Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said she was looking forward to receiving ignoring recommendations from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, after a “comprehensive” session in Geneva.
“They asked a question about poverty, they asked a question about how many children were homeless and did we have an official measure – of course, we do have an official measure.”
They also talked at length about the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children.
“There was some misunderstanding as to what we’re trying to achieve with that but I think we had good dialogue about it.”
The government delegation did not pretend New Zealand had all the answers, particularly around outcomes for Māori and Pasifika children, Mrs Tolley said.
But Unicef NZ executive director Vivien Maidaborn, who was part of the delegation, said the panel had expressed concern about the new ministry.
“The comment that was made was, ‘I don’t understand why you would call a Ministry the Ministry of Vulnerable Children when it could just have been the Ministry of Children. You’re in danger of overtargeting towards vulnerable children at the expense of rights to all New Zealand children.'”
Govt is only part of the problem, when a overwhelmed family has been forced to work several jobs, lacks access to family time, bonding opportunities, money to spend to take family out etc… …thanks to govt. You then should look at private sector abuses of child rearing. Working stiffs get how bone tired only to find there role at providing a healthy meal is impossible as our supermarket routinely extort money from them. Good retail provide the five basics, quality, consistency, availability, price, choice. Go in our major food retailers, and you’ll findaisles of sugery foods, varying prices, varying quality, unavailability (take red grapefruit f available its been on the shevles so long they’ve had to infuse it with detergent to keep it looking sellable. Fruit cooked on the inside. Meat tasteless and obvious thawed passed off as fresh, and wtf does freeflow meat mean.
You want to know why the poorest in NZ, the child of the poorest, are so badly off, its quite simple. Labour MPs have too much wealth, there’s too few of them, and they have no connection to poverty and to much to propert, to the ideals of big retail. It was hard to believe, but Australia is institutionalized racist, take how Maori are treated there, and NZ is socially fascists, its retailers work far too hard squeezing profits to actually do it efficiently. Bulk sales means lower costs, o nly poor managers a poor mangerment class, like our awfully small parliament doubling as a upper chamber, would think that our extremist retail sector is good for either profits of shareholders (its not as debt growth from over paying idiots to produce another opportunity to grow rebates is not…
We suffer in NZ from a lack of critical thinkers who can stand up and call a spade a spade, and have to many critics doing meta analaysis of their own meta handingly of procedural nonosense. Raise the no of MPs, fund public broadcasting, and put distance between business and govt, so let our nation finall breath some democratic air for a change.
The head of the Women’s Refuge says recently signalled reforms to tackle family violence mean they’ll need even more funding, and soon.
Dr Ang Jury from the Palmerston North Women’s RefugeAng Jury said Women’s Refuge had not received any increase to its core service funding since about 2008.
Justice Minister Amy Adams told TV3’s The Nation a $130 million package announced this week was largely about changes to the legal framework and a ministerial taskforce is still working on how to fund frontline services.
Dr Ang Jury said they would like to see an announcement before current contracts end in June.
“There’s been no increase in our core service funding since about 2008 and all of the reforms which are being signalled as being put in place are requiring more.
“Now I understand that the ministers are well and truly aware of that, and that they are working on that, but at this point in time we’ve got no idea what happens next.”
Big story on racism and the justice system – well known to some may open eyes of others
A Stuff Circuit investigation has delved into 10 years’ worth of data, examining arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing records and spoken to a broad range of people confronting the problem.
Problem? Undeniably, yes. There is no doubt that, from whichever angle you look at it, there is a serious skew in the system against Maori.
Even the Government acknowledges it. A senior official admitted to Stuff Circuit that unconscious bias in the justice system was a “live issue”.
Besides, the numbers are undeniable…
…As part of our research, we looked back at the number of police apprehensions over the past 10 years. It’s roughly the same number for Pakeha as Maori – 875,000 versus 868,000.
But if the number of Maori apprehensions were adjusted to match the proportion of the population made up by Maori, the number of Maori apprehensions would reduce to about 300,000.
Think about that for a minute: half a million fewer arrests of Maori. Imagine what it would mean not just for Maori but for our country if that was the reality.
As part of our research, we looked back at the number of police apprehensions over the past 10 years. It’s roughly the same number for Pakeha as Maori – 875,000 versus 868,000.
But if the number of Maori apprehensions were adjusted to match the proportion of the population made up by Maori, the number of Maori apprehensions would reduce to about 300,000.
That could indicate racism or that Māori are more likely to commit crimes. Considering that poverty does drive criminal activity then that may actually be true considering that Māori are also over represented in poverty statistics.
If Māori do commit more crime then we need to address the cause for that and that is most likely to mean addressing the cause of poverty which itself is probably, partially at least, due to racism. A large part is capitalism which is the direct cause of poverty in the first place.
That needs the entire sentence and what it was a response to as all I was doing there was showing that the bit quoted could show two things and thus wasn’t something that could be used to base a conclusion on.
Weak police and people in power, profiling others based on their appearance aka skin colour. They need to sharpen up, psychologically advance.
Next generation teaches me, my youngest points to a person in a group of others, telling me how awesome that person is, how they helped her at school and that he was a nice kid, i ask her which one, she replies the one with the orange shirt on, he was the only brown kid in that small group of kids and she choose to identify him by his shirt colour. Kudos little one keep it up.
Thanks for highlighting this demonstrable stain MM. One can only guess at the figures if Polynesian people were included in the analysis……a million, more ?
My almost daily and oftentimes bitter experience is of a justice system which discriminates against Maori and Polynesian, particularly the young. In randomly varying measure it is evident at all levels. From police on the street to police prosecutors to probation officials to court officials to lawyers to judicial officers. The ‘spin’, grand mission statements and so on, tells differently. Trouble is the ‘spin’ is devised and disseminated to conceal the ugly fact rather than to own and address it. A construct moral comfort.
Subliminal racist attitudes persuade that “these people” are more or less definitionally culpable. Time and again “these people” are treated accordingly as the Stuff analysis shows.
Examples are too numerous to report exhaustively. I will report this informally made observation from a District Court judge – “We are at real risk of civil unrest in New Zealand…….” Yes, poverty of course but when as is so often the case the picture includes racism…….ask yourself. A society can blame and brand and humiliate and dehumanise for only so long.
b waghorn
If it is; “more classism than racism”, then how do explain this?
Parliament’s Senior Māori Advisor is angry he was threatened with arrest when pulled over by Wellington police because he chose to respond to the officer’s questions in te reo Māori. Kura Moeahu says he did nothing wrong and was only exercising his legal right to speak his national language…
“[The officer said] ‘Don’t talk like that, I won’t have that talk to me’, so I continue to respond in Māori and then he said, ‘you do that again I’m going to arrest you’.”
If i was a cop and i pulled someone up while doing my job and the spoke to me another language when i knew damn well he could speak my language i’d just see him as being a foolish dick head. Or are you suggesting all police be multi lingual .
I am suggesting that our police should have multilingual capability – for the official languages of Aotearoa/ NZ (though it wouldn’t hurt to be able to communicate with tourists too). The individual officer might be monolingual, but an interpreter service should be accessible; this might even be an app for te reo (though I’ve heard that they’re a bit iffy so far).
Would you also suggest that someone who persisted in using NZ sign language as being a; “foolish dick head”?
”Would you also suggest that someone who persisted in using NZ sign language as being a; “foolish dick head”?”
if they could hear and speak then yes if they were deaf or mute or both then of course not
That’s the thing about making a language an official one of your country – you’re free to demand that public officials use it when they speak to you. The cop should count himself lucky it wasn’t a deaf-rights activist demanding to be dealt with in sign language.
Gabby
Yes, the cop does sound like a; “pigheaded arsehole”. Not accepting that he was an officer of the law being addressed in an official language of the country.
Bradbury has some nice phrases for this issue over on TDB:
…if that’s the way the Police treat a Maori on the Police Advisory board, how do you think they treat Maori on the street when no one is looking?…
That it’s taken almost 2 centuries for us to discuss how racist the system of NZ really is should be the shocking part of this issue.
Structural racism can only exist when the majority wilfully denies that it exists.
Hopefully the SJW’s and all those women group advocates who signed the document when the witch hunt was in full swing show a bit of spine and apologise to the Chiefs rugby players.
Of course, if you are a true New Zealander, you don’t say sorry if you’re a man, do you?
Educate yourself.
David Cunliffe’s apology brave, not silly
‘Please tell me I’m dreaming”, texted a friend of mine. “Please tell me that David Cunliffe didn’t just apologise for being a man.”
I stared at my cell-phone in disbelief. Was he joking? Why would the leader of a political party languishing in the opinion polls alienate at least half of the voting public? Why would he hand his opponents such an enormous cudgel? As if his party wasn’t already battered enough?
Later that day, at the pub, the guffaws and the jokes continued. I have to confess, I contributed my fair share of them. I would also point out that although all of my drinking companions were Lefties, by no means all of them were men. This was equal-opportunity ridicule.
So what was going on here? Why were a tableful of seasoned Leftists – male and female – and all of them well-versed in the facts and figures of domestic violence in New Zealand, so unanimous in condemning the opening sentences of David Cunliffe’s speech to last Friday’s Women’s Refuge Symposium?
It might be useful, here, to remind ourselves of his actual words: “Can I begin by saying I’m sorry – I don’t often say it – I’m sorry for being a man, right now. Because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children. So the first message to the men out there is: ‘wake up, stand up, man up and stop this bullshit’.”
You see? Written down in full and contextualised, Cunliffe’s words don’t look all that silly – do they? Indeed, you might even say they look rather brave.
None of us seated around that table at the pub, and no intelligent person reading Cunliffe’s sentences anywhere else in New Zealand, would dispute them. The perpetration of psychological, physical and sexual violence is overwhelmingly a masculine phenomenon. And while not every male is guilty of assaulting and/or raping women and girls, the violence inflicted upon females by a minority of males does contribute to the maintenance of a patriarchal culture from which all men derive benefit.
Patriarchy and imperialism are closely related, so perhaps it would help to elucidate the role that violence plays in shoring up our patriarchal culture by elucidating the role it played in shoring up the British Empire.
It is said that the entire Indian sub-continent was kept in the thrall of Great Britain by an imperial administration of fewer than 100,000 men. By no means all of these men were engaged in the brutal business of repression. The majority were well-educated, thoroughly decent civil servants who would never have dreamed of flogging a man to death, or presiding over the slow starvation of an entire province. Such dreadful acts were carried out by others: by soldiers and policemen. Deplorable, of course, but necessary – if the British Raj was to survive.
Is that why even we Lefties buried our heads in our hands upon hearing Cunliffe’s words? Because we knew, instinctively, just how outraged “ordinary” men would be when they heard them?
Not because these other men were in favour of hurting women and children, but because, however ham-fistedly, Cunliffe had acknowledged all men’s complicity in the myriad acts of violence and intimidation that mandate the equally numerous acts of female-to-male deference and acceptance by which the patriarchal individual defines himself.
The exercise of power and control constitutes the common coinage of both patriarchy and imperialism. And, no matter how thoroughly we attempt to conceal them beneath the draperies of romantic love and the “White Man’s Burden”, the true character of their brutal transactions cannot be hidden.
All men (and, I suspect, an alarmingly large number of women also) learn to both see and not-see the effects of domestic and sexual violence. We recoil in horror from the murdered wives and children but find it next to impossible to recognise the manifest evil in the perpetrators – the men invariably described as “just an ordinary bloke, a good family man”. But, in portraying these “enforcers” of patriarchy in such chillingly normative terms we confirm (albeit unconsciously) our own participation in the dark secret that Cunliffe shouted to the world.
That these horrors are of our making – men’s making – and will persist until, acknowledging the role violence plays in preserving our patriarchal privilege, we can all say: “I’m sorry for being a man.”
So true Ad. Andrew wondered why we import so many chefs and was ridiculed for ages. Now? Questions are being raised about that.
David’s, ““Can I begin by saying I’m sorry – I don’t often say it – I’m sorry for being a man, right now. Because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children. So the first message to the men out there is: ‘wake up, stand up, man up and stop this bullshit’.”
Now it is becoming more relevant. We do nod in agreement.
Agree, and just wanted to add that only a non alpha male does not apologise even when he is wrong.
An Alpha Male has no hang-ups. He simply says, “I was wrong. I apologise.” And he rectifies the problem if possible.
A sure way of spotting the boys from the men, men admit when they are wrong then try and fix the problem. But then again parenting does have a role to play, much of it is learned behaviour. Break the cycle
@.BM/James. Do you two sit together in class? Bet the teacher gets annoyed with you. A lot to say while saying nothing of any consequence. Boring in the extreme.
The Police should still have dealt with the matter as one of theft. It seems the products on offer were available to those willing to pay appropriately but like a shoplifter they chose not to.
The driver admitted to licking “Scarlette” as she performed a lap dance for him, which was paid for by the Chiefs.
He said he did so after he was egged on by Chief team members.
I hope you are not justifying the Chief’s actions. Did you note their behaviour as reported in the article?
This is the reason why we have such awful statistics in this country.
James sounds like a dickhead letting his balls do the thinking for him ……..
Rugby union must love clowns like him or BMs and the ugly face it puts to our shit house minor league and irrelevant national game ………..
Club player numbers are through the floor …………….
The lost sheep was going on about super 15 rugby players licking arseholes at team celebrations the other day ………. like it was a normal part of the game …..
It does not seem very family orientated though ……………
I hope john key does not have any NZ rugby players involved with his lawyer and their tax haven connections …………….
Witness statements are notoriously unreliable and Scarlette was justifiably outraged by not being paid in full for her services. A chiefs player would be aggrieved if he wasn’t paid by his employer to do the job he had agreed to.
@ James. A civil case would be great. Then these ghost witnesses would have to front up and be visible and swear to ‘tell the truth’ etc. How do you know they even exist? And doesn’t it seem ironical that the only REAL witness is an elderly bus driver who appears to have been thrown under his own bus? It is also telling that none of the rugby team (chiefs) have fronted up to tell their story. Why haven’t they? Pathetic rugby brand being protected by the Old Boys Club.
Boys will always stick together, we all know that, especially those boys. I can fully see them egging on the bus driver, or using him for a scape goat. Only those whom were there know the real story.
It’s rugby, cleverly managed by the media to keep it shiny as key cradles it in his punny arms.
It sounds to me like the Chiefs team members didn’t have the bottle to do what the driver did and so they egged him on so they could visually get their jollies off – whatever the outcome its disgusting. What staggers me is from reading these comments from BM and others is the extent of the vitriole and hatred some men in NZ have for women. There is real anger in their replies – why do these men hate women so much – what have women done to them in their lives to have this attitude?
Yep. The stripper was whinging because she didn’t get an extra $50 for the licking & touching. Happy to do anything if she’s paid for it.
We all know this type.
@Fireblade,
Well it is $50 extra if you are sick in the taxi on top of the fare. Maybe look at in this light. The women had to do something unpleasant (put up with the touching) so expected to be paid for it. The points are that
a) did she consent to the touching?,
b) if she did consent, then she was ripped off as they did not pay her for it. Either way, not acceptable. (In their warped little brains maybe they imagine she enjoyed it and therefore should not be paid). Just as the drunks think that taxi drivers should clean up vomit as part of their duties.
c) This is completely unacceptable anyway for a group representing the country to acting this way. What’s next, strip teases at parliament for the men to get their jollies???
it is actually really easy, she is working in a legal profession and has the right to a safe workplace. if these geezers can’t behave themselves after a beer or many, than they need to be
a. trained in how to consume alcohol responsible
b. taught the difference between consent and not consent
c. taught how commercial transactions come about and what happens when a contractual obligation is not upheld
d. trained into not being an ass when pretending to be a ‘role model’ for the young in this country, lest we would like to see our young turn into asses like they are.
e. taught that prostitutes, strippers, burlesque dancers and all others that work in the adult entertainment business are full human beings with all the rights of full human beings.
Just like the Warrior players are happy to be paid for being in a scrum and tackling. Close body contacts and exchange of sweat, blood, saliva, egged on by a cheering crowd many of them drunk.
BM @ 5
You call her a liar? As any honest woman would tell you… better to carry on the charade than admit you’re upset. Who knows what might happen if a bunch of obnoxious, drunken rugby hooligans discover you don’t like their behaviour. After all they were a lot bigger than she was.
To describe you and your ilk as neanderthals is an insult to Neanderthals. I bet they didn’t behave like that. The All Blacks – aka The Chiefs – only served to confirm for me what I have long known. They are the worst possible ‘role models’ imaginable for impressionable school boys.
It says heaps about what is really wrong with this country.
Totally agree Anne.
It is clear from the account that the Chiefs were behaving like ‘obnoxious, drunken hooligans’, yet James and BM feel sorry for them.
Anne – I don’t know what made you so bitter – but a lot of those guys are indeed fantastic role models.
You say you have always known that they were bad role models without having met most (if any) of them, without knowing their lives and values or how they behave.
You make allegations and remarks based off your view of what you think they would be like.
But you get shitty if it’s on the other foot. People like you are more of the problem than anything.
You probably think the woman in this story is a better role model. Despite being proven a liar and running to the media with a billshit story trying to ruin the lives of other people.
You say you have always known that they were bad role models without having met most (if any) of them, without knowing their lives and values or how they behave.
We do know how they behave. Their atrocious behaviour is almost always in the news and arseholes like you are ready and willing to defend that behaviour.
Regardless of the Scarlett carry-on, it remains abundantly clear that rucking fugby has turned a team sport into an embarrassing all encompassing lifestyle. A lifestyle of pack mentality by and for testosterone driven boof heads. Rugby has always had this element in NZ, but it has worsened with the move to professional sport and the neolib attitude of win at all costs. Exactly what this Government fosters.
As an aside, it is a total embarrassment to attend any match now and observe the crowd behaviour.
A lifestyle of pack mentality by and for testosterone driven boof heads. Rugby has always had this element in NZ, but it has worsened with the move to professional sport and the neolib attitude of win at all costs. Exactly what this Government fosters.
Brilliantly put. Thanks Garibaldi. And lets remind ourselves which politician – more than any other in recent years – has fostered this untenable culture by his own behaviour? Yes, the prime-minister of the day, John Key.
And right on cue, Q & A this morning included a lengthy interview with Amy Adams (plus a robust debate from the panel) about the violence towards women and children in this country and what to do about it. Not surprisingly the Chiefs affair was mentioned more than once.
I don’t think Anne is bitter, she is telling the truth. Why is it every time someone has a comment which the right does not feel comfortable with the person commenting is always “bitter”?
“but a lot of those guys are indeed fantastic role models.”
You must be Joking, I would be most surprised if any of my kids had any Thugby player as a role model. Real men and role models aren’t they to younger generations when they had a stripper at one of their functions.
The are put on pedestals by the media and politicians when they think they can score browny points off them.
There are a lot of better role models in NZ that do a lot more than fight over an odd shaped ball in a paddock.
To describe you and your ilk as neanderthals is an insult to Neanderthals. I bet they didn’t behave like that. The All Blacks – aka The Chiefs – only served to confirm for me what I have long known. They are the worst possible ‘role models’ imaginable for impressionable school boys.
She was? You know this how, exactly? Nothing in the article you linked to provides a basis for such firm conviction – maybe the certainty’s an artefact of your prejudice, not a demonstrated outcome of the evidence.
The bus driver sounds like a BM type character. Willing to drop a whole rugby squad in it for 5 weeks before coming clean. Partial to the coverup and probably full of bullshit anyway.
If it was all Labour’s bus drivers fault I’m sure he would have been crucified from day one. Funny he wasn’t.
How in the world do you get that Scarlett was lying about what happened from that article?
All it says is that one older man, who was there for a short time, thinks Scarlett was talking about him in her complaint because he licked her. Sounds like the Chiefs have found someone to throw under the bus.
Syrian flash pointier: US Centcom admits error in airstrike killing 62 Syrian Army soldiers, wounding over 100 more and destroying vital equipment and facilities, allowing head chopping Islamic jihadists to advance on a Syrian air base.
This is what happens when you have a government owned by lobbyists.
Policy that does not tackle the issues properly.
The government has been accused of ignoring scientific evidence of how alcohol reform could contribute to reducing family violence.
Professor Doug Sellman, medical spokesman for Alcohol Action NZ, insists the government has a mistaken political ideology that education and targeting interventions at high risk individuals is the correct way to tackle social problems like family violence, without evidence that approach works.
He says the government has cynically dismissed the Law Commission’s report recommending reform of alcohol pricing, marketing, accessibility and age of purchase.
“There’s been very little done about alcohol law reform in New Zealand, despite the Government – I think – pretending they are doing a lot,” he said.
The government has been accused of ignoring scientific evidence of how alcohol reform could contribute to reducing family violence.
Sellman’s a fuckwit. Yes, banning alcohol could contribute to reducing family violence. So could banning men and women from living together. Solutions that aren’t stupid ones would be more worth looking at.
Principle’s the same: restricting access to alcohol would reduce family violence; so would restricting the opportunities for men and women to live together; and there are other, equally stupid measures that could be adopted, like installing video surveillance in every home. Just because some stupid idea would reduce family violence doesn’t make it less of a stupid idea.
Principle’s the same: restricting access to alcohol would reduce family violence; so would restricting the opportunities for men and women to live together;
No, they’re not.
One is shaping the market to help bring about reform while the other simply a stupid, illogical argument because it cannot be done and you know it.
Can’t be done? Tell that to Saudi Arabia. Of course it can be done, the only question is whether the fact that it would reduce family violence means it should be done. “Reduce family violence” isn’t some kind of trump card that means the government must adopt any stupid idea some fanatic comes up with.
Yes, cannot be done. Saudi Arabia has a completely different culture than we do and there’s no way that such restrictions could be put in place in NZ.
On the other hand, we have restrictions on alcohol sales that do mostly work and further minor restrictions will still work and produce some sort of result in decrease in both binge drinking and lower violence.
We already have an overly restrictive approach to alcohol and even more so to other recreational drugs. Tinkering around the edges making already stupid workarounds more stupid isn’t a good approach to problem-solving.
We already have an overly restrictive approach to alcohol and even more so to other recreational drugs.
I agree with the other drugs needing to be legalised but I also think that raising the age to 21 from its present 18 and putting in place more restrictive opening hours of pubs would help and so does the research.
You’re calling it ‘tinkering around the edges’ while the government does nothing at all. Laws aren’t perfect and they do need to be changed and updated every now and again based upon the evidence. You’re doing the same as the government and ignoring that evidence.
As usual with the Nacts its even worse than it appears on the surface ….
They swung their Dirty politics unit into action against health professionals and others seeking to lower alcohol abuse …………
John Key was the first out of the blocks to go ‘nah fuck that’,….. and immediately nobble the main recommendations from the Law Commission’s report ….
The laws they did end passing are an expensive mess for councils and ratepayers …. with the booze companys appealing every liquor plan submitted …………
Twice under the misuse of urgency in parliament the Nacts passed pro-booze laws……..
So clearly Collins, Tolly, Bennett, Adams,Key etc are all liars when they pretend to be concerned about child welfare and abuse ………….
A lot of extra kids have experienced or witnessed violence because of Alcohol abuse in their homes …..
Finally rehab services have been shrunk and are inferior to what they once were …… they are still the first to get chopped or cut back when health funds and budgets are under stress ….
What society calls Alcoholics and problem drinkers ….. the booze company s call high value customers.
A relapsed alcoholic earns the piss sellers heaps ……….
If I wanted to fuck up Alcoholics recoveries….. I’d stick booze in supermarkets
If I wanted to keep domestic violence rates high …… I’d keep alcohol abuse rates high ….
Didn’t those ‘independent witnesses’ say they saw ‘nothing happen’? Did any of them mention a naughty bus driver? Barbara Streisand effect maybe? There’s a story going round in rugby fan circles that the stripper was ‘paid off’ by rugby management not to comment.
I was waiting for the ‘hysterical’ word to come up! Nice one, never one to disappoint are you James! Now the ladeees should just shut up, its mans time now.
Then she should have admitted it was all about the money. Seems like she enjoyed it at the time and gave CONSENT. Then she’s all boo hoo I wasn’t paid enough. Good on the Pensioner for having go. Get real people, this how [deleted] operate.
[That’s quite some run-up to the line you’ve taken in order to jump waaay over there. Well done…outta sight! One month ban] – Bill
“Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy’s small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict.[1]”
The area between opposing trench lines (known as “no man’s land”) was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides….” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare
It has been interesting reading the; “100 years ago” reprints in the ODT. The level of propagandist drumbeating for the war makes me wonder how our own media will be seen after a similar interval (assuming there’s anyone left to read it) eg:
The thoughts of the people of New Zealand will be with the members of their Expeditionary Force who form part of that glorious army which is facing discomfort, danger, and the risk of death in order to protect their Empire and to assist in crushing the military despotism of Germany.
That was actually from earlier in the week (13/9/1916). Because, although later reprints do have such WTF images as Indian Calvary preparing for the Somme, that day had this reminder of how wars can be used to justify other ends:
Wellington states that the film censorship regulations have been gazetted, and will come into operation to-morrow. Provision has been made for the establishment of a Board of Appeal, consisting of three persons, who will be appointed shortly. Strong representations have been made to the Minister urging the appointment of at least one woman to the Appeal Board; but, as the censorship deals with the questions of decency and suggestiveness of films, Mr Russell, after careful consideration, has decided that, in order to provide full freedom for the discussion of details, it is better that women should not be on the board.
Is this not what the activist left want to happen?
“A speech from Andrew Little in which he acknowledges the devastation wrought by Rogernomics, and spelling out how he proposes to right the wrongs it inflicted on working-class Kiwis, would almost certainly produce a similar galvanising effect as Brash’s 2004 speech to the Orewa Rotary Club.”
Speaking Maori to a Police Officer is considered a threat …. nekminit Maori will be shot because Maori man looked aggressively at me “Police Officer” says? Do we need to declare we’ve got an Apartheid State in Aotearoa, oh sorry, Nueeew Zeeeelind? WTF. Nick Smiths got a lot to answer for! Kiwi versus Iwi election campaign slogan-John Ansell! http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/police-meet-maori-adviser-after-incident-2016091719
No one likes to be pulled over by the police. This looks like Kura Moeahu was being a little naughty…quickly working out the police officer did not understand him so milked it for all it was worth.
New Zealand has three official languages, English, Maori and NZ sign. How is it rude and arrogant to speak one of these official langauges? Would it be rude an arrogant for a deaf person to speak in New Zealand Sign language? Or does it only apply to Maori?
“How is it rude and arrogant to speak one of these official langauges?”
When the other party to the conversation does not understand what you are saying…more so in this case when a police officer is just trying to do his/her job.
It is not rude or arrogant to speak an official langauge of this country. What is rude and arrogant is racists like you trying to deny someones rights to do that. As I said would a deaf person speaking in sign been treated the same way
In this case yep. Moeahu was clearly looking to cause “a issue” by refusing to communicate with the police officer (who obviously could not speak Te Reo).
Speaking the National language of the country isn’t a crime.(Well not yet) The price of milk has nothing to do with what language one speaks or what colour your skin is. Ignorance is in-discriminant too, race shouldn’t be a reason to discriminate nor should, colour & what language one speaks. I don’t speak Maori. I have a desire to but have tried a number of times to learn but I think my “programming” from the 80’s NZ’s ed. system has some influence on my ability to do so, so I’ll just plug along with the this language for now. Chuck, you’re obviously “unaware” of institutional racism and more aligned probably with Nick Smiths way of seeing things? So stand by and observe, you might just learn something?? Its time that Institutional Racism is addressed and if its possible to do so, keep the bigots, racists and inbreds well away from the debate.
It has everything to do with racism. He was speaking an official language of New Zealand as he is legally entitled to do and was threatened with arrest for that. The fact you can’ t see that as a problem highlights Takeres point regarding the institutional racism in this country.
“Sigh…its called common courtesy to communicate in a language that both parties understand.” My god how many times has that old chestnut been dragged out by English speakers too arrogant to learn another language?
“people like you to scream “see its racism” says it all”. People like me who are Maori experience racism everyday and unlike people like you I have seldomly been treated with any courtesy when I have had dealings with the police.
Or people like my koro who feel more comfortable speaking in Te Reo than in English and should be able to do so without being threatened with arrest or being called plonkers by you
I see you still have not addressed whether a deaf person using sign would have been considered arrogant or would have been threatened with arrest.
“English speakers too arrogant to learn another language?”
Why should every NZer “have to learn Te Reo”? no issue with those who want to (or can learn, as even Takere said he has tried but can’t pick up a new language).
“People like me who are Maori experience racism everyday” I call bullshit on that…nearly 3/4 of my family have Maori blood in there veins, they work in a diverse range of jobs, from a police officer to builders, admin, customer service and early childhood ed. They don’t experience racism everyday or most other times.
Are you mixing up racism with just everyday BS that ALL of us have to put up with?
Don’t get me wrong…Maori are on the wrong side of a bunch of things, that needs to be improved. Going around with a chip on ones shoulder does not help matters.
“Or people like my koro who feel more comfortable speaking in Te Reo than in English and should be able to do so without being threatened with arrest or being called plonkers by you”
Your koro are just being awkward and rude. If they know the other person cannot speak Te Reo.
“I see you still have not addressed whether a deaf person using sign would have been considered arrogant or would have been threatened with arrest.”
If a person is deaf that would be clearly signaled and understood by the police officer. And if required an interrupter would be used.
Whenever I go to a petrol station the attendent makes me come in and pay first even though often a white guy will pull up at the next pump and give a little wave and have his pump turned on. I then go inside and explain I want a fill and am asked for a credit card. Meanwhile white guy has pumped his gas and is coming in to pay. Only difference is the colour of our skin.
So yes I see this as racism not everyday bullshit.
I work at a University and regularly travel overseas to conferences etc and for no apparant reason I “randomly” get stopped for “random” checks. My pakeha colleagues say it’s not because I am Maori, it is because I look middle eastern so am mistaken for a terrorist and they may be right but either way it is racial profiling.
I also work closely with schools in South Auckland helping teachers to provide culturally responsive programmes for Maori and Pasifika. I have lost track of the number of times a Pakeha teacher has made comments about nothing being done for white kids when our whole education system is designed to benefit white kids and there is not a single white kid in their class.
I never said that you should learn Te Reo I merely pointed out the arrogance of English speakers (not just in this country) who believe everyone should have to speak English when nearly every other ethnic group speaks multiple langauges.
It always makes me smile when Pakeha teachers talk about their Samoan and Tongan students being below standard. I mention to them that those kids speak two languages and by that standard it is them that is below.
Lastly I do not have a chip on my shoulder. I am extremely well balanced and have a chip on both shoulders.
Who gives a shit what they call themselves. She was a stripper. She was hired from strippers r us. She was found under the sedition Waikato strippers on the female strippers page.
Go on admit it – even to someone who is in denial- she’s a stripper right ?
Hello CV, I would be interested to hear your opinion on the DCC candidates this year, I am social aquaintances with Ronald Fung & find him a pleasant approachable guy. What do you think?
Gangnam Style
I put a cross by Fung’s name mainly on the basis that he used too many exclamation marks in his Candidate Information booklet blurb. Also, the way he was enthusing about facilitating private investment in white elephant projects (tourism seems a very shaky platform for economic development). However, I haven’t filled out the voting form yet.
I would be happy to learn more about the candidates when they’re not targeting their brief words to what they assume the voters want to hear. So far, I’ve only been googling background on the Mayoral aspirants. Those other candidates who aren’t already councillors are a blank to me.
Gabby
That assumes that the white elephant (a harbour pier, when Dunedin’s attraction to tourists is largely in its not completely trashed natural environment), is worth while in the first place. If it requires the election of a councilor to implement the project, rather than it being viable on its own merits, then that seems to be more likely to be for the benefit of the private investors than the town’s people (in this case securing planning permission against the industrial area’s opposition).
That said, Fung isn’t one of the candidates who I’ve crossed off the list for asset selling. Though there are no shortage of those promising to focus on “rate stability” & “core infrastructure” which translates to asset sales. Also anyone with a background in real estate tends to get crossed off the list pretty quickly.
Awesome story on The Listening Post this morning. All about the media in the USA, I didn’t know that Bill Clinton signed a communications agreement in the ’90’s effectively transforming the media into a monopoly, changing the landscape into what we see today, 6 corporations controlling 96% of media in the USA.
Well worth a watch, just 30mins long. Fascinating write up on how media is capitalising on Trumps notoriety to gain huge profits via advertising/ratings.
Watch this film.
It covers a lot on the issue of the US media.
Of course a lot can now be applied to NZ as well.
“Shadows of Liberty presents the phenomenal true story of today’s disintegrating freedoms within the U.S. media, and government, that they don’t want you to see. The film takes an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global media conglomerates exercise extraordinary political, social, and economic power. The overwhelming collective power of these firms raises troubling questions about democracy. Highly revealing interviews, actuality, and archive material, tell insider accounts of a broken media system, where journalists are prevented from pursuing controversial news stories, people are censored for speaking out against abuses of government power, and individual lives are shattered as the arena for public expression has been turned into a private profit zone. Will the Internet remain free, or be controlled by a handful of powerful, monopolistic corporations? The media crisis is at the core of today’s most troubling issues, and people everywhere are taking action, trying to change the media monopolies’ strangle hold on information.”
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
or something similar and it’s as true as the day is long.
Currently I am living in an age where I am not in control of my countries destiny but those in power have control of mine. When we lost the fourth estate we lost democracy, and in most western countries you will see how media has progressed this way since well starting in the 90’s I’d say.
If you look at the western worlds media moguls today can you name even one without far right political leanings if not direct ties?
Bill Clinton created the model of a Democratic Party paid for and captive to large corporates (broadcasting, banks, etc.) using the active assumption that the working class would keep voting Democratic anyway because “they had no where else to go.”
Is it normal for someone to get arrested by a NZ cop for only speaking French, Chinese, Tongan or any other language other than english? Or just Te Reo. Or would the cop try & find an interpreter first?
While the elderly New Zealanders and others in pain suffer because this government and Peter Dunne has denied them legal access to medicinal cannibas…there are political lobby groups involved and big Bucks..pharmaceutical companies and the alcohol industry
‘Opioid use decreases in US states that legalize medical marijuana – study’
“New research shows a decline in the use of opioid painkillers in US states that allow people to treat pain with medical marijuana, affirming the fears of Big Pharma who have been vigorously seeking to frustrate efforts to legalize the herb….
“Given the growing opioid overdose epidemic, campaigning against medical marijuana is morally repugnant.”
“We cannot allow prescription drug companies to block the legalization of #medicalcannabis http://huff.to/2clBjZY”
“Addictive painkiller profiteer donates $500k to fight cannabis legalization in #Arizona http://on.rt.com/7oux”
…”Insys isn’t the first pharmaceutical company to be found bankrolling anti-marijuana legislation though with a number of alcohol and pharmaceutical companies “heavily” invested in such laws in a number of states, according to The Intercept.
Oh, but what about euthanasia… …a distraction issue to speak to older people and move away from getting on with medical legalization. Anyone who needs these drugs should have to declare it, lose their license, be banned from certain jobs, and anyone stupid enough to get themselves addict should suffer similar fates, they wont be so eager to di drugs if they cant drive, or have to declare in public being needy of chemical immerframes. Olds should be respectedthese drugs are for them, youth need to know they can wait for old age to have their spin.
And wtf, whats with the palative lobby, do they make a bundle from elderly putting them in their will or what. Put a quota up, allow say five euthanasias a year, its not like elderly people aren’t being now, its just they have to change their wills first. Bring it out into the open and we can then start focusing on the real number of such killings.
And wtf gives with the SST are these fools for real, they cant believe they serve crime when they call for harnessness, people trip up, they find themselves in jail, they dont need to be pushed further away from society, brutalized they come out hating, that means more crime, there’s nothing sensuble about the SST if it wants harsher punishment, its oxymoronic.
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
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I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
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 ...
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Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
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The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
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or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The instability comes as the party tries to refresh its brand after six years of being part of a right-wing, pro-imperialist government with both the Labour Party and, from 2017-2020, the far-right NZ First Party. ...
Based on the latest Treasury forecasts, New Zealand Government debt will tick above $90,000 per household for the first time ever at 10pm today, Sunday 19 May 2024. The Taxpayers’ Union is calling it “$90k Debt Day”. Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ ...
Arawata Shane Arawata Shane had wandered long In the wild tangled hills of the West Coast. He came to a stop on the mighty range And looked down at the wide river flats. He breathed in the clean air, And he took in the shadows playing across The face of ...
SPECIAL REPORT:Islands Business in Suva Today is the 24th anniversary of renegade and failed businessman George Speight’s coup in 2000 Fiji. The elected coalition government headed by Mahendra Chaudhry, the first and only Indo-Fijian prime minister of Fiji, was held hostage at gunpoint for 56 days in the country’s ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist and Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Police have used tear gas and stun grenades on rioters at an airport near Nouméa as the chaos in New Caledonia stretched into its sixth day. Five people, including two police officers, have died and hundreds of ...
Asia Pacific ReportThe global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on France to not “misuse” a crackdown in the ongoing unrest in the non-self-governing French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in the wake of a controversial vote by the French Parliament to adopt a bill changing the territory’s ...
A major provider of school lunches fears the government's new $3 limit for most students will see them eating more pre-packaged and processed food. ...
The star of Dark City: The Cleaner takes us through his life in TV, including the VHS revolution and the John Campbell impression that started it all. Best known for his comedic roles, Cohen Holloway says he struggled at times to maintain the stone cold facade of serial killer on ...
David Hill remembers an old friend, who you’ve probably never heard of. My friend Doug never travelled; he had little interest in the world beyond his own tiny rural town. I’ve rarely known anyone who radiated such contentment. Doug (I’ll call him that) died in March. You won’t know him. ...
Some of the earliest photos of life in Aotearoa are on display at Auckland Museum right now – but the identities of some of the people in them are a mystery.What was it like to be one of the first people in New Zealand to have their photo taken? ...
Since its founding almost a decade ago, Featherston Booktown has grown into one of the country’s most interesting and idiosyncratic literary events. Erin Banks reports from the audience. “Come in, have you had lunch? I’m about to make a cheese toastie.” Mary Biggs, operations manager of Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival, ...
After 33 years abroad, Loveni Enari recently returned to Aotearoa and Samoa in what a friend joked was an “existential crisis”. He learnt and re-learnt so much about his family, friends and both countries. Almost as an afterthought, he got a Samoan tatau. This is his story. (Accompanying it are ...
Nearly 30 years ago, two people told me they’d killed a woman they knew. I thought the truth would come out, that others would tell it. In the end, I had to. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Fact: in 1995, Angela Blackmoore ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at the week and shines a light on some increasingly rare longform journalism. Mōrena and welcome to The Weekend where there will sadly be no aurora to see. After a busy week last week of short, sharp pieces, this week we swung the other way, ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hao’ofa was to cultural advocates. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during ...
Forget thin is in, apparently now bigger is better … or is it? After over a decade of body positivity, girls, teens and women are even more confused about what body positivity actually is. The movement began with women confronting unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look. But sub-strands ...
Grace always sat at the bar at the back of The Cambridge, where she could watch who came in. A huge mirror ran the length of the pub, so you could sometimes watch people without them knowing. The mirror made the place seem a lot bigger than it really was. ...
MONDAY Sheriff Mark Mitchell rose at dawn. He had a long day’s ride ahead of him. He was headed for Waikeria. Waikeria! Even the name itself stirred his blood, and set root in his imagination. There was nothing and no one in Waikeria. But he would bend it to his ...
The first phase of the inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones finished this week, turning up plenty of revelations and few answers. But through all the confusion, heartbreak and antipathy on display, the simple fact at the heart of this case remains: if little Lachie’s body had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Benjamin, Professor in Art History, University of Sydney “She’s no oil painting”. Those were the unkind words of a colleague commenting on the subject of Vincent Namatjira’s acrylic painting, Gina. Every one of the prominent Australians and cultural heroes in Namatjira’s ...
Government plans to require local councils hold a referendum on whether to have Māori wards breaches the Treaty of Waitangi, a Waitangi Tribunal report has found. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney This year the National Rugby League (NRL) opened its season in Las Vegas. It was an audacious move by the league’s ambitious head honcho Peter V’Landys to showcase the game in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate Professor, Music Industry, RMIT University Leading music organisations have praised the federal budget for its investment in the live music sector. The budget includes A$8.6 million for a program called Revive Live: to provide essential support to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnee Shay, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Queensland The 2024 federal budget contains A$110 million for Indigenous education. This includes funding for various different organisations to represent and help Indigenous people as well as scholarships in a bid to ...
Air New Zealand has confirmed Nouméa’s Tontouta International airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday. The airline earlier told RNZ it would update customers as soon as it could. Earlier today, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report government officials had been working on an “hourly basis” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Linley, PhD Candidate in Ecology, Charles Sturt University Grant Linley Australia’s unprecedented Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 created ideal conditions for misinformation to spread, from the insidious to the absurd. It was within this context that a bizarre story ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney OpenAI executive Mira Murati launching GPT-4o.OpenAI Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted ...
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A new poem by Hannah Patterson. Xiāng There’s a pear tree in our backyard And Xiāng tells me She can’t eat them anymore Not after some things that have happened in her life. She tells me, in Mandarin The word for pear sounds the same as the word for disassociation ...
‘Cycling Works’ aims to show business support for citywide cycle infrastructure. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, supermarket giant Foodstuffs lost its attempt to block the construction of a cycle lane outside Thorndon New World in Wellington. The Spinoff’s Wellington editor ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport (Penguin, $40)Taking out the top spot in Auckland this ...
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Multi-year appropriations - which give the government authority to spend money without reapplying annually - are loosening Parliament's control of the public purse, auditor-general says. ...
Dr. Eric Chuah who stood for a centrist NZ political party in the October 2023 NZ Elections for Maungakiekie Auckland will stand as a candidate for Tauranga City Council Ward of Matua-=Otumoetai and Mayor of Tauranga. ...
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A new poll commissioned by Unions Wellington shows an overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians oppose the Council’s plan to sell the 34% public stake in Wellington Airport. ...
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This is the Mount Everest of artificial meatcraft.Ah, bacon. Pig’s gold. Toast’s consolation. Dawn’s savoury embrace. If meat was a currency, bacon would be the Benjamin Franklin. Or if you’re feeling patriotic, the Lord Rutherford. When it comes to fake bacon, the obvious question is: why bother? In the ...
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http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/313582/un-challenges-nz-on-child-poverty
Shameful.
Just watch as National cuts the budget for the department and tightens up the criteria.
Govt is only part of the problem, when a overwhelmed family has been forced to work several jobs, lacks access to family time, bonding opportunities, money to spend to take family out etc… …thanks to govt. You then should look at private sector abuses of child rearing. Working stiffs get how bone tired only to find there role at providing a healthy meal is impossible as our supermarket routinely extort money from them. Good retail provide the five basics, quality, consistency, availability, price, choice. Go in our major food retailers, and you’ll findaisles of sugery foods, varying prices, varying quality, unavailability (take red grapefruit f available its been on the shevles so long they’ve had to infuse it with detergent to keep it looking sellable. Fruit cooked on the inside. Meat tasteless and obvious thawed passed off as fresh, and wtf does freeflow meat mean.
You want to know why the poorest in NZ, the child of the poorest, are so badly off, its quite simple. Labour MPs have too much wealth, there’s too few of them, and they have no connection to poverty and to much to propert, to the ideals of big retail. It was hard to believe, but Australia is institutionalized racist, take how Maori are treated there, and NZ is socially fascists, its retailers work far too hard squeezing profits to actually do it efficiently. Bulk sales means lower costs, o nly poor managers a poor mangerment class, like our awfully small parliament doubling as a upper chamber, would think that our extremist retail sector is good for either profits of shareholders (its not as debt growth from over paying idiots to produce another opportunity to grow rebates is not…
We suffer in NZ from a lack of critical thinkers who can stand up and call a spade a spade, and have to many critics doing meta analaysis of their own meta handingly of procedural nonosense. Raise the no of MPs, fund public broadcasting, and put distance between business and govt, so let our nation finall breath some democratic air for a change.
They also straight-up lied to the UN about intersex genital mutilation. Hope the UN call them on it.
Shameful #2
Women’s Refuge needs more funding – and soon.
Meanwhile….
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsgFXIIVUAAk7KI.jpg:large
This just annoys me. They shouldn’t have to struggle for funding.
They need to buy more tables at Cabinet Club. Do they have a general slush fund for bribes?
Big story on racism and the justice system – well known to some may open eyes of others
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/84346494/new-zealands-racist-justice-system–our-law-is-not-colourblind
We all lose because of this institutional racism.
That could indicate racism or that Māori are more likely to commit crimes. Considering that poverty does drive criminal activity then that may actually be true considering that Māori are also over represented in poverty statistics.
If Māori do commit more crime then we need to address the cause for that and that is most likely to mean addressing the cause of poverty which itself is probably, partially at least, due to racism. A large part is capitalism which is the direct cause of poverty in the first place.
Nah it is racism not bad Māori – read the research
I didn’t say anything about Māori being bad.
And you should probably read all that I wrote.
I did read it and i agree about poverty and caputalism but I don’t agree when you say, ‘or that Māori are more likely to commit crimes’
That needs the entire sentence and what it was a response to as all I was doing there was showing that the bit quoted could show two things and thus wasn’t something that could be used to base a conclusion on.
Fair enough sorry for misinterpreting
Strongly agree
Weak police and people in power, profiling others based on their appearance aka skin colour. They need to sharpen up, psychologically advance.
Next generation teaches me, my youngest points to a person in a group of others, telling me how awesome that person is, how they helped her at school and that he was a nice kid, i ask her which one, she replies the one with the orange shirt on, he was the only brown kid in that small group of kids and she choose to identify him by his shirt colour. Kudos little one keep it up.
Thanks for highlighting this demonstrable stain MM. One can only guess at the figures if Polynesian people were included in the analysis……a million, more ?
My almost daily and oftentimes bitter experience is of a justice system which discriminates against Maori and Polynesian, particularly the young. In randomly varying measure it is evident at all levels. From police on the street to police prosecutors to probation officials to court officials to lawyers to judicial officers. The ‘spin’, grand mission statements and so on, tells differently. Trouble is the ‘spin’ is devised and disseminated to conceal the ugly fact rather than to own and address it. A construct moral comfort.
Subliminal racist attitudes persuade that “these people” are more or less definitionally culpable. Time and again “these people” are treated accordingly as the Stuff analysis shows.
Examples are too numerous to report exhaustively. I will report this informally made observation from a District Court judge – “We are at real risk of civil unrest in New Zealand…….” Yes, poverty of course but when as is so often the case the picture includes racism…….ask yourself. A society can blame and brand and humiliate and dehumanise for only so long.
It’s more classism than racism , we saw a kings son walk away with no conviction recently in nz just as the delegate boy did .
b waghorn
If it is; “more classism than racism”, then how do explain this?
http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/regional/kaumatua-speaks-maori-threatened-arrest
If i was a cop and i pulled someone up while doing my job and the spoke to me another language when i knew damn well he could speak my language i’d just see him as being a foolish dick head. Or are you suggesting all police be multi lingual .
I am suggesting that our police should have multilingual capability – for the official languages of Aotearoa/ NZ (though it wouldn’t hurt to be able to communicate with tourists too). The individual officer might be monolingual, but an interpreter service should be accessible; this might even be an app for te reo (though I’ve heard that they’re a bit iffy so far).
Would you also suggest that someone who persisted in using NZ sign language as being a; “foolish dick head”?
Good point, as you have read, some have trouble with just the one language. 👿
”Would you also suggest that someone who persisted in using NZ sign language as being a; “foolish dick head”?”
if they could hear and speak then yes if they were deaf or mute or both then of course not
That’s the thing about making a language an official one of your country – you’re free to demand that public officials use it when they speak to you. The cop should count himself lucky it wasn’t a deaf-rights activist demanding to be dealt with in sign language.
He sounds like a bit of a pigheaded arsehole. I wonder what he was pulled over for.
Gabby
Yes, the cop does sound like a; “pigheaded arsehole”. Not accepting that he was an officer of the law being addressed in an official language of the country.
Bradbury has some nice phrases for this issue over on TDB:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/09/18/as-nzers-scramble-to-comprehend-that-their-justice-system-is-racist-a-maori-gets-threatened-withy-arrest-for-speaking-maori/#comment-352782
He was ‘exercising his right’ to use language as a status marker and put himself above the copper. He clearly understood what was said to him.
The facade of the rock star economy.
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/201638/160916SPLBROMHEAD.JPG
What a surprise, she was lying her head off.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11711892
Hopefully the SJW’s and all those women group advocates who signed the document when the witch hunt was in full swing show a bit of spine and apologise to the Chiefs rugby players.
They won’t of course. A woman can never be a liar. It’s the men’s fault as always.
Yep, an attitude that seems to be synonymous with the left.
Of course, if you are a true New Zealander, you don’t say sorry if you’re a man, do you?
Educate yourself.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/10256036/David-Cunliffes-apology-brave-not-silly
shame the Labour caucus couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
I agree.
The Labour Party is full of men who totally agree with BM and James’s neanderthal view of women.
Annette King, Jacinda Ardern and other women in the caucus were very pleased to dump Cunliffe.
That though is probably not linked to the I’m sorry story.
Rather a tussle over direction of the Labour Party.
Yeah I get it Paul, you’re one of those self loathing left wing men who feels the need to constantly self flagellate for being born with a penis.
So you did not read a word of the article.
BM could not get an erection the whole time Helen Clark was prime minister and it nearly drove him insane ………… bitter memories.
He finds trolling helps…… and For man relief he takes pride in John Key winning us the world cup for domestic violence …..
Gives him a hard on like Clint Rickards police baton.
Yay …….BMs got enough cock pride for all of us men…………..
Bent to the right though ……………………..
unbalanced bull
keep perpetrating the myth though
the hand that rocks the cradle
What on earth are you talking about?
Probably that women who raise children want a boy to become their idea of a man and a girl their idea of a woman.
Cardinal political rule: It’s wrong to be right too soon
So true Ad. Andrew wondered why we import so many chefs and was ridiculed for ages. Now? Questions are being raised about that.
David’s, ““Can I begin by saying I’m sorry – I don’t often say it – I’m sorry for being a man, right now. Because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children. So the first message to the men out there is: ‘wake up, stand up, man up and stop this bullshit’.”
Now it is becoming more relevant. We do nod in agreement.
Agree, and just wanted to add that only a non alpha male does not apologise even when he is wrong.
An Alpha Male has no hang-ups. He simply says, “I was wrong. I apologise.” And he rectifies the problem if possible.
A sure way of spotting the boys from the men, men admit when they are wrong then try and fix the problem. But then again parenting does have a role to play, much of it is learned behaviour. Break the cycle
An attitude that seems to be synonymous with too many New Zealand men.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-we-re-number-one
@.BM/James. Do you two sit together in class? Bet the teacher gets annoyed with you. A lot to say while saying nothing of any consequence. Boring in the extreme.
You two !
When you fell on your head’s, they never put humpty together again.
Egging him on is even more sinister, then lie.
Nah, = you are having me on aren’t you? James.
Gender has nothing to do with honesty, men & women be as deceptive as each other but men shouldn’t belittle women more should they?
No wonder the police declined to press the matter further.
The Police should still have dealt with the matter as one of theft. It seems the products on offer were available to those willing to pay appropriately but like a shoplifter they chose not to.
I hope you are not justifying the Chief’s actions. Did you note their behaviour as reported in the article?
This is the reason why we have such awful statistics in this country.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsgFXIIVUAAk7KI.jpg:large
New Zealand is no paradise, it is brutal
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/84158436/new-zealand-is-no-paradise-it-is-brutal
New Zealand is no paradise: Is it the most sexist place on earth?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/84167679/new-zealand-is-no-paradise-is-it-the-most-sexist-place-on-earth
New Zealand is no paradise: Rugby, racism and homophobia
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/84211773/new-zealand-is-no-paradise-rugby-racism-and-homophobia
She lied – a lot. And there is no evidence for he majority of her claims – in fact all the witnesses etc indicate she made a lot of this up.
As CV said – no wonder the police didn’t take it forward. But still there are limp wristed fools like yourself.
What about the damage this has done to the chiefs.
In an ideal world they would take a civil case against the woman for all the $ this has cost them from her false allegations.
Homophobia and misogyny.
Wow.
James sounds like a dickhead letting his balls do the thinking for him ……..
Rugby union must love clowns like him or BMs and the ugly face it puts to our shit house minor league and irrelevant national game ………..
Club player numbers are through the floor …………….
The lost sheep was going on about super 15 rugby players licking arseholes at team celebrations the other day ………. like it was a normal part of the game …..
It does not seem very family orientated though ……………
I hope john key does not have any NZ rugby players involved with his lawyer and their tax haven connections …………….
That wo7uld be a very ugly look ………….
Witness statements are notoriously unreliable and Scarlette was justifiably outraged by not being paid in full for her services. A chiefs player would be aggrieved if he wasn’t paid by his employer to do the job he had agreed to.
@ James. A civil case would be great. Then these ghost witnesses would have to front up and be visible and swear to ‘tell the truth’ etc. How do you know they even exist? And doesn’t it seem ironical that the only REAL witness is an elderly bus driver who appears to have been thrown under his own bus? It is also telling that none of the rugby team (chiefs) have fronted up to tell their story. Why haven’t they? Pathetic rugby brand being protected by the Old Boys Club.
Boys will always stick together, we all know that, especially those boys. I can fully see them egging on the bus driver, or using him for a scape goat. Only those whom were there know the real story.
It’s rugby, cleverly managed by the media to keep it shiny as key cradles it in his punny arms.
It sounds to me like the Chiefs team members didn’t have the bottle to do what the driver did and so they egged him on so they could visually get their jollies off – whatever the outcome its disgusting. What staggers me is from reading these comments from BM and others is the extent of the vitriole and hatred some men in NZ have for women. There is real anger in their replies – why do these men hate women so much – what have women done to them in their lives to have this attitude?
WK. I guess I’m the “and others” you mentioned.
Don’t hate women – happily married 20 years plus and have a stepdaughter I have raised and love very much.
The fact I can hate the actions of a person who has lied and caused a huge amount of damage does not mean I hate all of her sex.
I think she should be held to account for her actions.
That’s all.
it really is that simple.
“A woman can never be a liar. It’s the men’s fault as always.”
Sounds like pent up anger to me.
Probably a chief ball boy AND anger issues
Don’t be ridiculous,I don’t hate women.
What i do hate though is this lefty construct of putting women up on a pedestal and treating them like some godly creatures beyond reproach.
This person told lies, hurt a lot of people and cost businesses money by having their reputations dragged through the mud.
She should be called out on that.
You hate women and Māori and equality and probably yourself imo – a real rwnj
Yep. The stripper was whinging because she didn’t get an extra $50 for the licking & touching. Happy to do anything if she’s paid for it.
We all know this type.
yep the one that insist in CONSENT.
consent to not be licked and touched.
consent to be licked and touched.
you don’t have consent? you should consider any licking and touching sexual assault.
@Fireblade,
Well it is $50 extra if you are sick in the taxi on top of the fare. Maybe look at in this light. The women had to do something unpleasant (put up with the touching) so expected to be paid for it. The points are that
a) did she consent to the touching?,
b) if she did consent, then she was ripped off as they did not pay her for it. Either way, not acceptable. (In their warped little brains maybe they imagine she enjoyed it and therefore should not be paid). Just as the drunks think that taxi drivers should clean up vomit as part of their duties.
c) This is completely unacceptable anyway for a group representing the country to acting this way. What’s next, strip teases at parliament for the men to get their jollies???
.
it is actually really easy, she is working in a legal profession and has the right to a safe workplace. if these geezers can’t behave themselves after a beer or many, than they need to be
a. trained in how to consume alcohol responsible
b. taught the difference between consent and not consent
c. taught how commercial transactions come about and what happens when a contractual obligation is not upheld
d. trained into not being an ass when pretending to be a ‘role model’ for the young in this country, lest we would like to see our young turn into asses like they are.
e. taught that prostitutes, strippers, burlesque dancers and all others that work in the adult entertainment business are full human beings with all the rights of full human beings.
Just like the Warrior players are happy to be paid for being in a scrum and tackling. Close body contacts and exchange of sweat, blood, saliva, egged on by a cheering crowd many of them drunk.
I think half the country is walking around with bashed chins from their knees jerking so violently
BM @ 5
You call her a liar? As any honest woman would tell you… better to carry on the charade than admit you’re upset. Who knows what might happen if a bunch of obnoxious, drunken rugby hooligans discover you don’t like their behaviour. After all they were a lot bigger than she was.
To describe you and your ilk as neanderthals is an insult to Neanderthals. I bet they didn’t behave like that. The All Blacks – aka The Chiefs – only served to confirm for me what I have long known. They are the worst possible ‘role models’ imaginable for impressionable school boys.
It says heaps about what is really wrong with this country.
Totally agree Anne.
It is clear from the account that the Chiefs were behaving like ‘obnoxious, drunken hooligans’, yet James and BM feel sorry for them.
Anne – I don’t know what made you so bitter – but a lot of those guys are indeed fantastic role models.
You say you have always known that they were bad role models without having met most (if any) of them, without knowing their lives and values or how they behave.
You make allegations and remarks based off your view of what you think they would be like.
But you get shitty if it’s on the other foot. People like you are more of the problem than anything.
You probably think the woman in this story is a better role model. Despite being proven a liar and running to the media with a billshit story trying to ruin the lives of other people.
We do know how they behave. Their atrocious behaviour is almost always in the news and arseholes like you are ready and willing to defend that behaviour.
+ 1
Regardless of the Scarlett carry-on, it remains abundantly clear that rucking fugby has turned a team sport into an embarrassing all encompassing lifestyle. A lifestyle of pack mentality by and for testosterone driven boof heads. Rugby has always had this element in NZ, but it has worsened with the move to professional sport and the neolib attitude of win at all costs. Exactly what this Government fosters.
As an aside, it is a total embarrassment to attend any match now and observe the crowd behaviour.
Brilliantly put. Thanks Garibaldi. And lets remind ourselves which politician – more than any other in recent years – has fostered this untenable culture by his own behaviour? Yes, the prime-minister of the day, John Key.
And right on cue, Q & A this morning included a lengthy interview with Amy Adams (plus a robust debate from the panel) about the violence towards women and children in this country and what to do about it. Not surprisingly the Chiefs affair was mentioned more than once.
No link available at present.
Links:
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/family-violence-reforms-justice-minister-video-6493373
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/justice-panel-family-violence-video-6493375
“Anne – I don’t know what made you so bitter ”
I don’t think Anne is bitter, she is telling the truth. Why is it every time someone has a comment which the right does not feel comfortable with the person commenting is always “bitter”?
“but a lot of those guys are indeed fantastic role models.”
You must be Joking, I would be most surprised if any of my kids had any Thugby player as a role model. Real men and role models aren’t they to younger generations when they had a stripper at one of their functions.
The are put on pedestals by the media and politicians when they think they can score browny points off them.
There are a lot of better role models in NZ that do a lot more than fight over an odd shaped ball in a paddock.
QFT
No, sounds to me like she was telling the truth and she’s just been vindicated by the one person who could fully do so.
You know, the Chuffs don’t come out of that version too well. Egging on a pensioner? Bunch of arseholes.
James and BM can’t see that.
Nor do they seem at all concerned with the possible health consequences for the old guy by making him lick her ring piece.
What a surprise, she was lying her head off.
She was? You know this how, exactly? Nothing in the article you linked to provides a basis for such firm conviction – maybe the certainty’s an artefact of your prejudice, not a demonstrated outcome of the evidence.
The bus driver sounds like a BM type character. Willing to drop a whole rugby squad in it for 5 weeks before coming clean. Partial to the coverup and probably full of bullshit anyway.
If it was all Labour’s bus drivers fault I’m sure he would have been crucified from day one. Funny he wasn’t.
How in the world do you get that Scarlett was lying about what happened from that article?
All it says is that one older man, who was there for a short time, thinks Scarlett was talking about him in her complaint because he licked her. Sounds like the Chiefs have found someone to throw under the bus.
Syrian flash pointier: US Centcom admits error in airstrike killing 62 Syrian Army soldiers, wounding over 100 more and destroying vital equipment and facilities, allowing head chopping Islamic jihadists to advance on a Syrian air base.
Link
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-17/syria-accuses-us-airstrike-killing-62-soldiers-serious-and-blatant-aggression
Russia accuses US of bombing Syrian army as truce falters
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/313576/russia-accuses-us-of-bombing-syrian-army-as-truce-falters
This is what happens when you have a government owned by lobbyists.
Policy that does not tackle the issues properly.
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/health/govt-ignoring-advice-on-alcohol-family-violence-link/
The government protects the profits of the corporations at the expense of the community. Always has done.
The government has been accused of ignoring scientific evidence of how alcohol reform could contribute to reducing family violence.
Sellman’s a fuckwit. Yes, banning alcohol could contribute to reducing family violence. So could banning men and women from living together. Solutions that aren’t stupid ones would be more worth looking at.
He doesn’t appear to have asked for banning of alcohol but better regulation.
Principle’s the same: restricting access to alcohol would reduce family violence; so would restricting the opportunities for men and women to live together; and there are other, equally stupid measures that could be adopted, like installing video surveillance in every home. Just because some stupid idea would reduce family violence doesn’t make it less of a stupid idea.
No, they’re not.
One is shaping the market to help bring about reform while the other simply a stupid, illogical argument because it cannot be done and you know it.
Can’t be done? Tell that to Saudi Arabia. Of course it can be done, the only question is whether the fact that it would reduce family violence means it should be done. “Reduce family violence” isn’t some kind of trump card that means the government must adopt any stupid idea some fanatic comes up with.
Yes, cannot be done. Saudi Arabia has a completely different culture than we do and there’s no way that such restrictions could be put in place in NZ.
On the other hand, we have restrictions on alcohol sales that do mostly work and further minor restrictions will still work and produce some sort of result in decrease in both binge drinking and lower violence.
We already have an overly restrictive approach to alcohol and even more so to other recreational drugs. Tinkering around the edges making already stupid workarounds more stupid isn’t a good approach to problem-solving.
I agree with the other drugs needing to be legalised but I also think that raising the age to 21 from its present 18 and putting in place more restrictive opening hours of pubs would help and so does the research.
You’re calling it ‘tinkering around the edges’ while the government does nothing at all. Laws aren’t perfect and they do need to be changed and updated every now and again based upon the evidence. You’re doing the same as the government and ignoring that evidence.
As usual with the Nacts its even worse than it appears on the surface ….
They swung their Dirty politics unit into action against health professionals and others seeking to lower alcohol abuse …………
John Key was the first out of the blocks to go ‘nah fuck that’,….. and immediately nobble the main recommendations from the Law Commission’s report ….
The laws they did end passing are an expensive mess for councils and ratepayers …. with the booze companys appealing every liquor plan submitted …………
Twice under the misuse of urgency in parliament the Nacts passed pro-booze laws……..
So clearly Collins, Tolly, Bennett, Adams,Key etc are all liars when they pretend to be concerned about child welfare and abuse ………….
A lot of extra kids have experienced or witnessed violence because of Alcohol abuse in their homes …..
Finally rehab services have been shrunk and are inferior to what they once were …… they are still the first to get chopped or cut back when health funds and budgets are under stress ….
What society calls Alcoholics and problem drinkers ….. the booze company s call high value customers.
A relapsed alcoholic earns the piss sellers heaps ……….
If I wanted to fuck up Alcoholics recoveries….. I’d stick booze in supermarkets
If I wanted to keep domestic violence rates high …… I’d keep alcohol abuse rates high ….
Fuck this whole thread should be nuked from orbit – rwnjs and their issues – so pathetic.
+1
“Fuck this whole thread should be nuked from orbit”
Ha… that’s why we can’t have a Mana supporters finger on the nuke button…the World would be destroyed in seconds 🙂
Lol good one chuck
One of those occasions where leaving the women hater’s words unmoderated and available for all to read is the harshest possible punishment.
Absolutely trp, hoisted by their own hateful bitter angry petards, let the comments stay.
Yup.
President of Haiti reveals Clinton tried to bribe him… and he kept the documents
Yep Trump held a campaign meeting in Little Haiti in Miami this week – first visit by a Presidential candidate to Little Haiti ever.
Letterman apologises to Trump.
Letterman was spot on – Trump says dopey stupid things to get attention. And boy, has it worked.
Good to see that BM and James are pro-rape apologists who think that is it is OK for men to force themselves on a woman.
No moral compass. Comes with being rightwing.
Didn’t those ‘independent witnesses’ say they saw ‘nothing happen’? Did any of them mention a naughty bus driver? Barbara Streisand effect maybe? There’s a story going round in rugby fan circles that the stripper was ‘paid off’ by rugby management not to comment.
Now you are just being hysterical – I do not think that at all.
I was waiting for the ‘hysterical’ word to come up! Nice one, never one to disappoint are you James! Now the ladeees should just shut up, its mans time now.
I have no idea is Millsy is a woman or a man – and dont care. That was my view of his/her comment stating that I was a pro-rape apologist.
I don’t know wether Millsy is a man or women, I don;t assume he/she isn’t. Also, there are women readers, or don’t they count? Politics = man talk?
Then she should have admitted it was all about the money. Seems like she enjoyed it at the time and gave CONSENT. Then she’s all boo hoo I wasn’t paid enough. Good on the Pensioner for having go. Get real people, this how [deleted] operate.
[That’s quite some run-up to the line you’ve taken in order to jump waaay over there. Well done…outta sight! One month ban] – Bill
Bm and James are running pretty close with the levels of misogyny shown.
It’s thoughtful of people like Fireblade to put in an appearance now and then to remind us why feminism’s still relevant.
100 years since the Somme.
“Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy’s small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict.[1]”
The area between opposing trench lines (known as “no man’s land”) was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides….”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare
It has been interesting reading the; “100 years ago” reprints in the ODT. The level of propagandist drumbeating for the war makes me wonder how our own media will be seen after a similar interval (assuming there’s anyone left to read it) eg:
That was actually from earlier in the week (13/9/1916). Because, although later reprints do have such WTF images as Indian Calvary preparing for the Somme, that day had this reminder of how wars can be used to justify other ends:
https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/100-years-ago/third-winter-campaign-be-fought
Is this not what the activist left want to happen?
“A speech from Andrew Little in which he acknowledges the devastation wrought by Rogernomics, and spelling out how he proposes to right the wrongs it inflicted on working-class Kiwis, would almost certainly produce a similar galvanising effect as Brash’s 2004 speech to the Orewa Rotary Club.”
“And a much better poll.”
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/a-better-poll.html
Trotter lays it out so well…
“Regardless of its severity, it was tactically foolish of Little to deny the accuracy of Colmar Brunton’s latest survey”
“When presented with terrible news, it is perfectly natural for human-beings to take refuge in denial.”
Speaking Maori to a Police Officer is considered a threat …. nekminit Maori will be shot because Maori man looked aggressively at me “Police Officer” says? Do we need to declare we’ve got an Apartheid State in Aotearoa, oh sorry, Nueeew Zeeeelind? WTF. Nick Smiths got a lot to answer for! Kiwi versus Iwi election campaign slogan-John Ansell!
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/police-meet-maori-adviser-after-incident-2016091719
No one likes to be pulled over by the police. This looks like Kura Moeahu was being a little naughty…quickly working out the police officer did not understand him so milked it for all it was worth.
So now it’s ‘naughty’ to speak Te Reo in NZ? Firing on all barrels today!
Well in this case it’s bloody rude and arrogant.
New Zealand has three official languages, English, Maori and NZ sign. How is it rude and arrogant to speak one of these official langauges? Would it be rude an arrogant for a deaf person to speak in New Zealand Sign language? Or does it only apply to Maori?
“How is it rude and arrogant to speak one of these official langauges?”
When the other party to the conversation does not understand what you are saying…more so in this case when a police officer is just trying to do his/her job.
It is not rude or arrogant to speak an official langauge of this country. What is rude and arrogant is racists like you trying to deny someones rights to do that. As I said would a deaf person speaking in sign been treated the same way
It’s an unacceptable microaggression.
“unacceptable”
Oh noes! Hurt feelings!
Taser the fucker then? What does it say in the Police manual? “You will respect my authoritah!”.
Get off your knees.
In this case yep. Moeahu was clearly looking to cause “a issue” by refusing to communicate with the police officer (who obviously could not speak Te Reo).
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Unless they’re speaking Italian, the insolent dogs!
Speaking the National language of the country isn’t a crime.(Well not yet) The price of milk has nothing to do with what language one speaks or what colour your skin is. Ignorance is in-discriminant too, race shouldn’t be a reason to discriminate nor should, colour & what language one speaks. I don’t speak Maori. I have a desire to but have tried a number of times to learn but I think my “programming” from the 80’s NZ’s ed. system has some influence on my ability to do so, so I’ll just plug along with the this language for now. Chuck, you’re obviously “unaware” of institutional racism and more aligned probably with Nick Smiths way of seeing things? So stand by and observe, you might just learn something?? Its time that Institutional Racism is addressed and if its possible to do so, keep the bigots, racists and inbreds well away from the debate.
“Its time that Institutional Racism is addressed and if its possible to do so, keep the bigots, racists and inbreds well away from the debate.”
This particular situation has nothing to do with racism. Its simply a plonker called Moeahu trying to cause a issue…
Or is this thread rapidly becoming about a plonker called Chuck trying to cause a issue…
No point engaging with Chucky Paul, he believes in conspiracy theories perpetuated by a far left cabal…
It has everything to do with racism. He was speaking an official language of New Zealand as he is legally entitled to do and was threatened with arrest for that. The fact you can’ t see that as a problem highlights Takeres point regarding the institutional racism in this country.
Sigh…its called common courtesy to communicate in a language that both parties understand.
Just because you have a plonker trying to engineer a headline, for people like you to scream “see its racism” says it all.
“Sigh…its called common courtesy to communicate in a language that both parties understand.” My god how many times has that old chestnut been dragged out by English speakers too arrogant to learn another language?
“people like you to scream “see its racism” says it all”. People like me who are Maori experience racism everyday and unlike people like you I have seldomly been treated with any courtesy when I have had dealings with the police.
Or people like my koro who feel more comfortable speaking in Te Reo than in English and should be able to do so without being threatened with arrest or being called plonkers by you
I see you still have not addressed whether a deaf person using sign would have been considered arrogant or would have been threatened with arrest.
“English speakers too arrogant to learn another language?”
Why should every NZer “have to learn Te Reo”? no issue with those who want to (or can learn, as even Takere said he has tried but can’t pick up a new language).
“People like me who are Maori experience racism everyday” I call bullshit on that…nearly 3/4 of my family have Maori blood in there veins, they work in a diverse range of jobs, from a police officer to builders, admin, customer service and early childhood ed. They don’t experience racism everyday or most other times.
Are you mixing up racism with just everyday BS that ALL of us have to put up with?
Don’t get me wrong…Maori are on the wrong side of a bunch of things, that needs to be improved. Going around with a chip on ones shoulder does not help matters.
“Or people like my koro who feel more comfortable speaking in Te Reo than in English and should be able to do so without being threatened with arrest or being called plonkers by you”
Your koro are just being awkward and rude. If they know the other person cannot speak Te Reo.
“I see you still have not addressed whether a deaf person using sign would have been considered arrogant or would have been threatened with arrest.”
If a person is deaf that would be clearly signaled and understood by the police officer. And if required an interrupter would be used.
if required an interrupter would be used
*headdesk*
Your koro are just being awkward and rude
They’re in the Crimes Act now eh? “Being awkward and rude to police”.
How about “smelling of foreign food” or “dressing in a funny way”?
My head hurts from repeated banging on the desk. I think it would be better if in future I used yours.
It may of escaped your thinking OAB, that if a person is deaf they have pretty much no option other than to use sign language.
If a person can speak 2 languages, of which the one they CHOOSE to use is not understood by the other person…its called being awkward and rude.
The police have a hard enough job to do, without plonkers trying it on.
Deaf people can’t write?
I missed the part where being “awkward and rude” is grounds for arrest.
Whenever I go to a petrol station the attendent makes me come in and pay first even though often a white guy will pull up at the next pump and give a little wave and have his pump turned on. I then go inside and explain I want a fill and am asked for a credit card. Meanwhile white guy has pumped his gas and is coming in to pay. Only difference is the colour of our skin.
So yes I see this as racism not everyday bullshit.
I work at a University and regularly travel overseas to conferences etc and for no apparant reason I “randomly” get stopped for “random” checks. My pakeha colleagues say it’s not because I am Maori, it is because I look middle eastern so am mistaken for a terrorist and they may be right but either way it is racial profiling.
I also work closely with schools in South Auckland helping teachers to provide culturally responsive programmes for Maori and Pasifika. I have lost track of the number of times a Pakeha teacher has made comments about nothing being done for white kids when our whole education system is designed to benefit white kids and there is not a single white kid in their class.
I never said that you should learn Te Reo I merely pointed out the arrogance of English speakers (not just in this country) who believe everyone should have to speak English when nearly every other ethnic group speaks multiple langauges.
It always makes me smile when Pakeha teachers talk about their Samoan and Tongan students being below standard. I mention to them that those kids speak two languages and by that standard it is them that is below.
Lastly I do not have a chip on my shoulder. I am extremely well balanced and have a chip on both shoulders.
Fair enough.
“Lastly I do not have a chip on my shoulder. I am extremely well balanced and have a chip on both shoulders.”
Great reply back 🙂
I think calling the fellow a racist is going a bit far. Rude not to respond in an official NZ language when he was capable though.
1 dancer vs the NZ Empire of Toxic Masculinity Rugby
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/09/18/1-dancer-vs-the-nz-empire-of-toxic-masculinity-rugby/
Oh, shes a “dancer” now is she?
Now people are trying to change the narrative.
She wasnt a dancer. She was a stripper, and she was fired for offering extras.
To say she was a “dancer” is bullshit at best. She was hired from “Strppers R us” not from the Candy Lane dance troupe.
edit – adding link for place of employment and reason being fired. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/82900153/Chiefs-rugby-stripper-Scarlette-sacked-after-scandal
Unbelievable.
You need to read this.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/03/examples-of-rape-culture/
The difference between now and say 15 years ago is social media…its a cancer that spreads a lot of what you have linked to Paul.
They do refer to themselves as ‘Dancers’ actually. You might refer to them as something else but in the profession it is referred to as ‘Dancers’.
Who gives a shit what they call themselves. She was a stripper. She was hired from strippers r us. She was found under the sedition Waikato strippers on the female strippers page.
Go on admit it – even to someone who is in denial- she’s a stripper right ?
Hello CV, I would be interested to hear your opinion on the DCC candidates this year, I am social aquaintances with Ronald Fung & find him a pleasant approachable guy. What do you think?
Gangnam Style
I put a cross by Fung’s name mainly on the basis that he used too many exclamation marks in his Candidate Information booklet blurb. Also, the way he was enthusing about facilitating private investment in white elephant projects (tourism seems a very shaky platform for economic development). However, I haven’t filled out the voting form yet.
I would be happy to learn more about the candidates when they’re not targeting their brief words to what they assume the voters want to hear. So far, I’ve only been googling background on the Mayoral aspirants. Those other candidates who aren’t already councillors are a blank to me.
Thanks. I am also waiting for the Generation Zero page with Dunedin updates.
Hi Gangnam Style…no strong opinions as yet…will keep in touch
private investment in white elephant projects seems a bit easier on the public purse. Or is it a euphemism for sale of council assets?
Gabby
That assumes that the white elephant (a harbour pier, when Dunedin’s attraction to tourists is largely in its not completely trashed natural environment), is worth while in the first place. If it requires the election of a councilor to implement the project, rather than it being viable on its own merits, then that seems to be more likely to be for the benefit of the private investors than the town’s people (in this case securing planning permission against the industrial area’s opposition).
That said, Fung isn’t one of the candidates who I’ve crossed off the list for asset selling. Though there are no shortage of those promising to focus on “rate stability” & “core infrastructure” which translates to asset sales. Also anyone with a background in real estate tends to get crossed off the list pretty quickly.
Awesome story on The Listening Post this morning. All about the media in the USA, I didn’t know that Bill Clinton signed a communications agreement in the ’90’s effectively transforming the media into a monopoly, changing the landscape into what we see today, 6 corporations controlling 96% of media in the USA.
Well worth a watch, just 30mins long. Fascinating write up on how media is capitalising on Trumps notoriety to gain huge profits via advertising/ratings.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2016/09/elections-media-160916141606631.html
Watch this film.
It covers a lot on the issue of the US media.
Of course a lot can now be applied to NZ as well.
“Shadows of Liberty presents the phenomenal true story of today’s disintegrating freedoms within the U.S. media, and government, that they don’t want you to see. The film takes an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global media conglomerates exercise extraordinary political, social, and economic power. The overwhelming collective power of these firms raises troubling questions about democracy. Highly revealing interviews, actuality, and archive material, tell insider accounts of a broken media system, where journalists are prevented from pursuing controversial news stories, people are censored for speaking out against abuses of government power, and individual lives are shattered as the arena for public expression has been turned into a private profit zone. Will the Internet remain free, or be controlled by a handful of powerful, monopolistic corporations? The media crisis is at the core of today’s most troubling issues, and people everywhere are taking action, trying to change the media monopolies’ strangle hold on information.”
Thanks for the link 😀
It’s a great film.
And this is too.
Consuming Kids.
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
thanks appreciate the info
better version on the putlocker, the link u gave just went to another link and so on and so on
http://putlocker.is/watch-shadows-of-liberty-online-free-putlocker.html
Some excellent viewing on putlocker. Will watch doco 2nite, thanks again.
their was an old saying..
“He who controls the message controls the masses”
or something similar and it’s as true as the day is long.
Currently I am living in an age where I am not in control of my countries destiny but those in power have control of mine. When we lost the fourth estate we lost democracy, and in most western countries you will see how media has progressed this way since well starting in the 90’s I’d say.
If you look at the western worlds media moguls today can you name even one without far right political leanings if not direct ties?
Bill Clinton created the model of a Democratic Party paid for and captive to large corporates (broadcasting, banks, etc.) using the active assumption that the working class would keep voting Democratic anyway because “they had no where else to go.”
Is it normal for someone to get arrested by a NZ cop for only speaking French, Chinese, Tongan or any other language other than english? Or just Te Reo. Or would the cop try & find an interpreter first?
Might depend if someone was using a different language in a deliberate, contrived attempt to stymie a police investigation or an inquiry.
While the elderly New Zealanders and others in pain suffer because this government and Peter Dunne has denied them legal access to medicinal cannibas…there are political lobby groups involved and big Bucks..pharmaceutical companies and the alcohol industry
‘Opioid use decreases in US states that legalize medical marijuana – study’
https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid-usage/
“New research shows a decline in the use of opioid painkillers in US states that allow people to treat pain with medical marijuana, affirming the fears of Big Pharma who have been vigorously seeking to frustrate efforts to legalize the herb….
“Given the growing opioid overdose epidemic, campaigning against medical marijuana is morally repugnant.”
“We cannot allow prescription drug companies to block the legalization of #medicalcannabis http://huff.to/2clBjZY”
“Addictive painkiller profiteer donates $500k to fight cannabis legalization in #Arizona http://on.rt.com/7oux”
…”Insys isn’t the first pharmaceutical company to be found bankrolling anti-marijuana legislation though with a number of alcohol and pharmaceutical companies “heavily” invested in such laws in a number of states, according to The Intercept.
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/14/beer-pot-ballot/
Oh, but what about euthanasia… …a distraction issue to speak to older people and move away from getting on with medical legalization. Anyone who needs these drugs should have to declare it, lose their license, be banned from certain jobs, and anyone stupid enough to get themselves addict should suffer similar fates, they wont be so eager to di drugs if they cant drive, or have to declare in public being needy of chemical immerframes. Olds should be respectedthese drugs are for them, youth need to know they can wait for old age to have their spin.
And wtf, whats with the palative lobby, do they make a bundle from elderly putting them in their will or what. Put a quota up, allow say five euthanasias a year, its not like elderly people aren’t being now, its just they have to change their wills first. Bring it out into the open and we can then start focusing on the real number of such killings.
And wtf gives with the SST are these fools for real, they cant believe they serve crime when they call for harnessness, people trip up, they find themselves in jail, they dont need to be pushed further away from society, brutalized they come out hating, that means more crime, there’s nothing sensuble about the SST if it wants harsher punishment, its oxymoronic.
I have a quick question before I go to bed..
Hope someone can help.
This David Farrar fella runs a stats polling thing company am I correct?
Isn’t he the same guy who seems to run the ratepayers and taxpayers associations?
what’s going on there? If so.. hopw can he be knee deep in right wing action groups he’s funding and setting up and have a job polling ?
I must be wrong perhaps it’s the tickle bloke.
It’s not the tickle bloke.