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 waterreforms. Plus we ask if the Labour Party 'sex scandal' is a beltway issue or is it exorcising the country?
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.
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.
