Don't forget to be kind to each other. Kindness was a signature of the first Labour government under MJ Savage, and it is of this one, too, as Grant Robertson claimed in Parliament today.
"Applied Christianity" Savage called the social policy of his government. It's a good model.
The NZX and NZ dollar reacted positively as did business generally. This is a very significant package at 4% of GDP, time for us all to realise these are uncharted times and as Mac1 says, don't forget to be kind to each other, and not be selfish.
Sad to hear neighbours within this street are now avoiding using public transport due to being accused/harassed for being the "cause "of this , all because they have an asian heritage.
Should anyone see this out there, to stand up. IMO this is NOT alright. Sad to hear.
I'll have to crunch the numbers some more, but the figures that I have been looking at, indicate that the Richardson-Shipley benefit cuts have effectively been reversed.
The $25/wk will be less for people that get TAS (the hardship grant for the most poor). Labour could fix this, but I'm not sure what the quick fix is. A lump sum payment would have helped.
National only raised the benefit for some beneficiaries, it wasn't across the board.
No obvious quick fixes – that's a systemic legislative issue, so needs more than a band aid, although I guess a quick fix might have been suspending that section of legislation for 12 months or something like that.
I gave the TAS a thought as well. Also watch the next wave of rent increases. I also think if any left over from the temporary doubling of the energy payment it will be used for food. Church dinners will cease soon and food banks will need to rethink their distribution.
I have decided that what is left over from the energy payment will go toward cremating me.
One important factor when doing these kinds of comparisons is to remember that when benefits were cut in 1991 the calculation used to assess the rate of special benefit was altered to prevent people receiving more special benefit. The fear was that as the main benefit was cut this would mean a greater rate of special benefit because as income decreases the special benefit increases. This move had the effect of raising the point where it's accepted a person is in hardship. While benefit rates may have increased, the special benefit assessment has remained unchanged.
On top of this the TAS payment replaced the special benefit in 2004. The assessment is made on a similar basis as the special benefit but was made more stringent again.
The replacement of the special benefit with the TAS benefit in 2004 was a fundamental change that's had a significant impact on governments' ability to properly tackle poverty. It has meant not only less money in people's pockets, but it's removed the ability of government to respond to need because the tools needed to do that were removed.
Further to the post above, one fundamental difference between the earlier special benefit and the current TAS is that the former contained a discretion that allowed payments outside of the formula assessment so if a case came along that didn't fit the general rules a person could still get help and importantly have needs met. The TAS payments are wholly ruled-based and are in regulations. There no is discretion in the regulations (except to pay below the assessed rate) therefore no ability to address needs that may fall outside of what's stated in the regulations. Labour was warned about the dangers of doing this but they went ahead anyway.
The airlines tRump is going to bail used almost their all their cash surpluses to buy back shares, presumably from insiders who sold their contract stock options. And because they didn't save enough to get through a rough patch, the taxpayer is on the hook. Fuckers.
The biggest U.S. airlines spent 96% of free cash flow last decade on buying back their own shares. American Airlines Group Inc. — which is not shown in the chart but is included in overall figures — led the pack, with negative cumulative free cash flow during the decade while it repurchased more than $12.5 billion of its shares. United Airlines Holdings Inc. used 80% of its free cash flow on buybacks, while the S&P 500 Index as a whole allocated about 50% for the purpose. As the industry reels under the weight of the coronavirus outbreak corporate leaders are seeking federal assistance to ease the burden.
The flu jab reduces the need/peak cases to be hospitalised, so that health resources can be dedicated to Covid 19 cases. Our health system is in dire need, so any actions that can be implemented to min. the flu on our health system is a winner
Yes, the common cold and the flu are different things.
The common cold is caused by a variety of different viruses, some of which are coronaviruses, cousin to the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the illness covid-19. Others are rhinoviruses, adenoviruses etc. While the viruses are quite different, they produce similar symptoms as your immune system tries similar tactics to eliminate the infection.
The common cold doesn't have a vaccine because of the huge number of different viruses that can cause it. Some of those virus strains also mutate quite rapidly, which would get past immunity from previous infection or a vaccine.
The flu is caused by influenza viruses which attack a different range of body tissues than common cold viruses, hence the difference in symptoms. Many influenza viruses come from animal reservoirs, making it somewhat of a crystal ball gazing exercise to try to predict which influenza strains will become prevalent in time to develop and distribute the appropriate vaccine. Really bad flu seasons can happen when an unexpected strain of influenza virus becomes prevalent during flu season.
The push for people to get flu vaccine is not any forlorn hope that it will reduce COVID-19, it's to reduce the number of easily-preventable flu cases the medical system has to deal with at the same time as it's trying to cope with all the not-easily-preventable COVID-19 cases.
The hope is that a vaccine against the new SARS-CoV-2 virus will be developed. If this happens sufficiently quickly, it will indeed be a powerful tool against COVID-19. However, it's not guaranteed a vaccine will be developed. It may be the virus mutates quickly enough that vaccines aren't a good tool against it. There are some reports which suggest that some people have been infected again after recovering, suggesting that immune systems don't learn to fight the virus very well or lose the ability quickly, in which case an effective vaccine might not be achievable.
So there are a couple of different things to unpack there, but it's not too far off. Non-specialised understanding that we teach in schools and so on are usually correct to a necessary level of understanding, because folks have a lot to learn and not everyone needs to know stuff in such detail. We are taught that the world is round, but some folks like cartographers need to understand that the Earth is slightly squished and bulges at the equator.
So my non-specialist-but-has-to-sit-through-their-arguments understanding is that there are broad families of virus (for example: influenza, coronavirus, and filo viruses). Each family has a bunch of subtypes (e.g.: H1N1, SARS-CoV-2, and Ebola virus, respectively). Vaccines need to be targeted at the subtypes to prevent/mitigate the diseases the viruses cause (in these three its "bird flu", the current pandemic, and ebola haemorragic fever don't google it it's disgusting).
The trouble with our (and the media's) usual understanding is that the "common cold" is caused by up to 200 strains of different virus families, not just one. Corona viruse strains account for about 15% of the common cold according to wikipedia.
But it gets worse, because our influenza vaccines are targeted at specific flu strains based on which strains are likely to be a problem that flu season. So imagine developing 200 different vaccines for the common cold (some of which are very different to each other), then having to repeat the process from fresh next season.
But covid-19 is one variant. It might not be easy to develop a vaccine, and it will evolve and change so we'd need to change the vaccines accordingly, but it's only one or two strains we'd need to hit each year. It will probably end up like the flu vaccine, every year hitting the most likely strains to be a problem.
But yeah, putting the non-specialist picture together didn't add up, a bit like how Colmar Brunton political surveys of party preference often add up to 99 or 101 percent because the figures are rounded for the TV report.
Similarly, the stricken cruise ship Diamond Princess is illuminating because the rigorous quarantine meant nearly all COVID-19 cases (even asymptomatic ones) were identified. There were 7 deaths among more than 600 infections, giving an IFR of about 1.2%. This is higher than in South Korea, but perhaps expectedly so, given that one-third of the ship's passengers were aged over 70.
Even a 1% death rate is extremely disturbing. Newly released projections suggest 20-60% of Australians could contract the coronavirus, which would translate to 50,000-150,000 deaths.
By comparison, an estimated 35 million Americans caught the flu last year, with 34,000 deaths: less than 0.1%. The coronavirus is much deadlier than seasonal flu, particularly for older people, and there is no vaccine.
edit: Death rates around 1% might not seem that bad if your expectations were set in times and places where epidemics with similar death rates swept through the population regularly. However, since vaccines have eliminated those routine killers, it seems quite reasonable to mobilise against a new one at the response level we now have.
60% of Australians infected? In an ideal world I suppose…
That para 2 seems a wild variance and the numbers look like horse shit to me. 100,000 dead? A tenth of that hasn't happened anywhere on any level even at ground zero. Time to get with reality, actually.
That SMH article is a massive part of the problem here. Political necessity overriding the wellbeing of ordinary people.
That's the projection of what would happen if everyone had your attitude.
You're like the dude on december 31 1999 who said "nothing will happen, it's all a beat-up by the powers that be", and felt smugly right because he ignored the millions of hours that went into preventing Y2K from being a dramatic clusterfuck.
There's an anti-gout medication called Allopurinol: incredibly effective, pretty much zero side effects once the correct dose is found. Getting to the correct dose actually causes gout if done too quickly.
If someone stops taking it, it's much more difficult to find the correct dose again, and the gout comes back with a vengeance.
You're like the dude who takes allopurinol for twenty years, then stops because he doesn't get gout any more so doesn't need to take the drug.
You're like the dude who talks about how little he has to do to keep the company tearoom tidy, and doesn't notice everyone else picking up after him.
You're like the dude who said how easy it was to organise a gala because he ignored the event manager and didn't see the fifty people decorating the auditorium all day.
You're like the dude who said percussionists had an easy job because he didn't see the years of training.
Do you see the common factor of someone being oblivious to the fact they are benefitting from other people's great effort?
Infection rates of 20% to 60% are what's projected if no actions were taken.
Infection and death rates haven't got anywhere near that, even at ground zero, because draconian containment measures were taken. We aren't welding people inside their homes, but just yesterday Joe90 posted stuff suggesting that's what happened at ground zero.
Hell, our response here is still quite feeble compared to the lockdown happening in Italy and neighbouring countries.
Italy is a basket case for a lot of reasons. This has been covered in comments here.
The crisis media seem to be struggling for CV19 numbers. They and many on this forum with no jobs to lose are desperate for community infection to begin so their doomsday predictions might come to fruition.
I can't speak to anyone else's motivations. But for me, I really really don't want to see community spread happen here. And if we don't dodge the bullet of community spread, I really really want it to be minimised. That's why I'm supportive of the actions the government has taken.
Covid-19 was introduced to (northern) Italy relatively early, and the government was slow to respond. There are now 2,158 Covid-19-attributable deaths in Italy.
If you think that the NZ government is 'over-reacting' to this threat, have a look at the common trend of the updated "Total Cases" and "Total Deaths" graphs in this link, and ask yourself if these graphs might be one reason for that "over-reaction".
I hope that the NZ government's response to the Covid-19 threat is an "over-reaction" – unfortunately, based on the current evidence, that seems very unlikely.
Based on the best testing regime in the world (South Korea) the Wuhan coronavirus aka COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 0.6% among the general population. Old people higher.
The death rate is dependent on age of population, and whether the those without symptoms had been weighted in or not. And the old and those with vulnerabilities (as with the flu) are the ones to warn to separate from public places (once community spread risk is known).
I am not sure if a death is a sound way to determine the need for a lockdown though, it would depend if it was because of community spread, or someone coming in and or onto a vulnerable contact.
Today I had appointment in govt office. I watched the two security people take turns at sitting at their shared desk and snacking from a punnet of dahl. If this is the level of supposedly trained safety personel it makes me most fearful of our ability to get through this.
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
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. ...
The 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. ...
Labour 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. ...
The 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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts 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. ...
The 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. ...
New 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. ...
More 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. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
oh dear. Has she been sainted yet?
Don't forget to be kind to each other. Kindness was a signature of the first Labour government under MJ Savage, and it is of this one, too, as Grant Robertson claimed in Parliament today.
"Applied Christianity" Savage called the social policy of his government. It's a good model.
The NZX and NZ dollar reacted positively as did business generally. This is a very significant package at 4% of GDP, time for us all to realise these are uncharted times and as Mac1 says, don't forget to be kind to each other, and not be selfish.
We thought you were going to do it.
[Please put a space between your name and the “C”, thanks]
Sad to hear neighbours within this street are now avoiding using public transport due to being accused/harassed for being the "cause "of this , all because they have an asian heritage.
Should anyone see this out there, to stand up. IMO this is NOT alright. Sad to hear.
I'll have to crunch the numbers some more, but the figures that I have been looking at, indicate that the Richardson-Shipley benefit cuts have effectively been reversed.
Not in real terms they haven't. Not even close.
Yeah, I think I got my calculations wrong. I just got the 1989 benefit levels and ran them through the inflation calculator. Nevermind.
But it shows that benefit increases are back on the table. National did it in 2015, and Labour did it 2020.
The $25/wk will be less for people that get TAS (the hardship grant for the most poor). Labour could fix this, but I'm not sure what the quick fix is. A lump sum payment would have helped.
National only raised the benefit for some beneficiaries, it wasn't across the board.
No obvious quick fixes – that's a systemic legislative issue, so needs more than a band aid, although I guess a quick fix might have been suspending that section of legislation for 12 months or something like that.
Does an increase in DA get offset by TAS?
No, level of TAS isn't affected by MSD allowances apparently, and DA is not included in the definition of income for TAS.
I gave the TAS a thought as well. Also watch the next wave of rent increases. I also think if any left over from the temporary doubling of the energy payment it will be used for food. Church dinners will cease soon and food banks will need to rethink their distribution.
I have decided that what is left over from the energy payment will go toward cremating me.
One important factor when doing these kinds of comparisons is to remember that when benefits were cut in 1991 the calculation used to assess the rate of special benefit was altered to prevent people receiving more special benefit. The fear was that as the main benefit was cut this would mean a greater rate of special benefit because as income decreases the special benefit increases. This move had the effect of raising the point where it's accepted a person is in hardship. While benefit rates may have increased, the special benefit assessment has remained unchanged.
On top of this the TAS payment replaced the special benefit in 2004. The assessment is made on a similar basis as the special benefit but was made more stringent again.
The replacement of the special benefit with the TAS benefit in 2004 was a fundamental change that's had a significant impact on governments' ability to properly tackle poverty. It has meant not only less money in people's pockets, but it's removed the ability of government to respond to need because the tools needed to do that were removed.
This is very useful analysis. Can I please use this in a post Chris?
Sure, it's all documented / official / on the public record kind of stuff.
Further to the post above, one fundamental difference between the earlier special benefit and the current TAS is that the former contained a discretion that allowed payments outside of the formula assessment so if a case came along that didn't fit the general rules a person could still get help and importantly have needs met. The TAS payments are wholly ruled-based and are in regulations. There no is discretion in the regulations (except to pay below the assessed rate) therefore no ability to address needs that may fall outside of what's stated in the regulations. Labour was warned about the dangers of doing this but they went ahead anyway.
Don't forget to crunch in rent, rates, power, petrol and food price hikes.
Yes, corporate greed has indeed spiralled out of control over the past 30 years.
Petrol has fallen in price.
Priorities.
https://twitter.com/hillhulse/status/1239585370976800768
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1239685852093169664
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1239696216352378880
The airlines tRump is going to bail used almost their all their cash surpluses to buy back shares, presumably from insiders who sold their contract stock options. And because they didn't save enough to get through a rough patch, the taxpayer is on the hook. Fuckers.
The biggest U.S. airlines spent 96% of free cash flow last decade on buying back their own shares. American Airlines Group Inc. — which is not shown in the chart but is included in overall figures — led the pack, with negative cumulative free cash flow during the decade while it repurchased more than $12.5 billion of its shares. United Airlines Holdings Inc. used 80% of its free cash flow on buybacks, while the S&P 500 Index as a whole allocated about 50% for the purpose. As the industry reels under the weight of the coronavirus outbreak corporate leaders are seeking federal assistance to ease the burden.
.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-16/u-s-airlines-spent-96-of-free-cash-flow-on-buybacks-chart
I have always been told that the common cold and the 'flu are different things.
I understand that the Covid 19 is a cousin of the common cold virus.
The common cold doesn't have a vaccine.
I have heard advice to get the 'flu jab.
I have also heard that a vaccine is one if the hopes for combating Covid 19.
Something here is not adding up.
The flu jab reduces the need/peak cases to be hospitalised, so that health resources can be dedicated to Covid 19 cases. Our health system is in dire need, so any actions that can be implemented to min. the flu on our health system is a winner
Yes, the common cold and the flu are different things.
The common cold is caused by a variety of different viruses, some of which are coronaviruses, cousin to the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the illness covid-19. Others are rhinoviruses, adenoviruses etc. While the viruses are quite different, they produce similar symptoms as your immune system tries similar tactics to eliminate the infection.
The common cold doesn't have a vaccine because of the huge number of different viruses that can cause it. Some of those virus strains also mutate quite rapidly, which would get past immunity from previous infection or a vaccine.
The flu is caused by influenza viruses which attack a different range of body tissues than common cold viruses, hence the difference in symptoms. Many influenza viruses come from animal reservoirs, making it somewhat of a crystal ball gazing exercise to try to predict which influenza strains will become prevalent in time to develop and distribute the appropriate vaccine. Really bad flu seasons can happen when an unexpected strain of influenza virus becomes prevalent during flu season.
The push for people to get flu vaccine is not any forlorn hope that it will reduce COVID-19, it's to reduce the number of easily-preventable flu cases the medical system has to deal with at the same time as it's trying to cope with all the not-easily-preventable COVID-19 cases.
The hope is that a vaccine against the new SARS-CoV-2 virus will be developed. If this happens sufficiently quickly, it will indeed be a powerful tool against COVID-19. However, it's not guaranteed a vaccine will be developed. It may be the virus mutates quickly enough that vaccines aren't a good tool against it. There are some reports which suggest that some people have been infected again after recovering, suggesting that immune systems don't learn to fight the virus very well or lose the ability quickly, in which case an effective vaccine might not be achievable.
So there are a couple of different things to unpack there, but it's not too far off. Non-specialised understanding that we teach in schools and so on are usually correct to a necessary level of understanding, because folks have a lot to learn and not everyone needs to know stuff in such detail. We are taught that the world is round, but some folks like cartographers need to understand that the Earth is slightly squished and bulges at the equator.
So my non-specialist-but-has-to-sit-through-their-arguments understanding is that there are broad families of virus (for example: influenza, coronavirus, and filo viruses). Each family has a bunch of subtypes (e.g.: H1N1, SARS-CoV-2, and Ebola virus, respectively). Vaccines need to be targeted at the subtypes to prevent/mitigate the diseases the viruses cause (in these three its "bird flu", the current pandemic, and ebola haemorragic fever don't google it it's disgusting).
The trouble with our (and the media's) usual understanding is that the "common cold" is caused by up to 200 strains of different virus families, not just one. Corona viruse strains account for about 15% of the common cold according to wikipedia.
But it gets worse, because our influenza vaccines are targeted at specific flu strains based on which strains are likely to be a problem that flu season. So imagine developing 200 different vaccines for the common cold (some of which are very different to each other), then having to repeat the process from fresh next season.
But covid-19 is one variant. It might not be easy to develop a vaccine, and it will evolve and change so we'd need to change the vaccines accordingly, but it's only one or two strains we'd need to hit each year. It will probably end up like the flu vaccine, every year hitting the most likely strains to be a problem.
But yeah, putting the non-specialist picture together didn't add up, a bit like how Colmar Brunton political surveys of party preference often add up to 99 or 101 percent because the figures are rounded for the TV report.
edit: lolsnap Andre
Chances were pretty good there would be multiple overlapping replies when it takes quite a lot of time to do even a simple explanation.
Thanks Andre, Herodotus and McF, I appreciate y'all efforts and it has made things a little clearer.
One would think that with the increase of hand hygene, the 'flu season should be less impactful this season.
Cheers.
flue jabs are a vaccine from last years flu so to speak…..when it mutates we need a new one
Good read. I'm left wondering if health experts are starting to dial back the dire predictions somewhat.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12317568
To late for millions of trashed businesses and hundreds of millions of ruined lives…
From your link:
edit: Death rates around 1% might not seem that bad if your expectations were set in times and places where epidemics with similar death rates swept through the population regularly. However, since vaccines have eliminated those routine killers, it seems quite reasonable to mobilise against a new one at the response level we now have.
60% of Australians infected? In an ideal world I suppose…
That para 2 seems a wild variance and the numbers look like horse shit to me. 100,000 dead? A tenth of that hasn't happened anywhere on any level even at ground zero. Time to get with reality, actually.
That SMH article is a massive part of the problem here. Political necessity overriding the wellbeing of ordinary people.
That's the projection of what would happen if everyone had your attitude.
You're like the dude on december 31 1999 who said "nothing will happen, it's all a beat-up by the powers that be", and felt smugly right because he ignored the millions of hours that went into preventing Y2K from being a dramatic clusterfuck.
Like Tiger-spray, right?
There's an anti-gout medication called Allopurinol: incredibly effective, pretty much zero side effects once the correct dose is found. Getting to the correct dose actually causes gout if done too quickly.
If someone stops taking it, it's much more difficult to find the correct dose again, and the gout comes back with a vengeance.
You're like the dude who takes allopurinol for twenty years, then stops because he doesn't get gout any more so doesn't need to take the drug.
Do tell me what I'm like.
You're like the dude who talks about how little he has to do to keep the company tearoom tidy, and doesn't notice everyone else picking up after him.
You're like the dude who said how easy it was to organise a gala because he ignored the event manager and didn't see the fifty people decorating the auditorium all day.
You're like the dude who said percussionists had an easy job because he didn't see the years of training.
Do you see the common factor of someone being oblivious to the fact they are benefitting from other people's great effort?
Infection rates of 20% to 60% are what's projected if no actions were taken.
Infection and death rates haven't got anywhere near that, even at ground zero, because draconian containment measures were taken. We aren't welding people inside their homes, but just yesterday Joe90 posted stuff suggesting that's what happened at ground zero.
Hell, our response here is still quite feeble compared to the lockdown happening in Italy and neighbouring countries.
edit: lol McFlock, ya beat me this time.
Italy is a basket case for a lot of reasons. This has been covered in comments here.
The crisis media seem to be struggling for CV19 numbers. They and many on this forum with no jobs to lose are desperate for community infection to begin so their doomsday predictions might come to fruition.
I can't speak to anyone else's motivations. But for me, I really really don't want to see community spread happen here. And if we don't dodge the bullet of community spread, I really really want it to be minimised. That's why I'm supportive of the actions the government has taken.
Covid-19 was introduced to (northern) Italy relatively early, and the government was slow to respond. There are now 2,158 Covid-19-attributable deaths in Italy.
If you think that the NZ government is 'over-reacting' to this threat, have a look at the common trend of the updated "Total Cases" and "Total Deaths" graphs in this link, and ask yourself if these graphs might be one reason for that "over-reaction".
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus
I hope that the NZ government's response to the Covid-19 threat is an "over-reaction" – unfortunately, based on the current evidence, that seems very unlikely.
Time will tell.
I don't give a shit about Italy. The country is filthy. They all smoke. They all live with their elderly parents. Their health system is dire.
Fuck 'em.
Some less than charitable people have said that about some of our disadvantaged areas and people.
"I don't give a shit"….well that sums you up i guess….we are supposed to be nice here but fuck it
Based on the best testing regime in the world (South Korea) the Wuhan coronavirus aka COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 0.6% among the general population. Old people higher.
Source: Johns Hopkins
Yeah that was already becoming clear.
The death rate is dependent on age of population, and whether the those without symptoms had been weighted in or not. And the old and those with vulnerabilities (as with the flu) are the ones to warn to separate from public places (once community spread risk is known).
I am not sure if a death is a sound way to determine the need for a lockdown though, it would depend if it was because of community spread, or someone coming in and or onto a vulnerable contact.
Oh, I see. The flu has stopped Australia exporting its criminal culture.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/coronavirus-covid-19-halts-australia-s-deportation-regime.html
I say the two week self-isolation for all arrivals from Australia should remain in place permanently.
Today I had appointment in govt office. I watched the two security people take turns at sitting at their shared desk and snacking from a punnet of dahl. If this is the level of supposedly trained safety personel it makes me most fearful of our ability to get through this.
Gloomy virus talk is getting me down. Here's some songs for a late night boogie.
Technotronic – Pump Up The Jam (Music Video 1989)
On a lighter note.. and we're going to need plenty of them.
Dire Straits – Industrial Disease (1982)
Hey, hey, hey, hey….
Boney M. – Rasputin
(Music Video 1979)