A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; no retail rate changes, scary quarantine failure, NZD/AUD to fall, swaps firm, NZD firm, & more

Exactly – Hipkins didn’t raise any moral or ethical considerations/provisos at the time of his statement - "New Zealand will be at the front of the queue to be getting vaccines."

Now that it’s patently obvious we’re not at the front of the queue, and in reality perhaps never were – this side-line smoke and mirrors “others need it more” line gets trotted out.

I imagine its like being at the front of the queue to the nightclub but then a car load of VIPs arrives.

I'd take it, no issues. I'm not at risk in any particular way and in my 30s, but of course I'd take the opportunity to maybe spare myself a nasty illness or spread it around to the vulnerable. I'm in Healthcare so expect I'll be offered it before too long - my old colleagues in the UK have already received it.

Certainly seems to be less risky than catching the disease, and I'd be doing my bit for herd immunity. It's just like how I take the flu vaccine each year - flu almost certainly won't kill me but if I can help keep it away with a quick jab in the arm then I'll take it.

Thanks for these links Andrew. Very informative.

I did hear, and maybe someone on here could confirm, that the shipping companies are wanting to create a hub in Australia for NZ sea freight and then freight is sent from the hub to NZ and vice versa. Maybe someone could explain the implications of that - e.g. would that likely mean smaller ships with less capacity = greater delays??

Who was the Wellington genius who felt water tanks weren't an essential service business over the lockdown?

My electrician tells me house wiring is also in short supply and picked up a couple of my unused rolls because he couldn't get any from his suppliers. A housing shortage, labour shortage and a wiring shortage. And more mystifying - an inflation shortage.

Lol. I always thought Manuka Honey was expensive sh*t packaged for pretentious foreign markets, but I was wrong.... it was just poison.

It is well below acceptable levels and to quote NZ Food Safety:
For a real world example, a five-year-old child who was consuming honey with the default maximum residue level in New Zealand would need to eat roughly 230kg of honey every day for the rest of their life to reach the World Health Organisation acceptable daily intake for glyphosate.
I think that is a very credible risk......../s

Colin Hurst- Federated Farmers

That hardy perennial – concerns about glyphosate – has cropped up again.
Stories on Radio NZ this week were prompted after random testing by Japan found glyphosate traces in NZ honey imports for the second time. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has told MPI that if 5 percent of imported honey exceeded its glyphosate limit, it would block future imports. Of our $490m of global honey exports last year, $68m worth went to Japan.

NZ Food Safety has responded by requiring glyphosate testing in an approved laboratory of honey heading to Japan. If test results aren’t provided, MPI would not grant export certification for that consignment.

At least there was balance in the RNZ reports. They came to us, and Apriculture NZ, for comment and broadcast the fact our two organisations had been talking about safe use of this herbicide, including getting that message out to landowners, and to councils that use glyphosate in their parks and reserves.

Glyphosate is Round-up. It’s in garden sheds everywhere.

Despite its use being widespread around the world, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified it as probably carcinogenic to humans. But as NZ Food Safety concluded, the IARC data did not indicate any credible risk to users of the weedkiller or to consumers of produce with residues of glyphosate in compliance with New Zealand's maximum residue levels.

For a real world example, a five-year-old child who was consuming honey with the default maximum residue level in New Zealand would need to eat roughly 230kg of honey every day for the rest of their life to reach the World Health Organisation acceptable daily intake for glyphosate.

I don’t need to tell New Zealand farmers how vital a tool glyphosate is. As Nuffield Scholar and Federated Farmers Seedgrowers rep Hamish Marr told the PINZ Summit last year (read more) there would be huge ramifications for farming – and the environment – if we could no longer use it. For starters, we’d have to revert to full cultivation/ploughing, with significant downsides for greenhouse gas emissions and sediment in waterways.

The glyphosate traces in honey is a puzzle. Bees gather nectar when plants are in flower, but if a plant has been sprayed with glyphosate, there’s no flower because the plant will be dead. I do wonder if this has something to do with glyphosate use in forestry.

Anyway, the underlying message is: Use according to instructions. The conditions under which it should be used are on the label for good reasons. Be (bee!) sensible.