sweetness that gives easy-drinking charm. Already drinking well, it should be at its best mid-2026+. (13.5% alc/vol) $16-$20 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2023 ★★★½ From a wet growing season, this full-bodied, smooth wine was fermented and lees-aged in stainless steel tanks and oak barriques. Bright, light lemon/green, with a slightly creamy bouquet, it is dry, with lively, peachy, gently toasty flavours, woven with fresh acidity and considerable complexity. (13.5% alc/vol) $16-$20 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Marlborough Pinot Noir Rosé 2024 ★★★★ This bright, pale pink wine is fresh, light-bodied and very lively, with delicate strawberry and watermelon flavours, crisp and basically dry. Full of youthful drive, it's currently delicious. (12.5% alc/vol) $16-$20 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawke's Bay Syrah 2022 ★★★★ This youthful, graceful red delivers good value. Full-coloured, it is a fragrant medium-to-full-bodied wine with very good depth of vibrant plum and black pepper flavours, a distinct touch of complexity and a smooth, harmonious, lingering finish. (12.5% alc/vol) $20-$22 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Marlborough Pinot Noir 2023 ★★★½ Priced right, this ruby-hued red was aged in French oak barriques. Mouthfilling and supple, it is still youthful, with fresh, lively cherry, plum and spice flavours, savoury notes adding complexity and very good depth, vigour and harmony. (13.5% alc/vol) $22-$26 Wine of the week: Villa Maria Cellar Selection Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2024 ★★★★ This great-value, strongly varietal wine was fermented and lees-aged in tanks. Bright, light lemon/green, it is highly aromatic, vibrant and tangy. Balancing ripe, passionfruit-like flavours with green capsicum-evoking notes, it shows very good vigour and intensity. (12.5% alc/vol) $16-$20
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- NZ Herald
Greg Dixon's Another Kind of Politics: Peters refuses to quit as Deputy PM, barricades himself in office
David Seymour takes up the Deputy PM role this weekend, after Winston Peters spent 18 months in the job. Photos / Getty Images Greg Dixon is an award-winning news reporter, TV reviewer, feature writer and former magazine editor who has written for the NZ Listener since 2017. Online only Greg Dixon's Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on Armed police are surrounding the Beehive after Winston Peters announced 'hell would freeze over, sunshine' before he resigned from the office of deputy prime minister. Under New Zealand First's coalition deal, Peters is supposed to hand over the official title and office to Act leader David Seymour on Sunday. However, the NZ First leader is refusing to hand over the office, including the baubles of office. He has instead barricaded himself in the office and issued a five-point list of demands. The first states that 'Winston Raymond Peters shall remain Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand for life, whether he is in government, opposition or not in Parliament. Upon the unlikely event of his death, he shall also remain Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand in the afterlife.' The four other demands relate to the size and colour of his ministerial limousine, use of the Prime Minister's executive toilet on the 9th floor of the Beehive, a limitless tab at Bellamys and exclusive parliamentary use of the word 'sunshine'. The incident began when parliamentary staff told Peters late yesterday he must pack up his office so that Seymour could move in by Monday. Peters then locked the door and began piling the baubles of office against it. Attempts to get him to leave led to a barrage of sarcasm and threats from Peters, after which police were called. It is understood that Peters is holding an Italian-made espresso machine hostage and has armed himself with a stapler and a paperweight. Attempts by a police negotiator to get Peters to release the coffee machine unharmed and to give himself up have so far come to nothing. Seymour told a press conference that Peters' decision not to stand down as deputy prime minister would make no difference. 'As of Sunday, I'm deputy prime minister by right and by name, though Act party supporters should not be worried that this amounts to a demotion. I can assure them I will carry on running the country until the next election by continuing to outmanoeuvre the Prime Minister.' Contacted for comment before his phones were cut off, Peters said he was prepared for a long siege but was not concerned. 'Listen, sunshine, this isn't my first rodeo. I've been holding other political parties and the country to ransom for years. This is child's play.' Willis to wear NZ-designed sackcloth and ashes until next year's Budget Finance Minister and Feminist of the Year Nicola Willis has bowed to demands by local fashionistas that she dress in New Zealand-designed sackcloth and ashes as an act of contrition for her Budget day wardrobe blunder. Willis, who claims to be pro-New Zealand business and asserts she is growing the New Zealand economy, wore what was believed to be a $1100 Nouvelle Sculpt Stretch Crepe frock from British womenswear label The Fold London while she delivered the Budget last Thursday. Local clothes horses were left aghast by the slight, with one saying the Nouvelle Sculpt dress wasn't only 'fashion treason' but made Willis 'look like she was in The Handmaid's Tale'. 'It was like she was channelling Serena Joy, which was very appropriate given that she had just helped shaft other women so that she could balance her budget,' said one local designer who did not wished to be named but was wearing a vintage piece from Karen Walker matched with a very odd hat made by World. Demands for Willis to have to wear locally designed sackcloth and ashes garments as an act of penitence have grown throughout this week, with Willis yesterday agreeing she would do so, though she has refused to wear a hair shirt. In a win for New Zealand business, Willis's sackcloth frocks will be designed by a fashion house in Auckland, although the sackcloth will be manufactured in China, the ashes will come from India and the garment will be sewn by a person in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. Oxford invites Seymour to debate legal status of larvae in school lunches Soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour will take part in an Oxford Union debate next week, opposing the moot that states 'no larva can be illegal if found in a school lunch paid for by the government'. The invitation is perfectly timed after a larva was recently found atop a pile of mashed potato in a meal produced by Seymour's cut-price school lunches programme. Serving commercially made food containing dead insects is illegal under New Zealand food safety regulations. However, Seymour said those rules do not apply to school lunches provided by the government. 'Under the programme I designed, larvae are legal and so is melted plastic.' Joining Seymour to argue that larvae are lawful in state-funded school lunches will be US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has previously said that consuming insects like the one found in his brain is perfectly safe. Political quiz of the week Photo / Facebook What is Minister For Everything Chris Bishop saying to Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown? A/ 'Hallensteins sale or Farmers sale?' B/ 'Should we give each other a heads-up next time?' C/ 'I like the jacket but the Lynx Africa is too much.' D/ 'Seeing you makes me wonder if I should let the wife do my clothes shopping.'
