Do the young really lack concentration?

Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, March 1st, 2015 - 85 comments
Categories: admin, blogs, humour, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, The Standard - Tags:

Now that I can no longer call myself young2, the old adage that younger people simply lack concentration does appear to me to be correct. So I’m going to stop slagging off the old, and start slagging off the young.  It is more fun…

But since I am a person who likes and depends on numbers from my training and profession1, I look to numbers to see if there is a correlation and if I can argue a causation based on age.

In the case of this site, there are a lot of people, and google analytics gives a lot of interesting demographic data that is moderately trustworthy3. I’ve picked the election month of September last year and February this year as points to do a basic test of my curmudgeon theory. That is mostly because everyone piles in in election month, but only hardened political junkies are still there in Feburary.

So in the (punctuated by election day and public holidays) 31 days of September and 27 of February we had the following. Feb doesn’t have all its numbers in for the 28th as you can see in the blue graph line.

TS_FebVsSept_overall

Note that we are about half the size in page views and sessions in February. We have had a massive growth since Feb 20144, but election month is always hectic. Also note that the “Sessions” are meant to be calculated the same way as “visits” for statcounter/sitemeter that are reported in Open Parachute, but analytics is about 2/3rds the volume as statscounter (and sitemeter is different again)5. Look at the page views, they are more reliable.

Ok, so as you’d expect we have a more people (Users) on site in election month, but on average they read fewer pages, stay on site for shorter periods, ‘bounce’ more (ie scan a page and immediately leave), and we have more new people (% New Sessions). These are all effects that you’d expect

Now look at the age demographic details. This table is for the number merchants like swordfish. The more accessible charts are further down. Note that the number for sessions are lower than the counted numbers above. This is because they are the sessions for people that google has age data on.

And watch out for the odd positioning of the age bands. That is a ‘feature’ (ie bug) of analytics.

TS_FebVsSept_age

Click for a larger image

 

Breaking it down. The NZ age column is pretty vertical these days. I can’t find a pyramid for the 2013 census, but it looks like this estimate from stats..

nzip13-population-pyramid

If we look at the spread of ages vs sessions then you can see the age skew is towards the older age groups. We pick up more of the busy parents (25-34) during election time, but otherwise our audience composition remains pretty static

TS_FebVsSept_age1

 

This appears to always surprise journos who seem to think that sites like this are populated by angry middle aged men (ie kiwiblog), but really shouldn’t. For a start, analytics tells us that we  have about a third of the readers on this site are woman. That is a really high number for a NZ political blog sites outside of the feminist blogs. My guess is that on kiwiblog it’d be single digits.

But the focus of most news media appears to be orientated less to providing information and more to providing gossip these days (look at the NZ Herald). At least on a site like TS politically knowledgeable people can discuss what they know about what is going on without listening the dumbarse marketing blather fed to credulous ill-educated journos who don’t do activist level politics.  Mostly they talk crap as they try to explain something they have never done to an audience who have only a cursory interest.

But back to the question of age related concentration. Lets look at session duration.

TS_FebVsSept_age2

Ouuuuuch. 9 minutes per sessions for the boomers in Feb vs 5 minutes for the 25-34 age group. Cripes I know they are busy with the horribles. But that is a freaky drop off. I’m sure that they are spending time (as rocky put it) standing in a queue, child in hand, having a brief read on their cellphones. However there is a distinct age related graduation in that sequence.

And page views per session

TS_FebVsSept_age3

Same thing there. No depth in the younger age groups 🙂

Ok, argue amongst yourselves. But I’ll run a little test. When you are making a point about alternate explanations, explain why. First few people who just slag off others or call it a age related smear or just concentrate on the couple of smears I deliberately put in the post will be presumed to haven’t bothered reading the post down to this warning.

They will win a prize of a week long ban for the stupidity of commenting without reading the whole of the post..


 

  1. It must have been a hell of a shock to my maths teachers when I wandered off to do a science degree. I was always far more interested in social areas like pysch, sociology, history and geography when I was a school kid because they were what my mother was doing at uni. But those kinds of topics were simply too easy by the time I got to uni. So I did a BSc with 5th form maths and 6th form biology because it was more fun to work on things that I didn’t understand well. My next degree was an MBA in operations management with even more number crunching. It was rather inevitable that when PC’s became available that I went into that structural paradise of programming.
  2. I think I am 55, possibly 56. Who (apart from my 75 year old mother) bothers to remember my age?
  3. Google picks up data from the information that people often fill in whenever they use services like gmail or google analytics. They fill it out with anything else that they can find. Typically about 50-60% of the people who visit our site have donated them information.
  4. In Feb 2014 we had according to statcounter, 317k  page views, and it’d been pretty static at about 300k since the 2011 election. This Feb we had 417k. Feb 2011 was about 260k. This is the pattern we have seen with elections. We get a leap in long term readers after an election. The best time to view it is in Feb as the holiday break ends. It looks like we probably grew our base of readers by about a third. Interestingly Kiwiblog and The Daily Blog looks like they have dropped quite a lot of audience compared to previous Febs. But we can wait until Ken releases his ranks.
  5. I have no idea why Ken at Open Parachute chooses to order on “Visits” or why different counters are treated the same or why there is no standard on what the settings for for the counters. All of these change the ‘visit’ numbers quite a lot on sites with long read durations like political blogs. Changing the duration ‘visit’ from 30 minutes to 360 minutes makes a about a 10% difference at TS for the number of “Visits”.  Dropping it to 10 minutes in  one of the other counters I tried nearly doubled the visits. But Ken provides it free of charge and does the work to maintain it. I do wish he’d add a pages per visit column in which would highlight how ‘different’ the sites are operating.So I only read the page views column anyway. That is roughly the same (within a few percent) in all site counters that are based on javascript and exclude most of the robots that don’t execute it. It is a far better cross platform analysis.

85 comments on “Do the young really lack concentration? ”

  1. Zorr 1

    I would actually argue that a lot of the older readers spend longer per page read as that average will be made higher up by those that read/engage in the comments. For those of us that are younger, there is often very little point in engaging here and we have little invested in the community or trying to find a place among the already established commentariat. What can we add that hasn’t already been covered by the regular commenters? Especially when it breaks down to hashing out the same old tired lines of combat that have been established already…

    Not to beat a dead horse, but the younger generation tends to be more feminist and more aware of privilege in my experience. It’s good to come here for the opinion and then leave before reaching the comments…

  2. Pasupial 2

    Regarding point 3; “Google picks up data from the information that people often fill in whenever they use services like gmail or google analytics”. I suspect that many in the younger age bands may use; email accounts of convenience, with nonaccurate and minimal personal details. I know that is the case for myself – why make things easier for the spies (both governmental & corporate)?

    Of course, as I generally comment from a desktop PC; I’ll be using the same IP address with my personal & spam-magnet emails, so may be entirely transparent to Google. But as you say that; 40-50% of visitor’s age is unknown to Google Analytics (actually; “Typically about 50-60% of the people who visit our site have donated them information”, which is much the same thing), I would be cautious about being too certain about conclusions reached from this data set.

    • lprent 2.1

      Oh I agree about entering the bullshit. I do it all of the time myself (typically James T Kirk from Starship Enterprise) and have done so for nearly 30 years. I also usually put in ridiculous answers like being 110 years old…

      But I jump computers a lot. Typically I usually carry 2-4 of them at all times when I am moving (ie cell, tablet, my laptop, work laptop). And I will work with at least a dozen different ‘computers’ a day with virtual machines, remote servers, isolated test systems, cloud servers, or whatever. With the exception of the commandline only servers and the ones without any net access, just getting onto chrome or firefox (or frigging IE) generally sees me living in a familiar world each time after I have been on them a while.

      https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2799357?hl=en

      Google seem to cross check their personalisation a *lot* compared to somewhere like alexa and other services I have used. They appear to discard a lot more of the data as well. 50%-60% on this site is a really low hit rate even for them. But this is what google sell and what they sell has to be reasonably accurate, or their customers are going to kick up a stink.

      I’ve accessed analytics on a number of sites now and been pretty impressed at how well it reflects the aggregate type of audience type that I know is on those sites. In another bit of the system, they list interests. Needless to say we attract self-professed “political junkies” and “news junkies” of various types…

      Incidentally I have also been completely disconcerted at how well google follow me around. Even on a completely clean laptop disconnected from my usual networks and sites, they’re usually zeroing in on what kinds of ads I might be interested in in a hurry

      • DH 2.1.1

        It would be interesting to know just how wide ranging Google’s data collection is. They are pretty savvy, Gmail & Youtube look to be their main sources of demographic data but they might also have session traps in Google analytics itself that estimate age & gender by sites visited.

        Anyone who values their ‘net privacy should avoid signing up to any Google-owned site, or at least clear cookies when they leave the site. Log in to Gmail and it sets a whole bunch of cookies, for other Google-owned sites like Youtube, that remain active until the cookies are physically cleared.

        Google isn’t even a decent search engine any more, it’s turned into a giant virus.

  3. Ray 3

    I think Pasupial makes a valid point
    Regarding your thought that the 25 24 group would be busy with the “horribles”
    I think if you check the census figures you will find having children at that age is not average behavior
    Old people ( I am a boomer) have been moaning about youth for thousands of years, see Socrate’s thoughts on the matter
    Just see this as another version

    • lprent 3.1

      25-34? That is exactly the female group you’d expect with small children. Umm. here we go. Forget the urban myths beloved by people who don’t think about statistics (and journos)

      http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/mythbusters/first-baby-at-30.aspx

      The median age for women giving birth in 2011 was 30 years. That means that half of all women giving birth were younger than 30 years and half were aged over 30 years. However, this takes into account all live births, regardless of the number of times a woman has previously given birth. Therefore, the median age for a woman giving birth to her first child will be lower.

      Conclusion
      This myth is busted.

      So, at what age are women having their first child? The median age of mothers giving birth to their first child is roughly 28 years, two years younger than the average across all mothers. It is also important to note that this median age is based on children of the current relationship only.

      The median age for both childbirth and birth of first child has remained steady since 2001.

      About one-half of births are registered as first births. The median age of women giving birth to their second child is roughly 32 years.

      How did this myth arise?
      This myth may have arisen because we have been reluctant to publish data on mother’s age at first birth, although there is interest in this from health researchers and providers, media, businesses, and the general public.

      Information about births comes from the birth registration form. The form asks whether there are any other children of the mother’s current relationship. This is because, for privacy reasons, it is deemed unacceptable to ask women about children outside their current relationship. Although children from previous relationships are probably included in some cases, this question does not produce a complete measure of all previous live births to a woman. The ‘real’ median might be slightly younger than that given above, but 28 years is a reasonable estimate of the upper limit.

      My bold italics are at the end and here again.

      The real median age is probably somewhere closer to 27 than 28 for women. At which point half of all women have already had their first kid.

      The median age for males will be a little higher simply because of the disparity of ages between the genders in relationships (there is a stats note about that somewhere as well).

      So the age group 25-34 is the group with most young kids.

      • Francis 3.1.1

        You used “25-24 age group” part way down the page. Presumably it’s a typo, but it is slightly ambiguous (you could mean “15-24” or “25-34”).

        • lprent 3.1.1.1

          Thanks.

          Probably a typo. I wrote it late at night and then put charts in during lunch at a sunday work session the following day. Tired split sessions are always my worst downfall as a writer of text. When I write code the compilers and parsers usually take care of that kind of error.

          Found and fixed. Should have been “25-34 age group”

  4. jenny kirk 4

    Isn’t it far more likely that older people have a bit more time on their hands, than younger ones, undoubtedly being without the “horribles” who do take up the time I would have thought of the 25-34s, and the even younger ones are too busy enjoying life to bother with a serious blog like this ?

  5. Hateatea 6

    Speaking only for myself, I have cautiously returned here after taking a sabbatical from all forms of on-line commentary for a couple of years.

    As the internet was unavailable to me during my 20’s to early 40’s, I am unsure as to whether or not I would have engaged with a site like this as I was only starting to develop a broad political interest compared to the issues based approach I had when I was younger. I was also more readily reached by the spoken word during those years while now I am more focussed on the written to formulate my views. Of course, I have read more widely, developed better critical thinking, had more life experience and, thanks to the lack of employment options available to me, have more time on my hands to spend wandering around the internet following articles, people and events that take my interest.

    I suspect that younger political junkies will be aware of sites such as this and drop by but the average younger person may still be (mostly) disinterested in politics except at the flash points that affect them personally. It will be interesting to see if the government’s decision to join the ISIL debacle will generate more awareness as Vietnam and anti-tour demonstrations did for many in my circle.

    Thought provoking though because we need more awareness in the young voting populace to encourage change amongst the grey beards who dominate much of the current debate.

    My 2c worth and hopefully on topic!

    • greywarshark 6.1

      @ Hateatea
      What you say rings a bell with me.

      • Anne 6.1.1

        Me too.

        Hateatea you are right. Those of us who cut our teeth during the Vietnam/anti-tour/ anti-nuclear period became far more politicised than the currently more youthful generations. We were political products of our time and once the ‘addiction’ set in, it became a permanent state of mind for many of us. The following generations have grown up in a political vacuum in large part because of the neo-liberal consensus that has discouraged intelligent and wide ranging political discourse.

        You may well be correct. The ISIL debacle could re-ignite the more youthful amongst us to take a more active part in politics. I would welcome such an eventuality.

        Glad to see you back. 🙂

        • Macro 6.1.1.1

          Ah yes! The marches down Salamanca Rd! How often did we do that in the 60’s?
          My daughter has taken up the baton (her latest protest poster – “We kill people, who kill people, because killing people is wrong!”) Now there are many younger ones out there, but I do not think as many in our day. Maybe it won’t be long. It takes time for the masses to wake up to the fact that they are being disenfranchised. Especially when we have such a soporific “Ministry of Truth” as we have in NZ.

  6. `
    Is the internet destroying or attention span?
    Simply put, yes. The average attention span is five minutes. Ten years ago, it used to be 12 minutes. Some blame the internet but it appears to be a small factor in a much broader phenomenon …

    There is growing evidence that society is getting dumber. 😯

    • Hateatea 7.1

      I blame television advertising myself but then I am a grumpy old woman, lol.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 7.2

      Have you looked for any evidence that would falsify your hypothesis?

      “The authors show that intelligence test scores are going up everywhere in the world…”

      Neisser, Ulric 1998.

      Also see the link between low IQ and lead exposure, and the Flynn Effect (and its alleged reversal).

      • And yet our country is ruled by an evil clown, who has followed the pied piper into a meaningless war on the other side of the world

        • One Anonymous Bloke 7.2.1.1

          …and Pinker has shown that per capita violence is decreasing globally.

      • Colonial Rawshark 7.2.2

        That isn’t evidence of a smarter, more capable or wiser population; that’s evidence that people are doing better at intelligence tests.

        • Zorr 7.2.2.1

          So where is there any evidence for any of this?

          We haven’t had a world war in generations… obviously we are totes smarter now…

          Realistically, all this is bullshit because it is purely a cultural importance thing where the world that the Gen Xers and on (I’m Gen Y) inhabit a very different cultural space than the previous generations. Our world requires different skill sets than yours did.

          • Colonial Rawshark 7.2.2.1.1

            Possibly, except we live in the same world.

            What I do know is that Gen Y’s will have to deal with climate change and fossil fuel depletion for 20 harder years than the older Gen X’s will have to. I do hope those different “skill sets” you mention set your generation up for that.

            • Zorr 7.2.2.1.1.1

              My wife is 6 years my senior. She is Gen X. I am Gen Y. It isn’t often a 20 year difference like that and you are deliberately overstating it for effect. Gen X are the generation that had MTV in their teenage years (using the US as the yardstick here) and Gen Y start with the internet in their teens (I was 12 in 1995). Everyone who was a child (under 10) in the 80s have all equally fucked by baby boomers and their offspring (those born up until 1970 but I’m unsure of the term used for that far).

              We may live in the same world, but our heavily formative years all happen in different “worlds” if we are to talk about the culture that exists when we are in our teens and tweens.

              • Colonial Rawshark

                Mate, I went with wikipedia which defined Gen X as those born from the 60s through to the 80s. It also stated that the generations known as Boomers, X’s, and Y’s are generally regarded to be approx 20 years in duration.

                If you want to call a 6 year difference worthy of being described as generationally culturally different, go for it.

                • Zorr

                  LMAO

                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Generation

                  This is what I know as “Generation X” – and yes, the generations that have grown up with globalization in everything and instant interconnectedness have grown up in a world that is substantially culturally different than any generation before them. I have more in common with 20 year olds these days than I do with 40 year olds.

                  • Zorr

                    And re-reading that description, you are right. Fuck the Gen X’ers. I got my timing mixed up and my wife ends up kind of somewhere not quite Millenial/Gen Y but I am square in that bracket.

                    *shrug*

                    Slight revision then. Fuck y’all. Y’all done fucked us and all I got was this lousy McJob.

              • lprent

                It isn’t often a 20 year difference like that and you are deliberately overstating it for effect.

                Lyn is 16 years younger than I am. I find that there are a lot of differences between us. How much of that is due to gender, age/generation, or just the totally different style of lives between growing up in Invercargill or growing up in Ponsonby and Mt Albert is probably moot.

                What we do tend to share is that we are both netizens. Lyn grew up with it being present, I grew up with it appearing in my adulthood and shifting into it. But where we live in it reflects our basic differences on how we came to it. I tend to spend a lot of time building systems of hardware, software, and wetware in different places. Lyn tends to ‘surf’ it.

                But I was at the cutting edge of personal computing. 🙂 When I was about 15, my old man brought back some early cheap 4 function calculators after a trip to Europe. They were amongst the first at Mt Albert Grammar and were a bit of big thing then. That is how recent this stuff was.

                http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/history_of_electronic_calculat.html

                See 1975

                But really the gender differences are probably the biggest difference between us… Which is what we see on this site as well.

          • One Anonymous Bloke 7.2.2.1.2

            Pinker’s data includes both world wars.

        • greywarshark 7.2.2.2

          Sinik.

    • Zorr 7.3

      Yet none of those links is actual research… just pseudo science junk sites

      “Is the internet making us dumber?”
      A: Yes, if you read those sites and think of the information there as true

    • Scintilla 7.4

      From yr first link: “When people read text only they are able to understand more thoroughly what the text is about than when a video is involved. This compliments what 64% of teachers in the Pew online survey said about digital technologies, “They do more to distract students than to help them academically.”

      It’s depressing, watching students researching online. They are simply drowned in the tidal wave of information and because so many (especially boys) reject reading/literacy, they cannot develop the information literacy tools they need to discern shit from clay. Unable to analyse or evaluate, because they simply have not developed the core vocabulary and comprehension skills they need, they operate a very hit and miss strategy. (It usually involves writing the whole question into the search engine and whizzing through the first page of hits, whilst whining that “the answer isn’t on there, Miss.”) Of course, they don’t care because they just wanna play games and do social media.

      This is what “dumbing down” looks like today.

      • It’s not just kids that don’t know how to use search engines. Adults do the same thing with questions from quizzes.
        Searching online is a skill that takes practice, and requires a bit of comprehension of the question, a few synonyms, and strategies for narrowing down results.

  7. One Anonymous Bloke 8

    Attention deficit disorder declines with age. Maybe (just maybe 😈 ) Lprent is onto something.

    • Zorr 8.1

      Those studies are not about it “declining with age” but to do with ADHD continuing through to adulthood from childhood. The rate is approximately 60-70% as mentioned in the article but, as with any mental conditions, is dependent on interpretation by professionals.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 8.1.1

        …regardless of definition, our analyses show that evidence for ADHD lessens with age.

        You were saying?

        • Zorr 8.1.1.1

          The next sentence…
          “More work is needed to determine if this reflects true remission of ADHD symptoms or is due to the developmental insensitivity of diagnostic criteria for the disorder”

          They are admitting that they only have correlation at best.

          • One Anonymous Bloke 8.1.1.1.1

            I only said “maybe (just maybe)”… 😛

            • Zorr 8.1.1.1.1.1

              I’m going through the process of getting help with adult ADHD right now… so, I’m a little read up on current research 😉

              And it’s a little close to home

              • One Anonymous Bloke

                Fair enuf. My bad.

                • Zorr

                  You had no way of knowing 🙂

                  When your first appointment is with a psychologist who has to believe in ADHD because he wants to remain employed but believes that medication isn’t an answer…

                  Yeah… it’s a fight just to get recognized.

  8. I expect that as people get older and slower it takes longer to read each page.
    There’s also the issue of falling asleep while reading 😆

    • Colonial Rawshark 9.1

      hilarious…zzzzzzzzzz…uh, huh? What? Me, nod off??? 😈

    • Hateatea 9.2

      True, nodding off is sometimes a hazard while reading although not usually on this site 😉

      • lprent 9.2.1

        We usually get reports of ‘constant and excessive indignation’ rather than ‘nodding off’.

      • Anne 9.2.2

        I like reading at bedtime, but rarely get past 6 pages before I……………….

        It takes a lot longer to finish a book. 🙁

        • lprent 9.2.2.1

          Best book I ever had for sleeping was a history of the Dutch east india company from the 15th to 19th century. It outlined every seasons voyages, the cargo, and the sales. 2-3 pages and I was asleep. It lasted for several years….

    • Murray Rawshark 9.3

      And then my teeth drop out while I’m looking for my glasses…………..

  9. AsleepWhileWalking 10

    That this site has young people on it for five minutes is a tribute to the quality of the content on the site.

    Besides, the younguns probably comment less, hence the shorter time. After growing up in a tech heavy environment they already know how little expressing their opinion online matters …..older gens are slower learners in this regard *ducks for cover*

    Most importantly I think you have wrongly interpreted the information. The vast majority of website visits last in seconds and they never return. You are doing something very right when faced with a smorgasboard of porn, cute animals, and other left leaning sites people spend 5 – 9 mins of their time. Congrats are in order : )

    • Zorr 10.1

      Essentially what I said with my first comment Asleep

      And yes, it matters more that we do rather than say. There are more than enough older people around to tell us what we should be doing that the only way to beat them is to just go off and do… in the way that makes sense to us.

      Among my peers, I am seeing a continuing disengagement from all systems of power no matter the philosophy or creed.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.1

        I think that political disengagement, if not inevitable, has a history that precedes any current situation. However, as people age, they gain more personal experience of the ways politics affects them and others. So they re-engage.

      • Scintilla 10.1.2

        “Among my peers, I am seeing a continuing disengagement from all systems of power no matter the philosophy or creed.”

        Any ideas on why that is?

        • Zorr 10.1.2.1

          I tend towards being alternative and a lot of my peers would probably be easily labelled “makers” and people who are more interested in smaller communities of like-minded people than larger engagement.

          We have no power and we know it. So we create our own spaces where we have our own power – even if it is just a degree of self determination.

          • Sacha 10.1.2.1.1

            That seems like a wise approach. I’m more impressed with Generation Zero, ActionStation, and a multitude of innovative focused local initiatives than with anything I’m seeing from mainstream national politics. Better return on personal involvement.

          • Colonial Rawshark 10.1.2.1.2

            We have no power and we know it. So we create our own spaces where we have our own power – even if it is just a degree of self determination.

            I should say, your ending remarks show your starting remark to be a touch hasty.

            The agency to promote and live in freedom that we have as small groups, and as individuals, is remarkable.

            True democracy is not about Wellington, and it certainly is not about voting.

            • Zorr 10.1.2.1.2.1

              Why? From my experience at this site, the commentariat tends to be older people with a vested interest in the broader Left movement. You, yourself, have stood as a potential Labour candidate in the past.

              This tends to be of little interest to a lot of my generation because our problems don’t break down over traditional “political philosophy” lines but much broader lines of “where can I get a job?” or “what does our future even look like?” or, even, “do you believe in science?”

              When you are stuck looking at a future that is controlled by the older generation who have infinitely greater resources than you, the traditional political models hold much less interest. It takes resources to be engaged – mental, emotional, physical – and, for those of us on the bottom, we just don’t have the energy. And when we do have the energy, we have more in common with right wingers of the same age who are worried about an answer to climate change or the anti-vaxx movement than we do with an older generation of privileged landowners.

              • Colonial Rawshark

                If you define power in the way that the 0.1% want you to define power: land, financial capital, money, material luxuries, wealthy contacts, then yes – 99% of people are short on power.

                Until you look at history. And realise that every single ruling elite has eventually been taken down a peg or three by very ordinary people who realised that both power and democracy was in their hands, and no others.

                Remember in many ways, the ruling elite of society are as utterly imprisoned by the system as everyone else is, albeit one could argue that their handcuffs are golden.

                Even in today’s uneven society, a communitarian and social approach to living and getting through each day represents an effective act of defiance against capitalist power.

              • Hateatea

                ‘privileged landowners’ – where? Who? Not commonly found amongst those who I would see in my cohort.

                People engage in politics more than they realise, I suspect but visiting blogs and reading political commentary in newspapers and magazines is probably symptomatic of the era in which I grew up which was pre television for the most part.

                I believe too that educational achievement, family involvement in flax roots or national politics, workplace union activity and societal issues play their part.

                My initial awareness was pre 1960 with my father’s reaction to the ‘Black Budget’ and family conversations re the exclusion of Maori from All Blacks teams to South Africa and accelerated through Vietnam war protests etc.

                There was also a huge influence from protest music coming from both local and international writers and singers.

                I am sure that each of us, if we reflected, would identify couple of events / stories /writings that sparked a bigger picture political interest. It is just that some come to it earlier than others and by many different paths

            • Sacha 10.1.2.1.2.2

              “True democracy is not about Wellington, and it certainly is not about voting.”

              So true. We over-emphasise national political mechanisms, and under-inform our fellow citizens about how local community and civic involvement counts. That was one of the rewarding things about local government work – helping connect a variety of community groups and NGOs to help coalesce and magnify their impact. Not a priority for this govt, naturally.

              • Colonial Rawshark

                Absolutely…a lot of people were politicised and eventually recognised their power due to a rugby match, a smelter, a land occupation, a dam.

                Once you recognise your power, you can organise to achieve specific goals. Both in small ways and once you are able to, in large.

                The key is not to try and do this all alone.

    • Ad 10.2

      This site would be far more attractive with more clips of Labrador puppies.

  10. Colonial Rawshark 11

    So…how is it that September has 31 days?

    • lprent 11.1

      Good question. I was tired when I wrote this post last night. I plugged in the images today while an install was running.

  11. Hateatea 12

    A question, Lynn, which may or may not clarify things in my elderly brain but is a visit calculated by logging in or opening the site each time, doing a hard refresh or some other method? My practice is to have the site open on a tab all the time and only re-open after a re-boot. However, I do refresh if I have been elsewhere for a few minutes.

    I hope this is not considered a deviation from the matter at hand. 🙂

    • lprent 12.1

      The default is a page refresh or click into the site at least every 30 minutes continues a session/visit on both statcounter and analytics.

      Don’t click and the session ends.

      However it is quite different in results between differing counters.

  12. Macro 13

    I’m actually 18 but with 50 years experience. 🙂

  13. weka 14

    “For a start, analytics tells us that we have about a third of the readers on this site are woman.”

    Would love to know if that changes over time now that karol is no longer blogging here i.e. the difference between having a woman blogging most days alongsdie semi-regular women bloggers vs having semi-regular women bloggers only.

    • lprent 14.1

      I will let you know.

      Since April (when this set of demographics kicked in), the percentage has been 28.x% on page views and between 29% and 32% on sessions. Last month was 28.4% and 31.7%.

      No real change or trend line, but usually changes in TS are pretty gradual for author shifts since 2010.

  14. Scintilla 15

    This is a reply to Zorr at 10.1.2.1 – i hit the reply to that post but it seems to have dropped down to a new one. Oh well!
    I retrained late as a secondary school teacher and it has been illuminating going into teenage culture. It’s mind-blowing what some of these kids are dealing with at a personal level, some home/family situations that are incredibly unstable, complicated and full-on drama pits – makes you wonder how the kids ever get it together to keep coming to school. It was a surprise to me how awful some of it is and not uncommon either.

    It’s very striking that these kids know nothing else but the world as it’s been since 2000 say, and they have nothing to compare their often very small worlds with. That often the alternative visions are online ones and I’m unsure how much depth and substance those actually have as “possibilities for another kind of life.”

    The fact oldies can remember life pre-neolib crapola means we know life can be different. It’s not a matter of imagination. Developing imagination is getting pushed to the margins – contrary to what we’re always getting told are 21st century skills, like creativity and innovation – because it is time and energy-intensive. It needs incubation.

    I also think a sense of powerlessness is very pervasive these days no matter how old you are.

    * late reply, net connection playing up.

    • +1 insightful, and sad.

      I realise now, how lucky I was to grow up in the 70s, doing things most kids never do.

      Climbed trees, went for bike trips 20 miles from home, explored the mud flats, caught eels, hooned down hills on a go-kart. Ran around in bare feet for most of my school years, raided fruit from all round the neighborhood, learned how to chop wood, make a camp fire, fix stuff and build stuff. Got sun burned, eaten alive by mozzies, hives from too many feijoas, regularly covered in mud and filth, fell out of trees and scraped my knees a hundred times.

      I only watched TV for an hour a week max, the old black and white vacuum tube took ages to warm up, as did the stereogram. No video games, and yet somehow that terrible lack didn’t ruin my life. (I was also a huge bookworm)

      Maybe kids these days need to experience more of life, be exposed to danger and take risks. Not be obedient powerless drones (even though they might become super annoying to teachers)! It is better for brain development (so I hear) to have lots of adventures in real life, and to try lots of new things

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

  • At a glance – Does CO2 always correlate with temperature?
    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 ...
    1 hour ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 hours ago
  • Relentlessly negative
    Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    4 hours ago
  • Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    Bryce Edwards writes –  It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 hours ago
  • Promiscuous Empathy: Chris Trotter Replies To His Critics.
    Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played. “Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
    5 hours ago
  • Don’t run your business like a criminal enterprise
    The Detail this morning highlights the police's asset forfeiture case against convicted business criminal Ron Salter, who stands to have his business confiscated for systemic violations of health and safety law. Business are crying foul - but not for the reason you'd think. Instead of opposing the post-conviction punishment and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 hours ago
  • Misremembering Justinian’s Taxes.
    Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I - Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
    5 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    6 hours ago
  • Bishop scores headlines with crackdown on unwelcome tenants – but Peters scores, too, as tub-thump...
    Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    7 hours ago
  • Will it make the boat go faster?
    Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    10 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi The fact that a ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    10 hours ago
  • Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    10 hours ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' at 10:10am on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st Century The SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims Stuff Steve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    11 hours ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things on Tuesday, March 19
    It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    12 hours ago
  • New Life for Light Rail
    This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail  Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    13 hours ago
  • Why Are Bosses Nearly All Buffoons?
    Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    15 hours ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on March 18
    TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension l...
    Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 day ago
  • Labour’s final report card
    David Farrar writes –  We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how  went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • “Drunk Uncle at a Wedding”
    I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on Dune 2, and images of Islam
    Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
    1 day ago
  • New Rail Operations Centre Promises Better Train Services
    Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
    2 days ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things at 6.36am on Monday, March 18
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    2 days ago
  • The Kaka’s diary for the week to March 25 and beyond
    TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bitter and angry; Winston First
    New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • Out of Touch.
    “I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The bewildering world of Chris Luxon – Guns for all, not no lunch for kids
    .“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
    Frankly SpeakingBy Frank Macskasy
    3 days ago
  • Expert Opinion: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
    3 days ago
  • Manufacturing The Truth.
    Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet –  is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
    3 days ago
  • A Powerful Sensation of Déjà Vu.
    Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
    3 days ago
  • Can you guess where world attention is focussed (according to Greenpeace)? It’s focussed on an EPA...
    Bob Edlin writes –  And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
    Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Greens’ transparency missing in action
    For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s Dawn Chorus with six newsey things at 6:46am for Saturday, March 16
    TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ Herald Thomas Coughlan Simeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • How Did FTX Crash?
    What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    4 days ago
  • Elections in Russia and Ukraine
    Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s six stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15
    TL;DR: Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it:  We want our country to be a ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • National’s clean car tax advances
    The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Government funding bailouts
    Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Two offenders, different treatments.
    See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    4 days ago
  • Treaty references omitted
    Ele Ludemann writes  – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • The Ghahraman Conflict
    What was that judge thinking? Peter Williams writes –  That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 15
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop: Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The day Wellington up-zoned its future
    Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 15-March-2024
    It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    5 days ago
  • That Word.
    Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to March 15
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Labour’s policy gap
    It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024
    Open access notables A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: In the year 2023, we have seen extraordinary extrema in high sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and in ...
    5 days ago
  • Melissa remains mute on media matters but has something to say (at a sporting event) about economic ...
     Buzz from the Beehive   The text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary.  It can be quickly analysed ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • The return of Muldoon
    For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Will the rental tax cut improve life for renters or landlords?
    Bryce Edwards writes –  Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: What Saudi Arabia’s rapid changes mean for New Zealand
    Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    5 days ago
  • Racism’s double standards
    Questions need to be asked on both sides of the world Peter Williams writes –   The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • It’s not a tax break
    Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • The Plastic Pig Collective and Chris' Imaginary Friends.
    I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Who is responsible for young offenders?
    Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on National’s fantasy trip to La La Landlord Land
    How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
    5 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 14
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop: The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • No, Prime Minister, rents don’t rise or fall with landlords’ costs
    TL;DR: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Cartoons: ‘At least I didn’t make things awkward’
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
    6 days ago
  • Solving traffic congestion with Richard Prebble
    The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    6 days ago
  • I Think I'm Done Flying Boeing
    Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • Invoking Aristotle: Of Rings of Power, Stones, and Ships
    The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
    6 days ago
  • Van Velden brings free-market approach to changing labour laws – but her colleagues stick to distr...
    Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • Why Newshub failed
    Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Māori Party on the warpath against landlords and seabed miners – let’s see if mystical creature...
    Bob Edlin writes  –  The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they  follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago

  • Government moves to quickly ratify the NZ-EU FTA
    "The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 hours ago
  • Positive progress for social worker workforce
    New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    9 hours ago
  • Minister confirms reduced RUC rate for PHEVs
    Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    11 hours ago
  • Trade access to overseas markets creates jobs
    Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand.  Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    11 hours ago
  • NZ and Chinese Foreign Ministers hold official talks
    Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Kāinga Ora instructed to end Sustaining Tenancies
    Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber: Growth is the answer
    Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Singapore rounds out regional trip
    Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships.      “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Minister van Velden represents New Zealand at International Democracy Summit
    Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Insurance Council of NZ Speech, 7 March 2024, Auckland
    ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland  Acknowledgements and opening  Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho.  Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau  My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Five-year anniversary of Christchurch terror attacks
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says.  “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024
    Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024  Acknowledgements and opening  Morena, Nga Mihi Nui.  Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau  Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Early visit to Indonesia strengthens ties
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country.   “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • China Foreign Minister to visit
    Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week.  “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Minister opens new Auckland Rail Operations Centre
    Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Celebrating 10 years of Crankworx Rotorua
    The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee.  “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government delivering on tax commitments
    Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today.  “The Amendment Paper represents ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Significant Natural Areas requirement to be suspended
    Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government classifies drought conditions in Top of the South as medium-scale adverse event
    Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government partnership to tackle $332m facial eczema problem
    The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced.  “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • NZ, India chart path to enhanced relationship
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level.   “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Ruapehu Alpine Lifts bailout the last, say Ministers
    Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Govt takes action to drive better cancer services
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Govt takes action to drive better cancer services
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Work begins on SH29 upgrades near Tauriko
    Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Work begins on SH29 upgrades near Tauriko
    Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Fresh produce price drop welcome
    Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024.  “Lower fruit and vege ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Statement to the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
    Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all.  Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Speech to the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68)
    Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all.  Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Government backs rural led catchment projects
    The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber
    Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction.   Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Commission’s advice on ETS settings tabled
    Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Government lowering building costs
    The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Trustee tax change welcomed
    Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister’s Ramadan message
    Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness.  It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister appoints new NZTA Chair
    Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Speech to Life Sciences Summit
    Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology.  It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Progress continues apace on water storage
    Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Government agrees to restore interest deductions
    Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister to attend World Anti-Doping Agency Symposium
    Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

Page generated in The Standard by Wordpress at 2024-03-19T07:51:25+00:00