Today on The Country, Jamie Mackay has renamed the Government's Essential Freshwater package 'Watergate', after hearing concerns from farmers in North Otago yesterday.
On with the show:
Simon Bridges:
In a Country exclusive we coin a new and highly imaginative phrase for the farmer response to the government's proposed water reforms. Plus we ask if the Labour Party 'sex scandal' is a beltway issue or is it exorcising the country?
Chris Garland:
Is a Wairarapa farm consultant who's been in the business since 1980. Today he says he has never seen farmer morale so low - and that includes the tumultuous years of the Rogernomics reforms in the 1980s.
Rob Hewett:
The chairman of Silver Fern Farms and the chairman-elect of Farmlands says despite really positive returns for farmers, he has real concerns about the state of the farming nation.
Andy Thompson and Tony Laker:
Today's panel features the country's leading travel agent and the country's leading critic of the government's water reforms.
Chris Russell:
Our Australian correspondent says it very difficult to fight raging bush fires in a drought but the good news there's a drought tolerant beer being brewed.
Listen below:
'It is a much more efficient way of getting twice as many apples using a lot less water.'