Yeah, I love how all the right wing journalists keep trying to advise the Green Party that if only they were more like National they would be able to be a minor part of government and then maybe they could get the occasional environmental policy enacted. Nothing too green of course, nothing that would stop Nats’ mates continuing to wreck the environment. The Herald editorial has a similar flavour to O’Sullivan’s piece. Unbelievably patronising with absolutely no understanding of how the Green Party operates.
The problem with rightwingers is they can’t comprehend the concept of having principals and sticking to them. For them it seems power is all that counts.
That’s political class bilge if ever there was. Nixon “went to China” in order to drive a further wedge between the USSR and China. Don’t forget that at the time he went to China, Nixon was supervising the destruction of Indo-China.
As well as that, his backdoor emissary to the Chinese was Yahya Khan, the bloodsoaked leader of Pakistan. Because of Khan’s sterling work, the United
States refrained from speaking out against Pakistan’s murderous war on East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
The idea that the Democrats would somehow have lacked the credentials or political weight to undertake certain actions is as nonsensical as the notion that Obama is a great reformer who is held back by those ornery Republicans.
These long queues we are seeing for people trying to find a place to rent are only going to get bigger and bigger. So the political story will grow too.
Surely this should have an asset-sales scale campaign from a party or parties? Labour and Greens are so close on this.
Another day another Auckland housing story it really is hard to care when most of the problem seems self made buy people flocking there and others indebting them selves to the eye balls.
This Catton girl has been SO naughty……..stroppy little poppy she is. But, as you say, best we all back off a bit. Just wait and see what a good and grateful girl she CAN be I’m sure.
Ekshilly, Je suis just a little bit unsettled what with this freedom of speech thing and its patent gratuitousness (clutching pearls to beat Maggie Smith)………”I mean this is ALL about the prime minister for goodness sake and while she didn’t use the words “traitorous hua”……..well, it’s a slippery slope and there ARE limits !”
Mr Key, FAR more proficient with fiction than she ever was simply does not deserve this sort of thing !
the Herald’s rich money-grubbing right wing owners would not approve of Catton’s comments so it is hardly surprising the Herald has not engaged with the issue raised by Catton, namely rich money-grubbing right wing people.
Kim Hill’s guest says destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan were “mistakes.”
Maziar Bahari needs to divest himself of his smug “friends.”
Radio NZ National, Saturday 31 January 2015
At 8:30 this morning Kim Hill interviewed Iranian Canadian journalist and film-maker Maziar Bahari, the author of Then They Came For Me, a memoir about his imprisonment, beating and interrogation in Iran for over 100 days in 2009. The memoir was the inspiration for Rosewater, a feature film directed by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. In 2013, Bahari launched the Persian/English website Iranwire.com, which focuses on current affairs, culture and politics. He is also involved in Journalism for Change, a platform devoted to citizen journalism, and in the worldwide campaigns Education is Not a Crime and Journalism is Not a Crime. He is visiting New Zealand this week as part of a global campaign leading up to Education is Not a Crime Day on 27 February. His documentary film To Light a Candle – about the denial of education to Bahá’ís in Iran – will also have its New Zealand premiere while he is here. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
Sounds great, right? Well, Maziar Bahari turned out to be an interesting speaker, and obviously a nice fellow. Unfortunately, though, his judgement and/or integrity is less clear, as I pointed out in the following email to Kim Hill….
Maziar Bahari’s carefully tailored words
Dear Kim,
Maziar Bahari described the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as “mistakes”, not crimes. He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.
Perhaps he needs to reassess his relationship with Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
Here you go, phillip—American “liberal” hypocrisy at its most ignorant and galling.
Note that the intro. to this clip claims that Stewart “opened his normally comedic Daily Show Wednesday night with somber words of support for the victims in the assault on Charlie Hebdo….
Even if he was referring just to the “international cadre of journalists”, describing that collection of sycophants, propagandists and war-mongers as Team Civilization would make even less sense than if he had meant the Western world in general.
It’s as absurd and insulting to our intelligence as the regular sight of Pentagon stooges talking about the victims of some bombing as “the bad guys”.
Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
He did. His style was intimate, warm, compassionate. If he had had the strength of character and the intelligence to simply condemn the killings, and express support for the dead cartoonists and the policemen, that would have been a decent, serious statement.
But he didn’t simply do that. Instead, he went on to talk of “Team Civilization”, as though the West is enlightened and democratic and civilized, as opposed to the frightening savages out of Africa and the Middle East.
For argument’s sake, let’s concede your point that he was talking specifically about the “international cadre of journalists”: if he was, that would be even more of an indefensible thing to say. The corporate media—from the BBC to Fox News to their parrots at TVNZ—are crucial components of the propaganda system. If Stewart is stupid and depraved enough to be confused about that, you should not be so gallant as to try to spin his stupidity and depravity into something else.
Seventy years ago, the likes of Stewart were condemning, with an eye to those in power, the killers of another racist journalist, Julius Streicher.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it. That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
Very well said, Bill. Here’s Norman Finkelstein addressing this ridiculous idea that atrocities are mystical and beyond analysis…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KlwJR3P0o
I took it as a wider team than “America and its allies”.
It looked to me like a comedian was reflecting upon people who will kill other people because of comedy, and referring to folks who do not shoot other people over comedy as “team civilization”.
well yes, I am – only because I don’t know. If you want to abuse people because they ask an honest question then that points to some serious character flaws.
How about this:
I apologise for asking you a polite question about a topic I don’t know much about, but one on which you claim to be an expert. I even googled what appears to be an impartial source and helpfully posted that link in order to facilitate a mature dialog with you. Turns out in fact you are an arrogant fuckwit.
Sami al-Hajj was an innocent Al Jazeera cameraman that the US Government detained for years at Guantanmo Bay with no charges laid.
The US tends to more target whistleblowers (Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriaku) and journalist-type individuals (Julian Assange) for harassment, charges and imprisonment.
Having said that if you look at the map and identify those nations which the USA explicitly supports with funding and arms:
Bahrain 6
Egypt 12
Israel and Occupied Territories 4 (Israel also killed several journalists last year)
Saudi Arabia 4
In the USA if you drift out too far from the editorial line you simply get your ass fired and become unemployable as opposed to imprisoned (eg Nasr, Clancy).
technically he’s been sentenced for 3 charges – accessory after the fact to a crime and helping the perpertrators evade prosecution, obstructing justice, and threatening to kill an FBI agent. He’s just pleaded guilty to those.
The US justice system has gone down the road of negotiating plea bargains form their targets, which means that the cases and evidence never see a jury or a judge.
Essentially they say to the target – you plead guilty to this and this, and we’ll put you away for three or four years. Or we’ll go after you with these other charges, and you will go away for 30 or 35 years.
Sorry, nadis, I shouldn’t have jumped at you like that. I (wrongly) assumed that you were playing the Te Reo Putake game of stonewalling and asserting that black is white and up is down.
I appreciate you are genuine in trying to find out more about this, but the “Committee to Protect Journalists” is about as reliable as Fox News—which is one of its “corporate media donors” along with the Associated Press, CNBC, and CNN. The CPJ has close ties to extreme right wing Cuban “exile” terrorist groups in Miami and New York.
Like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the CPJ is a suspect and deeply compromised organisation.
Fuck me, what a load of shit. The CPJ is highly respected, has a long and proud record of campaigning for journalists and indeed, saving the lives of many who have been imprisoned. Y’know, real journalists, not the imaginery ones in your head, Moz.
Have a read and feel ashamed at your dismal effort at slandering them:
Funding
According to the organization’s 2011 Annual Report, financial supporters include individuals, corporations, and foundations. The report does not include details on the largest financial supporters. Corporate media donors include the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN and Fox News.
“Highly respected”, indeed. Not highly respected by real journalists and people who bother to read more than the Grauniad and the Daily Mail, but “highly respected” by certain “corporate media donors”.
They are staunchly independant, [sic] do good work and save lives.
They are funded by a retinue of establishment pillars, including Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans. Their “surveys” are selective and partisan, just like you would expect from a “Committee” funded by Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans.
But please, go ahead and call the CPJ “independant”. It’s your (paper thin) credibility that’s on the line when you back such partisan sources.
You … not so much.
Okay, sling off at me if you want. After that, have a listen to Jeremy Scahill, who is definitely NOT the kind of American journalist who endorses Fox News and extreme right wing Cuban terrorists….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlQHUEWYigM
As you know perfectly well, they are pursuing Julian Assange and Edward Snowden with implacable ferocity; Assange is currently in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and Snowden has found refuge in Russia.
Yes, I guess you could quibble and claim that Snowden is not a credentialed journalist in the way that such outstanding practitioners of the craft as John Roughan and Fran O’Sullivan are credentialed, but the fact remains: if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.
It’s not a quibble to point out that neither man is a journalist and neither man is locked up in the USA or the UK. If you have the names of journalists who are imprisoned up in those countries, please feel free to post them. If there are any then they need to have their cases publicised. Telling us their names would be a great start.
BZZZZT! Wrong answer. We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK, that’s journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Next contestant please. For ten pounds, can you tell me what is wrong with Moz? I’ll repeat the question: what is wrong with Moz? You may confer with your teammates or phone a friend.
I appreciate the levity, Te Reo, but you haven’t done anything to answer the challenge: what about James Risen?
Just so you get on with that task, we’ll pretend for a moment that Assange, Snowden and Manning are not in asylum, exile or prison for their role in exposing momentous crimes.
BZZZZT! We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Contestant, you have answered James Risen who is … (checks notes) … not imprisoned in the US or UK. No points. Do any of the other contestants know the names of journalists imprisoned in the US or UK? Take your time …
Well actually I have, and it turns out he isn’t imprisoned nor is he in jail which tends to invalidate the main thrust of your rant. In fact in the story you linked there is this:
“Mr. Holder pledged not to send reporters to jail, which would normally be the consequence of refusing to testify in a case like Mr. Sterling’s. Then, he indicated that he would not force Mr. Risen to reveal his sources, but would instead force Mr. Risen only to reveal limited information that he had already acknowledged.”
So not only has not been in jail, isn’t currently in jail, the US Attorney General has ruled out putting him in jail.
Right – I see your point exactly.
I have mixed views on Snowden and Assange. The bulk of what they released should not have been. The evidence of crime (i.e., Chelsea Manning’s helicopter video) – no problem, but stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement I’m less supportive of.
And on this:
“if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
So despite your bold claim
“He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse [sic] behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
With the odd exception, my government does not usually support the crimes of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, etc. It routinely does so for the crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom.
You speak confidently about Snowden and Assange exposing “stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement.” What evidence do you have that they did that? I’d be intrigued if you put it up on this site for us, because neither the U.S. nor U.K. government could manage to do so.
I am as opposed to state power being abused in Russia, China, Turkey and Iran as I am to it being abused in Australia and New Zealand. Are YOU?
Can you please focus on providing evidence for your earlier (mis)-assertions, otherwise people will continue to believe you are a flake. Just trying to help you out.
But, yes, you’re both right—journalists can usually speak out without fear in the United States. Thank the radicals and liberals who framed the Constitution for that.
However, constitutional and legal protections can only go so far—when governments bring their powers to bear on an individual truth-teller, they will tear down the protections if they can get away with it, including such troublesome notions as legal sanctuary and asylum. Some in the Cameron regime even suggested storming the Ecuadorian embassy to get their hooks on Assange.
I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get to you acknowledging your mistake, Moz. Some weasel words and a link to a court case last decade. Ah, well, the real takeaway from this discussion is that you don’t feel obliged to hold yourself up to the standards you demand of others. The Greeks probably had a word for that (though it may have been sold off to the troika by now).
ps. If you’d thought about it harder, you could have resorted to pedantry by mentioning all those Murdoch employees currently doing porridge in the UK. Of course, they’re not in jail for journalism, but for actual crimes.
I see, Te Reo, that you’ve garnered some (belated) support from one of our friends—one with a rather insalubrious record of credulity. He posted his intelligent comment at 3:46 p.m., more than four hours after everyone had gone home.
It’s almost as if this example of you making shit up in a froth-frenzy (and then wriggling around trying not to admit you fucked up) will remain as yet another permanent record of your loose relationship with reality.
Is it me, or is something seriously happening to NZ and are we well and truly stuffing up this once clean green country that Keys likes to promote but still allows dairying to pollute.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening, Silence. Hardly a sound. The other thing I have noticed over the last few years, when I came to NZ over 45 year ago, the Myna’s used to line up at the side of the road to get the dead insects hit by cars, and jump out of the way ”just in time” before they were hit by a vehicle. The number of Myna’s doing that now, to me seems to have decreased.
In my non expert opinion, these two things, along with the Kauri die back and the devastation of the Cabbage tree by a virus concerns me that all is not well with the environment of NZ.
Yeah, I noticed that there are a lot less cicadas than usual. Cicadas and summer go hand in hand for me. I love them, always have. When summer kicks off I always listen out for the first cicada.
Cicada’s have a long in ground life cycle (5-7 years) and years where there are lower numbers can be traced back to adverse weather events during breeding. They also forecast ‘mast’ years by the same logic. I think from memory there was one in the Hutt Valley 4 or so years ago where literally thousands could be seen on a single lamppost.
Regarding the cabbage tree virus it is actually a long existing disease called Phytoplasma that proliferated with the arrival of a new vector in this case passion vine hoppers the same has happened with Phormium.
Kauri dieback is more interesting I cant help but suspect that the particular phytophera strain has long existed but has been inadvertently spread or subtle climate changes have allowed it to proliferate. Phytophera exists in all soils and is usually kept in check by other naturally occurring organisms like trichoderma.
Perhaps we are loving our kauri to death. I looked at available bookings to view the great kauri in Northalnd I think it was Tane Mahuta himself, but it was booked up for months. It is said that the numbers of people going through the kauri are probably transporting this nasty whatsit around. I looked at an old book the other day and there was one of the old super giant kauris in it and two people standing at the base were dwarfed and I don’t know how many people it would have taken to stretch arms round the trunk.
We have probably reached the stage where we have to limit visitors and make times for NZs to visit. It would be nice to get a chance. There are limits to viewing Tiritiri Matenga Island – it’s special and same with kauri. And keep pigs off – they are said to be another problem, and then they would draw hunters and their dogs after them.
There is an extensive board walk and board platform to view Tane Mahuta from – built in recent years – designed to protect the forest floor around the old giant.
What I think should be of more concern is that huge logging trucks trundle up and down the road beside that forest – I would think that causes much more damage reverberating from roadside thru to the forest – than people on a board walk.
Instead, an army of swarming frustrating flies has invaded New Zealand.
P.S :
I have made four fly traps using empty plastic coke bottles as shown in the link below. The fly attractants I have used/experimented include liver, honey, fish and , fermenting yeast.
While some flies have been attracted and get caught, I am still not satisfied as there are heaps of flies still flying about. I have read that different types of flies are attracted to different types of bait!
Question : Do any of you know which may be the best fly attractant to the contemporary flies we have?
Here is the info for a very simple home made fly trap! You are welcome!
Instead of taking the all-out nuclear option and viciously killing flies, have you ever thought of just trying to reason with them ? You know, being a decent human being by making an effort to appeal to their moral sensibilities ? Next time you see a couple of flies flying around like out-of-control boy-racers, just try telling them (preferably in an authentic Yorkshire accent) ‘Come on, luds, there’s no need for all this, there was never any need for it. Let’s just let bygones be bygones.” And if that doesn’t do the job then just corner one of them and have a quiet word along the lines of: “If this sort of behaviour continues, young man, then I’m going to have to have a serious talk with your father”. Works a treat every time. Flies are people too, remember.
Hm, that may be my last resort….Simple sweet talking sound bites to these filthy-free-market neoliberal buggers hovering around with such utterly gutterly misappropriating maddening minds.
I won’t be surprised if the crooks come with embedded mobile and GPS these days!
Your better with a pair of frogs in a terrarium, and using a butterfly net to catch the flies. Great light excise and quite addictive seeing how many you can scoop. Give us a laugh seeing (all arms & legs) & hearing them crashing about the foliage nailing their prey. You know when really content, as Mrs & Mr Froggy sing with delight. Amazes me how they can eat so many as the next morning very few are left.
There is bugger all flies aroung mine this year and being a farm house that’s a surprise. We’ve had a 30ish swallows living with us so i wonder if that’s the cause.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening,
Cicadas (species specific ) have long life cycles and have evolved over time to select periods determinable with prime numbers to constrain predation ie they tend to outlive their predators.
Usually at this time of year we are feeding our yellow bearded dragon lizard them, he goes crazy chasing them around his terrarium, something’s up their absence if strange. In the interim plenty of crickets from our back section. Out place is a zoo, all good makes a happy home.
Would you say that the water quality is of very great concern? I personally feel that there is being more and more taken from the qualifier and wonder why the Farmers and associated industry do not (want to?) realize that their water will one day be saline because of it. At the same time, water quality is being compromised at all levels with the excuse that it is OK to have a “certain amount” of pollutants go into streams and lakes. It already affects the health of people due to high nitrate concentration in the water table – our drinking water.
I think this is connected to all living things and beings.
I have to say, the Greek fight against the German led Troika is stirring all my romantic Byronic philhellenism!!!
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and Rome,
And get knocked on his head for his labors.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.
If a deal isn’t struck then Greece as a whole and the poorer parts particular will get economically smashed as Greece has a massive budget shortfall. Someone will blink first – Greece or the EU?
With EUR exit off the table I can’t see what options Greece has. They can’t fund current expenditure by themselves let alone service their debt. I’m assuming Tsipras has a plan, but so far with the cancelling of asset sales, re-hiring and raising pensions/salaries he has cocked his nose at the Germans who are paying his bills, while at the same time building a level of expectation within Greece that will be very difficult to wind back if necessary. Maybe he is just going nuclear and saying “we are going to default, so get your check book out”. If so, I think that is a miscalculation – I think the Germans would let Greece default and leave the Euro. It would actually make it stronger as it removes an outlier from an appropriate policy perspective.
What has been disappointing from a Syriza policy perspective is any talk about cracking down on corruption, tax evasion and the cosy corrupt monopolies that enrich the top end of Greece. If they addressed some of those issues the discussions with Germany would be lot easier plus Greece would have a ton more fiscal revenue.
This is how a police state protects “secrets”:
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA and up to 80 years on circumstantial evidence
Sterling’s conviction should chill anyone who believes in investigative reporting in a free society
by MARCY WHEELER, Salon, 29 January 2015
The participants in the economy of shared tips and intelligence in Washington D.C., breathed a collective sigh of relief when, on January 12, the government announced it would not force James Risen to testify in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. “Press freedom was safe! Our trade in leaks is safe!” observers seemed to conclude, and they returned to their squalid celebration of an oppressive Saudi monarch.
That celebration about information sharing is likely premature. Because, along the way to the conviction of Sterling this week on all nine counts – including seven counts under the Espionage Act — something far more banal yet every bit as dear to D.C.’s economy of secrets may have been criminalized: unclassified tips.
To understand why that’s true, you need to know a bit about how the Department of Justice larded on charges against Sterling to get to what represents a potential 80-year maximum sentence (though he’s unlikely to get that). Sterling was accused — and ultimately convicted — of leaking two related things: First, information about the Merlin operation to deal flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran, as well as the involvement of a Russian engineer referred to as Merlin in the trial. In addition to that, the government charged Sterling separately for leaking a document (one which the FBI never found, in anyone’s possession): a letter Merlin included along with the nuclear blueprints he wrapped in a newspaper and left in the mailbox of Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So the government convicted Sterling of leaking two things: information about the operation, and a letter that was used in the operation.
Then, having distinguished the operation from the letter, DOJ started multiplying. They charged Sterling for leaking the operation to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article about it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter about it: one leak, three counts of espionage.
Then they charged Sterling for improperly retaining the letter (again, FBI never found it, not in CIA’s possession, not in Sterling’s possession, and Merlin purportedly destroyed his version before anyone could find it in his possession). Then DOJ charged Sterling for leaking the letter to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article including it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter including verbatim excerpts from it (apparently Risen is a better investigator than the FBI, because he found a copy): one letter, four more counts under the Espionage Act. ….
I agree with Morrissey.
On top of the various examples he has presented, there is also the simple fact that the west has other powerful ways of controlling journalists.
You only get a job or get promoted if you say the right things.
Look at the Eleanor Catton affair to see the state of the media here and the role in suppressing dissent.
I recommend everyone watches Shadows of Liberty.
The story of Gary Webb shows what happens when a US journalist questions the system.
Sobering. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1543807/
The roots of one of our leafy tenants had cracked the pipe and, while the plumber chap was seeking out the best fitting replacement part, I sawed another chunk of exposed root away. “Sorry, mate,” I said as I patted the tree.
There’s more and more research suggesting that plants have a kind of sentience beyond what we normally consider. Nature is intelligent and it behooves us to behave as if that were true, for our own sakes as much as for nature’s.
“And saying sorry is also healthy”
That one seem especially important all things considered.
You, or at least the person who cut the tree root, is a brute.
That wasn’t the English word “mate” but the Maori word with the same spelling.
He was saying sorry because he had killed the poor tree. Very healthy indeed!
There’s probably another pun there on the word mate to do with what marty was talking about, mea culpa mea mate, to mangle it completely, but I’ve been online too long to come up with something better.
You,
or at least
the person who cut
the tree root,
is a brute.
That wasn’t the
English word
“mate”
but the Maori
word with the
same spelling.
He was saying sorry
because he had killed
the poor tree.
Very healthy
indeed!
as an aside maybe phils prose should be read as poetry 🙂
Talk to water too!
The following links say there is scientific evidence to show that water undergoes structural (not chemical) changes constantly depending upon different factors. Good happy thoughts or bad thoughts affect the structure of water doing good or harm to you. Take a look!
In the thread about Syriza’s victory I picked out this sentence from one of the articles, “To start from priorities and then define the method.” I think it is very important that parties on the left do just that if they want to be taken seriously. Andrew Little seems to get this, since he has listed four priorities he intends to discuss over his coming speeches, and I hope he does not waver from it.
If we look at how, say, the Capital Gains tax was presented last election, the order ran the other way – it was put forward as a method for curbing house-price inflation and addressing inequality. But people were expected to trust that the stated objectives would follow from the method. And this is my point – when you declare an aim you are making a commitment, and people can assume that you will adapt your method accordingly. When you declare a method, insisting that some desired objective will result from it, you are effectively asking for unwarranted trust, since your commitment stops at the method. For this reason, the method-before-aim order comes across as more of a pitch than a promise.
That’s very good. So with the CGT, it should be presented later as a solution to some other aim? eg we’re going to do x, y, z (eg build more houses), and here is how we pay for it.
Yes, if you put the intended result first, it can be assumed you will adjust your method if the one you have in mind doesn’t work. For example, let’s say, “We are going to build more houses and we will pay for it with a capital gains tax.” However, house sales slow down and we are not getting enough from the CGT, so we are obliged to look for another way of paying for the houses. Whereas if we say, “A CGT will result in more houses being built” and this doesn’t happen, we are committing ourselves only to the CGT but not the houses – if things don’t result as we said they would, well too bad. I think people sniff out the difference intuitively without the need to analyse the arguments.
The thing is, National do not have to meet any such standards – their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public. And National voters know that the pitch is merely to placate waverers and ward off criticism. Labour does not have, and cannot have, that luxury. They did have something like it in the eighties, when aspiring young men of the city gravitated their way, but then they had not yet lost the trust of working class and National had not won over the aspiring young men. Now, they have no choice but to say what they mean and mean what they say. Convincingly.
… their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public
Which of course is exactly what Labour has been doing in recent years. That is, trying to be National lite and adopt their type of strategy. Cunliffe tried to shift the paradigm but he didn’t have enough time or support to do it. Now Labour has a new leader who understands that for Labour to succeed it must be the other way around – a commitment to ordinary NZers and a pitch to potential cronies. He started down that road this week just gone.
I agree. I voted for Andrew, and I am glad I did. I like the fact that he has four priorities he intends to discuss in the next little while – the SME one being his state-of-the nation speech. You know where you are with someone who can clearly articulate their priorities.
If Labour starts back on CGT again, it is a vote killer. Most people in Auckland know what the problem is, immigration and high cost of materials and commercialisation of housing and low wages that are not keeping up with inflation. There are so many other ways to solve or relive the housing in Auckland. For example in the old days, you could have a granny flat on your property or rent out a basement or whatever to help with the rent/mortgage etc or to house other members of the family like your elderly parents etc. Not only did it help to provide additional income for lower income people it also allowed a cheaper nicer place for affordable accommodation in better areas for renters.
Now, no way. Has to be an apartment to be affordable which has Body corp fees, no pets normally, and not so good for children. To get through a legal granny flat there is a huge amount of red tape to get one in a domestic house.
(BTW Nothing to do with RMA and the National RMA reforms are to make unaffordable housing and to polluters to wreck the environment!) You can bet no one has suggested Granny flats in the unitary plan – that because in NZ, democracy is a business, full of lobbyists – they actually don’t want real people who want housing to have a say, just barristers of people who have land and want to develop it (which will not be for affordable housing but for unaffordable housing to make a profit) or politicians who don’t really know much about housing.
Currently to create a granny flat/minor unit on dwelling in Auckland, you need to pay approx $10,000 straight to council for 2nd unit, approx $12,000 for separate water meter, god knows for separate power etc etc. Quite frankly that is why you have no affordable housing. Because of the above to create an affordable unit that is council compliant would be about $40,000 before you actually do the work. AT say $300 a week for rent it would take about 3 years before you paid back the council and the utility connections alone. But in most parts of Auckland you are not allowed to have a granny flat anyway. If the council allowed Granny flats cheaply then you could make about 20% more housing in Auckland for the cost of conversion of a 2nd kitchen.
Utilising existing housing stock would be the easiest way in the short term to create more housing in rental shortage areas.
What is wrong with this country is that people only have 1 idea and then they just keep bringing it up to solve a problem that is different to the solution. It is simpleton politics.
65% of Kiwis or something like that own property, it is their key asset and they do not want to lose it by some politician in Wellington trying to solve a housing problem in Auckland, that will not be solved by CGT but instead impact them on their retirement of their biggest asset, all while the top 1% are paying practically no tax. If anything should be learn’t by Greece, don’t target middle class to pay the taxes of the mistakes of the super rich. They see red, (and don’t vote for it).
If you wanna kill housing price rises (and none of the top 5% with a big property portfolio does), you tamp down bank lending, and you put a big fuck off stamp duty on every residential property transaction a person undertakes over 1 transaction every 3 years.
Also we cannot have 1/3 of NZ’s population living in 0.3% of NZ’s land area.
I’m totally for stamp duty if there is a tax on property, to make sure even the super rich and immigrants pay it too. Not only would it be an immediate way to get taxes, you could target for the poor. i.e. under $250k no stamp duty. First home owners, no stamp duty, etc. But should be very low like 1/2 percent or something like that. That way when you buy your 10 million dollar mansion in Auckland, hey presto, $50,000 in revenue for NZ taxpayer and all collected by title transfer and no way to get out of it by clever accounting.
When you look at growing inequality – whereas it predicted that 1% of the world is going to own 99% of world’s assets, it is pretty clear that governments need to target the 1% owning all the assets. If you look at John Key, owns 50 million in assets but nobody really knows cos it’s in various trusts etc – that is who should be paying more tax and targeted.
Going on about the ‘greedy’ investors, ‘greedy baby boomers’ greedy landlords etc latest scapegoat, is missing the point. Why are some people owning 50 million in assets and gaining more and more every year? If that super rich group, paid more tax then maybe we could afford more for everybody else.
In Italy they actually targeted people driving about in Porsches and expensive cars, guess what, found a lot of them could not account for their cars, and many claimed subsidies and on the lowest tax bracket.
Labour and Greens need to stop whipping the PAYE middle class for tax and actually look at fair ways to target consumption such a stamp duty. Personally I would prefer someone (often coming into the country) to have to pay a small tax to purchase an expensive house. Even if stamp duty was on houses over 3 million – again it is stopping super expensive houses being speculated on and farm sales etc
Soon, in Auckland in places in the inner city they are going to reach that level with the constant speculation (often on the family home so not affected by any CGT if that came in) and that is actually locking out families that used to live in those areas.
There are many flexible and varied ideas which can be used. I generally agree that taxation via PAYE and GST is over used and taxation on capital/land/speculation/financial transactions under used.
Although to make a statement, I would introduce one more much higher PAYE threshold set at 10x the minimum wage = over $280,000 pa.
The total value of houses sales in NZ in 2014 was 40 billion. Assuming you get a 0.5% stamp duty on every one of those you’ll raise 200 million. Exclude all houses under 400,000 and you’ll raise 120 million.
120 million is equivalent to about 240 houses at the NZ median house price. Thats a rough idea of the demand impact of a stamp duty (studies into Tobin tax indicate the reduction in turnover is roughly equivalent to the tax raised. A heroic assumption but gives an idea)
Too inflexible and prone to failure in my view. Might be used as a short term emergency measure. Controlling down house prices over the longer term will require a range of powerful measures.
Price controls, subsidies, extra taxes etc may all work in the short term but eventually distort completely the market they are applied to. Imagine what would happen if the government mandated a maximum price of 29 cents per kilogram for bananas? Eventually two things would happen – supermarkets would sell no bananas, and there would be black market where you actually ended up paying higher prices.
The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.
Little bit hard to sell a house on the black market.
I’m all for
“”The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.”
And would add if we as a nation invested in small town nz in stead of letting them fade away less people would drift to the big smoke.
Well actually no its not hard. There would be plenty of ways to avoid the price cap – paying too much for chattels, settling in 6 months time but renting at a premium in the mean time, losing at high stakes poker etc. Why would a person sell their property for less than waht someone is prepared to pay? Don’t underestimate peoples capacity to innovate. I hesitate to call anything around economic behaviour a law, but the closest you get is individuals acting in their own best interest. It’s been that way for millions of years of evolution.
One of my children is thinking about buying a first home – unless something amazing pops up, I don’t think there is any harm in waiting. Economic cycles and all that – anyone with grey hair can think of plenty of times in the past where we have had similar fears about asset prices. And guess what, eventually they revert.
Fast fact: 80% of residential property development in Singapore is done by the public sector. That’s how important the Singaporean government views stable housing supply and pricing.
The Singaporean public sector develops everything from cheap social housing to million dollar luxury appartments.
I suspect that Singapore modelled its system off the NZ of the 1950s and 60s.
I’ve lived in Singapore – it’s a resource constrained (land + everything else) country and the deal the population has done with the govt is that they will give up a certain amount of civil rights in exchange for certainty around things like housing and minimum standard of living.
Not sure NZ’ers would embrace 1 or 2 room HDB housing.
Understood. It’s not exactly the Kiwi dream. Yet in the peculiar Auckland environment I think the market has shown that ‘cheap’ 2 bedroom 80m2 apartments will sell like hot cakes to young people and first home buyers.
Currently we have speculators making a killing in Auckland – tax ’em as well. The Nats really need to do something more in Auckland than make fancy (but useless) speeches.
I think the framing of the question is important. Essentially that survey asked: “Are you in favour of other people paying capital gains tax?” I’m surprised 100% weren’t in favour of that.
Speculators should be getting taxed under existing rules. If you buy an asset – any asset – for a trading or speculative purpose – any gains are taxed at your personal tax rate. The rules are in existence. All that needs to change is the threshold that is applied to assessment. At the moment it is something like 6 property transactions in a 2 year period. That could easily be lowered to capture more.
Just read this off a Facebook group that I belong to:
“….I heard a rumour this morning, and would like to know if theres any truth to it,if there is, then its an outrage.
Ok, the rumour is…. that all those 3 bedrooms that people are being kicked out of,and extra bedrooms added are not for larger families at all.They are ‘social housing’ in the broadest sense of the word,meaning they are to be ‘shared; in the same manner as a boarding house,anyone single without dependants is to be put in this ‘shared social housing’ the small ablution block style houses reserved for those with dependants.
If theres anyone on here thats matey with a local MP, could they please get that MP to check and see if this is correct,as my old neighbour was offered a place in one and was told this was the arrangement for adults with no dependants nowadays by her tenancy manager…..”
No, Marty, you’re wrong. I conceded—admittedly after a bit of squabbling—their point that not a lot of journalists are actually in jail in the United States—pointing out that this happy state of affairs is entirely due to the radicals and liberals who wrote the Constitution, and to generations of activists who have fought for the right to speak freely in America.
I also pointed out, with a few examples, that the United States regime has been, and is, a grave threat to journalists all over the world.
Thank you for your concern my friend – you would have had more luck quoting figures for people of colour wrongly imprisoned or maybe indigenous people wrongly and unjustly imprisoned, even today – maybe some of them were journalists too.
Interesting link on your web site there about the “American Dream” – or lack of it any more.
The stats there are very similar to ones I’ve seen here in NZ… one that really caught my eye about child poverty:
“#15 Right now, more than one out of every five children in the United States is on food stamps”
Great stuff, but too obvious for the current “administration” here I suspect.
I can tell. Pull your pants up. If one of your doomsdays does occur, I suppose your last words will be an orgasmic “I told you so” that, sadly for you, nobody else will hear.
In the meantime, how’s the NZ ebola epidemic going? Aren’t we all due to have it by now?
There is an anti Greece pro capitalist article in the Kiwi blog. I put the above link there and made the following comment.
“I hope our stupid, lying neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, narrow, myopic and money-hungry pro wealthy, pro corporate, capitalist National/ACT government changes its agenda and stops all its shallow, pro rich and anti people, anti nation policies such as for example, the sale of state houses immediately. The uncontrolled, mega rich corporate driven capitalist free market agenda is a fraud on the ordinary people, the less privileged, the ‘under class’ and the poor”
No-one will take you seriously because you are obviously hiding your lack of knowledge behind over the top jargon which is so exaggerated it is meaningless.
You sound like an exaggerated version of Wolfie Smith.
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Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble.Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin.My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
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Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/FlickrVictor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University laurello/Shutterstock Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon framing the demotion of two ministers as the portfolios getting "too complex" is a charitable way of saying they weren't up to the job. ...
bloody hell..!..is this the end-times..?
..rightwinger roughan has come out swinging..
..for beneficiaries..(!)
(i know..!..i know..!..colour me surprised too..!..)
ed:..well..!..knock me over with a feather..!..rightwinger roughan has come out in support of the ‘pariahs’..beneficiaries..
“..Boston and Chapple make a good case for increasing benefits by the rate of average wage rises.
It is strange that Labour did not make this change 10 or more years ago when it had budget surpluses –
– National should do now.
Ideally it would backdate the increases as far as surpluses might permit –
– giving benefits quite a boost in the next few years.
Pensions have long enjoyed increases pegged to wages –
– and it is not fair to treat superannuitants so much more generously than other state dependants –
– particularly children..”
(cont..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/ed-well-knock-me-over-with-a-feather-rightwinger-roughan-has-come-out-in-support-of-the-pariahs-beneficiaries/
and the other rightwinger o’sullivan..
..has come out with a plea for turei to also stand down..(!)
..o’sullivan thinks turei is too left..
..(and that she sometimes says nasty-things about key..)
..i won’t link to it..
..because it is a pile of steaming-horse-shit..
Yeah, I love how all the right wing journalists keep trying to advise the Green Party that if only they were more like National they would be able to be a minor part of government and then maybe they could get the occasional environmental policy enacted. Nothing too green of course, nothing that would stop Nats’ mates continuing to wreck the environment. The Herald editorial has a similar flavour to O’Sullivan’s piece. Unbelievably patronising with absolutely no understanding of how the Green Party operates.
The problem with rightwingers is they can’t comprehend the concept of having principals and sticking to them. For them it seems power is all that counts.
Getting into bed with National totally worked for Act and the Maori Party, NOT! The Greens not so stupid…
I guess only Nixon could go to China….
….only Nixon could go to China
That’s political class bilge if ever there was. Nixon “went to China” in order to drive a further wedge between the USSR and China. Don’t forget that at the time he went to China, Nixon was supervising the destruction of Indo-China.
As well as that, his backdoor emissary to the Chinese was Yahya Khan, the bloodsoaked leader of Pakistan. Because of Khan’s sterling work, the United
States refrained from speaking out against Pakistan’s murderous war on East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
The idea that the Democrats would somehow have lacked the credentials or political weight to undertake certain actions is as nonsensical as the notion that Obama is a great reformer who is held back by those ornery Republicans.
I guess only Nixon could go to China….
there are echoes of that..
No it’s not as they were, and still are, keeping to the neo-liberal BS that benefits should be low so as to keep wages low.
And yet what National will do is give tax cuts to the rich.
These long queues we are seeing for people trying to find a place to rent are only going to get bigger and bigger. So the political story will grow too.
Surely this should have an asset-sales scale campaign from a party or parties? Labour and Greens are so close on this.
Another day another Auckland housing story it really is hard to care when most of the problem seems self made buy people flocking there and others indebting them selves to the eye balls.
Politics is made by people working crowds.
Make it a Chch story then.
i agree…everyone who has not lived for at least 20 years in Auckland should move…somewhere else.
simple as that. If they can’t find jobs – pffft who cares. if they are elsewhere the govenrment and its water boys has got no more problems.
You can’t fit 1/3 of the population of NZ in 0.3% of the land area without the whole thing being a shit fight.
Unless you were going in on a income of $150k minimum you would be mad to move there.
@col you can if people stop with the mansions and the lawns
Sure, it can be done with affordable apartment buildings, subways and public transport, like any modern city of the world.
How right you are Granny Herald !
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11394465
This Catton girl has been SO naughty……..stroppy little poppy she is. But, as you say, best we all back off a bit. Just wait and see what a good and grateful girl she CAN be I’m sure.
Ekshilly, Je suis just a little bit unsettled what with this freedom of speech thing and its patent gratuitousness (clutching pearls to beat Maggie Smith)………”I mean this is ALL about the prime minister for goodness sake and while she didn’t use the words “traitorous hua”……..well, it’s a slippery slope and there ARE limits !”
Mr Key, FAR more proficient with fiction than she ever was simply does not deserve this sort of thing !
Pathetic Herald surprise surprise ……..
the Herald’s rich money-grubbing right wing owners would not approve of Catton’s comments so it is hardly surprising the Herald has not engaged with the issue raised by Catton, namely rich money-grubbing right wing people.
The Herald is conflicted all to hell
yes, Mr.Key, “50’s Shady n Grey”
Kim Hill’s guest says destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan were “mistakes.”
Maziar Bahari needs to divest himself of his smug “friends.”
Radio NZ National, Saturday 31 January 2015
At 8:30 this morning Kim Hill interviewed Iranian Canadian journalist and film-maker Maziar Bahari, the author of Then They Came For Me, a memoir about his imprisonment, beating and interrogation in Iran for over 100 days in 2009. The memoir was the inspiration for Rosewater, a feature film directed by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. In 2013, Bahari launched the Persian/English website Iranwire.com, which focuses on current affairs, culture and politics. He is also involved in Journalism for Change, a platform devoted to citizen journalism, and in the worldwide campaigns Education is Not a Crime and Journalism is Not a Crime. He is visiting New Zealand this week as part of a global campaign leading up to Education is Not a Crime Day on 27 February. His documentary film To Light a Candle – about the denial of education to Bahá’ís in Iran – will also have its New Zealand premiere while he is here.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
Sounds great, right? Well, Maziar Bahari turned out to be an interesting speaker, and obviously a nice fellow. Unfortunately, though, his judgement and/or integrity is less clear, as I pointed out in the following email to Kim Hill….
Maziar Bahari’s carefully tailored words
Dear Kim,
Maziar Bahari described the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as “mistakes”, not crimes. He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.
Perhaps he needs to reassess his relationship with Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
“..unctuously..”..?
..or an exercise in irony..?
..(and is that your ‘reading’..?..)
..’cos going on stewarts’ past-form..
..i wd plump for the latter.
He was absolutely sincere about it. It was a teary-eyed homily after the Charlie Hebdo killings.
He did and said nothing similar after Israel targeted and killed journalists in Gaza last July.
yeah..?..u sure..?
..it has echoes of sth park..
..how about giving us the link..?
..so we can judge for ourselves..
Here you go, phillip—American “liberal” hypocrisy at its most ignorant and galling.
Note that the intro. to this clip claims that Stewart “opened his normally comedic Daily Show Wednesday night with somber words of support for the victims in the assault on Charlie Hebdo….
http://adage.com/article/media/jon-stewart-paris-attacks-team-civilization/296502/
morrissy..
..is stewart not referring to the international cadre of journalists..
..as ‘team civilisation’..?
..not america and its’ allies as ‘team civilisation’..
..as u claim..?
Even if he was referring just to the “international cadre of journalists”, describing that collection of sycophants, propagandists and war-mongers as Team Civilization would make even less sense than if he had meant the Western world in general.
It’s as absurd and insulting to our intelligence as the regular sight of Pentagon stooges talking about the victims of some bombing as “the bad guys”.
morrissey..you stated that stewart said that america and their allies were ‘team civilisation’..
..that is completely and utterly untrue..
..and i am astounded you made such a ‘reading’ from what stewart said..
.and shouldn’t you apologise to the readers here for misleading them/mis-representing stewart..?
..and why the fuck am i having to factcheck u all the time..?
,,why are u so fucken sloppy with yr facts..?
,.how do u think it can help yr credibility in any way to do that..?
“..It is absurd and insulting to our intelligence..”
He said it. Watch the video. What should I apologise for, exactly?
“.. Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”..”
Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
He did. His style was intimate, warm, compassionate. If he had had the strength of character and the intelligence to simply condemn the killings, and express support for the dead cartoonists and the policemen, that would have been a decent, serious statement.
But he didn’t simply do that. Instead, he went on to talk of “Team Civilization”, as though the West is enlightened and democratic and civilized, as opposed to the frightening savages out of Africa and the Middle East.
For argument’s sake, let’s concede your point that he was talking specifically about the “international cadre of journalists”: if he was, that would be even more of an indefensible thing to say. The corporate media—from the BBC to Fox News to their parrots at TVNZ—are crucial components of the propaganda system. If Stewart is stupid and depraved enough to be confused about that, you should not be so gallant as to try to spin his stupidity and depravity into something else.
Seventy years ago, the likes of Stewart were condemning, with an eye to those in power, the killers of another racist journalist, Julius Streicher.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it.
That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it. That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
Very well said, Bill. Here’s Norman Finkelstein addressing this ridiculous idea that atrocities are mystical and beyond analysis….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KlwJR3P0o
I took it as a wider team than “America and its allies”.
It looked to me like a comedian was reflecting upon people who will kill other people because of comedy, and referring to folks who do not shoot other people over comedy as “team civilization”.
Just a thought.
Who are the journalists imprisoned in the USA and UK?
https://www.cpj.org/imprisoned/2014.php
Jesus H. Christ, are you SERIOUS?
well yes, I am – only because I don’t know. If you want to abuse people because they ask an honest question then that points to some serious character flaws.
How about this:
I apologise for asking you a polite question about a topic I don’t know much about, but one on which you claim to be an expert. I even googled what appears to be an impartial source and helpfully posted that link in order to facilitate a mature dialog with you. Turns out in fact you are an arrogant fuckwit.
Sami al-Hajj was an innocent Al Jazeera cameraman that the US Government detained for years at Guantanmo Bay with no charges laid.
The US tends to more target whistleblowers (Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriaku) and journalist-type individuals (Julian Assange) for harassment, charges and imprisonment.
Having said that if you look at the map and identify those nations which the USA explicitly supports with funding and arms:
Bahrain 6
Egypt 12
Israel and Occupied Territories 4 (Israel also killed several journalists last year)
Saudi Arabia 4
In the USA if you drift out too far from the editorial line you simply get your ass fired and become unemployable as opposed to imprisoned (eg Nasr, Clancy).
also just been reading about barrett brown – good summary here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/30/the-controversial-punishment-of-barrett-brown-a-deep-dive/
technically he’s been sentenced for 3 charges – accessory after the fact to a crime and helping the perpertrators evade prosecution, obstructing justice, and threatening to kill an FBI agent. He’s just pleaded guilty to those.
Another source of journalist tracking:
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-imprisoned.html?annee=2015
The US justice system has gone down the road of negotiating plea bargains form their targets, which means that the cases and evidence never see a jury or a judge.
Essentially they say to the target – you plead guilty to this and this, and we’ll put you away for three or four years. Or we’ll go after you with these other charges, and you will go away for 30 or 35 years.
Sorry, nadis, I shouldn’t have jumped at you like that. I (wrongly) assumed that you were playing the Te Reo Putake game of stonewalling and asserting that black is white and up is down.
I appreciate you are genuine in trying to find out more about this, but the “Committee to Protect Journalists” is about as reliable as Fox News—which is one of its “corporate media donors” along with the Associated Press, CNBC, and CNN. The CPJ has close ties to extreme right wing Cuban “exile” terrorist groups in Miami and New York.
Like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the CPJ is a suspect and deeply compromised organisation.
Fuck me, what a load of shit. The CPJ is highly respected, has a long and proud record of campaigning for journalists and indeed, saving the lives of many who have been imprisoned. Y’know, real journalists, not the imaginery ones in your head, Moz.
Have a read and feel ashamed at your dismal effort at slandering them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_Protect_Journalists
From your (sadly for you) very useful link….
Funding
According to the organization’s 2011 Annual Report, financial supporters include individuals, corporations, and foundations. The report does not include details on the largest financial supporters. Corporate media donors include the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN and Fox News.
“Highly respected”, indeed. Not highly respected by real journalists and people who bother to read more than the Grauniad and the Daily Mail, but “highly respected” by certain “corporate media donors”.
So fucken what. They are staunchly independant, do good work and save lives. You … not so much.
So fucken what.
Excellent! A first rate response to being exposed. Possibly the funniest and most bewildered “So what” since Garth George was similarly confronted by Jon Stephenson……
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1012/S00457/journalists-clash-on-media7-over-war-reporting.htm
They are staunchly independant, [sic] do good work and save lives.
They are funded by a retinue of establishment pillars, including Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans. Their “surveys” are selective and partisan, just like you would expect from a “Committee” funded by Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans.
But please, go ahead and call the CPJ “independant”. It’s your (paper thin) credibility that’s on the line when you back such partisan sources.
You … not so much.
Okay, sling off at me if you want. After that, have a listen to Jeremy Scahill, who is definitely NOT the kind of American journalist who endorses Fox News and extreme right wing Cuban terrorists…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlQHUEWYigM
🙄
Cheers, nadis. I was wondering the same thing myself.
As you know perfectly well, they are pursuing Julian Assange and Edward Snowden with implacable ferocity; Assange is currently in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and Snowden has found refuge in Russia.
Yes, I guess you could quibble and claim that Snowden is not a credentialed journalist in the way that such outstanding practitioners of the craft as John Roughan and Fran O’Sullivan are credentialed, but the fact remains: if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.
Have you ever heard of James Risen? Thought not……
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/us/james-risen-in-tense-testimony-refuses-to-offer-clues-on-sources.html?_r=0
It’s not a quibble to point out that neither man is a journalist and neither man is locked up in the USA or the UK. If you have the names of journalists who are imprisoned up in those countries, please feel free to post them. If there are any then they need to have their cases publicised. Telling us their names would be a great start.
It’s not a quibble, it’s a lie. But obviously your mind is made up.
If Assange is not a journalist, then neither is James Risen. I note that you did not even bother to mention Risen’s case.
Of course, this is the “non-journalism” that compels the U.S. government and its legion of unpaid hounds to bay after Assange….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
BZZZZT! Wrong answer. We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK, that’s journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Next contestant please. For ten pounds, can you tell me what is wrong with Moz? I’ll repeat the question: what is wrong with Moz? You may confer with your teammates or phone a friend.
I appreciate the levity, Te Reo, but you haven’t done anything to answer the challenge: what about James Risen?
Just so you get on with that task, we’ll pretend for a moment that Assange, Snowden and Manning are not in asylum, exile or prison for their role in exposing momentous crimes.
BZZZZT! We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Contestant, you have answered James Risen who is … (checks notes) … not imprisoned in the US or UK. No points. Do any of the other contestants know the names of journalists imprisoned in the US or UK? Take your time …
What’s your point? The US doesn’t officially torture people within its own borders either. It subcontracts it overseas.
Well actually I have, and it turns out he isn’t imprisoned nor is he in jail which tends to invalidate the main thrust of your rant. In fact in the story you linked there is this:
“Mr. Holder pledged not to send reporters to jail, which would normally be the consequence of refusing to testify in a case like Mr. Sterling’s. Then, he indicated that he would not force Mr. Risen to reveal his sources, but would instead force Mr. Risen only to reveal limited information that he had already acknowledged.”
So not only has not been in jail, isn’t currently in jail, the US Attorney General has ruled out putting him in jail.
Right – I see your point exactly.
I have mixed views on Snowden and Assange. The bulk of what they released should not have been. The evidence of crime (i.e., Chelsea Manning’s helicopter video) – no problem, but stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement I’m less supportive of.
And on this:
“if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
So despite your bold claim
“He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.”
you cant come up with a single example?
Are you equally as strident about the worse [sic] behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
With the odd exception, my government does not usually support the crimes of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, etc. It routinely does so for the crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom.
You speak confidently about Snowden and Assange exposing “stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement.” What evidence do you have that they did that? I’d be intrigued if you put it up on this site for us, because neither the U.S. nor U.K. government could manage to do so.
I am as opposed to state power being abused in Russia, China, Turkey and Iran as I am to it being abused in Australia and New Zealand. Are YOU?
Yes.
Can you please focus on providing evidence for your earlier (mis)-assertions, otherwise people will continue to believe you are a flake. Just trying to help you out.
Just trying to help you out.
That remark was a bit snide and unfunny. Hmmmm….
Okay! Stop the play-acting, Te Reo! Your “nadis” persona is as irritating as it is dopey.
I can assure I am not TRP. Are you are going to back up your earlier (mis)-assertions or not?
I knew that. I was trying to annoy Te Reo.
Riiiight. Well spotted, Moz, two different people asking the same simple question* must be evidence of either a conspiracy or a Vulcan mind meld.
*and that question was ‘which journalists are imprisoned in the US and UK ‘ as you claimed. Answer came there none.
Here’s one. Don’t be put off by the fact he looks like Moss from The IT Crowd….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Wolf_(journalist)
But, yes, you’re both right—journalists can usually speak out without fear in the United States. Thank the radicals and liberals who framed the Constitution for that.
However, constitutional and legal protections can only go so far—when governments bring their powers to bear on an individual truth-teller, they will tear down the protections if they can get away with it, including such troublesome notions as legal sanctuary and asylum. Some in the Cameron regime even suggested storming the Ecuadorian embassy to get their hooks on Assange.
I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get to you acknowledging your mistake, Moz. Some weasel words and a link to a court case last decade. Ah, well, the real takeaway from this discussion is that you don’t feel obliged to hold yourself up to the standards you demand of others. The Greeks probably had a word for that (though it may have been sold off to the troika by now).
ps. If you’d thought about it harder, you could have resorted to pedantry by mentioning all those Murdoch employees currently doing porridge in the UK. Of course, they’re not in jail for journalism, but for actual crimes.
lol
I see, Te Reo, that you’ve garnered some (belated) support from one of our friends—one with a rather insalubrious record of credulity. He posted his intelligent comment at 3:46 p.m., more than four hours after everyone had gone home.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Or is it?
asynchronous communication is a bitch, ain’t it?
It’s almost as if this example of you making shit up in a froth-frenzy (and then wriggling around trying not to admit you fucked up) will remain as yet another permanent record of your loose relationship with reality.
Is it me, or is something seriously happening to NZ and are we well and truly stuffing up this once clean green country that Keys likes to promote but still allows dairying to pollute.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening, Silence. Hardly a sound. The other thing I have noticed over the last few years, when I came to NZ over 45 year ago, the Myna’s used to line up at the side of the road to get the dead insects hit by cars, and jump out of the way ”just in time” before they were hit by a vehicle. The number of Myna’s doing that now, to me seems to have decreased.
In my non expert opinion, these two things, along with the Kauri die back and the devastation of the Cabbage tree by a virus concerns me that all is not well with the environment of NZ.
Yeah, I noticed that there are a lot less cicadas than usual. Cicadas and summer go hand in hand for me. I love them, always have. When summer kicks off I always listen out for the first cicada.
Cicada’s have a long in ground life cycle (5-7 years) and years where there are lower numbers can be traced back to adverse weather events during breeding. They also forecast ‘mast’ years by the same logic. I think from memory there was one in the Hutt Valley 4 or so years ago where literally thousands could be seen on a single lamppost.
Regarding the cabbage tree virus it is actually a long existing disease called Phytoplasma that proliferated with the arrival of a new vector in this case passion vine hoppers the same has happened with Phormium.
Kauri dieback is more interesting I cant help but suspect that the particular phytophera strain has long existed but has been inadvertently spread or subtle climate changes have allowed it to proliferate. Phytophera exists in all soils and is usually kept in check by other naturally occurring organisms like trichoderma.
natural cycles can be adversely affected by humans messing with the ecologies, either local, or global (CC).
Perhaps we are loving our kauri to death. I looked at available bookings to view the great kauri in Northalnd I think it was Tane Mahuta himself, but it was booked up for months. It is said that the numbers of people going through the kauri are probably transporting this nasty whatsit around. I looked at an old book the other day and there was one of the old super giant kauris in it and two people standing at the base were dwarfed and I don’t know how many people it would have taken to stretch arms round the trunk.
We have probably reached the stage where we have to limit visitors and make times for NZs to visit. It would be nice to get a chance. There are limits to viewing Tiritiri Matenga Island – it’s special and same with kauri. And keep pigs off – they are said to be another problem, and then they would draw hunters and their dogs after them.
There is an extensive board walk and board platform to view Tane Mahuta from – built in recent years – designed to protect the forest floor around the old giant.
What I think should be of more concern is that huge logging trucks trundle up and down the road beside that forest – I would think that causes much more damage reverberating from roadside thru to the forest – than people on a board walk.
I suspect the trees may have grown used to the ground shaking after all these millennia; it’s the temperatures that’ll they’ll struggle with.
The most likely explanation is that it’s a good year for the wasps.
Instead, an army of swarming frustrating flies has invaded New Zealand.
P.S :
I have made four fly traps using empty plastic coke bottles as shown in the link below. The fly attractants I have used/experimented include liver, honey, fish and , fermenting yeast.
While some flies have been attracted and get caught, I am still not satisfied as there are heaps of flies still flying about. I have read that different types of flies are attracted to different types of bait!
Question : Do any of you know which may be the best fly attractant to the contemporary flies we have?
Here is the info for a very simple home made fly trap! You are welcome!
http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/How_to_make_a_fly_trap/
“I have made four fly traps”
Instead of taking the all-out nuclear option and viciously killing flies, have you ever thought of just trying to reason with them ? You know, being a decent human being by making an effort to appeal to their moral sensibilities ? Next time you see a couple of flies flying around like out-of-control boy-racers, just try telling them (preferably in an authentic Yorkshire accent) ‘Come on, luds, there’s no need for all this, there was never any need for it. Let’s just let bygones be bygones.” And if that doesn’t do the job then just corner one of them and have a quiet word along the lines of: “If this sort of behaviour continues, young man, then I’m going to have to have a serious talk with your father”. Works a treat every time. Flies are people too, remember.
“…the contemporary flies we have”
I prefer to think of them as Post-Modernist.
Hm, that may be my last resort….Simple sweet talking sound bites to these filthy-free-market neoliberal buggers hovering around with such utterly gutterly misappropriating maddening minds.
I won’t be surprised if the crooks come with embedded mobile and GPS these days!
Fans – if you have them – are an effective deterrent to flies.
Your better with a pair of frogs in a terrarium, and using a butterfly net to catch the flies. Great light excise and quite addictive seeing how many you can scoop. Give us a laugh seeing (all arms & legs) & hearing them crashing about the foliage nailing their prey. You know when really content, as Mrs & Mr Froggy sing with delight. Amazes me how they can eat so many as the next morning very few are left.
There is bugger all flies aroung mine this year and being a farm house that’s a surprise. We’ve had a 30ish swallows living with us so i wonder if that’s the cause.
Swallows are very effective insect catchers, so I’d say yes.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening,
Cicadas (species specific ) have long life cycles and have evolved over time to select periods determinable with prime numbers to constrain predation ie they tend to outlive their predators.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.ms.cicada10may10-story.html
@ poission
Hi can you tell me anything about raising nz preying mantis successfully. They are in decline around here.
Usually at this time of year we are feeding our yellow bearded dragon lizard them, he goes crazy chasing them around his terrarium, something’s up their absence if strange. In the interim plenty of crickets from our back section. Out place is a zoo, all good makes a happy home.
Would you say that the water quality is of very great concern? I personally feel that there is being more and more taken from the qualifier and wonder why the Farmers and associated industry do not (want to?) realize that their water will one day be saline because of it. At the same time, water quality is being compromised at all levels with the excuse that it is OK to have a “certain amount” of pollutants go into streams and lakes. It already affects the health of people due to high nitrate concentration in the water table – our drinking water.
I think this is connected to all living things and beings.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/30/eleanor-catton-blasts-critics-jingoistic-national-tantrum
Eleanor Catton won’t shut up.
So fuck you Key, Plunket, Farrar, Ede, Hooton.
This is a quite sobering read; the brief biographies of some of the many women who have died fighting ISIS in Kobani:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/kurdish-women-died-kobani-isis-syria
Indeed, Te Reo. Which makes you wonder why the United States and United Kingdom continue to fund and support ISIS in Syria.
[Sorry RY but best if this site does not link to that site – MS]
yesterday’s blog … seriously worth the time.
Oh dear, yet another “prominent New Zealander” gets name suppression and as always the PM knows nothing!
@DTB .. how do you make the link that way please ? Much improved on my effort, thank you.
How do I put links in the comments cleanly
Prime Mr Forgetful Minister John Key
Yeah right!
LOL !
thx @DTB
Looks like the home of democracy is serious about once again defending itself against a polyglot empire far more powerful than they….
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/30/greece-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-shun-officials-troika
I have to say, the Greek fight against the German led Troika is stirring all my romantic Byronic philhellenism!!!
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and Rome,
And get knocked on his head for his labors.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.
-Byron, 1820
But what comes next?
If a deal isn’t struck then Greece as a whole and the poorer parts particular will get economically smashed as Greece has a massive budget shortfall. Someone will blink first – Greece or the EU?
With EUR exit off the table I can’t see what options Greece has. They can’t fund current expenditure by themselves let alone service their debt. I’m assuming Tsipras has a plan, but so far with the cancelling of asset sales, re-hiring and raising pensions/salaries he has cocked his nose at the Germans who are paying his bills, while at the same time building a level of expectation within Greece that will be very difficult to wind back if necessary. Maybe he is just going nuclear and saying “we are going to default, so get your check book out”. If so, I think that is a miscalculation – I think the Germans would let Greece default and leave the Euro. It would actually make it stronger as it removes an outlier from an appropriate policy perspective.
What has been disappointing from a Syriza policy perspective is any talk about cracking down on corruption, tax evasion and the cosy corrupt monopolies that enrich the top end of Greece. If they addressed some of those issues the discussions with Germany would be lot easier plus Greece would have a ton more fiscal revenue.
2 words: military coup.
Taiparas needs to watch out for the generals.
In EU circles, the hushed whispers about military junta perhaps being the best option to carry out austerity measures will start up…
All through Greek austerity, the Greek military have still somehow been receiving new billion dollar toys
“2 words: military coup.”
Funny that, I can feel a Pinochet type Chile thing coming on.
The EU wont give Greece up yet. Though they will probably kick off with a ‘hearts and minds’ propaganda campaign.
This is the outline plan that Varoufakis, Holland and Galbraith have put together over the last couple of years.
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/
@ nadis -Well analyzed, glad that someone sees the bigger picture.
@ Sanctuary
Like
Guess which of these two women was called a “fiery
human rights crusader” by the New York Times
https://twitter.com/KeaneBhatt/status/561045999284916224
This is how a police state protects “secrets”:
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA and up to 80 years on circumstantial evidence
Sterling’s conviction should chill anyone who believes in investigative reporting in a free society
by MARCY WHEELER, Salon, 29 January 2015
The participants in the economy of shared tips and intelligence in Washington D.C., breathed a collective sigh of relief when, on January 12, the government announced it would not force James Risen to testify in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. “Press freedom was safe! Our trade in leaks is safe!” observers seemed to conclude, and they returned to their squalid celebration of an oppressive Saudi monarch.
That celebration about information sharing is likely premature. Because, along the way to the conviction of Sterling this week on all nine counts – including seven counts under the Espionage Act — something far more banal yet every bit as dear to D.C.’s economy of secrets may have been criminalized: unclassified tips.
To understand why that’s true, you need to know a bit about how the Department of Justice larded on charges against Sterling to get to what represents a potential 80-year maximum sentence (though he’s unlikely to get that). Sterling was accused — and ultimately convicted — of leaking two related things: First, information about the Merlin operation to deal flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran, as well as the involvement of a Russian engineer referred to as Merlin in the trial. In addition to that, the government charged Sterling separately for leaking a document (one which the FBI never found, in anyone’s possession): a letter Merlin included along with the nuclear blueprints he wrapped in a newspaper and left in the mailbox of Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So the government convicted Sterling of leaking two things: information about the operation, and a letter that was used in the operation.
Then, having distinguished the operation from the letter, DOJ started multiplying. They charged Sterling for leaking the operation to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article about it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter about it: one leak, three counts of espionage.
Then they charged Sterling for improperly retaining the letter (again, FBI never found it, not in CIA’s possession, not in Sterling’s possession, and Merlin purportedly destroyed his version before anyone could find it in his possession). Then DOJ charged Sterling for leaking the letter to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article including it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter including verbatim excerpts from it (apparently Risen is a better investigator than the FBI, because he found a copy): one letter, four more counts under the Espionage Act. ….
Read more….
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/28/this_is_how_a_police_state_protects_secrets_jeffrey_sterling_the_cia_and_up_to_80_years_on_circumstantial_evidence/
“Department of Justice.”
Sort of like the “Ministry for Truth.”
And the Ministry of “Defence”.
Homework assignment for “nadis” and Te Reo Putake
Research the following topics and then argue how the United States is not a dire threat to journalists:
1.) Giuliana Sgrena
2.) Al Jazeera office, Baghdad, April 8, 2003
3.) Palestine Hotel, Baghdad, April 8, 2003
4.) Abu Dhabi strikes, April 8, 2003
Nice goalposts, Moz. Did you shift them all by yourself?
Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?
I agree with Morrissey.
On top of the various examples he has presented, there is also the simple fact that the west has other powerful ways of controlling journalists.
You only get a job or get promoted if you say the right things.
Look at the Eleanor Catton affair to see the state of the media here and the role in suppressing dissent.
I recommend everyone watches Shadows of Liberty.
The story of Gary Webb shows what happens when a US journalist questions the system.
Sobering.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1543807/
This is lovely
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11394630
Talking to trees and other plants is healthy imo. And saying sorry is also healthy. And calling a tree ‘mate’ is very healthy.
There’s more and more research suggesting that plants have a kind of sentience beyond what we normally consider. Nature is intelligent and it behooves us to behave as if that were true, for our own sakes as much as for nature’s.
“And saying sorry is also healthy”
That one seem especially important all things considered.
You’d get more sense out of a tree root than you would out of people like this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEkPoZSBXh0
or this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckq6gsK49PE
You, or at least the person who cut the tree root, is a brute.
That wasn’t the English word “mate” but the Maori word with the same spelling.
He was saying sorry because he had killed the poor tree. Very healthy indeed!
very funny al – the tree didn’t die.
Cutting some roots won’t kill a tree (depending on the tree, how big it is, how many roots are cut etc).
Hey, I had just say down after a long, lazy, mildly alcoholic brunch.
Let me have an (albeit possibly a weak one) attempt at a joke.
Sorry. A 😉 always makes things clearer.
There’s probably another pun there on the word mate to do with what marty was talking about, mea culpa mea mate, to mangle it completely, but I’ve been online too long to come up with something better.
It would make a nice poem 🙂
You,
or at least
the person who cut
the tree root,
is a brute.
That wasn’t the
English word
“mate”
but the Maori
word with the
same spelling.
He was saying sorry
because he had killed
the poor tree.
Very healthy
indeed!
as an aside maybe phils prose should be read as poetry 🙂
If we could actually read it 😛
Nice poem, I agree.
Talk to water too!
The following links say there is scientific evidence to show that water undergoes structural (not chemical) changes constantly depending upon different factors. Good happy thoughts or bad thoughts affect the structure of water doing good or harm to you. Take a look!
Structured Water : How music/words/thoughts affect structure of water[8 minutes]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwaNfNcurvQ
Water effects :Sadhguru at IIT Madras (Part V) [9 minutes]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C1p4HUHlfE
Water has memory: Very interesting doco [1 hour 25 min]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFdXLmbHM2I
Good luck to the Queensland Labour Party today.
If the LNP get another term, Queenslanders can kiss their power grid goodbye, among other things.
If anyone needs some light relief – here is something very funny
Richard Dawkins Reads Hate Mail From “Fans”
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/richard-dawkins-reads-hate-mail-fans
Hilarious…
Could do the same with whale oil views on lefties….
In the thread about Syriza’s victory I picked out this sentence from one of the articles, “To start from priorities and then define the method.” I think it is very important that parties on the left do just that if they want to be taken seriously. Andrew Little seems to get this, since he has listed four priorities he intends to discuss over his coming speeches, and I hope he does not waver from it.
If we look at how, say, the Capital Gains tax was presented last election, the order ran the other way – it was put forward as a method for curbing house-price inflation and addressing inequality. But people were expected to trust that the stated objectives would follow from the method. And this is my point – when you declare an aim you are making a commitment, and people can assume that you will adapt your method accordingly. When you declare a method, insisting that some desired objective will result from it, you are effectively asking for unwarranted trust, since your commitment stops at the method. For this reason, the method-before-aim order comes across as more of a pitch than a promise.
That’s very good. So with the CGT, it should be presented later as a solution to some other aim? eg we’re going to do x, y, z (eg build more houses), and here is how we pay for it.
Yes, if you put the intended result first, it can be assumed you will adjust your method if the one you have in mind doesn’t work. For example, let’s say, “We are going to build more houses and we will pay for it with a capital gains tax.” However, house sales slow down and we are not getting enough from the CGT, so we are obliged to look for another way of paying for the houses. Whereas if we say, “A CGT will result in more houses being built” and this doesn’t happen, we are committing ourselves only to the CGT but not the houses – if things don’t result as we said they would, well too bad. I think people sniff out the difference intuitively without the need to analyse the arguments.
Quite right Olwyn, but it’s like you are having to teach Labour, the oldest political party in the country, the bloody ABC’s.
The thing is, National do not have to meet any such standards – their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public. And National voters know that the pitch is merely to placate waverers and ward off criticism. Labour does not have, and cannot have, that luxury. They did have something like it in the eighties, when aspiring young men of the city gravitated their way, but then they had not yet lost the trust of working class and National had not won over the aspiring young men. Now, they have no choice but to say what they mean and mean what they say. Convincingly.
… their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public
Which of course is exactly what Labour has been doing in recent years. That is, trying to be National lite and adopt their type of strategy. Cunliffe tried to shift the paradigm but he didn’t have enough time or support to do it. Now Labour has a new leader who understands that for Labour to succeed it must be the other way around – a commitment to ordinary NZers and a pitch to potential cronies. He started down that road this week just gone.
I agree. I voted for Andrew, and I am glad I did. I like the fact that he has four priorities he intends to discuss in the next little while – the SME one being his state-of-the nation speech. You know where you are with someone who can clearly articulate their priorities.
If Labour starts back on CGT again, it is a vote killer. Most people in Auckland know what the problem is, immigration and high cost of materials and commercialisation of housing and low wages that are not keeping up with inflation. There are so many other ways to solve or relive the housing in Auckland. For example in the old days, you could have a granny flat on your property or rent out a basement or whatever to help with the rent/mortgage etc or to house other members of the family like your elderly parents etc. Not only did it help to provide additional income for lower income people it also allowed a cheaper nicer place for affordable accommodation in better areas for renters.
Now, no way. Has to be an apartment to be affordable which has Body corp fees, no pets normally, and not so good for children. To get through a legal granny flat there is a huge amount of red tape to get one in a domestic house.
(BTW Nothing to do with RMA and the National RMA reforms are to make unaffordable housing and to polluters to wreck the environment!) You can bet no one has suggested Granny flats in the unitary plan – that because in NZ, democracy is a business, full of lobbyists – they actually don’t want real people who want housing to have a say, just barristers of people who have land and want to develop it (which will not be for affordable housing but for unaffordable housing to make a profit) or politicians who don’t really know much about housing.
Currently to create a granny flat/minor unit on dwelling in Auckland, you need to pay approx $10,000 straight to council for 2nd unit, approx $12,000 for separate water meter, god knows for separate power etc etc. Quite frankly that is why you have no affordable housing. Because of the above to create an affordable unit that is council compliant would be about $40,000 before you actually do the work. AT say $300 a week for rent it would take about 3 years before you paid back the council and the utility connections alone. But in most parts of Auckland you are not allowed to have a granny flat anyway. If the council allowed Granny flats cheaply then you could make about 20% more housing in Auckland for the cost of conversion of a 2nd kitchen.
Utilising existing housing stock would be the easiest way in the short term to create more housing in rental shortage areas.
What is wrong with this country is that people only have 1 idea and then they just keep bringing it up to solve a problem that is different to the solution. It is simpleton politics.
65% of Kiwis or something like that own property, it is their key asset and they do not want to lose it by some politician in Wellington trying to solve a housing problem in Auckland, that will not be solved by CGT but instead impact them on their retirement of their biggest asset, all while the top 1% are paying practically no tax. If anything should be learn’t by Greece, don’t target middle class to pay the taxes of the mistakes of the super rich. They see red, (and don’t vote for it).
If you wanna kill housing price rises (and none of the top 5% with a big property portfolio does), you tamp down bank lending, and you put a big fuck off stamp duty on every residential property transaction a person undertakes over 1 transaction every 3 years.
Also we cannot have 1/3 of NZ’s population living in 0.3% of NZ’s land area.
I’m totally for stamp duty if there is a tax on property, to make sure even the super rich and immigrants pay it too. Not only would it be an immediate way to get taxes, you could target for the poor. i.e. under $250k no stamp duty. First home owners, no stamp duty, etc. But should be very low like 1/2 percent or something like that. That way when you buy your 10 million dollar mansion in Auckland, hey presto, $50,000 in revenue for NZ taxpayer and all collected by title transfer and no way to get out of it by clever accounting.
Good arguments; just remember that real estate agents take 3% to 4% of the sale price, sometimes for doing sweet FA.
When you look at growing inequality – whereas it predicted that 1% of the world is going to own 99% of world’s assets, it is pretty clear that governments need to target the 1% owning all the assets. If you look at John Key, owns 50 million in assets but nobody really knows cos it’s in various trusts etc – that is who should be paying more tax and targeted.
Going on about the ‘greedy’ investors, ‘greedy baby boomers’ greedy landlords etc latest scapegoat, is missing the point. Why are some people owning 50 million in assets and gaining more and more every year? If that super rich group, paid more tax then maybe we could afford more for everybody else.
In Italy they actually targeted people driving about in Porsches and expensive cars, guess what, found a lot of them could not account for their cars, and many claimed subsidies and on the lowest tax bracket.
Labour and Greens need to stop whipping the PAYE middle class for tax and actually look at fair ways to target consumption such a stamp duty. Personally I would prefer someone (often coming into the country) to have to pay a small tax to purchase an expensive house. Even if stamp duty was on houses over 3 million – again it is stopping super expensive houses being speculated on and farm sales etc
Soon, in Auckland in places in the inner city they are going to reach that level with the constant speculation (often on the family home so not affected by any CGT if that came in) and that is actually locking out families that used to live in those areas.
There are many flexible and varied ideas which can be used. I generally agree that taxation via PAYE and GST is over used and taxation on capital/land/speculation/financial transactions under used.
Although to make a statement, I would introduce one more much higher PAYE threshold set at 10x the minimum wage = over $280,000 pa.
The numbers aren’t great from a stamp duty.
The total value of houses sales in NZ in 2014 was 40 billion. Assuming you get a 0.5% stamp duty on every one of those you’ll raise 200 million. Exclude all houses under 400,000 and you’ll raise 120 million.
120 million is equivalent to about 240 houses at the NZ median house price. Thats a rough idea of the demand impact of a stamp duty (studies into Tobin tax indicate the reduction in turnover is roughly equivalent to the tax raised. A heroic assumption but gives an idea)
What if a government passed into law that house values could only rise at inflation
Too inflexible and prone to failure in my view. Might be used as a short term emergency measure. Controlling down house prices over the longer term will require a range of powerful measures.
Had a feeling it would be full of fish hooks but if we were ever to move to a steady state economy rampant house booms would need sorting.
Price controls, subsidies, extra taxes etc may all work in the short term but eventually distort completely the market they are applied to. Imagine what would happen if the government mandated a maximum price of 29 cents per kilogram for bananas? Eventually two things would happen – supermarkets would sell no bananas, and there would be black market where you actually ended up paying higher prices.
The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.
Little bit hard to sell a house on the black market.
I’m all for
“”The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.”
And would add if we as a nation invested in small town nz in stead of letting them fade away less people would drift to the big smoke.
Well actually no its not hard. There would be plenty of ways to avoid the price cap – paying too much for chattels, settling in 6 months time but renting at a premium in the mean time, losing at high stakes poker etc. Why would a person sell their property for less than waht someone is prepared to pay? Don’t underestimate peoples capacity to innovate. I hesitate to call anything around economic behaviour a law, but the closest you get is individuals acting in their own best interest. It’s been that way for millions of years of evolution.
One of my children is thinking about buying a first home – unless something amazing pops up, I don’t think there is any harm in waiting. Economic cycles and all that – anyone with grey hair can think of plenty of times in the past where we have had similar fears about asset prices. And guess what, eventually they revert.
Singapore already owns part of Auckland city shares, so why not. Just remember, what goes up must come down. Its a matter of time.
Fast fact: 80% of residential property development in Singapore is done by the public sector. That’s how important the Singaporean government views stable housing supply and pricing.
The Singaporean public sector develops everything from cheap social housing to million dollar luxury appartments.
I suspect that Singapore modelled its system off the NZ of the 1950s and 60s.
I’ve lived in Singapore – it’s a resource constrained (land + everything else) country and the deal the population has done with the govt is that they will give up a certain amount of civil rights in exchange for certainty around things like housing and minimum standard of living.
Not sure NZ’ers would embrace 1 or 2 room HDB housing.
Understood. It’s not exactly the Kiwi dream. Yet in the peculiar Auckland environment I think the market has shown that ‘cheap’ 2 bedroom 80m2 apartments will sell like hot cakes to young people and first home buyers.
Cripes I basically agree with all you’ve written here.
Majority in favour of CGT historically – as long as it is not on family home – which was exactly what Labour was proposing prior to the election:
“Vote Compass asked tens of thousands of people whether landlords should pay more tax on the sale of their rental properties. Nearly half either agreed or strongly agreed, while a third weren’t happy” http://tvnz.co.nz/vote-2014-news/compass-support-capital-gains-tax-6063134
Currently we have speculators making a killing in Auckland – tax ’em as well. The Nats really need to do something more in Auckland than make fancy (but useless) speeches.
I think the framing of the question is important. Essentially that survey asked: “Are you in favour of other people paying capital gains tax?” I’m surprised 100% weren’t in favour of that.
Speculators should be getting taxed under existing rules. If you buy an asset – any asset – for a trading or speculative purpose – any gains are taxed at your personal tax rate. The rules are in existence. All that needs to change is the threshold that is applied to assessment. At the moment it is something like 6 property transactions in a 2 year period. That could easily be lowered to capture more.
Politicians get houses, we get bullshit:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/10809/
Just read this off a Facebook group that I belong to:
“….I heard a rumour this morning, and would like to know if theres any truth to it,if there is, then its an outrage.
Ok, the rumour is…. that all those 3 bedrooms that people are being kicked out of,and extra bedrooms added are not for larger families at all.They are ‘social housing’ in the broadest sense of the word,meaning they are to be ‘shared; in the same manner as a boarding house,anyone single without dependants is to be put in this ‘shared social housing’ the small ablution block style houses reserved for those with dependants.
If theres anyone on here thats matey with a local MP, could they please get that MP to check and see if this is correct,as my old neighbour was offered a place in one and was told this was the arrangement for adults with no dependants nowadays by her tenancy manager…..”
Are you meaning state houses?
Yes.
Thanks for raising this. It does sound like something they would do, but it also could be getting stretched by rumour.
I have raised an OIA to see if this does exist. I have also suggested the person who posted this go to the media to get this investigated.
What a lovely shiny new set of punishments for “difficult” “clients” that enables. Whoopee!
How to say: “I give up, I got nothing”
with a witty little graphic
So how DOES one concede that one has been shown up, out-pointed, exposed as a fraud, a scoundrel and a liar?
A useful convention occasionally employed on this site is to type a colon (:) then the word roll then another colon (:)
: roll :
Remove the gaps and you will end up with this pleasing little image: 🙄
which says so eloquently: “I concede, and I skulk back to my corner in disgrace.”
vide….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-31012015/#comment-960330
I dunno about that M – they gave you quite a few chances to answer the question or provide the evidence but alas twas for nought.
No, Marty, you’re wrong. I conceded—admittedly after a bit of squabbling—their point that not a lot of journalists are actually in jail in the United States—pointing out that this happy state of affairs is entirely due to the radicals and liberals who wrote the Constitution, and to generations of activists who have fought for the right to speak freely in America.
I also pointed out, with a few examples, that the United States regime has been, and is, a grave threat to journalists all over the world.
Perhaps you need to read a little more thoroughly and widely on this topic. Here’s a good place to start….
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/journalism-under-attack-and-not-just-ferguson
Thank you for your concern my friend – you would have had more luck quoting figures for people of colour wrongly imprisoned or maybe indigenous people wrongly and unjustly imprisoned, even today – maybe some of them were journalists too.
NZ ranked 7th highest cost of living
Ahead of high income countries like France, UK, Luxembourg, Finland.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/visualizing-cost-living-around-world
Interesting link on your web site there about the “American Dream” – or lack of it any more.
The stats there are very similar to ones I’ve seen here in NZ… one that really caught my eye about child poverty:
“#15 Right now, more than one out of every five children in the United States is on food stamps”
Great stuff, but too obvious for the current “administration” here I suspect.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/death-american-dream-22-numbers
Graphene Could Double Electricity Generated From Solar .
Early days yet, but a promising development for solar.
15 years to deploy 25,000 Benmore dams worth of generation mate. I’ll be waiting in anticipation.
I can tell. Pull your pants up. If one of your doomsdays does occur, I suppose your last words will be an orgasmic “I told you so” that, sadly for you, nobody else will hear.
In the meantime, how’s the NZ ebola epidemic going? Aren’t we all due to have it by now?
Greece sacks heads of privatisation agency immediately:
The reasons are here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/30/greece-politics-privatisation-idUSA8N0UD01M20150130
There is an anti Greece pro capitalist article in the Kiwi blog. I put the above link there and made the following comment.
“I hope our stupid, lying neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, narrow, myopic and money-hungry pro wealthy, pro corporate, capitalist National/ACT government changes its agenda and stops all its shallow, pro rich and anti people, anti nation policies such as for example, the sale of state houses immediately. The uncontrolled, mega rich corporate driven capitalist free market agenda is a fraud on the ordinary people, the less privileged, the ‘under class’ and the poor”
What do you think?
No-one will take you seriously because you are obviously hiding your lack of knowledge behind over the top jargon which is so exaggerated it is meaningless.
You sound like an exaggerated version of Wolfie Smith.
What ‘knowledge’ do you think I am hiding and lacking?
I made a succinct comment to encapsulate everything that I abhor about the RW and our present destructive government.
I had never heard of Wolfie Smith. Will watch some episodes on You Tube to see if he is good or bad!
Thanks for your response.
Myopic means short sighted. Make a list of the other words you don’t understand, and we can explain them to you.