Brian Holden: Who's fooling ewe over shipment?

Our largest ever shipment of live animals left these shores a few days ago. Photo / John Bisset

Last Wednesday saw the largest ever shipment of live animals to leave New Zealand. Fifty thousand sheep and 3000 cattle were herded on to the ship Nada at Timaru bound for Mexico for "breeding purposes" we are told. But are we having the wool pulled over our eyes? The shipment of sheep, New Zealand's largest ever, is shrouded in mystery.

Officially, our country does not export livestock for slaughter and has not done so since a Customs Export Prohibition Order was put in place in 2007. According to SAFE for Animals management, previous shipments of animals exported for breeding have been much smaller in numbers - usually in the hundreds. So it would be fair to say that the export of 50,000 sheep looks very suspicious.

It goes without saying that the animals will be stressed to the max and may refuse to eat, with many dying.

"Fear not" says the Ministry of Primary Industries which has given the assurance that during the two-week voyage (only a week to go now) the exporter must meet requirements with water, food, space and facilities. The sheep must be accompanied by suitably experienced personnel, including at least one veterinarian.

However, even if the trip does prove uneventful, once the sheep arrive in Mexico and are unloaded, the importer becomes responsible for their welfare. Which means the well-travelled beasts will then be at the mercy of what is likely to be a much more dubious system, and who knows what will happen from that point on?

In some countries, humane livestock treatment is far from a priority - a sheep is just a sheep. Interestingly, after a Fonterra shipment of 57,000 live dairy heifers to China, only three died, so one might be tempted to ask "So what's the problem?".

When it comes to temperament, sheep are different and don't react at all well to a change in environment. There are some very serious ethical issues here and we will be keen to hear the outcome of this epic voyage.

Some employers just don't get it when considering the effects on staff morale when splashing out money on lavish promotions. New Zealand Post's expensive new television advertisement has delivered an extra blow as post staff face mass redundancies. NZ Post has just launched a flashy "You Can" ad, featuring British Game of Thrones actor Charles Dance reciting a long list of services New Zealand Post can provide, while sitting on a barber's chair flanked by two super cool looking barbers.

Services include sending oysters in the mail (who would do that with it being so slow?), or buying business suits online for the "big board meeting tonight". Okay, so it might be a little tongue in cheek but posties are livid with the new look - as up to 300 jobs are expected to be axed this year, followed by an additional 100 next year. Even more galling was to hear that marketing had flown in an international actor rather than use somebody local.

Surely our country has at least one person who could have played the role. But that's not the point. To even think of running such an extravagant advertising campaign while laying off workers is in extremely poor taste. There is a bizarre contradiction between how poor the company claims it is, having to cut costs to lay off workers, and yet spends so much on a television advertisement, the cost of which is believed to run well into six figures.

Of course, NZ Post would not say how much the ad cost, with the head of marketing Murray Pugh trotting out the old excuse "That is commercially sensitive [but that] it is consistent with our normal [($2.6 million in 2014] marketing budget". Indeed, such perceived extravagance in the commercial world equates to mere pennies when it comes to overall expenditure. Perhaps we, the customers of NZ Post, should be getting ready to put another stamp on our envelope.

-Brian Holden has lived in Rotorua for most of his life and has been writing his weekly column for 11 years.