The unintentional consequence of a government-backed scheme to subsidise winegrowers to pull their vines to eliminate a wine glut was to boost Marlborough's then fledgling plantings of Sauvignon Blanc. Today, May 5, is Sauvignon Blanc Day and to celebrate we publish an extract from Marlborough Man, in which winemaker Allan Scott describes how the poorly conceived and executed scheme to reduce the industry had the opposite effect. The result has been a billion-dollar export industry.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/book-extract-how-crazy-government-scheme-created-billion-dollar-industry-202605

The detection of the fungal disease myrtle rust on mainland New Zealand for the first time is worrying the apiculture industry and caused a near 10% slide in the value of Comvita shares yesterday. Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said yesterday the outbreak could have an impact on New Zealand’s manuka honey industry.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/concerns-manuka-honey-industry-after-myrtle-rust-outbreak-jw-p-202648

The judiciary's wretched reasoning on pay equity these past years has been like watching medieval scholastics attempt to grasp quantum field theory through Summa Theologica. The judges have proved themselves hopelessly ill-equipped to consider policy or anything whatsoever to do with economics. Their flawed reasoning has caused the government to respond with similarly flawed legislation that is out-of-date by more than a century even before it’s passed. It’s as if Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890) was never published.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/hidesight-courts-know-nothing-price-value-everything

When British Prime Minister Theresa May and US President Donald Trump met in January they didn’t just hold hands. Behind closed doors in a White House reception room, rumour has it, they burst into an impromptu rendition of the classic Irving Berlin duet “Anything you can do I can do better,” accompanied on the piano accordion by Jared Kushner, whose hidden talents are many.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/hunters-corner-tax-competition-sows-seeds-discord

The government’s “final solution” to the vexed issue of Maori coastal customary rights comes back to haunt it in election year. Maori Council co-chairman Maanu Paul has pulled a political stunt in lodging 150 Maori customary rights claims to the foreshore and seabed under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/money-pauls-ploy-shows-whats-stake

Etihad Airways won’t be throwing good money after bad at Italian airline Alitalia after it went into bankruptcy proceedings. This follows employees voting against plans to cut jobs and salaries. Emirates owns 49% Alitalia and says it’s “not prepared to continue to invest” without the support of all stakeholders. Etihad president and chief executive James Hogan says the business requires “fundamental and far-reaching restructuring,” citing the effects of greater low-cost carrier competition and the impacts of terrorist events on tourism demand.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/carry-ailing-alitalia-doha-stopovers-qantas-backs-queenstown-and-more-ng-p-202622

No doubt, as their editor Murray Kirkness put it, the recent kerfuffle occasioned by Winston Peters' criticism of two of his New Zealand Herald reporters “came straight from the Donald Trump playbook.” Even the masthead’s media rivals agreed. “Attacking journalists' ethnicity is low, similar to some of Trump's crassest anti-media ploys,” an editorial in the Dominion Post said. Mr Kirkness issued his own personal statement after the NZ First leader disparaged a jointly bylined report as “propaganda written by two Asian immigrant reporters."

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/media-watch-prod-peters-pings-point-scorer

In an odd sense, Australia’s typically disrespectful announcement of higher university fees for Kiwis is serendipitous. Even before the Turnbull government’s surprise announcement that Kiwis will pay international student fees, Gerry Brownlee had determined Australia would be his first overseas trip as foreign minister.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/weekly-hit-brownlee-local-boy-heart

Fred Dagg thumped the lectern, Khrushchev-style, only unlike the former Soviet leader he used a gumboot rather than a shoe. “Wallace Rowling has warts on his bottie!” Dagg declared. “Are you to vote for a man with warts on his bottie?”

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/order-paper-banishing-bogies-and-pre-election

The previous generation Mazda CX-5 essentially kickstarted the current phase of Mazda’s stylish and swoopy model development. With annual global sales of 370,000, the CX-5 is an undisputed mega-hit for Mazda. Where the stalwart 6 sedan and wagon was long the big-seller for the carmaker through previous generational phases, a global move to SUVs of all flavours by the car-consuming public has seen the CX-5 assume the mantle.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/motoring-cx-5-remains-mazdas-mid-size-medal-winner