Cunliffe attacks Nats’ crony capitalism
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12:25 pm, June 14th, 2012 - 79 comments
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David Cunliffe went to the lion’s den yesterday with a speech telling a meeting of Kensington Swan’s receivership and liquidation lawyers that there would be a lot less work for them under Labour but saying “the Labour Party is not your enemy. Your enemy is inefficiency, corruption, and the wastage of both public and private wealth. Your enemy is a cosy corruption that helps a few friends of the government get very rich at the expense of the community.”
It’s worth having a read of the full speech, where Cunliffe addresses not only National’s crony capitalism but also its economic management, comparing it to the failed policies of the Hoover Administration during the Great Depression.
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Speech to annual Kensington Swan insolvency function, Auckland, 11 June 2012
David Cunliffe, Labour Economic Development and Associate Finance Spokesperson
Tēnā Koutou
Thank you for inviting me into the lion’s den.
As this is a group of insolvency and receivership lawyers and accountants, it’s a fair guess that your businesses will be booming right now.
If I was speaking to a group of exporters and manufacturers, it’s a fair bet the opposite would be true.
And if this was a group of blue collar workers from my electorate in west Auckland, you can bet your boots the mood would be grim.
So many Kiwis are really struggling to make ends meet. After the 2008 crash they were just getting along. A year later this had turned to anger, a year later to despair. This year, many of them are heading for the departure gate: 50,000 a year in the last year alone. A quarter of New Zealanders no longer live here.
So for their sake, and everyone’s sake, let’s begin this conversation by being frank and up-front.
We all know that much of the business community generally favours National.
Unfortunately, New Zealand is still a democracy, so Labour gets voted back in from time to time. That’s “tiresome”! I know, but that’s the way it is.
So, what “evil plans” does Labour have in store for the business community this time? The answer might be welcome news for all but the insolvency team
Anyone who seriously believes that the economy can somehow heal itself by being left alone, hasn’t read a newspaper for the last 12 months.
Looking at world markets over the last few months, I would have to agree that we are “back at the precipice – with a frayed rope” (Brian Fallow, NZ Herald).
Greece may still reject its bailout package; Spanish banks are still in deep trouble; and Italy is too big to bail, or to let fail.
The Beehive spin doctors are all too ready to blame anyone but themselves for New Zealand’s repeated undershooting of growth forecasts. None of it washes.
The Canterbury earthquake rebuild should by now be a source of positive growth – but it is well behind schedule and the government is squarely to blame.
Commodity prices can’t be the problem. They have only just come off record highs, reminding us that putting all our cows in one basket is way too risky.
The results under the Key Government make depressing reading.
No one these days seriously believes that a totally unregulated economy will work. Just as important, no one seriously believes that a totally regulated economy will work. It’s a question of getting the balance right.
Do I want to return to the days when you needed a letter from your doctor before you could buy margarine? Absolutely not. Do I want to return to the days when people had a sense of security and trusted their leaders? Absolutely.
LESSONS FROM THE LAST GREAT DEPRESSION
It is said that “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” (George Santayana); or in plain language… “History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time.”
One of the things that gets me up in the morning is the sentiment expressed in the media and in the current government that “nothing can be done so we may as well take it.”
That we may as well accept appalling emigration levels, high unemployment and record high youth unemployment, an accelerating increase in poverty, and debt that leads to regular international credit downgrades.
We should expect more from each other than that.
There is absolutely no inevitability about economic decline.
We do face utterly fundamental choices about our economic future. Effective change will occur when tens of thousands of us behave differently in our firms and unions, boardrooms and Ministries, classrooms and farm sheds.
Of course it is easier to say what we should not do, than what we should do. So in these remarks I want to draw some lessons for what we should do differently:
1. Regulate Financial Markets
The Great Depression, for those who haven’t studied history, was caused by a lack of government regulation. Then, just like now, the vast majority of businessmen strongly resisted any attempt at government regulation.
Then, after the banks sent themselves bankrupt through unregulated speculation with their clients’ funds, the bankers tried to pretend that it wasn’t their fault.
The 1929 stock market crash triggered an economic tsunami that all but flattened America. Just like now, it was the ordinary people that bore the brunt of the crash and the depression that followed it.
And, as if the crash itself wasn’t bad enough, the government still refused to intervene, so the situation got worse. Bank after bank collapsed, along with the millions of families who had entrusted those bankers with their life savings.
By 1933, 11,000 of the United States’ 25,000 banks had failed. That’s nearly half.
People had no money, so they couldn’t buy manufactured goods. Because people stopped buying manufactured goods, factories closed down. Because factories closed down, workers got fired. Because workers got fired, they couldn’t buy manufactured goods.
And so it went on, and on, and on, until, by 1933, nearly 13 million Americans were unemployed. That was a quarter of the total workforce.
And what was the government’s response: <u>nothing</u>. Why? Because the government was intensely opposed to any kind of regulation of big business – the same view as many of the people in this room.
The then US Secretary of the Treasury was Andrew W. Mellon, who was, by curious coincidence, one of the wealthiest men in America.
Mellon strongly opposed government regulation of the banking sector. However, he strongly pushed for austerity measures to balance the budget. Does this sound familiar?
Mellon advised President Herbert Hoover to:
“liquidate labour, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”
Alas, no. What happened in America was exactly the same as is currently happening in Europe. The austerity measures, which were supposed to turn the economy around, instead sent it into a nosedive.
You know, one of the wonderful things about democracy, is that voters sometimes show a good deal more sanity than the politicians or the vested interests.
In America’s case, the voters threw out Herbert Hoover and voted in Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt heavily intervened in the economy, regulated the banks and the stockbrokers, and set America on the path of its longest period of economic growth in history.
I mention all this, because we are currently looking over the economic precipice once more. The world’s three largest economic zones: America, the European Union and Japan/China are already in decline.
And, amazingly, the economic purists in the West are still advocating exactly the same policies as the ones that caused the Great Depression. Really? Have we learned nothing from history?
Who carried the can when the whole house of cards came tumbling down? Certainly not the bankers that set up the house of cards in the first place. As usual, it’s the ordinary people, who pay taxes and naively expect politicians to look after their interests, who are paying the price.
Despite all the promises that the European economic austerity measures would turn this tragic situation around, the opposite is occurring.
When you start firing all your workers and closing down your government departments, those people have no money to spend. Because the workers have no money to spend, the local businesses suffer. So they start firing staff. So the economy goes into deep recession, with no easy way out.
The Labour team believes this is lunacy. If New Zealand goes into a recessionary spiral, what we are close to, we will have to be expansive too.
An increasing number of journalists and politicians are saying what ordinary people already know: that many of the economic policies of the last 30 years have ended in disaster.
You hear the National government taking about the need to sell assets because we have so little money in this country. Do you know why we have so little money in this country? It’s because a large percentage of our economic assets are overseas-owned.
For example, when the Australian-owned banks make billions in profits here, that money isn’t returned to New Zealanders. The money goes straight back overseas.
That financial drain is one of the main reasons we are not paying our way in the world – our external deficit is getting bigger and bigger.
2. Keep and build our assets
And, as if that were not bad enough, the government now wants to sell our major state assets, which is simply going to mean higher power prices for ordinary New Zealanders and still more profits disappearing overseas.
And I’m not the only one who thinks this is nuts. The economic consultants BERL, concluded that the asset sales programme would leave the public accounts looking worse, not better.
BERL’s chief economist, Dr Ganesh Nana, concluded the effect of asset sales on the wider economy would be even worse because the dividends lost to the state would quite likely go to foreign shareholders, adding to the country’s external deficit and national debt.
So why is National proceeding? Is it partly because of its promises to big business? It is partly because many National Party politicians may have links to the very people who will profit from these asset sales? Or partly because the National Party is simply blind?
No matter how many independent analysts report that the asset sales will be an economic disaster that will further increase our national debt, John Key simply looks the other way.
For how much longer, I’m not so sure. I think it’s increasingly obvious that the National government will be dog tucker at the next election. National is hoping that by then, the assets will have been sold and there’ll be nothing we can do about it.
Be that as it may, don’t get me started on the risks of selling off a major stake in our energy system at a time when the world is entering unparalleled energy scarcity and skyrocketing fossil fuel prices – that is the subject of another speech!
3. Get people back to work
If the last Great Depression provides some chilling lessons of what went wrong, it also provides hope for what can be done better.
Much of New Zealand’s response to the Depression in the 1930s and early 40’s is still working for us:
• Around 50% of the state houses still around now were built in the 1930s and 1940s
• Around 40% of all schools still in use were built in this era
• Almost all the North Island dams, and the same of the pylons and substations
• Thousands of rural bridges
• Most of Auckland’s water supply dams and systems
• The core of the Crown Research Agencies, in the form of the DSIR
• Around half of New Zealand’s still-existing hospitals,
• The great North Island pine forests, and
• Most of our government departments now existing were formed, all in that era
Eighty years ago we saw an economic development plan rolled out that turned us all from Depression to development. Like the United States New Deal, the Savage government’s plan altered the course of the country.
For at least 30 years after the end of World War II until the oil shocks of the 1970s, the Government response to the Great Depression still dominated political and commercial life.
In the 1960s, business and the public sector continued this partnership with the great Kinleith Mill near Taupo, and New Zealand Steel at Glenbrook.
Private capital was making money at the same time as the public sector achieved its policy goals.
By the 1980s, the whole system was in need of reform. However, in place of reform, we got a system that closed down productive industries, encouraged energy wastage, created massive unemployment and, above all handed most of the wealth and power to a small elite who the so-called ‘free’ market.
It was this unregulated market that lead to the twin meltdowns; first the 1987 stock market crash, then the 2008 meltdown. Since 2008, the scale of our decline has been substantial.
Throughout the world, pro-business governments have imposed austerity measures and throughout the world, these austerity measures have been an unmitigated disaster.
We need to think with that degree of boldness and clarity, while carefully managing our financial resources, to truly turn back the degree of risk and decline that we now face.
4. Rewrite the invisible plan
By contrast, National is nothing if not predictable in its policies and in its results. From 1990 to 1999, and from 2008 to 2012, the same economic leadership and same result:
• Almost no economic growth
• Public sector cost-cutting that drove recession ever-deeper
• A state that is weaker year after year, and
• A country where wealth transferred from the many to the few, to the point where law firms find it harder and harder to get clients, except in the Receivership Team.
Business is bad. And it was bad the last time National was in, and it’s no coincidence.
Let’s project the same policies after another three years. Here’s how it runs. Treasury again over-predicts GDP growth and hence tax-base income. Private debt remains high and focused on rental housing. The population stagnates and starts to decline even in Auckland.
Respectfully, a buoyant insolvency and mortgagee sector is not the economic sign we want. On the track we are on, it’s what we will get.
When the credit ratings agencies downgraded New Zealand last year, they told us that our biggest problem was not public debt, which is relatively small by world standards, but total private debt and our inability to pay our way in the world.
A new direction is needed.
Let’s not fool ourselves that just doing a little more or a little less of what we have been doing before will save us
LESSONS FROM SMALL SMART COUNTRIES
Small smart countries around the world are grappling with the same issues – how to sustainably grow jobs and incomes in an open, export-oriented economy amid a turbulent world market.
As part of my Economic Development portfolio work, I have commissioned a study of six such countries: Denmark, Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, Ireland and Israel.
The most obvious conclusion of this study so far is that none of them leave their future to chance. The weakest, Ireland, was the one that lowered taxes, opened up to unrestrained foreign investment, and trusted the invisible hand of the market to bring future prosperity.
But whether they have governments of the centre-left or centre-right, all these countries have set a clear vision for where they want to get to, what they want to be, and how they will get there. All set policy targets and timetables and measure their progress.
Take Denmark. It wants to be among the top 10 richest, most innovative countries in the world. It wants to be top 10 for quality labour supply and top three for renewable energy.
They have a 10 year plan to achieve that.
They manage their interest rates, control their housing market, and peg their exchange rate to the Euro.
They manage productivity growth by setting hard targets for education, research and innovation performance, for example:
They invest 3% of their national income in research and development: 2% from the private sector and 1% from the public. That is still dwarfed by neighbour Finland with nearly 4%. New Zealand’s total is less than 1%.
Their innovation strategy is led by the Danish Economic Council, a broad-based top level group including key government agencies, business and labour representatives, and labour experts.
They are careful with their money, and they understand the value of investment.
They invest in research and development, they invest in their infrastructure, they invest in their forests and their environment, but most of all they invest in their people.
To the Danes, investing in education, innovation and infrastructure, is not a liability but an asset. Because without all three, their economy cannot survive.
Is it working? You be the judge – they have fewer natural resources than us, higher population density, and a rubbish climate.
But their income per person is US$40,169 compared to our US$29,882.
Even more importantly, their exports per person are around NZ$ 26,000, compared to our NZ$9,000.
They gain about the same amount from agriculture as us, but many times more from niche manufacturing, environmental services and high technology.
Let’s acknowledge that Denmark is a member of the largest economic union on the planet and has the captive market that comes with that.
Labour under the leadership of both Phil Goff and Helen Clark had a proud record of responsibly improving our trade access. Labour also pushed for environment and labour standards in trade agreements, something we will need to continue to advocate in future.
INVESTMENT, INNOVATION, AND EDUCATION
We need to learn from small smart economies like Denmark. We cannot just leave it to chance, or to the market forces that have got us into this mess.
So Labour went into the last election campaigning for new and better ways to grow our economy.
At the core of our economy-wide measures were big changes to boost capital for business investment, technology and skills. These are the fundamental drivers of productivity.
Our Leader, David Shearer, and Finance Spokesperson, David Parker, have both recently reaffirmed the importance of these changes.
While John Key was hard at work lining his own pockets, David Shearer was getting his hands dirty, feeding and sheltering the people in some of the most depressing and dangerous places on earth. He managed billions of dollars of tax-payers funds with consummate skill, fought corruption and faced down warlords.
Which party leader do you think is better suited to lead us through this time of crisis?
So what will Labour do that shows we have learned the lessons of history?
Number one, we will have to stop the sort of speculation that got us into this mess in the first place.
We have to get investment flowing where it can do the most good – into productive businesses and exports, rather than unproductive financial or property speculation. Like both Treasury and the Reserve Bank, Labour supports a capital gains tax.
Now, nobody in this room, myself included, likes paying tax. And nobody in this room, myself included, likes seeing their hard-earned tax revenue wasted.
I think we all agree that the tax system has to be simple, transparent and achievable.
For example France and Germany are now looking at simplified forms of indirect taxation, such as a financial transactions levy.
It would be so small that most bank users would never even notice it, would be simple to collect, and would raise enough revenue to fund lowering other taxes while fully funding infrastructure development without incurring further public debt. I am delighted that our revenue Spokesperson, David Clark, is keeping a weather eye on these developments.
Another tragic result of the so-called free market is that, the country is now saddled with the multibillion dollar liability of supporting the casualties of this economic religion – the long term unemployed, the single parent families, the pensioners who can no longer afford to warm their houses.
Any economic policy that does not put the unemployed back to work, rebuild the productive sector and help us to pay our way in the world is doomed to failure, and very expensive failure at that.
The current government said they wanted New Zealand to catch up to Australia.
Well it’s working: every week, thousands of Kiwis leave the country in search of a better life across the Tasman.
Why? Because they get paid so much more in Australia. Why are wages higher in Australia? Because the Australian government sees it’s working people as an asset, not a liability.
What’s the National Government’s solution to this – to lower wages still further while doing nothing to improve productivity. Genius.
Clearly no-one told Steven Joyce that Germany, one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, has both high wages and high productivity.
National has again walked away from common sense. One of the key ingredients to Australia’s success has been its compulsory, employment based savings scheme.
Because New Zealand’s workers don’t earn enough to save, the country’s vital savings pool is alarmingly small.
So our second major policy is to lift sustainable local savings and investment is a universal Kiwisaver scheme. This would hike our savings rate four times faster than National’s pallid plan and give every working Kiwi a huge nest egg for their retirement.
To make matters worse, National’s approach to superannuation resembles a man on an iceberg in the sun. He thinks he is on solid ground, but he has built his future on some tragically false assumptions.
The third big policy change from Labour is getting our innovation engine revving. At the moment it is hardly even idling. Total research and development investment in NZ is less than 1% . In Denmark it is 3%. In Finland they are targeting 4% .
Our innovators deserve a break – there are huge public benefits from a vibrant innovation system, and our proposed R and D tax credits reflect that.
By supporting research and development in our business community, we invest in the pillars of economic growth, innovation, education and innovation.
As Economic Development spokesperson, I will be pushing for much higher levels of investment in research and development in both the public and private sector and for a serious overhaul of our innovation ecosystem.
Remember that infrastructure is not just bricks and mortar. Our future depends on having a world class information backbone.
It is a crying shame that it took the current government nearly three years to even begin rolling out its so-called ultra-fast broadband plan. If three years delay is ultra-fast, I’d hate to see ultra-slow.
Fourth, we never forget that our best resource is our people. Education and skills must be a top priority and it must be for all – not just those who can afford them. These three pillars of skills are education skills, physical skills and life skills.
It disgusts me that the National cabinet was prepared to maintain subsidies for their own private schools while firing teachers in everyone else’s schools.
How would Labour fund further investment in education? The answer is simple: stop investing in failure. It is social and economic insanity to be paying people the dole while there are forests to be planted and infrastructure to be built.
Labour will get school leavers off the dole by ensuring a seamless transition into work. We will fund thousands of new apprenticeships by redirecting dole money to job creation with real skills. We will ensure that every young New Zealander under 20 is either earning or learning.
In the twenty first century no-one should expect to be in one job for their whole working life. That’s why learning must be life-long. Denmark invests bullions each year into adult and community education, in New Zealand we invest pocket money.
LESSONS FROM THE GRASS ROOTS
Our economy, under National, is like an oil tanker with the captain asleep at the wheel.
Robert Wade, a New Zealand professor at The London School of Economics, summed up how governments should work with their economies. I’ve paraphrased his views:
When the economy is working well, leave it alone.
When the economy has problems or failures that can be fixed, fix them.
And when an economic policy fails altogether, do something else.
Sounds like common sense to me.
A key lesson of the Great Depression is that unregulated financial markets invariably suffer catastrophic failure. The recent Global Financial Crisis is a classic example.
From New Zealand’s economic development perspective, we can turn around the failed policies of the past.
So that means working with individual industries, regions, businesses and communities to help make good things happen.
You have a build a wall one brick at a time.
You have to build a business one customer at a time.
We have to build our economy one region and one industry at a time.
And we must rebuild our community one family at a time.
So we could have all the fine ideas in the world about economic growth, but if it does not put one unemployed worker into a job, or put one more high value product into an export market, then it will not turn our economic boat around.
Renewing our commitment to industry sectors, regions and communities, will be a key part of Labour’s economic development agenda…
I know it’s trendy to talk about recycling. But we’ve overlooked something here. What about “recycling” human beings? There isn’t a person in this room that isn’t deeply concerned at the numbers of young people, especially young Māori and Pasifika who are not only unemployed, but in some cases, currently considered by some to be “unemployable”.
We also have vast tracts of public and private land that is currently badly under-utilised.
Can we please, please, learn some lessons from history. Where did New Zealand’s great commercial forests come from? Where did America’s great commercial forests come from? They were both planted in the Great Depression by the unemployed.
The American Civilian Conservation Corps is a textbook case of turning the economy around by turning people’s lives around.
Throughout America, these groups planted trees, built roads and improved both their lives and the lives of their descendants.
Labour embraced the Conservation Corp idea in our last manifesto. For Labour, the Conservation Corp has always been about skills and training, with the community benefitting. I’ll bet someone will claim that National’s already proposed this. Nonsense. What National wants is to punish the poor and prepare them for a life of dead-end jobs as lowly servants of the rich and powerful.
Instead of merely paying the dole to fit young people, Labour’s Conservation Corps plan includes education and training that will take them on to sustainable employment. I’d like to see them earning a living wage in return for a fair day’s work.
They could learn structure, discipline and life skills. They could then be sent out to do the work that’s currently not being done, from planting trees to disaster relief. Imagine, for example, the difference it would have made if we had had 5000 fit young people available for disaster relief after the Christchurch quake.
New Zealanders loved the Student Volunteer Army and the Farmy Army that helped clean up Christchurch. However, the famers and the students soon had to go back to work. Imagine the difference a full time group would have made?
It’s not just the country that would have benefited, either. Hard work is a great healer for unemployed lives. With training, this same army could now be rebuilding the houses that the Christchurch people so desperately need.
But for now, New Zealand needs more forests. If we could replant some of our unproductive land into forests, we could create one of the world’s greatest carbon sinks. We could create thousands of jobs planting trees, and thousands more processing the timber in a few years.
These new forests could be placed in trust for the benefit of future generations, and New Zealand could be on its way towards becoming carbon neutral.
However, there’s a deeper problem with our current forestry sector: most of the timber simply gets shipped overseas for processing. This robs New Zealanders of jobs and export revenue.
Because many of our best forests are overseas owned, by companies that have absolutely no interest in New Zealand jobs.
Labour is keen to see higher levels of value added in our primary sector, and as Economic Development Spokesperson I am going to be pushing to get New Zealand logs processed in New Zealand mills.
CONCLUSION
While politicians squabble about balancing the government’s books, our ship is in dangerous waters.
The Labour Party is not your enemy.
Your enemy is inefficiency, corruption, and the wastage of both public and private wealth.
Your enemy is a cosy corruption that helps a few friends of the government get very rich at the expense of the community, including most of the business community.
The three pillars of our survival are investment, innovation and education.
An educated population that earns decent wages will work in your factories and offices, will buy your products, and invest in your shares.
Even as we speak, the global crisis deepens. We cannot solve the crisis of the present by repeating the failures of the past.
New Zealand rose to the challenge of the Great Depression and emerged as a prosperous and functional democracy that was the envy of the world.
There are no winning sides on a sinking ship. While we squabble on the deck, our situation grows graver every day.
Our ship cannot sail itself. We can’t wait for the crisis to overwhelm us before we respond.
A global economic tsunami could sink us. We have to work as a team; rather, we have to work as a crew, remembering that we’re all in this together. We all prosper together or we all sink together.
Thank you.
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- The Government’s new fast-track invitation to corruption
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...2 days ago - Maori push for parallel government structuresMichael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...2 days ago
- An announcement about an announcementWithout a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...2 days ago
- All the Green Tech in China.
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...2 days ago - Western Express Success
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...2 days ago - Bernard’s pick ‘n’ mix of the news links at 7:16am on Monday, April 22
TL;DR: These six news links stood out in the last 24 hours to 7:16am on Monday, April 22:Labour says Kiwis at greater risk from loan sharks as Govt plans to remove borrowing regulations NZ Herald Jenee TibshraenyHow did the cost of moving two schools blow out to more than $400m?A ...2 days ago - The Kaka’s diary for the week to April 29 and beyond
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...2 days ago - 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...2 days ago
- Bryce Edwards: The Government’s new fast-track invitation to corruptionThe ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...3 days ago
- Thank you
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...3 days ago - Determining the Engine Type in Your Car
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...3 days ago - How to Become a Race Car Driver: A Comprehensive GuideIntroduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...3 days ago
- How Many Cars Are There in the World in 2023? An Exploration of Global Automotive StatisticsIntroduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...3 days ago
- How Long Does It Take for Car Inspection?Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...3 days ago
- Who Makes Mazda Cars?Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...3 days ago
- How Often to Replace Your Car Battery A Comprehensive GuideYour car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...3 days ago
- Can You Register a Car Without a License?In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the Rule If you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...3 days ago
- Mazda: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Reliability, Value, and PerformanceMazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...3 days ago
- What Are Struts on a Car?Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...3 days ago
- What Does Car Registration Look Like: A Comprehensive GuideCar registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...3 days ago
- How to Share Computer Audio on ZoomZoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...4 days ago
- How Long Does It Take to Build a Computer?Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...4 days ago
- How to Put Your Computer to SleepSleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...4 days ago
- What is Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT)?Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...4 days ago
- iPad vs. Tablet Computers A Comprehensive Guide to DifferencesIn today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...4 days ago
- How Are Computers Made?A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...4 days ago
- How to Add Voice Memos from iPhone to ComputerVoice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...4 days ago
- Why My Laptop Screen Has Lines on It: A Comprehensive GuideLaptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...4 days ago
- How to Right-Click on a LaptopRight-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...4 days ago
- Where is the Power Button on an ASUS Laptop?Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...4 days ago
- How to Start a Dell Laptop: A Comprehensive GuideDell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...4 days ago
- Bryce Edwards: Serious populist discontent is bubbling up in New ZealandTwo-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...4 days ago
- How to Take a Screenshot on an Asus Laptop A Comprehensive Guide with Detailed Instructions and Illu...In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...4 days ago
- How to Factory Reset Gateway Laptop A Comprehensive GuideA factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...4 days ago
- The Folly Of Impermanence.
“You talking about me?” The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...4 days ago - A crisis of ambitionRoger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...4 days ago
- Have 308 people in the Education Ministry’s Curriculum Development Team spent over $100m on a 60-p...Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...4 days ago
- 'This bill is dangerous for the environment and our democracy'Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...4 days ago
- The Bank of our Tamariki and Mokopuna.
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...4 days ago - The worth of it all
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...4 days ago - What is the Hardest Sport in the World?Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...4 days ago
- What is the Most Expensive Sport?The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...4 days ago
- Pickleball On the Cusp of Olympic GloryIntroduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...4 days ago
- The Origin and Evolution of Soccer Unveiling the Genius Behind the World’s Most Popular SportAbstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...4 days ago
- How Much to Tint Car Windows A Comprehensive GuideTinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...4 days ago
- Why Does My Car Smell Like Gas? A Comprehensive Guide to Diagnosing and Fixing the IssueThe pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...4 days ago
- How to Remove Tree Sap from Car A Comprehensive GuideTree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...4 days ago
- How Much Paint Do You Need to Paint a Car?The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...4 days ago
- Can You Jump a Car in the Rain? Safety Precautions and Essential StepsJump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...4 days ago
- Can taxpayers be confident PIJF cash was spent wisely?Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...4 days ago
- EGU2024 – An intense week of joining sessions virtuallyNote: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...4 days ago
- Submission on “Fast Track Approvals Bill”
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...4 days ago - The Case for a Universal Family Benefit
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...4 days ago - A who’s who of New Zealand’s dodgiest companiesSubmissions on National's corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law are due today (have you submitted?), and just hours before they close, Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has been forced to release the list of companies he invited to apply. I've spent the last hour going through it in an epic thread of bleats, ...5 days ago
- On Lee’s watch, Economic Development seems to be stuck on scoring points from promoting sporting e...Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...5 days ago
- New Zealand has never been closed for business
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...5 days ago - Stop the panic – we’ve been here beforeJack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...5 days ago
- Release: Budget blunder shows Nicola Willis could cut recovery funding
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...13 hours ago - Further environmental mismanagement on the cards
The Government’s resource management reforms will add to the heavy and ever-growing burden this Government is loading on to our environment. ...16 hours ago - Release: RMA changes will be a disaster for environmentThe Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...18 hours ago
- Release: Labour supports urgent changes to emergency management systemLabour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...18 hours ago
- Release: Labour calls for New Zealand to recognise PalestineThe Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...2 days ago
- Release: Three strikes law political posturing of worst kindThe Government is bringing back a law that has little evidential backing just to look tough, Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...2 days ago
- Release: Government cuts unbelievably target child exploitation, violent extremism, ports and airpor...Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...2 days ago
- Three strikes has failed before and will fail againResurrecting the archaic three-strikes legislation is an unwelcome return to a failed American-style approach to justice. ...2 days ago
- Release: Environmental protection vital, not ‘onerous’The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...2 days ago
- Release: Govt cuts doctors and nurses in hiring freezeCuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...4 days ago
- Fast-track submissions period must be extendedThe Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...5 days ago
- Release: Progress on climate will be undone by GovtNew Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...5 days ago
- Release: Dark day for Kiwi kids as a third of Govt cuts affect themNews that 1000 jobs at the Ministry of Education and Oranga Tamariki could go is devastating for future generations of New Zealanders. ...7 days ago
- Release: Alarm as Government signals further blow to school lunchesMore essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...7 days ago
- Release: Quick, submit – stop Govt’s dodgy approvals billThe 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. ...1 week ago
- Government throws coal on the climate crisis fireThe Government’s policy announced today to ease consenting for coal mining will have a lasting impact across generations. ...1 week ago
- Release: Public transport costs to double as National looks at unaffordable roading project insteadCancelling 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. ...1 week ago
- Release: Cost of living in Auckland still not a priorityA 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. ...1 week ago
- Greens look to fast-track submissions on harmful lawThe 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Govt should stop making people’s lives harder and build more homesThe 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Melissa Lee missing in action on mediaThe action Melissa Lee promised to protect democracy and the media sector is missing, Media and Communications spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...2 weeks ago
- Landlord Government leaves little hope for rentersThe Government’s announcement on tenancy rules prove that it does not care about renters. ...2 weeks ago
- Opportunity to build a more sustainable economyGreen 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Significant step forward in fixing cruel and unjust pastA 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Missed opportunity but NZ will surely one day recognise the right to a sustainable environmentNew 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Don’t cut our lunches – clear message sent to GovernmentTens of thousands of people are demanding the Government commits to fully funding free and healthy school lunches. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Govt makes U-turn on Suicide Prevention OfficeLabour welcomes the Government’s U-turn on the closure of the Suicide Prevention Office, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...2 weeks ago
- CCC issues warning over further climate delayToday’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. ...2 weeks ago
- Luxon targets lame and lousy example of leadershipIf talk is cheap, Chris Luxon’s “targets” are bankrupt. ...2 weeks ago
- Luxon targets are lousy example of leadershipIf talk is cheap, Chris Luxon’s “targets” are bankrupt. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Commitment to disability communities missing from Govt prioritiesMinister 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. ...2 weeks ago
- Methane target review is dangerous duplicationThe 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. ...3 weeks ago
- Release: Government must commit to school building project for disabled studentsThe Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...3 weeks ago
- Release: National must take mental health seriouslyMental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...3 weeks ago
- Referendums for Māori wards a racist step backwardsThe Government's imposed referendum on Māori wards is a racist step backwards for Māori representation, and disregards Te Tiriti o Waitangi. ...3 weeks ago
- Release: Job losses at Health not worth it for tax cutsNew Zealand will feel the harm of the National Government’s reckless cuts to jobs at the health ministry for generations, says Ayesha Verrall. ...3 weeks ago
- Minister welcomes hydrogen milestone
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 ...12 hours ago - Urgent changes to system through first RMA Amendment BillThe 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 ...19 hours ago
- Overseas decommissioning models consideredOverseas 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 ...19 hours ago
- Release of North Island Severe Weather Event InquiryEmergency 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 ...20 hours ago
- Justice Minister to attend Human Rights CouncilJustice 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 ...2 days ago
- Patterson reopens world’s largest wool scouring facilityAssociate 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 ...2 days ago
- Speech to the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective Summit, 18 April 2024Hon 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 ...2 days ago
- Government to introduce revised Three Strikes lawThe 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 ...2 days ago
- New diplomatic appointmentsForeign 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 ...2 days ago
- Humanitarian support for Ethiopia and SomaliaNew 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 ...2 days ago
- Arts Minister congratulates Mataaho CollectiveMinister 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 ...3 days ago
- Supporting better financial outcomes for KiwisThe 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 ...3 days ago
- Trade relationship with China remains strong“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 ...3 days ago
- PM’s South East Asia mission does the businessPrime 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 ...4 days ago
- $41m to support clean energy in South East AsiaNew 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 ...5 days ago
- Minister releases Fast-track stakeholder listThe 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 ...5 days ago
- Judicial appointments announcedAttorney-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 ...5 days ago
- Education Minister heads to major teaching summit in SingaporeEducation 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 ...5 days ago
- Value of stopbank project proven during cycloneA 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 ...5 days ago
- Anzac commemorations, Türkiye relationship focus of visitForeign 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 ...5 days ago
- Minister to Europe for OECD meeting, Anzac DayScience, 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 ...5 days ago
- Comprehensive Partnership the goal for NZ and the PhilippinesPrime 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 ...5 days ago
- Government commits $20m to Westport flood protectionThe 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 ...6 days ago
- Taupō takes pole positionThe 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 ...6 days ago
- Cost of living support for low-income homeownersLocal 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 ...6 days ago
- Government backing mussel spat projectThe 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 - ...6 days ago
- Government focused on getting people into workBenefit 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 ...6 days ago
- Clean energy key driver to reducing emissionsThe 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 ...6 days ago
- Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forwardThe 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 ...6 days ago
- Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic PartnershipPrime 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 ...7 days ago
- Government consults on extending coastal permits for portsRMA 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 ...7 days ago
- Inflation coming down, but more work to doToday’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 ...7 days ago
- School attendance restored as a priority in health adviceRefreshed 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 ...7 days ago
- Unnecessary bureaucracy cut in oceans sectorOceans 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 ...7 days ago
- Patterson promoting NZ’s wool sector at International CongressAssociate 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 ...1 week ago
- Removing red tape to help early learners thriveThe Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...1 week ago
- RMA changes to cut coal mining consent red tapeChanges to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...1 week ago
- McClay reaffirms strong NZ-China trade relationshipTrade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...1 week ago
- Prime Minister Luxon acknowledges legacy of Singapore Prime Minister LeePrime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...1 week ago
- PMs Luxon and Lee deepen Singapore-NZ tiesPrime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...1 week ago
- Murray Horton: Get tough on Israel – we’ve done it before over spies
COMMENTARY: By Murray Horton New Zealand needs to get tough with Israel. It’s not as if we haven’t done so before. When NZ authorities busted a Mossad operation in Auckland 20 years ago, the government didn’t say: “Oh well, Israel has the right to defend itself.” No, it arrested, prosecuted, ...4 hours ago - Fiji journalism – starting with the people and ending with the peopleNEWSMAKERS: By Vijay Narayan, news director of FijiVillage Blessed to be part of the University of Fiji (UniFiji) faculty to continue to teach and mentor those who want to join our noble profession, and to stand for truth and justice for the people of the country. I was privileged to ...4 hours ago
- Beyond the spin, beyond the handouts, here’s how to get a handle on what’s really happening on b...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, ...6 hours ago
- West Antarctica’s ice sheet was smaller thousands of years ago – here’s why this matters todaySource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Lowry, Ice Sheet & Climate Modeller, GNS Science Hugh Chittock/Antarctica New Zealand, CC BY-SA As the climate warms and Antarctica’s glaciers and ice sheets melt, the resulting rise in sea level has the potential to displace hundreds of millions of ...6 hours ago
- 'We can't forget those people': Public sector job cuts not just impacting Wellington
At least 400 of the thousands of jobs on the line so far are outside Wellington, according to the Public Service Association. ...7 hours ago - 'There's no evidence that three strikes reduces crime' – lawyersThe government's plan to reintroduce a three strikes regime is being strongly opposed by lawyers, who argue there is no evidence it reduces crime or helps people rehabilitate. ...8 hours ago
- Elon Musk vs Australia: global content take-down orders can harm the internet if adopted widelySource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Professor specialising in Internet law, Bond University Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask ...11 hours ago
- Elon Musk says ‘disc replacement’ worked for him. But evidence this surgery helps chronic pain i...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni E Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney Last week in a post on X, owner of the platform Elon Musk recommended people look into disc replacement if they’re experiencing severe neck or back pain. ...11 hours ago
- The NSW treasurer says a slashed share of GST will cost his state $11.9 billion. But where did he ge...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey caught the headlines yesterday, courtesy of a blistering speech condemning the latest GST carve-up. New South Wales, he claimed, would be A$11.9 billion worse off over the ...11 hours ago
- Anti-gang laws faces heavy criticism at select committeeWhile police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...12 hours ago
- Anti-gang laws face heavy criticism at select committeeWhile police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...12 hours ago
- PNG’s PM Marape to ‘give hand to his bro’ Albanese on Kokoda TrailBy Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea. Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their ...13 hours ago
- Ministry of Social Development accepts 200 voluntary redundancies – PSAThe Public Service Association says further job cuts are likely. ...13 hours ago
- Many Australians face losing their homes right now. Here’s how the government should helpSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra Shutterstock An important principle was invoked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week in defence of the government’s Future Made in Australia industry ...13 hours ago
- French security forces in Nouméa ahead of two opposing marches todayBy Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other. One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the ...14 hours ago
- Just 1 In 6 Oppose ‘Three Strikes’ – Poll
A poll last August found that just 16% of New Zealanders oppose bringing back the ‘Three Strikes’ law. The nationwide poll of 1,000 New Zealanders was commissioned by Family First NZ and carried out by Curia Market Research. ...14 hours ago - Scattergun: After the Death of Rūaumoko reveals the frightening talent of Ana Scotney
The solo show from Ana Scotney is both sprawling and intimate, and a must-see, writes Mad Chapman. In the opening moments of Scattergun: After the Death of Rūaumoko, writer and performer Ana Scotney lays out the groundwork, literally. Silently moving around the square stage, Scotney is not so much dancing ...14 hours ago - Curious Kids: who makes the words? Who decides what things like ‘trees’ and ‘shoes’ are call...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University Who makes the words? Why are trees called trees and why are shoes called shoes and who makes the names? – Elliot, age 5, Eltham, Victoria Good question Elliot! Let’s start with ...14 hours ago
- We’re only using a fraction of health workers’ skills. This needs to changeSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne at am Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock Roles of health professionals are still unfortunately often stuck in the past. That is, before the ...14 hours ago
- Malcolm Evans: A new low in NZ media’s record of bias over PalestineCOMMENTARY: By Malcolm Evans Last week’s leaked New York Times staff directive, as to what words can and cannot be used to describe the carnage Israel is raining on Palestinians, is proof positive, since those reports are published verbatim here in New Zealand, that our understanding of the conflict is ...15 hours ago
- New Zealand Survey Finds 65 Percent Agree The Economy Is “rigged To Advantage The Rich And Powerfu...In the case of New Zealand, the results confirm that there is no popular support for the vicious austerity program being imposed by the National Party-led government, which is backed in all fundamental respects by the opposition Labour Party. ...15 hours ago
- Is Olivia Rodrigo about to announce a New Zealand show? An investigationThe ‘Vampire’ singer has never visited our part of the world, but that might all be about to change. We assess the evidence. Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour is pulling in massive crowds as it whips around the US and Europe, even helping to catapult regular supporting act Chappell Roan ...16 hours ago
- Govt Repeal Of Te Mana O Te Wai Condemning Rural Communities To Unsafe Drinking Water – Greenp...Testing of drinking water in rural Canterbury over the weekend by Greenpeace revealed that several public town supplies were reaching levels of nitrate above 5 mg/L - the threshold which a growing body of scientific evidence has linked to increased ...16 hours ago
- Vastly bigger than the Black Summer: 84 million hectares of northern Australia burned in 2023Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Fisher, Information Technology for Development Researcher, Charles Darwin University It may come as a surprise to hear 2023 was Australia’s biggest bushfire season in more than a decade. Fires burned across an area eight times as big as the 2019–20 Black ...16 hours ago
- RMA Changes Welcome, But Must Go FurtherResponding to the Government’s announcement of changes to resource management laws, Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said: “These changes are a step in the right direction in terms of removing ideological and unworkable ...16 hours ago
- Papua New Guinea: Slow Progress On Reforms And Ongoing Restrictions To Freedom Of ExpressionMore than two years after the Human Rights Council called for the establishment of a national human rights commission, such a body has yet to be formed. ...16 hours ago
- Familiar laxity on show in Cyclone Gabrielle findings
Comment: An emergency management system with wide variations in performance, significant capability gaps, funding shortfalls and above all a setup that is not meeting the needs of New Zealanders at times of crisis. The Government’s inquiry into the response to Cyclone Gabrielle and other severe weather events in the North ...17 hours ago - Existing roads could be tolled, officials tell Transport Minister Simeon BrownSimeon Brown is being encouraged to look at charging for existing roads to relieve pressure on transport funding. ...17 hours ago
- Independent Review And Interim Coverage Rates Highlight Successful CensusApproximately five million people will be represented in 2023 Census data – that’s more than 99 percent of the population. ...17 hours ago
- Is it time for anti-capitalists to embrace shopping? An argument with myselfWelcome to the whirring wonders of one brain trying to align its actions with its beliefs within a system it thinks is evil. My brain has been spiralling in a woke conundrum ever since I found out a bookshop I’ve never been to was shutting down. Good Books, a bookshop ...17 hours ago
- The Criminal Bar Association Of New Zealand (CBANZ) Strongly Opposes The Proposed Return Of The Thre...We repeat our call for criminal justice policy to be based on evidence, something the three strikes regime neglects to recognise – with no evidence that it either reduces crime or assists with rehabilitation. ...18 hours ago
- No clear winner as lobbying to form next Solomon Islands government intensifiesBy Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara With only four more seats in the 50-member Parliament yet to be officially declared, there is no outright winner in the Solomon Islands elections. As of Monday, the two largest blocs in the winner’s circle, independents and the incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh ...18 hours ago
- Government reveals first changes to Resource Management ActFarming, mining and other industrial regulations are being scrapped and altered in a reformed RMA. ...18 hours ago
- Space as a tool for change: Inside the innovation of two/fiftysevenTwo/fiftyseven is a multi-purpose space hidden in the heart of Wellington that is paving a way for sustainable building and responsible landlording in Aotearoa and beyond. By 2060 the world is predicted to double its entire building stock, which equates to building an entire New York City every 34 days, ...19 hours ago
- TrueBliss react to their most iconic Y2K Popstars looksPopstars wasn’t just a reality television revolution, it was also a huge moment for Y2K fashion. It’s 25 years since girl group TrueBliss was formed on New Zealand national television, breaking new ground for both the reality television industry and the shiny clothing industry. With the first episode on NZ ...19 hours ago
- Would you be happy as a long-term single? The answer may depend on your attachment styleSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Pepping, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology, Griffith University Marvin / Shutterstock Are all single people insecure? When we think about people who have been single for a long time, we may assume it’s because single people have insecurities that make ...20 hours ago
- Gone in a puff of smoke: 52,000 sq km of ‘long unburnt’ Australian habitat has vanished in 40 ye...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Geary, Lecturer in Quantitative Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation, The University of Melbourne Trismegist san, Shutterstock Landscapes that have escaped fire for decades or centuries tend to harbour vital structures for wildlife, such as tree hollows and large logs. But these ...20 hours ago
- Ecosystems are deeply interconnected – environmental research, policy and management should be tooSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher, Lecturer in Marine Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Shutterstock/S Curtis Why are we crossing ecological boundaries that affect Earth’s fundamental life-supporting capacity? Is it because we don’t have enough information about how ecosystems respond to change? Or ...20 hours ago
- What if the Reserve Bank itself has been feeding inflation? An economist explainsSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Crocker, PhD Student in Economics, Deakin University Here’s something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates. It has pushed up rates on 13 occasions since it began its ...20 hours ago
- The cost of being: A frugal charity director with two teens and two housesAs part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a charity director outlines how she’s saving for retirement and buying secondhand. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here. Gender: Female Age: 45 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Charity director, mum of ...20 hours ago
- Choice and control: people with disability feel safer when they can select their NDIS providersSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Yates, Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a ...21 hours ago
- Government chalks up ‘tough on crime’ point with resurrected three strikes lawIt’s been called a failed experiment and a judicial straightjacket but the government says the revised three strikes law will be a more workable regime, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Three ...21 hours ago
- Israeli Ambassador To New Zealand’s Unchallenged On TVNZ Q+A Programme, Allowed To Spread Misinfor...New Zealand’s Palestinian community and Palestinian Youth Aotearoa are voicing alarm and disappointment with the lack of factual rigour present during the Israeli Ambassador’s appearance as a guest on TVNZ’s Q+A With Jack Tame Sunday (21/04). ...22 hours ago
- Selwyn residents fighting for homes after being told they need to leave them by 2039And entire community has been told it'll be evicted - but some are feeling stressed and cannot afford to buy anywhere else. ...22 hours ago
- Tax cuts: Finance Minister maintains commitment to no extra borrowingNicola Wills says tax cuts will be fully funded through reprioritising money and targeted revenue measures - and won't add to inflation. ...23 hours ago
- End of Life Choice Act: Changes needed in review, say advocatesBoth ACT leader David Seymour, who played a key role in drawing up the assisted dying law, and hospice leaders say it's time the legislation was changed. ...24 hours ago
- Have gang numbers really ‘skyrocketed’ in recent years?Public submissions on proposed gang control laws are being heard today. Rising gang membership has been cited as rationale for a crackdown – but what do we actually know about how many people belong to gangs in New Zealand? What’s all this then? A rise in the number of gang ...1 day ago
- Why Restore Passenger Rail has set its sights on stopping cruise shipsClimate activists are setting their sights on an unpopular target, and hoping to bring lots of the public with them. It’s hard to miss the Majestic Princess: the enormous cruise ship, docked at Auckland’s Prince’s Wharf, looms over the nearby buildings. The ship, which can fit nearly 6,000 people, ...1 day ago
- Political donor fails in final appeal over Chinese cultural defenceThe Supreme Court rejects a bid to argue a Chinese New Zealander convicted of lying to the SFO did so for cultural reasons The post Political donor fails in final appeal over Chinese cultural defence appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- From ling to liquidation for New Zealand Coastal SeafoodsA former director of the Australia-listed company is asking tough questions about disclosure as local operations are liquidated The post From ling to liquidation for New Zealand Coastal Seafoods appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- A new kind of city dealOpinion: Making sure developers, local and central government, and landowners are all on the same page makes sense The post A new kind of city deal appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 23 AprilLoading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 23 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- Rotorua kuia: ‘I’m disgusted at the investment of my own iwi in a luxury spa’The following korero between Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, author of the newly published memoir Hine Toa, one of the year’s most important books, and Dale Husband from e-tangata, was first published in October. It traverses her involvement with the activist group Ngā Tamatoa at Auckland University in the early 1970s, her ...1 day ago
- The de-railing of New ZealandIn the 16 years since it was bought by the government for $690 million, KiwiRail has had several overhauls and turnaround plans worth billions of dollars. Its ambitions as a successful, profitable operator of tourism, freight and ferries have often been derailed by disasters from earthquakes to cyclones, mine explosions ...1 day ago
- Daily crossword, Tuesday 23 AprilThe post Daily crossword, Tuesday 23 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- King of backs begins her Black Ferns reignBlack Ferns trailblazer Kendra Cocksedge was on the verge of tears when her young protégé, Hannah King, unassumingly broke the news. Three-time Rugby World Cup winner Cocksedge and Lincoln agriculture student King meet every few weeks over a hot chocolate, in an enduring mentorship that’s spanned years. “Before we even ...1 day ago
- New emergency services radio network plans off-trackA new radio network for emergency responders should already be up and running in Canterbury The post New emergency services radio network plans off-track appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 day ago
- West is best? How we stack up against AustraliaOpinion: We’ve kicked the tyres on the perception NZ’s economy is in a parlous state compared to Australia. We take a quick tour of relative trends in GDP, housing markets, labour markets, trade, the fiscal situation, and the outlooks for inflation and interest rates. We find the cyclical positions of ...1 day ago
- NZ’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters ‘defers’ recognition of PalestineBy Russell Palmer, RNZ News digital political journalist New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move. Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now ...1 day ago
- Three strikes 'political posturing' with 'grossly unfair results' – opposi...The opposition has laid into the government's plan to reintroduce a "three strikes" regime, saying it's inequitable and there's very little evidence it works. ...1 day ago
- High Court reserves decision on Waitangi Tribunal summons to Minister for Children Karen ChhourThe Crown claims the Tribunal has acted in an unlawful and coercive manner, despite having the authority to summons Karen Chhour. ...1 day ago
- Elon Musk is mad he’s been ordered to remove Sydney church stabbing videos from X. He’d be more ...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior research associate, University of Sydney Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered social media platform “X” (formerly known as Twitter) to remove graphic videos of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney last week from the site. The incident ...1 day ago
- Nearly 140 roles proposed to go at Customs and DIANearly 140 roles are proposed to go at Customs and at the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), a larger number than PSA announced this afternoon. ...1 day ago
- More than coral: the unseen casualties of record-breaking heat on the Great Barrier ReefSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney John Turnbull, CC BY-NC-ND In past bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef, the southern region has sometimes been spared worst of the bleaching. Not this time. This year’s intense underwater heat has ...1 day ago
- New play The Exact Dimensions of Hell explores the chaos and contradiction of teenage girlhood – a...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne Darren Gill/Mackey, Darling & Collaborators The relationship between witchcraft and teenage girls has been the subject of many books, films and television shows. Over time, the traditional image of witch as crone ...1 day ago
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- We mapped a massive explosion in space, showing how galaxies ‘pollute’ the cosmosSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam B. Watts, Research Associate in galaxy evolution, The University of Western Australia ESO/A. Watts et al., CC BY We breathe oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere every day, but did you know that these gases also float through space, ...2 days ago
- Watch: Three strikes policy to return with changes, PM announcesThe coalition will reintroduce the sentencing law later this year - but it will be slightly different than last time. ...2 days ago
- Opioids more potent than fentanyl have been detected in Australia. So what are nitazenes?Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Nielsen, Professor and Deputy Director, Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University Maxime Bhm/Unsplash A new group of drugs called nitazenes has been detected in Australia. They have been sold as heroin as well as other drugs like ketamine. Concerns ...2 days ago
- Two people want to share the job of MP for Higgins. Is it constitutional?Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor emerita, University of Sydney Image from Bradlow + Bock campaign Can the job of being a federal member of parliament be shared by two or more persons? Two prospective candidates for the inner-Melbourne federal seat of Higgins, Lucy ...2 days ago
- Family law has been overhauled. With the new changes about to kick in, how will they affect children...Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoe Rathus, Senior Lecturer in Law, Griffith University Shutterstock In October 2023, the federal parliament passed major changes to how children’s cases are decided under the Family Law Act, which kick in next month. Among other things, they repeal a ...2 days ago
- Archie Moore’s Venice triumph: the sublime kith and kin is simultaneously somber and stirringSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wes Hill, Associate Professor, art history and visual culture, Southern Cross University Archie Moore in kith and kin 2024. Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024. Photographer Andrea Rossetti. © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and The Commercial This article ...2 days ago
I just posted this in open mike and may as well post it here.
Wow, a politician actually analyzing things and saying it the way it is. And no sugar coating.
Brave speech.
Cunliffe wants to regulate financial markets, he wants us to keep and build our assets, he wants to provide work for everyone, and he wants the state to be smart and to invest in education and research.
He is even talking about a Tobin tax.
He definately does not want to leave our future to the market and he makes a pretty compelling case against doing so.
No wonder the right wing hate him so much.
And I’m going to say the same thing that I said in Open Mike. Cunliffe makes all the right noises but the underlying message is still more growth, more over production, more exports – none of which is sustainable. Yes, build up our capabilities but only to such an extent that we can provide for ourselves and keep it within the limits set by the environment.
I don’t disagree Bastard.
If the growth is of the right kind it may be sustainable but persuading the human race of this is a big ask.
At least Cunliffe is talking about a Tobin Tax. For a senior member of a mainstream to do so is pretty unusual.
Feck
*mainstream party
Agreed that it is good to see discussion about a Financial Services Tax. More is needed however Cunliffe is leading the Labour debate about building a new system of economy. Its not the end but is a good start.
I think it is the biggest start. If you want a financial system that starts to address the excessive wealth that the top 1% has then you need to start clipping the ticket every time they send their wealth around.
It would have a far wider and more beneficial effect than that – a 1% financial transaction tax creates “friction” that kills profit in parasitic economic activity like ultra-highspeed margin trading and also will hit currency speculators as well. Interestingly enough Bill English commented on this as being a good idea a year or so back (every now and then Bill seems to have a spark of insight – it soon dies but at least it sparks)
The taxation system needs to be spread across all “factors” of the economy. At present labour is heavily taxed while capital land and resources escape from contributing to the cost overhead of running society. Effectively this is a tariff on the cost of labour and a subsidy on the cost of capital.
Cunliffe is taking the first brave and intelligent step in the direction that will haul our carcases out of the train wreck that is about to happen.
Cunliffe is one of the few who knows how to address complicated issues in a way that non-experts can understand. A rare gift!
it is indeed refreshing to see a spade being called a spade
more
Funny how this dpeack was phrased levelling the caused by asdociation St national. The demise of finance coys was due to poor governance that was the responsibility of a govt agency, the cost to nz for leaky homes, emigration. We should learn from history, then how come the untaxed wealth that was created in 84-87 and in the 2000-07 was under which party?
How can we believe that such rhetoric is matched by action ?
The worker has seen much of the rewards of their labour be sifened off refer to graph of the workers share of GDP.
No ownership of the past, so how can we learn if we don’t take ownership of being the cause.
What does your first sentence mean? I really can’t follow it sorry
Herodotus, I am not sure what is your natural language, which makes it harder to comprehend exactly what you are talking about. I hope YOU know what you are talking about, for the brilliant Cunliffe sure knows his stuff! You complain of rhetoric? If I have got that right, then you certainly must despise John Key! However, I might have got you wrong, I am badly in need of a translator.
I imagine such a sensational speech could not be improved upon in these comments, but answered conceivably by mumbo jumbo from those not intelligent enough to understand it.
wow… that speech really rattled your fantasies heroless….. that has to be the most incoherent rant you’ve put up for weeks!!
Sure the speech reads well yet given labours past performances one must question the sincerity. As many of these issued that are referred to we issues when labour was last in power e.g emigration, unaffodabilty of housing, untaxed wealth. Pre last election we were told to wait for labour policy keeping powder dry, yet there were no answers or real depth of policy just Gst off f&v etc.
And BBF I have little reason to support nationals response to nz problems.
And I still require help bring able to review before sending using a phone instead of computer.
Labour has its problems, but they are vanishing small compared to National’s. We can talk about fair trade, sustainable job creation, zero-sum economics, and insufficient rollback of National policies if you want, but none of those are a reason to vote any further to the right than Labour.
I can see plenty of reasons to not vote as far right as Labour. I think they’ll gag Cunliffe sooner rather than later and keep trying to dress Shearer as leadership material of National Lite.
Unless we stop them. I don’t like it but without Cunliffe speaking like this, or indeed without Cunliffe, Labour really would struggle to govern with a spine.
Taken from above “It’s because a large percentage of our economic assets are overseas-owned.
For example, when the Australian-owned banks make billions in profits here, that money isn’t returned to New Zealanders. The money goes straight back overseas.”
And why are our assets foreign owned? Because we have trading and current account deficits. We borrow to pay for our life style. So how does anyone suggest we reverse this trend? Spend less which will result in net savings (but reduced living stds), increase our international trade or a mixture of both. And should we go along achieving this it will result in increased inflation = increased interest rates to temper activity, or to cut spending which will result in reduced domestic activity.
So how do we do this?
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/balance-of-trade
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/current-account
You’ve put the cart before the horse here.
Our current account deficit is fueled by the likes of Telecom, Contact and Westpac sending their earnings offshore, not the other way around.
Yet I take it that you accept the reverse our coys, pension funds EQC doing the same?
Everyone wants us to be net savers but are incapable on giving us the means to do so, and as long as we expect to maintain our standard of living and what joys consumerism brings we will continue to be dependent on borrowing offshore.
Yep.
Because the government at the time sold the bloody things when they didn’t have to, shouldn’t have and certainly shouldn’t have opened up NZ to foreign ownership.
By doing what the Treasury type economists tell us not to – building our own economy up through the use of our resources, by building up our people’s skills and trading only in completed products.
How about neither. Monetary savings are delusional and increasing exports will only make us poor as we lose the resources we need to maintain ourselves.
Ban interest rates, they’re useless at the job that they’re supposed to do – limiting the use of scarce resources – and end up only transferring the wealth of the country to the rich.
As for spending, we spend* only enough to keep the population at a reasonable living standard.
* Spend = use of limited resources
So your solution is to expect a dramatic decrease in our living standard a decrease in
Life expectancy as we are forced to live on less than we earn internationally. Less as we have to service our debt and live on the residual ?
Nope, maintaining living standard doesn’t require us to produce as much as we can, only as much as we need.
There is no need for most New Zealanders to drop their living standards.
In case you havn’t noticed they are not that high for most.
Median wage almost half that of Denmark’s.
We need to stop subsidising the living standards of the wealth stealers.
Most of whom reside offshore, anyway.
A lot of NZers will have to give up a lot of their consumption of material shit.
– 12L/100km Holdens and Falcons.
– Honda and Toyota hybrid vehicles
– 46″ flat screen TVs
– Holiday flights overseas
– iPhones replaced every 18 months
– anything using Italian marble
– meals containing ingredients from more than 500km away.
– the list goes on.
Well, yeah but they don’t actually make a difference to living standards no matter what the advertisers say.
Bullshit.
Our trade balance in real goods and services is positive. It always has been.
Profits, from infrastructure sold offshore, off shoring almost all our jobs, and financial borrowing is the reason for the deficit.
First answer is to stop borrowing offshore to buy assets wholly produced in the internal economy. The banks pushing up local house prices for instance.
Second. Own our own essential infrastructure.
Third. Stop killing internal manufacturing for the sake of wholly illusory “free trade” benefits for the primary sector. We killed our local productive businesses with the stupid idea that if we freed up our markets totally the countries we trade with would follow suit. Unfortunately for us, they are not that thick.
Fourth. Cut subsidies for fossil fuel and other polluters. Giving the sustainable energy and production sectors room to grow. Cut some of the billion a year paid for fuel imports. One thing where Muldoon had the right idea. He was just 30 years too soon. And got unfortunately, conned by the IMF into offshore borrowing.
Fith. Tax profits, capital gains and financial services in proportion to their share of the economy.
Sixth. Bring back trade unions, so New Zealanders have enough wages to save and invest.
Seventh. Have a plan. Instead of “leave it to the market”.
A business manager who left it to the market would be sacked. Why do we accept this garbage from our Government?
It will probably mean Government finance for sustainable energy, housing and other investment for the future where the private sector has failed.
Tax and spend, and printing money, to lend to ourselves, is exactly what we need to do. Worked in the 30’s.
In fact. Just ask for treasuries advice, and do the opposite!
Very amusing, then following you advice we still can extract value out of treasury.
KJT sure we may have a real goods surplus, yet as $ leave nz we are still being bleed dry. We still need to pay to service our debt and pay off the principle = spending less than we earn. So how do we achieve this ? Everyone can see the problem but no real solutions that can be implemented, or the effects on NZ. That is my issue with david’s speech here.
Actually, we don’t.
The risk when loaning out money is that it won’t be returned.
We can, and probably should, default.
Just given you some solutions. If you read them.
Stop selling income earning assets is another. Like a builder selling his tools, to the opposition, to pay this weeks groceries.
Thanks James. I was hoping that we would have a post on the speech, but when this hadn’t happened, I posted a link to the speech in Open Mike.
From my quick read (need/want to reread it to take it all in), I thought it was an excellent speech, particularly courageous in the lion’s den, and offers a lot of thought to a way forward. Just hoping that others in the Labour camp will take it up. But, unfortunately, not holding my breath.
I see this as just a cynical slight of hand from Labour. Why do they choose an incompetent noddy as their leader when they could have chosen Cunliffe?
This kind of talk from Cunliffe does not inspire me at all, it does the opposite, it pisses me off.
Labour have failed NZ since 1984 and they should be held accountable. What Cunliffe has stated should only be the beginning, Labour needs to do so much more.
Currently, Labour has a detached leader strumming his way around the country and being nothing more than a bumbling fool…Cunliffe’s words are nothing special, nothing revolutionary…all they do is expose what a pathetic party Labour has now become. Shearer needs to do NZ a favour and step down. Then Cunliffe can build on these statements and make Labour useful again.
Labour’s current good-cop vs bad-cop routine is an insult to our intelligence, either Cunliffe needs to walk-the-walk by leaving the party, or STFU…or Shearer could go back to his charity work…this current Labour circus is a joke…and we are the punchline.
Cunliffe’s words are nothing special, nothing revolutionary
If you want a revolution, maybe parliamentary democracy isn’t for you. Perhaps you can set yourself up as the Robespierre of what is and what isn’t left enough. I’m going to stick with what Michael Joseph Savage said when Labour won in 1935:
“We have no desire to raise ourselves at your expense. Our object in life is to cooperate with you. To find out what you think, and to go on to do the work of building a prosperous nation. A free nation, or a nation of free peoples in these southern seas.”
Hmmmm….. Robespierre was a brilliant man before his meltdown when it all got too bloody.
The guillotine is a very attractive looking piece of equipment these days with thieving scum like National running the country into slavery and despair.
We got a revolution from 1984-88. It can happen. =/
Probably an unhelpful term.
As would be anything ending with “…Spring”.
Or “Great leap Forward”, “Masterplan”, “Vision”, “10 Year Plan”, or “Bloated series of abstract nouns like Obama would deliver”
It’s simply the scale of what must happen to get this country upright again.
“Probably an unhelpful term.”
You can thank Pete for that unhelpful term…he twisted my post around to make it seem as through I was talking about a ‘revolution’.
Nobody was talking about a revolution…I said “Cunliffe’s words are nothing special, nothing revolutionary”. I was obviously talking about a change of direction, not a revolution…it was a misread from Pete that should never have been acknowledged.
As usual, DTB has it right: http://thestandard.org.nz/cunliffe-attacks-nats-crony-capitalism/comment-page-1/#comment-482687
Patience Fatty Shearer can’t be challenged until Sept and if he fails to capitalise on sideshow John’s imploding bunch of corrupt cronies then Cunliffe should challenge him but till then he’ll toe the line.
If he fails I reckon defect to the greens as an electorate MP as he’s not appreciated or valued by mallard and the muppets who probably fear him as he’s zoomed past them in terms of ability and achievement (telecom unbundling).
I’m assuming the fat one knows david shearer personally?? otherwise that was just an ignorant, childish rant that he should be embarrassed by……
we still don’t seem to get it, do we boys and girls…… the ability to talk for hours without saying anything, and having no scruples when it comes to misrepresenting reality to gain “political” advantage are NOT traits that qualify anyone for leadership….
i suggest reading the WHOLE speech….. in particular, the paragraph dealing with david’s assessment of shearers skill set in relation to what is going to be required to drag us back from the escalation descent into the third world this govt is leading us down….
it seems that david cunliffe is smart enough to see that having a blowass as leader doesn’t “fix” anything….. so he is using his undoubted oratory skills to best effect as a member of the party that he knows will have the job of, once more cleaning up the pile of dog shit left by this cabal of asset strippers….
future leader? certainly….. but shearer has the right track record for the times…. cunliffe will make a great leader one day…. but there’s a job to do now… and he has the right job to be a major part of the recovery process……..what the future holds for him is best left to the future….
we need to stop whining about irrelevancies , and get back to the important stuff….
Right with you there bbfloyd. Not a leadership speeech or anything to do with it.
It’s stating in the sharpest possible terms for Labour’s current ideological spectrum that (to join the dots) we’ve done this before in response to the Depression, we are close to one again, and the comparable countries that survive this like Denmark are spectacularly focussed on what they are doing.
I do think he will continue to push and solidify the progressive side of Labour, which is where any tension might be if there is any. That’s not unreasonable to have this debate 2.5 years out from election.
It didn’t go down too badly with the audience, but no raptures either. More jokes next time I think.
We still need more.
“I’m assuming the fat one knows david shearer personally??”
Oh, I see, since I don’t know god’s gift to boredom, that means I can’t have an opinion on him? Almost zero percent of voters will know politicians personally.
“but shearer has the right track record for the times”
What track record is that? Please don’t give me a rundown on his UN humanitarian ‘achievements’ …the UN might be seen as something special to the average Kiwi, but for most people in this world they are seen as the dodgy world police who perpetuate neo-colonialism and suffering.
Labour needs to decide what it wants to be, this neoliberal, nonsensical, thirdway drivel is a bit worn out…and Cunliffe on the side, trying to seduce the disenfranchised is a bit condescending, don’t you think?
Labour needs to decide what it wants to be, this neoliberal, nonsensical, thirdway drivel is a bit worn out…and Cunliffe on the side, trying to seduce the disenfranchised is a bit condescending, don’t you think?
Yes, I agree Labour should be taking a strong left wing position and ditching the centre-right compromises with monetarism etc I’m glad Cunliffe’s putting his speeches out there for discussion.
I’m not sure how things lie between Cunliffe and Shearer right now. Didn’t he get some flack in caucus for his first speech? I’m not sure whether his speeches are OK with Shearer or if Cunliffe is testing the water to see how far he can go in his own direction?
I think we are seeing signs of a repudiation of at least some of the third way economics by Labour if you class the third way as neo-liberal economics tied to a mildly progressive social policy. The unfettered nature of financial capital and markets is being questioned, by Cunliffe at least.
Any change of that magnitude won’t happen quickly in a political party unless the agenda is hijacked as it was with the neo-liberals in 1984. In that instance there was an upswell of neo-liberal alchemists all clamouring for change after years of a Muldoon dam holding back the flow. We don’t have the clamour yet as the mice are still running the cheese factory (into the ground). Popular support for the type of change Cunliffe is espousing is around but it isn’t yet, it seems to me, the dominant narrative.
It is really good to see talk about an FST starting alongside a capital gains tax. Those conversations need to continue and shape policy. Where Shearer exactly stands is important but it doesn’t stop other forces within the Labour party shaping policy. A successful left party is big enough to allow other persons to shape policy other than the leader.
One big fly in this ointment is time. Does the Labour Party have enough time to shape its policy and get the public on board before the economic-social-enviro crap really hits the fan. I think we are still not at the point of it really hitting, how far away though I won’t say.
When it does we need thinking of the left to be far enough along to have a saleable narrative that the nation can see and embrace with some hope. Thats Labour but also the Greens, Mana and whatever other parties can paddle the waka of creating something better. We pull down the rotten national-ACT-neo-liberal edifice but need a compelling alternative to put up in its place.
That doesn’t mean I necessarily think where Cunliffe is positioning himself is actually the full answer or goes far enough to create the proper society we will need. But, his thinking is headed in the right direction that will hopefully allow some logical progression to the economic-social-enviro framework we will need.
So I am glad that Cunliffe is raising some of the progressive things we need for NZ. Whether he is leader or not is not such a concern for me as his ability to get some meaningful progressive policy set up by Labour.
To me that policy contest looks pretty finely balanced within Caucus. Very interesting that Cosgrove this week seemed to support all the measures in the Trans Pacific Partnership. I honestly think that the political economy of Parker and Cunliffe is actually pretty similar. I think there definitely is time to solidify policy, but it really is a task that needs doing.
The interesting task will be reconciling an economic direction between Labour and the Greens, and I would be strongly in favour of that happening before the next campaign, not during a coalition negotiation. Hopefully that’s in 2014. Not 2017.
Fatty, do you actually know some intelligent people? May I respectfully suggest that you change your pseudonym to “Fat Headed”?
“Fatty, do you actually know some intelligent people?”
Um…I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
“May I respectfully suggest that you change your pseudonym to “Fat Headed”?”
You can call me whatever you like…
You put up some good posts here Dr Terry…so I ask you, are you not insulted by they way Labour is portraying itself at the moment? Do you not see Cunliffe as a tease for us who want real change? I fail to see the point of these Cunliffe speeches when Shearer is in charge and leading down another path. If we don’t critique Labour then we can expect more of the same.
Shearer is trying to seduce the centre and Cunliffe is flirting with those to the left. This is hardly a hint of change, it appears to be just tokenism…I don’t buy it…do you?
We have had neo-liberal/third-way/big society politics since 1999, and its time we started getting angry over this failure. We should call Cunliffe’s bluff…does he really believe this, or as Tom says below…is he just a pawn of Shearer?
If you want to call his bluff on anything, go and do it. He’s usually in his electorate on Friday’s. Check his reality out.
But just to flag there will be another speech coming up on June 23rd. And it’s straight into Green Party territory: “The Dolphin and the Dole Queue”
Don’t put the acid on Cunliffe unless you want a straight answer back, because you will get one.
I would suggest “Thick Head” DR.T. I would assume that Fatty has no idea what makes a good leader. For a start he/she must have the caucus’s full support ,which Shearer has . They must be the main voice on policy which Shearer does . I think Shearer will prove to, be an excellent leader in the same mould as Bill Rowling ,which is rather interesting because the political right used exactly the same methods to attack Rowling as they are now with Shearer ( sow seeds of doubt ) this time they will not succeed so expect plan B the personal attacks simular to Muldoons filthy personal attacks on Bill Rowling and Helen Clark. Be ready fellow Lefties
the second year of the election term is approaching and the personal attack on Labour will be full on. It would also be interesting to know
what position Thick head Fatty holds in the National party or ACT.
“I would assume that Fatty has no idea what makes a good leader”
One that is different from the opposition
You know it’s odd but Shearer is growing on me slowly. A slow growth, but it could be contagious.
Mind you, I see Cunliffe finally crept into the Preferred Prime Minister poll from TV3 this week.
Clever of Shearer to give Cunliffe the job of running up the flag on this stuff. See who salutes it. See who spits on it. Very clever indeed.
Can you really detect that degree of sophistication or cynicism from this lot? I can’t.
I think Labour broadly speaking are just happy to watch each successive tree in National’s forest fall.
LOL. Labour has never been at risk of running too far to the left. This is perfectly centrist stuff, as always, and more sensible than sensational.
tom.. that presupposes an approach the nats would take….. do you know just what shearers motivations are for a fact? Or is this just another reactionary assumption based on a narrow world view?
So what was new and concrete in there? He seemed mainly have a rather rosy view of the US response to the depression and to rehash the policies that were rejected at the last election, and he said there needed to be more regulation of the finance sector -couldn’t bring himself to say exactly what that regulation might be and what it might achieve, but he seems pretty sure we need more of it. He’s also very keen on the conservation corps and planting lots and lots of trees.
Planting lots of trees is needed as we need riparian planting and fencing on every water way in NZ. Especially the ones going through farms so that we can start on the necessary clean up of the pollution caused by excess farming.
He’s also talking about building up infrastructure and boosting R&D. All sensible policies and my only gripe is that he’s talking about growth as if it’s sustainable when it’s not.
There was a hell of a lot in the speech and yet you seem to have focussed down on one aspect of it. I have noticed that you do this quite often when critiquing anything. Is that because you’re incapable of having more than one thought at a time?
Nice that you pay so much attention. I’m flattered.
I focused on the one concrete idea he seemed to be offering. and that’s the point: everything you mentioned was general wish list or existing labour policy. That doesn’t make a great speech in my book, even if he called key a rich prick and called unnamed people cronies.
Where’s the detail about what infrastructure he wants to invest in,? How much is he wanting to spend on r&d? How’s he going to fund it? Not even a hint on them or when that detail wll be forthcoming.
Actually, I pay very little attention but repeat behaviour even gets through to me eventually.
It was a speech setting vision and direction you moron, not a detailed economic blueprint.
I don’t consider it paticularly visionary or brave or great speechifying to restate policy they went into the last election with (much of it also national’s btw). he couldn’t even bring himself to say they would do more state houses -something youd think was core labour policy – even though he says that was a key depression fighting policy. But he did commit to more trees.
You have admirably high standards for a visionary speech.
Pull out any of the best from Lange, Bolger or even TW Roosevelt. Compare. He’s not reaching for oratory, sure. But he’s saying he’s ready to organise the New Zealand economy and stating how to do it.
That’s reasonably fresh compared to say any speech from any New Zealand politiciain in the last five years I will warrant you.
yu must hate reading or lgistening to nation if you r looking for actual plans
you must hate reading or listening to national if you ar looking for actual plans
Rosier than bleeding out an accident victim at least, which is what austerity and forcing more debt on to sovereigns are doing for Europe.
Well. The new deal worked, as did our response at the time.
I am still waiting for someone to provide an example of austerity working?
Austerity works at what it’s designed to do – move a greater proportion of wealth to the already rich.
Naturally he can’t announce new policy, 2.5 years out from an election. That wasn’t its purpose nor the place for it. The job was to show that he and Labour are ready to reorganise the economy, they know how bad it is and what has worked in the past, and open the door on 2014 they have a framework to do it.
As for describing the Depression, the point was to show the severity of it in the US like so …:
“By 1933, 11,000 of the United States’ 25,000 banks had failed. That’s nearly half.
People had no money, so they couldn’t buy manufactured goods. Because people stopped buying manufactured goods, factories closed down. Because factories closed down, workers got fired. Because workers got fired, they couldn’t buy manufactured goods.
And so it went on, and on, and on, until, by 1933, nearly 13 million Americans were unemployed. That was a quarter of the total workforce.”
…and then show New Zealand’s similarly strong New Deal response had actually altered our economic destiny here, for decades.
Since it was 40 minutes long, there wasn’t room to go into more detail. It packed enough in by itself don’t you agree?
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area – crime, education, housing, race relations – the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
Thomas Sowell, Is Reality Optional?, 1993
Bright new fad theories expounded by academics wanting their PhDs and their publications.
I agree with Cunliffe about regulating banks. Reagan destroyed the US, probably one of the worst presidents, by deragulating banks and then banks taking the risks with investors money and giving themselves billion dollar bonuses. First started off with savings and loans in the 80’s and then derivative trader (Wasn’t Key the head of derivatives in Europe for Merril Lynch? Yes) in the 90’s and finally collapsed in 2007. Of all people running the country at the worse time….. a derivatives trader.. Kiwi’s need to wake up and fast.
Great stuff. Get that idealism and pragmatic solutions out to the voting and (last election) non-voting public.
I have it on good authority that Trevor Mallard actually wrote this speech but is too shy to give it in public himself. Trevor is a bit worried that his “bloke” image would be ruined if it got out that he has read a history book. Cunliffe should fess up and give Mallard the credit.
LOL!
David is over-egging the amount of infrastructure that was built in the 30s and 40s’
It was the 50s and 60s that the most of the North Island hydro and electricity infrastructure was built. Same for Aucklands water supply.
The problm with pref pm polls is you dont get to choose yours but one from the pollsters list
Cunliffe trots out the same tired myths about the Great Depression. Roosevelt was elected on promises of reversing the high taxes and massive spending policies of Hoover (who, for some reason, Cunliffe et al regard as “non-interventionist”). Roosevelt then broke all his promises and upped the level of government regulation and control over the American people, with predictable results.
A very telling quote came from Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in 1939, after eight years of socialist policies:
“[W]e have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. …I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot!”
A good example of a relatively laissez-faire U.S. President was Warren Harding, who cut taxes and government spending in the face of a depression in 1920 greater than that of 1929, allowing the economy to recover in less than a year.
The problem with socialism is that you run out of other people’s money.
This was an outstanding speech by David Cunliffe. He covered all the issues and articulated clear proposals for a saner, more prosperous, more equal society. This Saturday (June 23, 1 pm,) he takes on the Greens at the Titirangi War Memorial Hall. I’ve wondered if Labour is “green” enough for my tastes. I’ll be there to hear Cunliffe. Saturday’s speech is “The Dolphin and the Dole Que, What would Labour do on the Economy and the Environment?”