The neighbourhood had deteriorated since the HNZ units opened in mid-2016, they said. The development replaced two older state houses.
“This is absolutely a governance issue that’s got to come from the top . . . What I’m hearing is it’s likely to be [a problem] replicated in different places around New Zealand.”
Yep, government policies looking at everything in insolation. You can’t just get groups of disadvantaged people and then push them all together and think everything’s gonna be rosy.
State houses should be integrated into all housing and all areas rich and poor. Instead the government has sold all the expensive (rich) parts off and thinks putting up ‘social’ apartment blocks or hotels as social housing with large groups of people is gonna work.
Not only has the social housing never arrived but it would never work anyway as quickly it would quickly become slums. All the new developments should have had to have 5 – 10% reserved for state or affordable housing as part of the consent and forced to be sold at a rate against the average wage.
But the trick is of raising people out of poverty is actually to get upwards mobility and invest in the people themselves – decent schools, decent food and decent health and decent opportunities including decent wages and jobs that are secure. Hard to do that when you keep putting more and more people into the country to provide for with a falling base of income.
In any society nobody is perfect – but in NZ the whole system is encouraging people to go backwards into poverty. Giving $30 or $60 a week more is a waste of time long term (especially if you have rising food, power, transport and housing costs that the government can’t control).
If the government can’t plan for local people to get decent jobs or meaningful social engagement and become more self sufficient and be able to plan for their future and instead wants to pander to an ideology of selling off land and assets to the highest bidder (generally overseas folks) and letting those people bring in their own workers (aka 200 Chinese workers for the luxury hotel) then it’s a wasted opportunity. It’s taking away opportunities for local prosperity because the government has allowed a culture of getting other labour from other countries in so that the corporations can make more profit and then even giving residency or citizenship so that it becomes more people who need support.
In the hotel example most of the locals are then locked out, as it’s being built and then when it is being run and finally the profits from it. The locals get the pollution, wastewater issues, transport issues and need to find more housing both to house and provide services for the new workers (temporary or not) working on it, as well as the hotel space being used for rich tourists providing no amenity or accomodation for locals in that prime location. It’s lose, lose for locals and win win for large offshore corporations.
TPPA is being introduced to ensure it because a tangled web that is hard to exit from, even if the people vote against this model of inequality transfer from local people to big business.
@UncookedSelachimorpha, You can have as many rent controls as you like, the houses are not there to be rented because we have inward migration and a massive shortage to begin with. To make matters worse anyone in the world can buy our houses for whatever reason they like.
Even with the new Labour policy foreigners are free to buy new houses, land and assets. So it will make little benefit and its too late anyway because it’s clear that existing housing stock is already been bought and regulary traded increasing the prices already.
In Sweden they have rent controls which meant in some cases only 2 houses were available in a major city. People just would not give up their rental so no new ones ever came up.
“You can have as many rent controls as you like, the houses are not there to be rented because we have inward migration and a massive shortage to begin with. To make matters worse anyone in the world can buy our houses for whatever reason they like.”
Agree that the underlying problem is lack of supply vs demand, including for the reasons you mention.
I don’t think rent control is the actual solution – but it would reduce the ability of people with money to exploit the current shortage to gouge tenants, at least in the interim while the supply / demand situation is sorted out by other means.
You could argue that the situation you mention in Sweden is also primarily a supply / demand problem, not actually a result of the rent controls (rent control doesn’t directly create or destroy housing). Neolibs would argue that you must allow rent to rise without limit to encourage the market to invest in house building…but strangely that policy doesn’t seem to have fixed anything. People with money can just buy existing stock and start gouging, when there is a housing shortage.
@ Solka Not as much as 70,000 new residents a year and 180,000 work permits issued with all those people per year needing to be housed on top of the existing people.
The balance is out of kilter with massive demand for housing and services like transport and health and infrastructure like wastewater, while the ability for locals to afford to pay for that with in effect lower and less secure wages is not able to keep pace.
More and more people will have to rely on benefits so when that is factored in it’s not very sustainable as a practise. Nor is pretending 1 hour of paid work a week is a job so nobody knows the true figures.
It’s not 70,000 new residents a year, it’s 45-50 thousand new residents, most of whom are already in NZ when their resident visas are granted.
And most of the 200,000 work visas are working holidaymakers who travel a lot, so mostly use short term accommodation, not housing (mostly – some certainly rent houses, but most of them don’t).
The main big number is 70,000 net migration, which is a huge problem and does have a big impact on the housing crisis since they do have to housed, but let’s not overstate the issue.
Agree with your comments about looking at everything in isolation. There will be no effective proposal to housing all our people until this is acknowledged and addressed.
But the trick is of raising people out of poverty is actually to get upwards mobility…
The only way to get upwards mobility is to have increasing poverty. For a few to be well off a lot need to be poor.
What we really need is to have everyone with a minimum living standard. Access to the food that they need, a place to call home, interesting work available, a place to play, and access to healthcare. There’s probably more that I’m missing.
Hard to do that when you keep putting more and more people into the country to provide for with a falling base of income.
You’ll note that a few people are getting richer as the majority get poorer. In other words, a few people have ‘upward mobility’.
If the government can’t plan for local people to get decent jobs or meaningful social engagement and become more self sufficient…
Nobody can be self-sufficient. A person must live within a society, a community.
Exactly. We need wealth itself to have some “downwards mobility” – instead wealth is the main thing that is moving upward, leaving most of the people behind!
“You can’t just get groups of disadvantaged people and then push them all together and think everything’s gonna be rosy.”
Yes. Especially in large clusters, such as apartment blocks or whole suburbs. But even in smaller clusters (as reported in the article linked above) issues arise. Which then creates the NIMBY (not in my backyard) effect.
Cinny’s suggestion of a live in manager may help reduce issues. But what to do with the ones that continue to play up? Sure they can be weeded out and moved along, but where too? They’ll still need to be housed somewhere.
Another problem for the Government is if this discontent snowballs, it’s going to piss a lot of voters off nationwide.
New developments with even a small number of state houses will impact on buyers desire to buy into these new developments, thus will negatively impact upon their value. Putting developers off.
It will be interesting to see how Labour move to manage this fallout. Moreover, will National attempt to capitalise from it?
While improving peoples skills and education results in upward mobility. It’s low wages and benefit rates that keep people in poverty as not all are in a position to up-skill or work.
Sunday Star Times continue their investigation in the decline of meat eating.
This was particularly heartening news.
“a Sunday Star-Times/Stuff online survey of nearly 15,000 readers this week reports only 36 per cent of respondents are committed carnivores. A fifth have already cut most or all meat from their diet (21 per cent); the rest are considering cutting back for health (15 per cent), budget (14 per cent), environmental (10 per cent), animal welfare (3 per cent) or personal taste (1 per cent) reasons.”
I’m the same eat less than I used to and only purchase from the local butcher – higher cost but can’t stomach the rubbish they sell at the supermarkets.
Supermarkets seemed to have wrecked the quality of fish too, in their quest to maximise profits. Fish new seemed to be caught here, transported to China for cheaper labour processing and then sent back here. Funny enough a lot of problems can happen in that process. Least of all, they don’t taste too good.
Then the fish farms which seem to be springing up and turning fish into factory farms full of pollutants and biohazards. Can’t remember where, but a whole lot of farmed fish escaped recently and will be a huge hazard apparently to the native fish. Then they are removing all the small fish before they can breed in the sea to turn them into food for the farmed fish.
Most of NZ prime meat is exported. The Kiwis get the leftovers or imported meat.
Then the farmers say they have to keep the inhumane conditions for animals like pigs and chicken’s to ‘compete’ with the cheap imports.
Lots of scams like the meat being injected with water in a sludge of bovine and animal particles to get the weight up.
Then you start getting issues with biosecurity with all the imported foods and have so spend money firefighting the growing issue of overseas viruses and insects being introduced (Like PSA for example) destroying our food supply, exports and crops.
Having seen the mad cow and foot and mouth in the UK and the burning pyres of dead animals, (note the UK foot and mouth was traced to imported Polish pork from school dinners fed to the cows, if that is not disgusting enough, on every level), the deaths in the US from coli in meat and god knows what goes on in Asia with all the dead carcasses lined up in the restaurants.
I’m not sure how 2nd rate our meat is. But certainly the cost of it bears scrutiny because why are we paying so much for food we produce? Exporting the best stuff and importing in crap without clearly declaring it to be imported meat.
I’ve been trying to figure that one out too. Had not thought about it from a ‘pet’ perspective, however. Extreme youth, naivity: yes. LOL.
Due to my age, experience etc (and that of many here), that old meme “teach grandmother to suck eggs” pops into my head often with many of his ‘listen to me, i know everything and you people here know nothing’ posts.
For the hell of it, I counted his comments yesterday on OM. Thirty comments in total – the first at 7.06am and the last at 11.18pm.
Wow – I missed that one but it was during the period of about 18+ months that I left TS of my own accord because of the behaviour and moderation decisions etc of certain authors/moderators. I have since met in person a few others who also left at that time. We had an interesting discussion!
The ones considering it for their health should do more research. There’s nothing unhealthy about eating meat, unless it’s been prepared in unsanitary conditions. And if you cut down on protein and fat the only thing you can replace them with is carbohydrate, which genuinely is bad for your health.
The ones considering it for the environment should also do more research, unless they’re planning to move to the US or Europe sometime soon.
We applied percentages derived from outbreak-associated illnesses for each etiology to the 9.6 million estimated annual illnesses assessed and attributed ≈4.9 million (≈51%) to plant commodities, ≈4.0 million (≈42%) to land animal commodities, and ≈600,000 (≈6%) to aquatic animal commodities. [My emphasis]
…
More illnesses were attributed to leafy vegetables (22%) than to any other commodity; illnesses associated with leafy vegetables were the second most frequent cause of hospitalizations (14%) and the fifth most frequent cause of death (6%).
It is a mockumentary set in the future, and appears to give a different reflective perspective on eating meat in a way that does not bring out the defensive reflex in people. (Full disclosure: Haven’t yet watched it, but did listen to a podcast on the movie and have it lined up for family night at home.)
Spare a though today for the poor besieged Harpers from Taneatua,
” At home this week, Yvonne Harper indicated she was unhappy with the way things turned out but referred questions to her lawyer.
“Don’t make me feel bad. I don’t like it, but we’ve been through a very, very hard time ourselves – emotionally, financially, it’s been hurting us too. I’ve really suffered.””
Seems a bit odd that as the sole director he can’t be held accountable despite proceeding with what on the face of it appears to be a completely contrived receivership.
“John Key’s lawyer, Ken Whitney, was criticised by the High Court after creating a sham trust for a bankrupt property developer then failing to disclose it to authorities probing his client’s insolvency.”
“When asked during cross-examination if he had concerns around setting up structures to allow a bankrupt to continue in business, Mr Whitney told the court: “No, not particularly. It’s a common thing for people to do. It may not be morally as white as it could be but it’s normal practice.”
The move infuriated Eruera’s legal team as there had been no mention in court of an inability to pay. They questioned whether it was a deliberate ploy to avoid the order.
As these things happen all the time when a small business gets fined and told to pay reparations and the owners then go on about their life as if nothing happened?
Yeah, probably.
These fines need to be sheeted home to the owners and not the business so that simply closing the business doesn’t get rid of the consequences.
A “clueless idiot” who has a 1st Class Honours degree in Law (and a BA in History/Politics) and who has been admitted to the NZ Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor.
His partner, Jenna Raeburn, (PR Consultant) also has a BA and LLB as well as considerable experience working for the National Party and MPs in Parliament before becoming Director of Barton Deakin’s NZ office last year.
“Barton Deakin is the largest government relations firm in Australia, and now the first trans-Tasman company in our field.”
One would have hoped that between them, they would have realised beforehand how “clueless” Bishop’s actions would be (and were) in contacting young female teenagers via social media. There may well have been nothing sinister (eg perviness) intended, but perception is everything in public relations, politics and the like.
Bit odd a man of Bishop’s age and position should be contacting teenage girls on social media! Power feeding an underlying dark urge perhaps? Suspicious to say the least.
John Key … female hair fettish
Chris Bishop … chatting up teenage girls on social media …
any more to add to the growing list of Natz pervy creeps?
It will be a nervous few days for National as they wait to see whether this is a #metoo moment, or just a case of an experienced lawyer and MP messaging young women on Snapchat. 🙄
Chris Bishop on Snapchat, eh? Mothers made complaints (one even wrote to another mp about it!) so obviously there was something inappropriate going on.
1 – the law works and the employers who were clearly not being fair have been punished.
2 – that there are shit employees out there who just are not up to the job and employers need to be able to get rid of them and hire people who turn up on time and get the work done.
BTW – remind me – who was the climate change minister for the last 9 years again? you seem to have forgotten the post thread above – as you often do when confronted with facts.
“2 – that there are shit employees out there who just are not up to the job and employers need to be able to get rid of them and hire people who turn up on time and get the work done.”
Employers can already do that, through proper process. Happens all the time.
We don’t need to add the 90 day “fire at will” exploiting garbage.
But, for number two, it seems I am twenty years older than you. I remember full employment. There seemed little problem then with retaining good workers, and sacking the hopeless.
The difference was that with full employment employers had more difficulty in hiring so were more careful in training and retention.
With 5% unemployment, employers can be less.
A great deal of business problems in NZ are not with workers, but management. Our middle management are in world terms under-skilled and underperforming.
The law only “worked” in this case because it didn’t apply, because the employers were incompetent and tried to do consecutive trial periods. It is only because the law didn’t apply that the manifest injustice of her summary dismissal could be addressed.
Also, there are shit employers who have neither the people skills nor the paperwork skills to manage staff. With those folk, the 90-day bill is a loaded firearm – whether they shoot their employees or their own foot is a betting matter.
1. How many have been unjustly dismissed and not ended up in court?
2. It’s probably more accurate to say that there are shit employers who don’t know how to deal with people, how to engage them.
I comprehended your hatred for working people rather well, the snide and vicious attacks against working people have been pretty constant on this site.
Now you doing your level best to keep that roling on by more of your horse excrement, and trying to do the whole personalizing the argument to score points.
I’ve been open about what I do, you need to keep up.
The problem isn’t the shit employers or the shit staff.
The problem is that competent employers didn’t need the 90-day fire at will to manage or even get rid of staff, good or bad.
But under fire at will, good staff don’t have any redress against shit employers, unless the employer is so incompetent that they can’t even implement fire at will competently.
It’s the imbalance that is the major problem with the fire at will act. If the employer is incompetent but not catastrophically incompetent, the employees bear the brunt and and the business suffers.
“The taxpayers of Miami and Tampa should not have to facilitate bigotry and anti-Semitism, and I look forward to the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and the Tampa Sports Authority complying with the law and cancelling these concerts.“
If this gets upheld- her US career is toast – 20 states have the same laws (and growing).
It’s an interesting way to fight back treating BDS and it’s supporters in the same manner that they are attacking others – in their pocket.
… treating BDS and it’s supporters in the same manner that they are attacking others – in their pocket.
“The same manner?” Can you elaborate a bit on how the BDS movement is using the political leverage of their supporters in the world’s most powerful country to pass laws damaging to Israeli interests? Because, if they aren’t, it’s not “the same manner,” is it?
It is of course much easier to hit people’s revenues when you have government politicians in your pocket. In that sense it is “the same,” just like Tank Man and the tanks he was facing were doing the same thing (attempting to achieve political objectives). I doubt Tank Man considered the tanks to be “the same” as him, though.
Nothing like freedom of speech and freedom of movement (or choosing not to go to a venue), sarcasm.
Sad that aggressors can and seek to control everything, even trying to wreck some teenager’s career. Nice to have that sort of time and influence on your hands. NOT.
The Jews who don’t agree with the land seizures in Israel and even the UN are harassed just as much as everyone else.
Goes against the idea of a free-market as well. But, then, the RWNJs have never been for a free-market. Just one that’s controlled by them and in their favour.
Wow, looks like Canada is going to lead the world in Nuclear fusion. If you have 13 minutes, including ads. This is a great introduction piece, with a tour General Fusions, the company in Canada who are making great leaps in this direction.
So in 4 years these could very well be viable replacements for all coal burning plants.
They are just one of a whole bunch of companies wildly overhyping their fusion technology and falling way way short of their claims. Wikipedia’s page is somewhat useful for an very brief overview of these efforts.
But I haven’t found anything that says they have even achieved ignition, let alone breakeven or any demonstrated means of usefully extracting any of the energy from the fusion reactions.
A few years ago Lockheed were claiming they would be selling container sized self-contained fusion power systems within five years.
Bottom line: until someone produces an actual working fusion reactor-generator that puts out more power than is fed into it, their claims aren’t even worth a pinch of fairy dust.
The video lays out all the pitfalls and the problems, it also talks about spending most of its time studying plasma. It’s why I said – “could” because there are real problems.
And I might add, why I said introduction.
for more fulsome analysis rather than wikipedia – try
hadn’t heard the “always will be” joke before – just the one that it has been “five years away” for the last fifty years 🙂
There’s a lot of tech where we know the eventual development path once we figure out how to overcome the initial hurdles, fusion is just one of them.
More promising ones are the energy harvesters from the great fusion reactor in the sky: wind and solar. Also, battery tech is leaping forward at the moment.
But really, we only need to overcome some technical thresholds in just a few of all the energy tech directions under development and fossil fuels will be accelerated out the door – not by policy, but because they’re not as practical.
It’s one of the reasons I refuse to be constantly depressed.
I agree, if we crack plasma problem – goodbye fossil fuels.
I like from the video the way they have finally worked out how to get a constant temperature reading. And they fact they built their own supercomputer.
I think we are getting close, a lot of layers of information, and tech are starting to come together on this. 3- 4 more years of plasma research may just crack it.
Interesting points to me about history of the pandemic of flu in 1918. This is to be a year of discussion and memorial – the fastest deadly one there has ever been.
What stands out is that it was largely dealt with by women, children and the elderly – everybody else was overseas still, involved with WW1.
Also there was intelligence sensitivity – giving out info could break morale, let out useful info to the enemy etc. So people were not informed about it officially and nation-wide. Local government had to organise a system to deal with it – the baker’s van would deliver the bread and take away the bodies each day! Boy Scouts went round delivering leaflets. There is a huge story about how NZ coped in difficult times that we should know about, as today our national information, knowledge and action is also being weakened by events and approaches.
Spain wasn’t in the war, other countries couldn’t mention the flu, so when Spain reported its outbreak it became okay to mention it; calling it the Spanish flu.
Actually they think it originally came from pig farms in Kansas. But that would have been the first wave which had not been so deadly, another one mutated and started about three weeks later and it was much more severe.
There are only a handful of memorials around the country – the devastation is often overlooked because it occurred at the same time as the war in Europe in ended. Ryan McLane, a communicable diseases specialist who’s a health advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, explains why it was so lethal.
An interesting discussion from Aus onthe privileges associated with being a male politician, looking at the way Barnaby Joyce is able to swat away the news about his affair and “love child” with a former staffer compared to the way the Aus media treats female politicians. It’s based on PhD research and focuses in particular on the case of Cheryl Kernot, a rising star of the 90’s who was attacked in the media for having the “morals of an alleycat on heat” when it was revealed that she had had an affair 20 years earlier with a former student. She got the whole “Does her heart rule her head?” thing thrown at her, too, and was eventually hounded out of politics.
The piece discusses the convention that politicians’ private lives should be kept private, and finds “And the evidence is clear: it was more likely to be broken for women in politics, whose relationships, sexuality and gender rendered them somehow more accessible. The private life convention has often rested on an assumption that men are not affected by love affairs, flings and trysts, while women are.
It’s a peculiar kind of unconscious bias.”
Strong links to the recent “concerns” from some that our PM shouldn’t continue to serve while she’s pregnant or new to motherhood.
I have to use my daughter phone to get this post out you see people Spark is a neoliberal run company the sand fly’s are using this company as a weapon against Ecothey have many times blocked my data as I only blog and read other sites in reality I should never run out of my data enough said .
Give a little got back to me on Friday asking me to change some things information on my give a little page I emailed them that I will think about choices.
My choice is I don’t need to use give a little site the sandfly are going to try and play me using that site. This is the internet age as everyone who reads my word is internet savvy I can just make my own site and put a bank account number up and wallar people who want to help me can use internet banking to make donations for my cause of holding the NZ justice system to account for the farcical game they are
Trying to play against me. I will set up a charitable trust to help other common Kiwis
Sue the Nz justice .when I win my case I will put the money back in the trust for other people to apply for funding to nz justice system for breaching there privacy/human rights I will keep you updated on my progress as the first stage will take about 2 weeks. Many thanks to all the good people who run the standard for letting ECO Maori use this site to get funding to sue the Crown. Ka psi I’m nakered the mokos have tired me out lol PS I don’t trust give a little and they won’t be getting 15persent of my Mana
.ka kite ano
Yes I have a big problem with that tpp why are we not privay to all the information on ttp is it a weapon for the 1%,to get total control of the common 99%.
3 minutes after I posted that post and wallar my data is back I rang 123 4 times muppets enough said on that.
I have a lot of good information that I want to cut and paste on here one can see that it’s the original book. This information will lift MAORI Mana up high as it show how the NZ company ripped off and coned the British people they went to Britain and sold lies when the settlers landed in Atoearoa there was nothing that they were sold and promised they would have starved to death Maori built them housing and feed all the common British people that landed in Atoearoa with nothing??????? neoliberals theves.
Ana to kai This information is from the missionarys and another society
Ka kite ano
From earlier this week (may already have been discussed here, but I was busy when it was published – and it’s very important and there need to be constant reminders about it:
The prizes for excessive spin go to Winston Peters (1st place) and David Parker (2nd place).
The latest version of the TPPA is not much better or different from the Nats’ version.
A lot of nonsense has been talked about the second bottom line: preserving the right to regulate. The entire agreement is designed to restrict the right of sovereign governments to regulate in the national interest on matters as diverse as banking, government procurement and platform operators like Uber and Amazon. Even Tim Groser and I could agree on that.
Te Tiriti is not protected as claimed in the spin, and then there’s the secrecy.
Ask Maori if the treaty was a fair deal. Nope thought not.
TPPA is NOT some simple 5 page trade agreement to remove tariffs. If it was then there would be no problem.
Nope it is a way for those with international power and resources to continue to exploit new countries and resources without censorship or be compensated for it and to control new ideas and IP and stifle innovation.
Oil/cars is an example, if that industry was not so powerful the world could have saved a lot of the environmental pollution and potentially climate change a lot sooner and had green energy.
You can not micro manage the future with these agreements.
Government officials are blind to what they are signing. It’s the emperor’s new clothes.
But the biggest reason I’m against the TPPA is that it is inherently undemocratic.
The agreement sits over the top of the countries undermining democracy from local government decisions to central government decisions to the person on the street or living on the farm.
And that is why the agreement texts needs to be kept a secret because it’s an insane thing to do and falls down when examined as why a government would sign up it’s people to it.
Look at the billions it’s going to cost the UK to Brexit. Once in, too expensive and complicated to exit multi country agreements.
And the reason the UK wanted to exit in the first place was probably nothing to do with the EU but to do with neoliberalism and not being able to afford housing and transport, lack of security, poorer healthcare and schooling having little say in your community.
The same thing that is plaguing NZ and we are trying to make worse with neoliberal trade agreements.
“Look at the billions it’s going to cost the UK to Brexit. Once in, too expensive and complicated to exit multi country agreements. “
Was in the UK when the EU was being discussed, and couldn’t see how the democracy of each country was going to be protected, and how policies could be enacted that protected each citizen. The result for the referendum for Brexit is understandable when you consider how many have been left behind in the last three decades.
I have the same concern with the TPPA that you do. And it is not alleviated by the smooth murmurings of David Parker.
The alienation of large sections of English society was done by Tory and Labour governments since Thatcher came to power in 1979.
The EU, and its ECJ, brought massive improvement to working conditions and to civil rights in England. The single market brought the UK out of its economic malaise and, along with Scottish oil, underwrote the growth of the last 30 years.
If it was not for Europe England would be a far bigger mess that the shocker it is currently suffering.
I’ll bet you never expected to see prose like this in The Economist:
Some of the biggest changes in recent decades have made the meritocracy even more intolerable than it was in the glory days of the 11-plus. One is the marriage of merit and money. The plutocracy has learned the importance of merit: British public schools have turned themselves into exam factories and the children of oligarchs study for MBAs. At the same time the meritocracy has acquired a voracious appetite for money. The cleverest computer scientists dream of IPOs, and senior politicians and civil servants cash in when they retire with private-sector jobs. A second is supersized smugness. Today’s meritocrats are not only smug because they think they are intellectually superior. They are smug because they also think that they are morally superior, convinced that people who don’t share their cosmopolitan values are simple-minded bigots. The third is incompetence. The only reason people tolerate the rule of swots is that they get results. But what if they give you the invasion of Iraq and the financial crisis?
It’s review of a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy, by Michael Young, published sixty years ago.
rhinocrates
Good to read, but will it be by the smug? They know all they need to and any other thoughts are from those who are the wrong fit to belong to the group who are making it in the world.
Of course what ‘it’ is, is fairly narrowly defined and a bit vague around the edges after the assurance that it is proving profitable. And as the old people say about proof, ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating’. That’s all that needs to be explained. ‘Nuff said. (Though someone coined the phrase ‘ Eat the rich’. This has an unsettling ring to it. End of memo to self.)
You mean an actual meritocracy, in which the truly talented are promoted rather than those who are good at exams and are the children of those who can send them to the best schools. Meritocracy in practise becomes self-perpetuating oligarchy.
Yep. Like ‘aristocracy’ means literally ‘rule by the best’ but Oscar Wilde described Burke’s Peerage as “the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done'”
I always considered one of the primary benefits of any privately funded schools to be the contacts, and networks made that provide benefits over and above any academic or meritocracy.
The amount of money spent could provide a wealth of experiences and tutors, but would not give that access to others on the same path to wealth.
All the more reason to close private schools: get those networks to extend further into society, and let little Tarquin and Jeremy-Charles get a more rounded view of life.
Well folks it raining cats and dogs up here in the North – thankfully the drains are working but we have a lagoon on our front lawn. Cyclone Gita is on its way and Cyclone Hola in its wake – climate change showing its force in a very wet way. The plants are confused and don’t know one season fron the next.
Also my thought for the day – Julie Bishop the Australian Foreign Minister is standing firm on their NZ detention laws – I wonder what will happen in the future when Australian citizens will be begging in their thousands to come over here escaping being roasted alive in their country as climate refugees. Will we be a stand over and let them in like we have been with the Peter Theil’s of this world and all the other bolt hole rich listers and receive them in with generous arms, or will we stand firm and say we have other priorities like the Pacific Islanders whose countries will be under water – I think not. We need to, the Australians don’t care one jot for us.
Bucketing down in Auckland, too. I expect some flooding in some parts of the city.
Many of us have relatives in Aussie.
The Aussies are very keen on sending people born in NZ, or with NZ family history, back to NZ. So, when Aussie bakes, and is short of potable water, maybe we should say we’ll just take back the Kiwis….. and the rest can have Aussie to themselves?
WK
Funny to hear Julie Bishop talk like a real person with concern and thoughts – they must have given her a very good dinner before the interview and quieted the hysterical indigestion. We are stuck with Oz as neighbours, and they always have at least 3 plans on stand-by for us, they will be milking us as long as they can.
Her Australian line will be straight from ‘Hotel California’ – they keep ‘stabbing us with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast’. Thanks to excellent AZ Lyrics. I wonder if our handsome winsome Winston soft-soaped her?
Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“Relax, ” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like
But you can never leave!”
Because climate change is a political problem & not a scientific question, The Daily Blog is naming all cyclones after our MPs and Companies who have done so much to hold back genuine climate change reform – this new one that is joining our increasingly erratic and weather pattern is called ‘Cyclone Gerry’ in honour of Gerry Brownlee who did sweet FA in 9 years on climate change.
““Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”
So it was you that read something – couldn’t even comprehend even the most basic of story from the Daily Blog, then made up your own “facts” (“Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”) and added them when posting here as your own clever idea without linking to the original story.
You keep getting more stupid.
So again ““Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”
Who was the climate change minister Ed – come on – you know you can do it…….(or perhaps not)
Another article pointing out the oncoming crash.
John Adams, a former Australian government economist has warned. “a small tremor before the big earthquake” as the world moves “ever closer to economic armageddon”.
The signs are out there folks.
Ten signs we’re heading for ‘economic armageddon’
Sign 1: Record Household Debt
Sign 2: Declining Household Savings
Sign 3: Continued Record Low Interest Rates
Sign 4: Growing Housing Bubble
Sign 5: Continued Increase In Global Debt
Sign 6: Major International Asset Bubbles Keep Growing
Sign 7: Increasing Inflation
Sign 8: Tightening Monetary Policy And Rising Global Interest Rates
Sign 9: Inverted And Flattening Yield Curves
Sign 10: Return Of Risky Derivatives
Is texting minors a lapse of judgment or grooming? Does anyone know what the definition is and when one becomes the other? This distinction must be a minefield for the judiciary. Even more so in the days of the me too movement.
I think it would depend very much on the content of the text. Given that the parents have not kicked up a fuss – I doubt that they were unsavoury. But it was a stupid thing to be doing.
It is also wrong just to assume that a male texting younger people could be grooming.
Thanks Bill.
You will learn more from reading that those comments than days of watching the msm’s propaganda on Syria.
I particularly found this comment illuminiating.
The Open University of the interweb.
The reason for the sudden revival in coverage of Syria isn’t hard to fathom. It is connected to several recent and ongoing developments:
The Syrian military, having largely succeeded in defeating ISIS, is now pushing to reclaim the lucrative oil fields east of Deir-ez-Zor. The American “Coalition” has marked the Euphrates as a deconfliction zone and has sold that in the Western media as a consensus position where it is in fact a unilateral imposition made during their occupation of Syrian land.
It was in this region of Mesopotamia that the American military and their Islamist/Kurdish proxies engaged with and killed roughly 100 Syrian forces earlier in the week. There has also been the suggestion that there were Russian casualties. The wider point is that despite the defeat of ISIS, there remains conflict over the spoils – or would be spoils – of war…
Which explains America’s typically atavistic declaration that it would retain an open-ended presence in the region, particularly in the NE Syria/Iraqi border, under the pretence of training/supporting a cross-border security force staffed with Kurdish forces and the remnants of its covertly backed Islamist militias.
This brings America into conflict with an increasingly Iran-aligned Iraqi government and, more importantly, Turkey, who will not under any circumstances accept a border force of American-backed Kurdish forces in the 10s of thousands as proposed by the Pentagon.
This in turn partially explains the Turkish attack on Afrin, which is ongoing and likely to be bloody.
The Syrian downing of an Israelli F-16, which resulted in Israel retaliating with missiles deep into Syrian territory. The more important point here is that Syria wouldn’t have aimed its air defences against an Israeli air force that has made persistent, offensive raids into Syrian air space without the explicit support of the Russian military. This was, in other words, a warning – back off. As of now, it seems that Israel is not willing to escalate the conflict any further.
There is also the ongoing rapprochement between Russian and Turkey and the Russia-mediated talks, while the US has rallied back around its position of no progress without the Assad government stepping down. So there is a mixture of deadlock and movement to end the conflict.
That’s the background context for the recent uptick in Western media propaganda about Syria. The fact that it is mostly couched in terms of nostalgia for what might have been suggests that even with the best warmongering will in the world, the moment for massive Western destabilisation and imperial adventurism has passed. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t the possibility for tactical mistakes with broader implications, and America continues to play an invidious role.
None of this, of course, is seriously dealt with in the current glut of coverage – but we shouldn’t expect it after the last 5 years. And lest it need be said, one doesn’t need to “support” (whatever that means) the Syrian or Russian governments in order be curious about the actual real-world implications of what is happening or how they fit into the geostrategic network of power-interests. It’s just a shame that none of these issues will be covered in anything like an honest fashion by an increasingly shameless Western propaganda consensus.
Bill, Eva Bartlett is always interesting on Syria.
This is worth watching.
In a funny way, despite his political leanings in the past, I still miss John Armstrong’s opinion pieces in the Herald following his retirement due to serious health problems. So it is good to see he still contributes from time to time on TVNZ’s website – and this week it seems that even he has not escaped the Jacinda effect:
Sounds like a breath of fresh air in Derry.
It is rare one gets the opportunity to hear the truth, not the corporate media’s narrative.
Five passionate and well-informed speakers, who included the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, detailed the carnage and chaos that has been unleashed around the globe by the aggressive, warmongering policies of the US and its closest allies.
Eva Bartlett, Investigative Journalist
Dr Marcus Papadopoulos, Editor Politics First
Neil Clark, Journalist, Author, Broadcaster
Peter Ford, Former UK Ambassador to Syria
Professor Piers Robinson, Sheffield University
Vanessa Beely, Investigative Journalist
Here is one of those speakers.
Neil Clark on Yogoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Iraq.
As a commentator says.
Because everyone in Britain, Europe and America swallowed the narrative about Yugoslavia and more specifically Serbia, it allowed the governments in those places to carry out their subsequent attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria….not to mention the coup in Ukraine and the attack on Yemen. Everyone accepted the Kosovo and Bosnia narrative. The lies were obvious to me. I encountered the ”poor Kosovar” and ”poor Bosniaks” in London as many of them took advantage of a free passage to the rich West. I noticed that these ”victims” immediately engaged in criminal activities in London. That was what the Serbs had had to deal with for years. Yet they were the bad guys. Even now on the left, the Serbs are accepted without question as the ”’bad guys”….some seem to have caught up now, but none of them spoke up at the time.
Imperialism On Trial: Writers And Activists Convene In Derry, Ireland
Imperialism has run like a broken thread throughout human history, but so has Resistance to Imperialism. In this regard, I’d like to take a moment to pay tribute to the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, in short, all those whose efforts in combating this genocidal project of a latter day Khmer Rouge has prevented Syria from being pushed into an abyss in which its minorities—people who can trace their presence in that part of the world back over a millenia and more—would have been gone, extirpated, annihilated.
Everybody on this panel tonight has felt the lash of the mainstream media. They call us ‘cranks’, they call us ‘stooges’, they call us “Putin’s puppets’, they call us ‘Assadists’. But yet, why do they attack us if we’re so marginal, why take the time to attack what we do? It’s because we ask the question ‘why’…
John Wight‘s talk was a poetic, searing condemnation of Imperialism and the corporate media, with literary and historical references included.
Alternative media and those who go on it are under attack because they have the temerity to ask the most subversive question in the English language which is:
Why?
Why did we go to war in Iraq?
Why are there sanctions on Cuba?
Why are we going after Iran but are close friends with the Saudis?
This question is so powerful. We are attacked because we ask the question, why?
I am reminded of the African proverb that until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Now with the alternative media, the lions have their historians.
We can put the case for the Syrian people; we can put the case for the Venezuelan people; we can put the case why Russia should not be our enemy.
Capitalism is killing the world.
And we are letting it do so.
After 200,000 years of modern humans on a 4.5 billion-year-old Earth, we have arrived at new point in history: the Anthropocene. The change has come upon us with disorienting speed. It is the kind of shift that typically takes two or three or four generations to sink in.
Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet in the face of these facts we carry on as usual.
Most citizens ignore or downplay the warnings; many of our intellectuals indulge in wishful thinking; and some influential voices declare that nothing at all is happening, that the scientists are deceiving us. Yet the evidence tells us that so powerful have humans become that we have entered this new and dangerous geological epoch, which is defined by the fact that the human imprint on the global environment has now become so large and active that it rivals some of the great forces of nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system.
I find it quite incredible for you to now be referencing Jane Kelsey after bagging her and the Labour opposition for opposing the TPPA as it stood then.
It’s an unhappy time for National and Nat voters like yourself to have lost out on signing this (or any) free trade deal, but I’m sure you’ll get over it in time. Just leave it to the professionals in Labour to get it over the line. 🙂
By the way, please find one quote where I have backed or even referenced Jane Kelsey’s work on this.
You are a very dishonest person, James. But I think you know this. You like to make apologies when you get it totally wrong in public, like the 3-0 episode, and the change of government in 2017 but that is not the same thing.
The new team has won significant amendments which the Nats were happy to forego. The current deal helps protect working Kiwis, not that they’ve ever been a concern of yours.
In your own words, in your own time. Take your time, James, don’t be shy. I admire people who try to deal with complex issues in their own words, I really do – live (and let live) and learn. People who play silly games, James, not so much.
The bill:
defines who is eligible for assisted dying
details the provisions to ensure that this a free choice
outlines the steps to ensure a person is mentally capable of understanding the nature and consequences of assisted dying.
What do you need to know?
Submissions are publicly released and published to the Parliament website. Only your name or organisation’s name is required on a submission. Please keep your contact details separate, because if they are included on the submission they will become publicly available when the submission is released.
If you wish to include information of a private or personal nature in your submission you should discuss this with the clerk of the committee before submitting.
If you wish to speak to your submission, please state this clearly. The committee will decide at a later date how it will hear from submitters.
Looking at google (keywords – submission re euthanasia) and on the first page there were 10 headings relating to nz and euthanasia and 9 were against, mostly from the Catholic Church. It would be better for churches that have been involved in burning people and torturing them in past mistaken behaviour seeking to cleanse them of sin?, to be backward about interfering in this matter between a person and their God. Churches should not attempt to stop people from meeting their Maker when they feel they are ready, it is wrong for the Church to do so.
I intended to watch The Brisbane Global Rugby Tens when I finished milking .
When I got to my daughters place on the farm well PaPa was to busy looking after our mokos to even get time to think about watching the Tens + I had to drive my wife back to Rotorua from Putaruru and back to milk at 5 am for her mahi sorry guys I will watch the games reruns .
The Blues won Ka pai E hoa .Tana I wish you and your men all the best I wont say to much you see there is some phenomenon .I.E There was no information on your win on the 2 websites I frequently observe stuff /herald .I know why these neolibrals are trying there hardest to limit my Mana but know every time they try there actions just adds to my Mana enough said . Here,s a AUSSIE site with your fabulous win
I have been to busy defending my whano and I from the stupid plays of the sandflys to put some serious thought into this farcical tpp. You may ask your self why I call it FARCIAL they wont show us the wording so that is a farce . In my view if the government is to sign all the people of Aotearoa mokos futures up to this binding agreement that is being rammed down OUR throats by big business
whose only goal is to take more of OUR hard earned resources away from us all this is a fact . Big business are manipulating it so they can do anything and if they cannot get or do what they want they will sue . Who wins when you get to the upper scales of big money well the Organization with the biggest check book always wins in that scenario ka pai.
In my view we will all be held to ransom by big business if there products or services poision or kill other people wild life or ruin OUR mokos future environment there will be absolutely nothing we can do to stop them or hold big business accountable for there evil actions . Look at the nz company they sold lies to Britons took there money as they new that when the common people got to Aotearoa there was absolutely nothing they could do to get there money back. These people who are probably my ancestors only survived because Maori are a humane Culture that feed and built them houses .
If we let the tpp be sign up into OUR laws in ten years time the scenario will be like this .
You will have to be in the Billions club not the Millions club as it is at the moment to get Big business or the goverment to respect your human & privacy rights this is a fact .
The 000.1% will have total control of Aotearoa full stop .
Not including a clause for OUR Treaty of Waitangi is a spit in the face to ALL Maori.
We have already lost enough Mana in the last 200 years the tpp will have us all living under the bridge working 80 hours a week just to eat or in sub standard housing estates full of drugs and crime this will be OUR reality.
It is now that I challange all OUR Maori leaders to sue the coalition government into abandoning this farcical tpp that we know nothing about why are they hiding the laws of this contract because they know that we the 99% will be protesting and voting them out of Parliament.
When a Hunter is hunting a wild Boar and its piglets he does not shout out to the Boar we are going caste a Kupenga /net over you and your mokos we are going to eat you and put your mokos in a Hinaki /trap and breed your mokos for our food as the Boar and his mokos will run away and never get caught ka pai
ECO MAORI SAYS THIS IS THE WAY THESE EVIL bigots are behaving.
I call on all the people of Aotearoa to stop this going through to OUR parliament .
The neolibral civil servents who run the country are lying to our new goverment they have weaved a vale of lies and caste it over the new governments EYES.
Now is the time for Maori to SUE the government in the high court to at the least have the Treaty of Waitangi INCLUSION clause sign into this farcical tpp .
This action will protect all the 99.99% of people of Aoetearoa from big business cruel inhumane practice .
One mite say you said that the action of SUING OUR new Labour lead goverment could cause them to lose the 2020 election to the neolibreals ECO MAORI says not to threat national are backing this farcial new treaty that just benefits the 000.1% of people on Papatuanuku so they will not beable to use it as a tool to steal votes off our new goverment .
Ana to kai Ka kite ano
“It will be remembered that Lord John Russell’s feelings in favour of the Natives of New Zealand were very strongly and publicly expressed on the occasion of his dining with the Company in the City. The following short quotations, from documents issued from the Colonial Office, will shew what were his views with respect to the land.
Mr Vernon Smith to Mr Somes
Downing Street, December 2, 1840.
With regards to all lands in the colony acquired under any other title than that of grants made in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty, it is proposed that the titles of the claimants should be subjected to the investigation of a Commission to be constituted for that purpose. The basis of that inquiry will be the assertion, on behalf of the Crown, of a title to all lands situate in New Zealand, which have, heretofore, been granted by the Chiefs of those islands, according to the customs of the country, and in return for some adequate consideration. Lord J. Russell is not aware that any exception can arise to this general principle; but if so, every such exception will be considered on its own merits, and dealt with accordingly.
Lord Stanley’s sentiments, as expressed in the following passages of a letter written by his under Secretary, are quite in unison with those of Lord J. Russell, as respects the Native rights.
Extract of a Letter from G.W. Hope, Esq., to J. Somes, Esq.
1st February, 1843.
In answer to these claims, Lord Stanley desires me to remind you, that he has offered, on the part of the Crown, as matter, not of right, but of grace and favour, to “instruct the Governor to make them a conditional grant, subject to prior titles to be established as bylaw provided, not only of such portion of the Wellington Settlement as is in the actual occupation of Settlers under them but also of all parts not in the occupation or possession of others; the extent of such grants, of course, not to exceed that to which they are entitled under Mr. Pennington’s award.”
Further than this, Lord Stanley cannot consent to go, consistently with the obligations by which the Crown as he conceives, is bound. Lord Stanley is not prepared, as Her Majesty’s Secretary of State, to join with the Company in setting aside the Treaty of Waitangi after obtaining the advantages guaranteed by it, even though it might be made with “naked savages,” or though it might “be treated by lawyers as a praise-worthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment.” Lord Stanley entertains a different view of the respect due to obligations contracted by the Crown of England; and his final answer to the demands of the Company must be, that, as long as he has the honour of serving the Crown he will not admit that any person, or any Government acting in the name of Her Majesty, can contract a legal moral, or honorary obligation to despoil others of their lawful and equitable rights.”
(Smith & Elder, 1846, p61-63)
The Committee Of The Aborigines’ Protection Society (1846). On The British Colonization of New Zealand. London, Smith and Elder.
I apologize to Elizabeth II Queen of the United Kingdom for the use of the Crown as a attack against the NZ police Ka kite ano
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
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Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
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My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
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“Intensified housing, intensified issues.”
The neighbourhood had deteriorated since the HNZ units opened in mid-2016, they said. The development replaced two older state houses.
“This is absolutely a governance issue that’s got to come from the top . . . What I’m hearing is it’s likely to be [a problem] replicated in different places around New Zealand.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/101299398/phillipstown-not-alone-as-christchurch-residents-come-forward-to-discuss-housing-nz-issues
Yep, government policies looking at everything in insolation. You can’t just get groups of disadvantaged people and then push them all together and think everything’s gonna be rosy.
State houses should be integrated into all housing and all areas rich and poor. Instead the government has sold all the expensive (rich) parts off and thinks putting up ‘social’ apartment blocks or hotels as social housing with large groups of people is gonna work.
Not only has the social housing never arrived but it would never work anyway as quickly it would quickly become slums. All the new developments should have had to have 5 – 10% reserved for state or affordable housing as part of the consent and forced to be sold at a rate against the average wage.
But the trick is of raising people out of poverty is actually to get upwards mobility and invest in the people themselves – decent schools, decent food and decent health and decent opportunities including decent wages and jobs that are secure. Hard to do that when you keep putting more and more people into the country to provide for with a falling base of income.
In any society nobody is perfect – but in NZ the whole system is encouraging people to go backwards into poverty. Giving $30 or $60 a week more is a waste of time long term (especially if you have rising food, power, transport and housing costs that the government can’t control).
If the government can’t plan for local people to get decent jobs or meaningful social engagement and become more self sufficient and be able to plan for their future and instead wants to pander to an ideology of selling off land and assets to the highest bidder (generally overseas folks) and letting those people bring in their own workers (aka 200 Chinese workers for the luxury hotel) then it’s a wasted opportunity. It’s taking away opportunities for local prosperity because the government has allowed a culture of getting other labour from other countries in so that the corporations can make more profit and then even giving residency or citizenship so that it becomes more people who need support.
In the hotel example most of the locals are then locked out, as it’s being built and then when it is being run and finally the profits from it. The locals get the pollution, wastewater issues, transport issues and need to find more housing both to house and provide services for the new workers (temporary or not) working on it, as well as the hotel space being used for rich tourists providing no amenity or accomodation for locals in that prime location. It’s lose, lose for locals and win win for large offshore corporations.
TPPA is being introduced to ensure it because a tangled web that is hard to exit from, even if the people vote against this model of inequality transfer from local people to big business.
But if wages rise won’t that just fuel house price inflation?
Potentially, which is why there needs to be other more direct intervention in the housing market (e.g. rent controls, state house building).
@UncookedSelachimorpha, You can have as many rent controls as you like, the houses are not there to be rented because we have inward migration and a massive shortage to begin with. To make matters worse anyone in the world can buy our houses for whatever reason they like.
Even with the new Labour policy foreigners are free to buy new houses, land and assets. So it will make little benefit and its too late anyway because it’s clear that existing housing stock is already been bought and regulary traded increasing the prices already.
In Sweden they have rent controls which meant in some cases only 2 houses were available in a major city. People just would not give up their rental so no new ones ever came up.
“You can have as many rent controls as you like, the houses are not there to be rented because we have inward migration and a massive shortage to begin with. To make matters worse anyone in the world can buy our houses for whatever reason they like.”
Agree that the underlying problem is lack of supply vs demand, including for the reasons you mention.
I don’t think rent control is the actual solution – but it would reduce the ability of people with money to exploit the current shortage to gouge tenants, at least in the interim while the supply / demand situation is sorted out by other means.
You could argue that the situation you mention in Sweden is also primarily a supply / demand problem, not actually a result of the rent controls (rent control doesn’t directly create or destroy housing). Neolibs would argue that you must allow rent to rise without limit to encourage the market to invest in house building…but strangely that policy doesn’t seem to have fixed anything. People with money can just buy existing stock and start gouging, when there is a housing shortage.
@ Solka Not as much as 70,000 new residents a year and 180,000 work permits issued with all those people per year needing to be housed on top of the existing people.
The balance is out of kilter with massive demand for housing and services like transport and health and infrastructure like wastewater, while the ability for locals to afford to pay for that with in effect lower and less secure wages is not able to keep pace.
More and more people will have to rely on benefits so when that is factored in it’s not very sustainable as a practise. Nor is pretending 1 hour of paid work a week is a job so nobody knows the true figures.
It’s not 70,000 new residents a year, it’s 45-50 thousand new residents, most of whom are already in NZ when their resident visas are granted.
And most of the 200,000 work visas are working holidaymakers who travel a lot, so mostly use short term accommodation, not housing (mostly – some certainly rent houses, but most of them don’t).
The main big number is 70,000 net migration, which is a huge problem and does have a big impact on the housing crisis since they do have to housed, but let’s not overstate the issue.
“But if wages rise won’t that just fuel house price inflation?”
That depends on how wage increases are structured, coupled with how well we improve housing supply.
If wage increases are funded by slowing increases at the upper end of the pay scale, that will help offset inflationary pressure.
+100.
Agree with your comments about looking at everything in isolation. There will be no effective proposal to housing all our people until this is acknowledged and addressed.
The only way to get upwards mobility is to have increasing poverty. For a few to be well off a lot need to be poor.
What we really need is to have everyone with a minimum living standard. Access to the food that they need, a place to call home, interesting work available, a place to play, and access to healthcare. There’s probably more that I’m missing.
You’ll note that a few people are getting richer as the majority get poorer. In other words, a few people have ‘upward mobility’.
Nobody can be self-sufficient. A person must live within a society, a community.
DTB
+1
Exactly. We need wealth itself to have some “downwards mobility” – instead wealth is the main thing that is moving upward, leaving most of the people behind!
+++++ SaveNZ re integrated housing.
Mum took me out to Porirua as a kid to see Muldoons ‘think big’ project and explained why housing isolation was a bad bad idea. etc.
“You can’t just get groups of disadvantaged people and then push them all together and think everything’s gonna be rosy.”
Yes. Especially in large clusters, such as apartment blocks or whole suburbs. But even in smaller clusters (as reported in the article linked above) issues arise. Which then creates the NIMBY (not in my backyard) effect.
Cinny’s suggestion of a live in manager may help reduce issues. But what to do with the ones that continue to play up? Sure they can be weeded out and moved along, but where too? They’ll still need to be housed somewhere.
Another problem for the Government is if this discontent snowballs, it’s going to piss a lot of voters off nationwide.
New developments with even a small number of state houses will impact on buyers desire to buy into these new developments, thus will negatively impact upon their value. Putting developers off.
It will be interesting to see how Labour move to manage this fallout. Moreover, will National attempt to capitalise from it?
@ savenz
While improving peoples skills and education results in upward mobility. It’s low wages and benefit rates that keep people in poverty as not all are in a position to up-skill or work.
100% savenz;
National policy = encourages ghettos
This must be awful for people, was thinking about it last night.
If there are social housing blocks, maybe there needs to be a ‘building manager’ living on site. Among other things.
“This must be awful for people…”
Indeed.
I see some were also upset about the two story building going up next door. This in itself is going to irate a lot of people.
How Labour manage this growing fallout is going to be vital to their popularity come next election.
+++
Sunday Star Times continue their investigation in the decline of meat eating.
This was particularly heartening news.
“a Sunday Star-Times/Stuff online survey of nearly 15,000 readers this week reports only 36 per cent of respondents are committed carnivores. A fifth have already cut most or all meat from their diet (21 per cent); the rest are considering cutting back for health (15 per cent), budget (14 per cent), environmental (10 per cent), animal welfare (3 per cent) or personal taste (1 per cent) reasons.”
https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/100870623/government-warning-farmers-ignore-concerns-about-meat-at-their-peril
Personally I have. It’s really come down to nzs shit meat quality
Where do you buy from ?
We’ve only just recently got a butcher back in town so I’ve started buying again. But nowhere near as much as I use. Veggie stuff is quite nice
I’m the same eat less than I used to and only purchase from the local butcher – higher cost but can’t stomach the rubbish they sell at the supermarkets.
Supermarkets seemed to have wrecked the quality of fish too, in their quest to maximise profits. Fish new seemed to be caught here, transported to China for cheaper labour processing and then sent back here. Funny enough a lot of problems can happen in that process. Least of all, they don’t taste too good.
Then the fish farms which seem to be springing up and turning fish into factory farms full of pollutants and biohazards. Can’t remember where, but a whole lot of farmed fish escaped recently and will be a huge hazard apparently to the native fish. Then they are removing all the small fish before they can breed in the sea to turn them into food for the farmed fish.
Go to farmers markets.
Mmm yes. Yummy fresh as snapper fillets yesterday.
This fresh? Mind you Clarke put that one back “to do his business”!
https://twitter.com/NZClarke/status/935000095908544513
But fresh snapper – yummmm And so good for you, Vitamin B12, Omega 3 etc etc
Makes you wonder how a certain Psycho got his handle 😈
To OAG – never made the connection! LOLOLOLOL
The mind boggles 🙂
Most of NZ prime meat is exported. The Kiwis get the leftovers or imported meat.
Then the farmers say they have to keep the inhumane conditions for animals like pigs and chicken’s to ‘compete’ with the cheap imports.
Lots of scams like the meat being injected with water in a sludge of bovine and animal particles to get the weight up.
Then you start getting issues with biosecurity with all the imported foods and have so spend money firefighting the growing issue of overseas viruses and insects being introduced (Like PSA for example) destroying our food supply, exports and crops.
I’m not sure the PSA would enjoy being classified as a virus or insect.
Ok bacteria too, you get the drift. http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/08/infected-kiwifruit-from-china-caused-psa-outbreak-court-told.html
In that article the classic line,
“MPI denies all the claims, including that it has a duty of care.”
“The Kiwis get the leftovers or imported meat.”
I speak to many travelers from Europe and they can’t believe how much we pay for 2nd grade NZ produce. They’d be taking to the streets….
Having seen the mad cow and foot and mouth in the UK and the burning pyres of dead animals, (note the UK foot and mouth was traced to imported Polish pork from school dinners fed to the cows, if that is not disgusting enough, on every level), the deaths in the US from coli in meat and god knows what goes on in Asia with all the dead carcasses lined up in the restaurants.
I’m not sure how 2nd rate our meat is. But certainly the cost of it bears scrutiny because why are we paying so much for food we produce? Exporting the best stuff and importing in crap without clearly declaring it to be imported meat.
That’s why we home kill.
Do they pay you overtime?
Why do you ask?
Do you want to compare his pay and overtime rates with yours as you seem to be here for very long hours each day, probably longer than James.
It’s a shame the marker-pen won’t follow you around and put a stop to your flamebait behaviour. You seem immune, like a pet.
I’ve been trying to figure that one out too. Had not thought about it from a ‘pet’ perspective, however. Extreme youth, naivity: yes. LOL.
Due to my age, experience etc (and that of many here), that old meme “teach grandmother to suck eggs” pops into my head often with many of his ‘listen to me, i know everything and you people here know nothing’ posts.
For the hell of it, I counted his comments yesterday on OM. Thirty comments in total – the first at 7.06am and the last at 11.18pm.
Yes, and giving grandmother links to others work hardly constitutes as I have been warning people about our levels of debt for ages
edit: Can’t be easy having the empty feed bag blues
OMG – that second link takes me back to my teens which were spent in the US over that same period!
On occasion the hammer falls suddenly and hard.
https://thestandard.org.nz/poto-williams-statement-after-meeting-with-willie-jackson/#comment-1297975
Wow – I missed that one but it was during the period of about 18+ months that I left TS of my own accord because of the behaviour and moderation decisions etc of certain authors/moderators. I have since met in person a few others who also left at that time. We had an interesting discussion!
You know Paul and Ed have very similar writing styles.
Very similar hobby horses they ride all the time, too.
Wasn’t Paul a vegan also ??
edit – your lies and allegations are boring and pathetic.
But if I was being paid (which I’m not) I would obviously be earning a fuck ton more than you because you seem poor, bitter and envious.
The ones considering it for their health should do more research. There’s nothing unhealthy about eating meat, unless it’s been prepared in unsanitary conditions. And if you cut down on protein and fat the only thing you can replace them with is carbohydrate, which genuinely is bad for your health.
The ones considering it for the environment should also do more research, unless they’re planning to move to the US or Europe sometime soon.
Ecoli
Antibiotics
Salmonella
US Center for Disease Control study:
Attribution of Foodborne Illnesses, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998–2008
Results:
We applied percentages derived from outbreak-associated illnesses for each etiology to the 9.6 million estimated annual illnesses assessed and attributed ≈4.9 million (≈51%) to plant commodities, ≈4.0 million (≈42%) to land animal commodities, and ≈600,000 (≈6%) to aquatic animal commodities. [My emphasis]
…
More illnesses were attributed to leafy vegetables (22%) than to any other commodity; illnesses associated with leafy vegetables were the second most frequent cause of hospitalizations (14%) and the fifth most frequent cause of death (6%).
Thanks for that link, PM. A very interesting study and results. Have bookmarked it for a more in depth read, and future use.
Of course this doesn’t fit with Ed’s bias so will of course continued to be ignored by him.
Hi Ed,
Wondered if you had seen this movie by Simon Anstell: Carnage: Swallowing the Past?
It is a mockumentary set in the future, and appears to give a different reflective perspective on eating meat in a way that does not bring out the defensive reflex in people. (Full disclosure: Haven’t yet watched it, but did listen to a podcast on the movie and have it lined up for family night at home.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSreSNaLtZQ
Yes I did see it.
Very entertaining and a clever film.
Thank you for highlighting it.
Spare a though today for the poor besieged Harpers from Taneatua,
” At home this week, Yvonne Harper indicated she was unhappy with the way things turned out but referred questions to her lawyer.
“Don’t make me feel bad. I don’t like it, but we’ve been through a very, very hard time ourselves – emotionally, financially, it’s been hurting us too. I’ve really suffered.””
There’s suffering, and then there’s suffering.
What would Helen do?
We’ve worked hard all our lives to get to where we are now, I don’t have to justify anything.
I expect it was terribly hard work to step over a body.
It’s all legal though 🙄
Seems a bit odd that as the sole director he can’t be held accountable despite proceeding with what on the face of it appears to be a completely contrived receivership.
It seems “odd” to you that a part-time nurse doesn’t have the resources to hold Harper to account?
Seriously?
No, H&SNZ and the other relevant government departments that were involved.
It was a private prosecution after H&SNZ failed to get involved.
Helen would be mighty pissed…
There must be something that can be done, other than holding the guilty down and sticking fingers down their throats, to make them cough up?
This is a legal single digit salute to the courts….
…and also “normal practice”.
The law is an ass.
It may not be morally as white as it could be but it’s normal practice.
Pretty clear why Key and Whitney got on so well – that could have served as the motto of the Key administration.
There really should’ve been a trigger warning on that link OAB….
🙂
As these things happen all the time when a small business gets fined and told to pay reparations and the owners then go on about their life as if nothing happened?
Yeah, probably.
These fines need to be sheeted home to the owners and not the business so that simply closing the business doesn’t get rid of the consequences.
MPs and social media do not mix.
Is Chris Bishop simply another pervy old man, or is there something more sinister at play?
Not sure that you can class clueless idiocy as something sinister.
Poor old Hutt South finally got rid of one munter only to be replaced by another.
A “clueless idiot” who has a 1st Class Honours degree in Law (and a BA in History/Politics) and who has been admitted to the NZ Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor.
https://www.victoria.ac.nz/law/study/creating-careers/christopher-bishop
His partner, Jenna Raeburn, (PR Consultant) also has a BA and LLB as well as considerable experience working for the National Party and MPs in Parliament before becoming Director of Barton Deakin’s NZ office last year.
“Barton Deakin is the largest government relations firm in Australia, and now the first trans-Tasman company in our field.”
https://www.victoria.ac.nz/law/study/creating-careers/jenna-raeburn
One would have hoped that between them, they would have realised beforehand how “clueless” Bishop’s actions would be (and were) in contacting young female teenagers via social media. There may well have been nothing sinister (eg perviness) intended, but perception is everything in public relations, politics and the like.
“…and who has been admitted to the NZ Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor.”
Hmmm…if I had nothing better to do today I’d be tempted to set up a side thread to share lawyer jokes.
The article I read said there was no suggestion of perviness, etc. Just a clueless MP apparently.
Bit odd a man of Bishop’s age and position should be contacting teenage girls on social media! Power feeding an underlying dark urge perhaps? Suspicious to say the least.
John Key … female hair fettish
Chris Bishop … chatting up teenage girls on social media …
any more to add to the growing list of Natz pervy creeps?
get a grip
It will be a nervous few days for National as they wait to see whether this is a #metoo moment, or just a case of an experienced lawyer and MP messaging young women on Snapchat. 🙄
Key did, get a grip of hair that is.
Did Bishop, well we hope not.
But you need to face reality infused, you Tory types are chock full of nasty pervs exploting their power.
its been written to suggest that. click bait at play. but no.
Chris Bishop on Snapchat, eh? Mothers made complaints (one even wrote to another mp about it!) so obviously there was something inappropriate going on.
“so obviously there was something inappropriate going on.”
Really?
Its people like you who cast accusations like this around that can ruin lives.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/02/mp-chris-bishop-confronted-over-social-media-contact-with-teenage-girls.html
It says CLEARLY that “However, neither parent was concerned that his intentions were anything other than misguided.”
so what was so obvious that there was something inappropriate going on?
Beating kids, and then when there a little older harassing them online, is this the great Tory heaven you dream of james?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/101252766/human-rights-commission-finance-boss-sexually-harasses-young-intern-keeps-job
Please don’t bother them.
They have far more important things to do.
Like attacking Bob Jones.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/101308155/employer-tries-to-fire-worker-under-90day-trial-fails
Two points about this. Firstly, justice can still be found.
Secondly, it demonstrates why that law has to go, and why it should go, entirely.
This shows a couple of things.
1 – the law works and the employers who were clearly not being fair have been punished.
2 – that there are shit employees out there who just are not up to the job and employers need to be able to get rid of them and hire people who turn up on time and get the work done.
Horse excrement.
Take you hatred of working people somewhere else james.
People like you…
100% Adam.
I wish he would be banned.
Like Paul was ?
BTW – remind me – who was the climate change minister for the last 9 years again? you seem to have forgotten the post thread above – as you often do when confronted with facts.
“2 – that there are shit employees out there who just are not up to the job and employers need to be able to get rid of them and hire people who turn up on time and get the work done.”
Employers can already do that, through proper process. Happens all the time.
We don’t need to add the 90 day “fire at will” exploiting garbage.
James, your number one is correct.
But, for number two, it seems I am twenty years older than you. I remember full employment. There seemed little problem then with retaining good workers, and sacking the hopeless.
The difference was that with full employment employers had more difficulty in hiring so were more careful in training and retention.
With 5% unemployment, employers can be less.
A great deal of business problems in NZ are not with workers, but management. Our middle management are in world terms under-skilled and underperforming.
MBIE says https://www.business.govt.nz/business-performance/management-and-leadership/performance-issues/
or, https://www.cognology.com.au/asked-seven-workplace-experts-number-one-tip-dealing-underperforming-employee-2/
or https://insideretail.co.nz/2017/05/23/red-herrings-and-scapegoats/
The law only “worked” in this case because it didn’t apply, because the employers were incompetent and tried to do consecutive trial periods. It is only because the law didn’t apply that the manifest injustice of her summary dismissal could be addressed.
Also, there are shit employers who have neither the people skills nor the paperwork skills to manage staff. With those folk, the 90-day bill is a loaded firearm – whether they shoot their employees or their own foot is a betting matter.
1. How many have been unjustly dismissed and not ended up in court?
2. It’s probably more accurate to say that there are shit employers who don’t know how to deal with people, how to engage them.
1 – No idea
2 – also true – but they are not mutually exclusive.
I can agree there are shit employers out there if you can agree there are shit employees 😉
Like I said earlier james – Take your hatred of working people, and bugger off back to the cesspit you crawled out of.
No hatred from me. I can happily admit there are piss poor employers. But its amazing that you cannot even admit that there are some shit staff ?
funny that -Im guessing you must just be a model employee.
(thats assuming you have a job of course)
Do you have bifolding doors in you mansion James?
Just wondering how you get you big ‘blokes’ head through.
Now you hating on the unemployed, what low life Tory idiot you prove yourself to be james.
Everyday with your hate, it gets tiresome. I’d say try love, I know asking a bit much – but you might actually turn out to be a better human being.
Rather than play your silly little hate games.
You may read it as hating on the unemployed – but thats just your bias again (and low level of reading comprehension).
My comment about you being a model employee required you to be employed.
I comprehended your hatred for working people rather well, the snide and vicious attacks against working people have been pretty constant on this site.
Now you doing your level best to keep that roling on by more of your horse excrement, and trying to do the whole personalizing the argument to score points.
I’ve been open about what I do, you need to keep up.
Your hate however, keeps rolling on.
The problem isn’t the shit employers or the shit staff.
The problem is that competent employers didn’t need the 90-day fire at will to manage or even get rid of staff, good or bad.
But under fire at will, good staff don’t have any redress against shit employers, unless the employer is so incompetent that they can’t even implement fire at will competently.
It’s the imbalance that is the major problem with the fire at will act. If the employer is incompetent but not catastrophically incompetent, the employees bear the brunt and and the business suffers.
+111
Totally agree.
James and his ilk ruin this site.
I posted this last night – but thought it an interesting discussion:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11991993
Law makers move to cancel Lorde concerts.
“The taxpayers of Miami and Tampa should not have to facilitate bigotry and anti-Semitism, and I look forward to the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and the Tampa Sports Authority complying with the law and cancelling these concerts.“
If this gets upheld- her US career is toast – 20 states have the same laws (and growing).
It’s an interesting way to fight back treating BDS and it’s supporters in the same manner that they are attacking others – in their pocket.
I see the Herald is still getting material from Cameron Slater.
Lorde might have to book private venues instead. Oh noes!
… treating BDS and it’s supporters in the same manner that they are attacking others – in their pocket.
“The same manner?” Can you elaborate a bit on how the BDS movement is using the political leverage of their supporters in the world’s most powerful country to pass laws damaging to Israeli interests? Because, if they aren’t, it’s not “the same manner,” is it?
The b is for boycott. Which is expressly designed to hit revenues. The law in the us does the same.
It is of course much easier to hit people’s revenues when you have government politicians in your pocket. In that sense it is “the same,” just like Tank Man and the tanks he was facing were doing the same thing (attempting to achieve political objectives). I doubt Tank Man considered the tanks to be “the same” as him, though.
Nothing like freedom of speech and freedom of movement (or choosing not to go to a venue), sarcasm.
Sad that aggressors can and seek to control everything, even trying to wreck some teenager’s career. Nice to have that sort of time and influence on your hands. NOT.
The Jews who don’t agree with the land seizures in Israel and even the UN are harassed just as much as everyone else.
What happened to ‘free speech’? Passing laws against BDS seems to contravene that principle.
Goes against the idea of a free-market as well. But, then, the RWNJs have never been for a free-market. Just one that’s controlled by them and in their favour.
Wow, looks like Canada is going to lead the world in Nuclear fusion. If you have 13 minutes, including ads. This is a great introduction piece, with a tour General Fusions, the company in Canada who are making great leaps in this direction.
So in 4 years these could very well be viable replacements for all coal burning plants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPpYQFtyO98&ab_channel=LinusTechTips
They are just one of a whole bunch of companies wildly overhyping their fusion technology and falling way way short of their claims. Wikipedia’s page is somewhat useful for an very brief overview of these efforts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
In 2009 General Fusion claimed ‘within the next decade’.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/414559/a-new-approach-to-fusion/
But I haven’t found anything that says they have even achieved ignition, let alone breakeven or any demonstrated means of usefully extracting any of the energy from the fusion reactions.
A few years ago Lockheed were claiming they would be selling container sized self-contained fusion power systems within five years.
Bottom line: until someone produces an actual working fusion reactor-generator that puts out more power than is fed into it, their claims aren’t even worth a pinch of fairy dust.
The video lays out all the pitfalls and the problems, it also talks about spending most of its time studying plasma. It’s why I said – “could” because there are real problems.
And I might add, why I said introduction.
for more fulsome analysis rather than wikipedia – try
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/05/the-real-problem-with-fusion-energy/
This has a great discussion on the problems and possible solutions
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-problem-with-controlled-fusion-Why-is-it-so-difficult-to-harness-energy-from-fusion-on-earth-How-long-do-we-have-to-wait-before-we-see-a-fusion-based-power-plant
And a more optimistic outlook – because it’s all about the plasma.
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/nuclear-fusion-what-s-taking-so-long-1329056
hadn’t heard the “always will be” joke before – just the one that it has been “five years away” for the last fifty years 🙂
There’s a lot of tech where we know the eventual development path once we figure out how to overcome the initial hurdles, fusion is just one of them.
More promising ones are the energy harvesters from the great fusion reactor in the sky: wind and solar. Also, battery tech is leaping forward at the moment.
But really, we only need to overcome some technical thresholds in just a few of all the energy tech directions under development and fossil fuels will be accelerated out the door – not by policy, but because they’re not as practical.
It’s one of the reasons I refuse to be constantly depressed.
I agree, if we crack plasma problem – goodbye fossil fuels.
I like from the video the way they have finally worked out how to get a constant temperature reading. And they fact they built their own supercomputer.
I think we are getting close, a lot of layers of information, and tech are starting to come together on this. 3- 4 more years of plasma research may just crack it.
Trying to duplicate the SUN YEA RIGHT
Centre of the sun even.
Interesting points to me about history of the pandemic of flu in 1918. This is to be a year of discussion and memorial – the fastest deadly one there has ever been.
What stands out is that it was largely dealt with by women, children and the elderly – everybody else was overseas still, involved with WW1.
Also there was intelligence sensitivity – giving out info could break morale, let out useful info to the enemy etc. So people were not informed about it officially and nation-wide. Local government had to organise a system to deal with it – the baker’s van would deliver the bread and take away the bodies each day! Boy Scouts went round delivering leaflets. There is a huge story about how NZ coped in difficult times that we should know about, as today our national information, knowledge and action is also being weakened by events and approaches.
Spain wasn’t in the war, other countries couldn’t mention the flu, so when Spain reported its outbreak it became okay to mention it; calling it the Spanish flu.
Actually they think it originally came from pig farms in Kansas. But that would have been the first wave which had not been so deadly, another one mutated and started about three weeks later and it was much more severe.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018631543/ryan-mclane-lessons-from-the-1918-killer-flu
9:37 Ryan McLane: lessons from 1918’s killer flu
This year marks 100 years since the most deadly epidemic in NZ’s history claimed nearly 10,000 lives. The influenza pandemic of 1918, at the end of WW1, hit hard and fast killing four times as many Maori as pakeha.
There are only a handful of memorials around the country – the devastation is often overlooked because it occurred at the same time as the war in Europe in ended. Ryan McLane, a communicable diseases specialist who’s a health advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, explains why it was so lethal.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/assets/news/140824/four_col_flu-poster.jpg?1518137927
Flu, you say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqml4qcSZOU&feature=youtu.be&t=49s
An interesting discussion from Aus onthe privileges associated with being a male politician, looking at the way Barnaby Joyce is able to swat away the news about his affair and “love child” with a former staffer compared to the way the Aus media treats female politicians. It’s based on PhD research and focuses in particular on the case of Cheryl Kernot, a rising star of the 90’s who was attacked in the media for having the “morals of an alleycat on heat” when it was revealed that she had had an affair 20 years earlier with a former student. She got the whole “Does her heart rule her head?” thing thrown at her, too, and was eventually hounded out of politics.
The piece discusses the convention that politicians’ private lives should be kept private, and finds “And the evidence is clear: it was more likely to be broken for women in politics, whose relationships, sexuality and gender rendered them somehow more accessible. The private life convention has often rested on an assumption that men are not affected by love affairs, flings and trysts, while women are.
It’s a peculiar kind of unconscious bias.”
Strong links to the recent “concerns” from some that our PM shouldn’t continue to serve while she’s pregnant or new to motherhood.
Israel is a racist, rogue state.
It is supported and armed by the US, also a racist, rogue state.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/350137/israeli-air-strikes-against-syria-biggest-since-1982
And this is something new?
Sheesh it’s BAU as it has been for decades. Sharpen up Ed!
Creates a distraction from Bibis corruption investigation.
Following the developments with interest.
I have to use my daughter phone to get this post out you see people Spark is a neoliberal run company the sand fly’s are using this company as a weapon against Ecothey have many times blocked my data as I only blog and read other sites in reality I should never run out of my data enough said .
Give a little got back to me on Friday asking me to change some things information on my give a little page I emailed them that I will think about choices.
My choice is I don’t need to use give a little site the sandfly are going to try and play me using that site. This is the internet age as everyone who reads my word is internet savvy I can just make my own site and put a bank account number up and wallar people who want to help me can use internet banking to make donations for my cause of holding the NZ justice system to account for the farcical game they are
Trying to play against me. I will set up a charitable trust to help other common Kiwis
Sue the Nz justice .when I win my case I will put the money back in the trust for other people to apply for funding to nz justice system for breaching there privacy/human rights I will keep you updated on my progress as the first stage will take about 2 weeks. Many thanks to all the good people who run the standard for letting ECO Maori use this site to get funding to sue the Crown. Ka psi I’m nakered the mokos have tired me out lol PS I don’t trust give a little and they won’t be getting 15persent of my Mana
.ka kite ano
Yes I have a big problem with that tpp why are we not privay to all the information on ttp is it a weapon for the 1%,to get total control of the common 99%.
3 minutes after I posted that post and wallar my data is back I rang 123 4 times muppets enough said on that.
I have a lot of good information that I want to cut and paste on here one can see that it’s the original book. This information will lift MAORI Mana up high as it show how the NZ company ripped off and coned the British people they went to Britain and sold lies when the settlers landed in Atoearoa there was nothing that they were sold and promised they would have starved to death Maori built them housing and feed all the common British people that landed in Atoearoa with nothing??????? neoliberals theves.
Ana to kai This information is from the missionarys and another society
Ka kite ano
So – no more donations huh?
Since you want to setup a charitable trust – this might help.
https://www.publictrust.co.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/17625/PTEL18_P-FC-Charitable-Trusts-Fees_Charges-FA-10-10.pdf
This, and your previous attacks on this poster amounts to bullying, imo.
No surprises there.
From earlier this week (may already have been discussed here, but I was busy when it was published – and it’s very important and there need to be constant reminders about it:
Jane Kelsey: Excess of spin on revised TPP cause for concern
The prizes for excessive spin go to Winston Peters (1st place) and David Parker (2nd place).
The latest version of the TPPA is not much better or different from the Nats’ version.
Te Tiriti is not protected as claimed in the spin, and then there’s the secrecy.
The problems with this agreement are substantial.
Ask Maori if the treaty was a fair deal. Nope thought not.
TPPA is NOT some simple 5 page trade agreement to remove tariffs. If it was then there would be no problem.
Nope it is a way for those with international power and resources to continue to exploit new countries and resources without censorship or be compensated for it and to control new ideas and IP and stifle innovation.
Oil/cars is an example, if that industry was not so powerful the world could have saved a lot of the environmental pollution and potentially climate change a lot sooner and had green energy.
You can not micro manage the future with these agreements.
Government officials are blind to what they are signing. It’s the emperor’s new clothes.
But the biggest reason I’m against the TPPA is that it is inherently undemocratic.
The agreement sits over the top of the countries undermining democracy from local government decisions to central government decisions to the person on the street or living on the farm.
And that is why the agreement texts needs to be kept a secret because it’s an insane thing to do and falls down when examined as why a government would sign up it’s people to it.
Look at the billions it’s going to cost the UK to Brexit. Once in, too expensive and complicated to exit multi country agreements.
And the reason the UK wanted to exit in the first place was probably nothing to do with the EU but to do with neoliberalism and not being able to afford housing and transport, lack of security, poorer healthcare and schooling having little say in your community.
The same thing that is plaguing NZ and we are trying to make worse with neoliberal trade agreements.
“Look at the billions it’s going to cost the UK to Brexit. Once in, too expensive and complicated to exit multi country agreements. “
Was in the UK when the EU was being discussed, and couldn’t see how the democracy of each country was going to be protected, and how policies could be enacted that protected each citizen. The result for the referendum for Brexit is understandable when you consider how many have been left behind in the last three decades.
I have the same concern with the TPPA that you do. And it is not alleviated by the smooth murmurings of David Parker.
The alienation of large sections of English society was done by Tory and Labour governments since Thatcher came to power in 1979.
The EU, and its ECJ, brought massive improvement to working conditions and to civil rights in England. The single market brought the UK out of its economic malaise and, along with Scottish oil, underwrote the growth of the last 30 years.
If it was not for Europe England would be a far bigger mess that the shocker it is currently suffering.
TPP was hatched by the global elite for them to rape and pillage the world nothing more clear then that.
Pity Jacinda has not woken up to her placing her child into economic bondage for the next thirty years once TPP is triggered.
😆
+ 1000 cleangreen I will have more to say on the Tpp when I get back to my computer Ka kite ano
I’ll bet you never expected to see prose like this in The Economist:
Some of the biggest changes in recent decades have made the meritocracy even more intolerable than it was in the glory days of the 11-plus. One is the marriage of merit and money. The plutocracy has learned the importance of merit: British public schools have turned themselves into exam factories and the children of oligarchs study for MBAs. At the same time the meritocracy has acquired a voracious appetite for money. The cleverest computer scientists dream of IPOs, and senior politicians and civil servants cash in when they retire with private-sector jobs. A second is supersized smugness. Today’s meritocrats are not only smug because they think they are intellectually superior. They are smug because they also think that they are morally superior, convinced that people who don’t share their cosmopolitan values are simple-minded bigots. The third is incompetence. The only reason people tolerate the rule of swots is that they get results. But what if they give you the invasion of Iraq and the financial crisis?
It’s review of a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy, by Michael Young, published sixty years ago.
https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21736524-book-published-60-years-ago-predicted-most-tensions-tearing-contemporary-britain?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/themeritsofrevisitingmichaelyoungmeritocracyanditsdiscontents
Meritocracy? Show me some.
…the pursuit of meritocracy at the workplace may be more difficult than it first appears…
rhinocrates
Good to read, but will it be by the smug? They know all they need to and any other thoughts are from those who are the wrong fit to belong to the group who are making it in the world.
Of course what ‘it’ is, is fairly narrowly defined and a bit vague around the edges after the assurance that it is proving profitable. And as the old people say about proof, ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating’. That’s all that needs to be explained. ‘Nuff said. (Though someone coined the phrase ‘ Eat the rich’. This has an unsettling ring to it. End of memo to self.)
You mean an actual meritocracy, in which the truly talented are promoted rather than those who are good at exams and are the children of those who can send them to the best schools. Meritocracy in practise becomes self-perpetuating oligarchy.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
As usual, the theoretical ideal of how something should work is used to excuse or obscure its failure in practice.
It strikes me as one of those words coined for political purposes rather than by observation. Sophistry by any other name.
Yep. Like ‘aristocracy’ means literally ‘rule by the best’ but Oscar Wilde described Burke’s Peerage as “the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done'”
I always considered one of the primary benefits of any privately funded schools to be the contacts, and networks made that provide benefits over and above any academic or meritocracy.
The amount of money spent could provide a wealth of experiences and tutors, but would not give that access to others on the same path to wealth.
All the more reason to close private schools: get those networks to extend further into society, and let little Tarquin and Jeremy-Charles get a more rounded view of life.
Well folks it raining cats and dogs up here in the North – thankfully the drains are working but we have a lagoon on our front lawn. Cyclone Gita is on its way and Cyclone Hola in its wake – climate change showing its force in a very wet way. The plants are confused and don’t know one season fron the next.
Also my thought for the day – Julie Bishop the Australian Foreign Minister is standing firm on their NZ detention laws – I wonder what will happen in the future when Australian citizens will be begging in their thousands to come over here escaping being roasted alive in their country as climate refugees. Will we be a stand over and let them in like we have been with the Peter Theil’s of this world and all the other bolt hole rich listers and receive them in with generous arms, or will we stand firm and say we have other priorities like the Pacific Islanders whose countries will be under water – I think not. We need to, the Australians don’t care one jot for us.
Bucketing down in Auckland, too. I expect some flooding in some parts of the city.
Many of us have relatives in Aussie.
The Aussies are very keen on sending people born in NZ, or with NZ family history, back to NZ. So, when Aussie bakes, and is short of potable water, maybe we should say we’ll just take back the Kiwis….. and the rest can have Aussie to themselves?
Exactly!
WK
Funny to hear Julie Bishop talk like a real person with concern and thoughts – they must have given her a very good dinner before the interview and quieted the hysterical indigestion. We are stuck with Oz as neighbours, and they always have at least 3 plans on stand-by for us, they will be milking us as long as they can.
Her Australian line will be straight from ‘Hotel California’ – they keep ‘stabbing us with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast’. Thanks to excellent AZ Lyrics. I wonder if our handsome winsome Winston soft-soaped her?
Cyclone Gerry.
Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.
Ed – here you go telling lies – or are you really so stupid ?
Im going with both stupid and a liar.
read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Climate_Change_(New_Zealand)
and you will find that there has never been a “Gerry” as a climate change minister.
facts – they used to trip up Paul all the time as well.
An example of Gerry’s incompetence.
Technology will save the world from climate change – Gerry Brownlee
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2017/06/technology-will-save-the-world-from-climate-change-gerry-brownlee.html
An example of Ed’s incompetence.
“Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”
about a guy who wasnt climate change minister.
Come on Ed – admit you fucked up – you are looking stupid (again).
TDB names next Cyclone Gerry
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/09/tdb-names-next-cyclone-gerry/
““Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”
So it was you that read something – couldn’t even comprehend even the most basic of story from the Daily Blog, then made up your own “facts” (“Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”) and added them when posting here as your own clever idea without linking to the original story.
You keep getting more stupid.
So again ““Nine years as climate change minster and no useful action at all.”
Who was the climate change minister Ed – come on – you know you can do it…….(or perhaps not)
Another article pointing out the oncoming crash.
John Adams, a former Australian government economist has warned. “a small tremor before the big earthquake” as the world moves “ever closer to economic armageddon”.
The signs are out there folks.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11992189
Financiers love these scary sounding words like “Armageddon”.
That being so it’s important to remember some words that scare financiers: like jubilee, and default, or the fact that Argentina still exists.
Is texting minors a lapse of judgment or grooming? Does anyone know what the definition is and when one becomes the other? This distinction must be a minefield for the judiciary. Even more so in the days of the me too movement.
I think it would depend very much on the content of the text. Given that the parents have not kicked up a fuss – I doubt that they were unsavoury. But it was a stupid thing to be doing.
It is also wrong just to assume that a male texting younger people could be grooming.
‘It is also wrong just to assume that a male texting younger people could be grooming.’
True, it’s not as if he’s a member of the clergy.
Disgusting comment. Was this really necessary to ingratiate yourself?
Well, blow me over with a feather!
The Guardian actually has a meaningful article with an open comments section.
Simon Tisdall does a predictable bias piece on Syria and….well, the comments are worth the read.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/10/epic-failure-of-our-age-how-west-failed-syria
Thanks Bill.
You will learn more from reading that those comments than days of watching the msm’s propaganda on Syria.
I particularly found this comment illuminiating.
The Open University of the interweb.
Bill, Eva Bartlett is always interesting on Syria.
This is worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR5hjJzyN1Y
?
Nah. That’s straight from the book about the autonomous regions all being a dastardly Zionist plot. 🙄
Turkey is employing the services of jihadists in their incursions into the autonomous regions.
Turkey (rightly or wrongly) wants any hint of Kurdish influence in the area eradicated.
Both Turkey and the US have no legal basis for being in the region.
Israel meantime simply doesn’t want the area between Damascus and the Lebanon to fall back into government control “because Hezbollah” (hence Ghouta).
In a funny way, despite his political leanings in the past, I still miss John Armstrong’s opinion pieces in the Herald following his retirement due to serious health problems. So it is good to see he still contributes from time to time on TVNZ’s website – and this week it seems that even he has not escaped the Jacinda effect:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/opinion-jacinda-may-not-able-walk-water-yet-anyway-but-give-her-time
Bill won’t be pleased.
As no edit time option appeared – that is meant to be Bill English in the last sentence.
“The National Party received $771,736, including $150,000 from the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry.”
For that they get Matthew Hooton.
Sounds like a breath of fresh air in Derry.
It is rare one gets the opportunity to hear the truth, not the corporate media’s narrative.
Eva Bartlett, Investigative Journalist
Dr Marcus Papadopoulos, Editor Politics First
Neil Clark, Journalist, Author, Broadcaster
Peter Ford, Former UK Ambassador to Syria
Professor Piers Robinson, Sheffield University
Vanessa Beely, Investigative Journalist
Here is one of those speakers.
Neil Clark on Yogoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Iraq.
As a commentator says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh3Q2kDE-Tk
Imperialism On Trial: Writers And Activists Convene In Derry, Ireland
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/imperialism-on-trial-writers-and-activists-convene-in-derry-ireland/
John Wight‘s talk was a poetic, searing condemnation of Imperialism and the corporate media, with literary and historical references included.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97wYvxTp_lE
Potatoe !
Capitalism is killing the world.
And we are letting it do so.
The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it
“The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses”
100 people turn up to support the ACT Party leader’s protest.
Blanket wall to wall media headlines.
Tens of thousands turn up to protest the TPP.
Barely makes the news.
The elite have an agenda.
Most of the press concur there were more than 100 – looks closer to 150.
Funny how the labour mps who protested the tpp are now the government passing it. Must be so proud of them.
After making significant changes. Your position is to ignore that however.
They haven’t really.
They have. There’s 12 changes not including the foreign buyer ban. That’s significant, and what’s more has assuaged most Kiwi’s concerns.
Are you channelling Jane Kelsey or just parsing her? Feel free to elaborate in your own words, in your own time.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11989194
Some reading for muttonbird.
I find it quite incredible for you to now be referencing Jane Kelsey after bagging her and the Labour opposition for opposing the TPPA as it stood then.
It’s an unhappy time for National and Nat voters like yourself to have lost out on signing this (or any) free trade deal, but I’m sure you’ll get over it in time. Just leave it to the professionals in Labour to get it over the line. 🙂
By the way, please find one quote where I have backed or even referenced Jane Kelsey’s work on this.
You are a very dishonest person, James. But I think you know this. You like to make apologies when you get it totally wrong in public, like the 3-0 episode, and the change of government in 2017 but that is not the same thing.
Are you saying she is wrong and you know better?
And I never said you backed her work.
But I’m sure you know better than her and it’s great to have you on the pro-tpp signing team. I always knew you would come around.
The new team has won significant amendments which the Nats were happy to forego. The current deal helps protect working Kiwis, not that they’ve ever been a concern of yours.
So no you haven’t read it and think you know better.
Amusing.
In your own words, in your own time. Take your time, James, don’t be shy. I admire people who try to deal with complex issues in their own words, I really do – live (and let live) and learn. People who play silly games, James, not so much.
Euthanasia submissions to be in by midnight on Tuesday, 20 February 2018.
Don’t wait till the last minute:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1802/S00083/submissions-on-euthanasia-failing-to-get-through.htm
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/52SCJU_SCF_BILL_74307/end-of-life-choice-bill
This bill proposes to give people with a terminal illness or a grievous and irremediable medical condition the option of requesting assisted dying.
The bill:
defines who is eligible for assisted dying
details the provisions to ensure that this a free choice
outlines the steps to ensure a person is mentally capable of understanding the nature and consequences of assisted dying.
What do you need to know?
Submissions are publicly released and published to the Parliament website. Only your name or organisation’s name is required on a submission. Please keep your contact details separate, because if they are included on the submission they will become publicly available when the submission is released.
If you wish to include information of a private or personal nature in your submission you should discuss this with the clerk of the committee before submitting.
If you wish to speak to your submission, please state this clearly. The committee will decide at a later date how it will hear from submitters.
Looking at google (keywords – submission re euthanasia) and on the first page there were 10 headings relating to nz and euthanasia and 9 were against, mostly from the Catholic Church. It would be better for churches that have been involved in burning people and torturing them in past mistaken behaviour seeking to cleanse them of sin?, to be backward about interfering in this matter between a person and their God. Churches should not attempt to stop people from meeting their Maker when they feel they are ready, it is wrong for the Church to do so.
Some thoughts on referendums – looking at Australia’s and warnings about possibilities when we do them.
Graeme Edgeler on https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/if-australia-jumped-off-a-cliff-or-how-not/
I intended to watch The Brisbane Global Rugby Tens when I finished milking .
When I got to my daughters place on the farm well PaPa was to busy looking after our mokos to even get time to think about watching the Tens + I had to drive my wife back to Rotorua from Putaruru and back to milk at 5 am for her mahi sorry guys I will watch the games reruns .
The Blues won Ka pai E hoa .Tana I wish you and your men all the best I wont say to much you see there is some phenomenon .I.E There was no information on your win on the 2 websites I frequently observe stuff /herald .I know why these neolibrals are trying there hardest to limit my Mana but know every time they try there actions just adds to my Mana enough said . Here,s a AUSSIE site with your fabulous win
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.news.com.au/sport/rugby/brisbane-global-rugby-tens-2018-live-coverage-from-suncorp-stadium/news-story/fc0934fd1cab386cc417411c4525052e&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwig2oajtp3ZAhXHfrwKHQrzAqYQFggFMAA&client=internal-uds-cse&cx=012148326047351459851:fgzrg0zysrs&usg=AOvVaw06ERa1p_A_9_xXbH0VaWQ1
And heres one of 2 men showing how proud of the mokos they are daughters at that ka pai Brad & Reggie
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11991411 I have a more serious topic on my next post which is about looking after the mokos future Ka kite ano
I have been to busy defending my whano and I from the stupid plays of the sandflys to put some serious thought into this farcical tpp. You may ask your self why I call it FARCIAL they wont show us the wording so that is a farce . In my view if the government is to sign all the people of Aotearoa mokos futures up to this binding agreement that is being rammed down OUR throats by big business
whose only goal is to take more of OUR hard earned resources away from us all this is a fact . Big business are manipulating it so they can do anything and if they cannot get or do what they want they will sue . Who wins when you get to the upper scales of big money well the Organization with the biggest check book always wins in that scenario ka pai.
In my view we will all be held to ransom by big business if there products or services poision or kill other people wild life or ruin OUR mokos future environment there will be absolutely nothing we can do to stop them or hold big business accountable for there evil actions . Look at the nz company they sold lies to Britons took there money as they new that when the common people got to Aotearoa there was absolutely nothing they could do to get there money back. These people who are probably my ancestors only survived because Maori are a humane Culture that feed and built them houses .
If we let the tpp be sign up into OUR laws in ten years time the scenario will be like this .
You will have to be in the Billions club not the Millions club as it is at the moment to get Big business or the goverment to respect your human & privacy rights this is a fact .
The 000.1% will have total control of Aotearoa full stop .
Not including a clause for OUR Treaty of Waitangi is a spit in the face to ALL Maori.
We have already lost enough Mana in the last 200 years the tpp will have us all living under the bridge working 80 hours a week just to eat or in sub standard housing estates full of drugs and crime this will be OUR reality.
It is now that I challange all OUR Maori leaders to sue the coalition government into abandoning this farcical tpp that we know nothing about why are they hiding the laws of this contract because they know that we the 99% will be protesting and voting them out of Parliament.
When a Hunter is hunting a wild Boar and its piglets he does not shout out to the Boar we are going caste a Kupenga /net over you and your mokos we are going to eat you and put your mokos in a Hinaki /trap and breed your mokos for our food as the Boar and his mokos will run away and never get caught ka pai
ECO MAORI SAYS THIS IS THE WAY THESE EVIL bigots are behaving.
I call on all the people of Aotearoa to stop this going through to OUR parliament .
The neolibral civil servents who run the country are lying to our new goverment they have weaved a vale of lies and caste it over the new governments EYES.
Now is the time for Maori to SUE the government in the high court to at the least have the Treaty of Waitangi INCLUSION clause sign into this farcical tpp .
This action will protect all the 99.99% of people of Aoetearoa from big business cruel inhumane practice .
One mite say you said that the action of SUING OUR new Labour lead goverment could cause them to lose the 2020 election to the neolibreals ECO MAORI says not to threat national are backing this farcial new treaty that just benefits the 000.1% of people on Papatuanuku so they will not beable to use it as a tool to steal votes off our new goverment .
Ana to kai Ka kite ano
“It will be remembered that Lord John Russell’s feelings in favour of the Natives of New Zealand were very strongly and publicly expressed on the occasion of his dining with the Company in the City. The following short quotations, from documents issued from the Colonial Office, will shew what were his views with respect to the land.
Mr Vernon Smith to Mr Somes
Downing Street, December 2, 1840.
With regards to all lands in the colony acquired under any other title than that of grants made in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty, it is proposed that the titles of the claimants should be subjected to the investigation of a Commission to be constituted for that purpose. The basis of that inquiry will be the assertion, on behalf of the Crown, of a title to all lands situate in New Zealand, which have, heretofore, been granted by the Chiefs of those islands, according to the customs of the country, and in return for some adequate consideration. Lord J. Russell is not aware that any exception can arise to this general principle; but if so, every such exception will be considered on its own merits, and dealt with accordingly.
Lord Stanley’s sentiments, as expressed in the following passages of a letter written by his under Secretary, are quite in unison with those of Lord J. Russell, as respects the Native rights.
Extract of a Letter from G.W. Hope, Esq., to J. Somes, Esq.
1st February, 1843.
In answer to these claims, Lord Stanley desires me to remind you, that he has offered, on the part of the Crown, as matter, not of right, but of grace and favour, to “instruct the Governor to make them a conditional grant, subject to prior titles to be established as bylaw provided, not only of such portion of the Wellington Settlement as is in the actual occupation of Settlers under them but also of all parts not in the occupation or possession of others; the extent of such grants, of course, not to exceed that to which they are entitled under Mr. Pennington’s award.”
Further than this, Lord Stanley cannot consent to go, consistently with the obligations by which the Crown as he conceives, is bound. Lord Stanley is not prepared, as Her Majesty’s Secretary of State, to join with the Company in setting aside the Treaty of Waitangi after obtaining the advantages guaranteed by it, even though it might be made with “naked savages,” or though it might “be treated by lawyers as a praise-worthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment.” Lord Stanley entertains a different view of the respect due to obligations contracted by the Crown of England; and his final answer to the demands of the Company must be, that, as long as he has the honour of serving the Crown he will not admit that any person, or any Government acting in the name of Her Majesty, can contract a legal moral, or honorary obligation to despoil others of their lawful and equitable rights.”
(Smith & Elder, 1846, p61-63)
The Committee Of The Aborigines’ Protection Society (1846). On The British Colonization of New Zealand. London, Smith and Elder.
I apologize to Elizabeth II Queen of the United Kingdom for the use of the Crown as a attack against the NZ police Ka kite ano