NRT: Climate change: “Adaptation”

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, April 2nd, 2014 - 51 comments
Categories: climate change, law - Tags:

no-right-turn-256No Right Turn notes the typical response from politicians to the Fifth IPCC Assessment report. Perhaps that promoting legislation with a penalty of long prison terms for political negligence would help? It sounds like a good way for lazy politicians to retire. After all the law recognises negligence as being a criminal action in other spheres – why not for our political servants?

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Fifth Assessment Report, showing the world facing war, famine and death. But rather than committing to reducing emissions, politicians have said “we’ll adapt”. In The Guardian, George Monbiot rips apart what that means:

When our environment secretary, Owen Paterson, assures us that climate change “is something we can adapt to over time” or Simon Jenkins, in the Guardian today, says that we should move towards “thinking intelligently about how the world should adapt to what is already happening“, what do they envisage? Cities relocated to higher ground? Roads and railways shifted inland? Rivers diverted? Arable land abandoned? Regions depopulated? Have they any clue about what this would cost? Of what the impacts would be on the people breezily being told to live with it?

My guess is that they don’t envisage anything: they have no idea what they mean when they say adaptation. If they’ve thought about it at all, they probably picture a steady rise in temperatures, followed by a steady rise in impacts, to which we steadily adjust. But that, as we should know from our own recent experience, is not how it happens. Climate breakdown proceeds in fits and starts, sudden changes of state against which, as we discovered on a small scale in January, preparations cannot easily be made.

While our past inaction means some level of adaptation is required, we need to be clear: it will be hugely disruptive, cost a fortune, and be driven by disasters. To use a local example: what do you think a metre of sea-level rise is going to do to Wellington? And what do you think that combined with a winter storm will do to the coast highway segment of SH1, the Hutt Road segment of SH2, the Hutt-Wellington railway line, Petone and Eastbourne? The latter already loses houses in severe storms; in the future it’ll probably lose its road. Preventing this will cost a fortune – and given our politicians and their denial, it won’t be done in advance. We’ll have to wait until houses are flooded and transport links cut before they do anything.

This is the future our politicians have given us: one where we face large costs, because they were too lazy and selfish to act now. And when it happens, we should drag them from their retirement homes and hold them criminally responsible for their negligence.

51 comments on “NRT: Climate change: “Adaptation” ”

  1. Populuxe1 1

    Perhaps the post-greenhouse earth will be a more conducive climate to reptilian shapeshifters?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 1.1

      Last I heard it’ll take about 10,000 years to naturally scrub the last of the anthropogenic CO2 out of the atmosphere. That might be enough time for lizards to become the dominant species but not for them to evolve shape-shifting capabilities 😉

      • Populuxe1 1.1.1

        One was working on the assumption of David Icke and other conspiracy theorists who believe that our current government already are reptilian shape-changers from Sirius. That bloody John Key refused to deny it. LOL

  2. Bill 2

    Methinks the post paints an altogether too rosy picture. Sod the roads and the houses! Crops will be failing, floods and droughts will be hitting. Distribution systems will be falling over (okay – that includes roads…alongside water supply and electricity supply) And the refugees. Millions rising to tens and then hundreds of millions looking for an ‘air pocket’ in some random compartment of planet earth. (No lifeboats)

    Politicians and policy wonks have known for years what was going to happen and have deliberately chosen to do nothing due to over riding short term considerations. And we have gone along with it due to our own short term ‘necessities’…the mortgage/rent payments, the HP payments, our (laughably) children’s future, our social status, protecting the years of investment/sacrifice we made to get to where we are….and so on.

    • weka 2.1

      Thanks for moving us on from the lifeboat analogy.

      “Politicians and policy wonks have known for years what was going to happen and have deliberately chosen to do nothing due to over riding short term considerations.”

      yes, but I still think that most people can’t bring themselves to believe that it’s real. It’s hugely cognitively and emotionally challenging to take in the reality and lots of people don’t have the skills to manage that. We need to change that if we want people to do the right thing.

      • Colonial Viper 2.1.1

        We need to change that if we want people to do the right thing.

        I don’t think that most ordinary people are at fault, other than giving up their own faculties of critical thinking, believing authority figures and the news saying that things won’t be too bad, there is plenty of doubt if there is actually a real problem and of course we will cope anyways. The corporate MSM has been promoting non-reality based content for many years now, soothing the common frogs in the pot even as the water that we are immersed in heats up.

        At the end of the day, politicians can’t even bring themselves to lower house values, increase taxes on big corporations, and deal with the massive asset hoarding of the top 0.1%, let alone effectively deal with a slow motion catastrophe which will probably cause an extra billion deaths in the next few decades.

        Let the next chump voted into office handle it, eh.

      • Bill 2.1.2

        Thanks for moving us on from the lifeboat analogy

        Yeah – not a problem….was bugging me. The whole rest of Titanic analogy is pretty fucked too mind 😉 See, whereas we really need to change course, it was because the captain of the Titanic changed course that the Titanic got it’s belly ripped out and sank.. The strategy for dealing with an ice-berg (apparently) is to run the bow straight into it while slowing, lose from front end compartments, deal with impact injuries, and limp on. Not a strategy for AGW though.

      • Jenny 2.1.3

        I still think that most people can’t bring themselves to believe that it’s real. It’s hugely cognitively and emotionally challenging to take in the reality and lots of people don’t have the skills to manage that. We need to change that if we want people to do the right thing.
        weka

        The wisdom of the street….

        http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/9887196/Climate-change-Report-a-wake-up-call-for-NZ

        Increasingly, the question being asked; ‘Where’s the leadership?’

        Vox pop:

        Question: Is climate change something that you worry about?

        Answer 1: Yeah, definitely

        Answer 2: Nah. Well it’s here now. I’m not going to worry about it

        Answer 3: I do pay attention, but not enough attention

        Answer 4: I am still quite young so I don’t think about the real world that much.

        Answer 5: I am not going to live to 100. (But) I am worried about events that are happening now in terms of serious weather events.

        Answer 6: Certainly the weather patterns we are seeing are increasingly extreme not just in New Zealand but around the world.

        Answer 7: …Australia was under water at one time, where’s your global warming?

        Answer 8: …starting at home reducing everything I do, stop taking everything for granted

        Answer 9: ….reduce a car trip somewhere, or being able to carpool somewhere.

        Answer 10: There are lots of little things, but in the end I don’t really see how those personal things can make much of a difference unless we actually get together collectively to make change…

        Answer 11: Good leadership will take everybody along, if everybody does it, it will make a big difference, but people as individuals feel the little I do won’t make a difference either way, so I will keep on doing what I’m doing.

        No more hiding, no more back peddling, no more avoidance, no more excuses, no more dodging the issue. This is the greatest challenge of our generation, Leadership on climate change is what is missing, and what is called for.

        Climate change needs to become an electoral issue.

        No more of this: The snake that ate the elephant in the room

  3. Bill 3

    Adaptation.

    Funk notes that “on Wall Street you no longer get a lot of climate denial.” Largely indifferent to the causes of climate change, his respondents decided early on that investing in green technology was a losing proposition. Instead “the warmer the world, the less habitable it became, the bigger the windfall.”

    In 2008, Royal Dutch Shell developed two sophisticated climate-risk scenarios called Blueprints and Scramble. The first modeled a greener future while the latter predicted – due to government inaction – a future of droughts, floods, heat waves and super storms. By 2012, Shell executives confided to Funk “We’ve gone to Scramble. This is a Scramble kind of world. This is what we’re doing.” Another Shell official opined “I will be one of those persons cheering for an endless summer in Alaska.”

    rising sea levels make Bangladesh “ground zero” for climate change. India’s response is a 2100 mile, floodlit, electrified barrier, the “fence of shame,” erected to prevent some twenty-five million Bangladeshi climate refugees from crossing the border when one-fifth of their county is under water.

    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/31-6

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1

      Funk is curiously nonjudgmental about his interview subjects, preferring to view them as good people “according to their own belief system,” who only act out of perceived self-interest. He allows that “We can’t trust capitalism to fix this” but asserts there’s “nothing fundamentally wrong with profiting from disaster” and frets that readers might unfairly vilify businessmen.

      I don’t think that there’s anything unfair about vilifying the people who caused the disaster. Especially when they’re looking to profit from that same disaster.

      • Colonial Viper 3.1.1

        Societal ostracisation is a key control on the behaviours of these people, who can only be considered dangerous capitalist radicals.

      • Bill 3.1.2

        I don’t think that there’s anything unfair about vilifying the people who caused the disaster.

        So we should vilify ourselves then.

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.2.1

          We certainly let it happen so we do have to carry some of the blame. But it’s been the business people who demanded the conditions to let it happen and, of course, actually then went out and destroyed the environment for their profit.

          • marty mars 3.1.2.1.1

            No the demand for their products did that and of course we were the ones that bought that stuff. Even now we pretend that our stuff is magiced by fairies instead of slave labour in faroff countries. I can understand why we don’t want to face the truth – hell even I can’t face it but it is still the truth and the exploitation of everything to give us our pretend comfortable lives is on all of us.

            • weka 3.1.2.1.1.1

              +1

              Plenty of ordinary NZers have had time to think this through.

            • Macro 3.1.2.1.1.2

              But marty that analysis takes no account of advertising – the creation of wants rather than needs in a consumptive economy. Societies demand for more is profoundly driven by corporates telling them through advertising what they “need” and “deserve”.

            • Draco T Bastard 3.1.2.1.1.3

              Considering the psychological manipulation that goes into advertising are you sure that it was our demand?

              • Look around the room you’re in and answer it yourself – are you not aware of the manipulation? Are you still manipulated? Why?

                • weka

                  But I like my flat screen teevee.

                • Draco T Bastard

                  It wasn’t until I stopped watching TV and listening to radio and thus out of the advertisers field of play that I even realised that I was being manipulated. And even then reading up on the psych manipulation and watching series such as The Century of the Self helped with that.

                  The point here is that most people won’t know that they’re being manipulated and will probably even claim that they aren’t.

                  • Macro

                    True Draco – I have had a similar experience. No TV, no Papers (except online) and the Guardian, and no radio except occasionally National if I hear something important is going on. For days I was unaware of the missing aircraft, because that was not where I was at. Now I “want” for nothing except a good book and the local library supplies me with that, and 3 exceptional bookstores in town – all 5 mins away. Bake my own bread, grown our own fruit and veg, buy our eggs at the local market – but chocks are on the plan, and the local butchers meat has to be had to be appreciated.
                    My son in law bought us a flat TV (because he thought we needed it and in payment for them staying – but he needn’t have) and we watch from time to time dvd’s from the local, I added a free view but haven’t bothered with it. the half an hour we spent trying to find something worth watching convinced us that we were missing nothing.

    • Ad 3.2

      I was a huge fan of those Shell scenarios.

      Scramble began in my view when successive Bush administrations chose to have a last great triumphalist surge and temporarily expand US military dominance across the globe. This was accelerated by the US reaction to 9/11 and EU and Five Eyes states to similar more locallised events.
      In doing so they killed the global will for multilateral responses to global problems outside a greatly weakened U.N.
      I keep waiting for crises in which governments and societies will adjust for good. Wistfully.
      – The GFC was a great crisis-opportunity, wasted by all sides.
      – Occupy was reduced to mere entertainment.
      – The predicted oil crisis was sufficiently softened for a few decades.

      I see no will for states to grow in strength and capacity to deal with a crisis of such a scale as is described in the IPCC. Certainly I see no appetite for it in New Zealand.

      Transition Towns continue to be noble communitarian exercises.

      But I have little hope for the vulnerable parts of most of New Zealand’s cities – in particular the low-lying and sand-based soils of Tauranga, suburbs such as Devonport, the coastal parts of Christchurch, Dunedin’s St Clair, the flood-prone areas of Invercargill. Whether it’s managed or not, we must retreat from the coasts.

      Local and regional government, as Mayor Lawrence Yule said yesterday, does not have the capacity by itself to deal with the scale of this. Minister of Foreign Affairs Tim Groser said that regional responses are the right route.

      I think the only thing that will wake the New Zealand government up is a sustained drought that damages New Zealand’s capacity to produce milk exports. I would not wish that on my country, but our record of responding comprehensively to global crisis with major local impacts is very very poor.

      • weka 3.2.1

        Dairying already happens in areas where there isn’t enough water, they just pump it out of the ground or nearest river. It would take a mighty drought to put an end to that. More likely would be the hydro being affected and there not being enough power to run the irrigators. That might work, because presumably the govt would priortise electricity generation for commerce over people.

        A collapse in dairying might wake up lots of people, but if we had the current govt in power I wouldn’t hold hope of them doing anythign close to useful 🙁

        • Ad 3.2.1.1

          Our legacy hydro systems are a massive support against drought and for sustaining dairy beyond where standard catchments allow it.

          But it’s not only hte current government I am pessimistic could respond to this scale of threat – it’s aany conceivable coalition combination.
          It’s why I rarely comment on climate change or environmetnal issues broadly – I’m simply too pessimistic.

          • weka 3.2.1.1.1

            If we had a decade or so of the GP in a coalition govt under our belts, we would be in a very different situation now. It’s times like this I consider NZers to be gutless.

            • Colonial Viper 3.2.1.1.1.1

              If we had a decade or so of the GP in a coalition govt under our belts

              NZ voters rarely give the Left 3 terms in power.

              • Draco T Bastard

                They haven’t really had a chance to yet. FPP worked in National’s favour and so we ended up getting more National governments than we voted for. 81 and 93 were the most noted ones but there were other times National won when they shouldn’t have. I fully expect that under MMP we’ll end up with more left leaning governments over time and that they’ll stay in power longer.

        • Tracey 3.2.1.2

          yup

          dairy conversions in north otago and north canterbury rely entirely on irrigation from the rivers. that MUST alter the ecosystem.

          waikato once the best place to dairy is in another drought. this year, last year and 2008 are the three driest years on record there.

          • Macro 3.2.1.2.1

            And its not looking good for next year either.

            • Draco T Bastard 3.2.1.2.1.1

              Heard on the radio today that the farms in the Waikato are on the brink of going bankrupt.

              • Jenny

                Last year was supposed to be a once in 50 year drought. But now we are having another one. Farmers in the North report that the soil moisture levels this time round are worse than last year. Last week the North was officially designated “In Drought”, allowing farmers suffering its affects to draw on several government and banking services to stave off bankruptcy. But farmers in some parts of the Waikato who say that they are even worse affected than last year have not been officially declared to be in drought areas. Last week’s storm which provided some rain but know where enough to break the drought, and there has been very little since.

                But this is nothing as compared to California, their “once in 200 year drought” looks to become permanent for the forseeable future.

                • Macro

                  The problem in the waikato – and I drove past some farms that are clearly affected over the weekend on my way to Hamilton -is that following on from last years drought there was not the rainfall to replenish the water in the ground over the winter – you may recall NZ had its warmest August ever recorded, and this year the persistent winds have had a severe drying effect, as well as below average rainfall. This is what is predicted to be the patten for the east side of the country in the years ahead. It just seems that we are experiencing it ahead of time – as all the forecasts for climate change seem to be doing. El Nino conditions are forming in the Pacific and with El Nino is usually associated drought.So 2015 is also not a good look.
                  What was once the dairy centre of the North Island is looking extremely vulnerable right now. National putting all its eggs in the Dairy Basket is proving to be, as we always suspected, very shortsighted in the extreme.

  4. greywarbler 4

    How much control have I over those people that direct the world and point it in the direction they want so that our every step is slanted towards their pre conceived goal?

    • Bill 4.1

      At an individual level you have the same amount of power and control as all those young men and boys who refused to go off and fight in WW1 or WW2. And the punishment you receive will be less than was meted out to many of them. Collectively, we have all of the power and “those people that direct the world and point it in the direction they want”, absolutely none.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1

      Verifying the finding that right wing political beliefs predict for low IQ, and vice versa.

  5. logie97 6

    … don’t worry Mr Key has scientists developing different types of grass to adapt to the change.

    a bunker mentality is satisfactory. After all he will still have his nice place in Hawaii.

    And we have yet to hear from the Christian fundies who believe it’s all part of some greater plan – an inevitable result of man’s selfish, greedy attitudes.

  6. johnm 7

    This is not a political game wherein irony and hypocrisy can delight in! Because there are many serious respectable voices telling us that BAU is leading to near term human extinction which now we cannot escape from! We are done, finished, toast whatever and that includes ACT and The National aholes as well. Bye Bye arrogant hubristic naked apes your day in the sun you fucked up! Never Mind.

  7. fambo 8

    Given that John Key, Tony Abbot and others are all playing a significant role in causing millions of deaths and huge environmental destruction that will be greater than what Hitler caused in World War II, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be held to account when they are 80 or 90. You could argue they were voted into power, but Hitler was voted into power as well, if I recall correctly.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 8.1

      Yes, but Hitler’s malice was probably caused by an enlarged amygdala and shell shock, whereas Abbott is driven by a low IQ and an enlarged amygdala and John Key is a (more-or-less) higher functioning sociopath.

      Diff’rent strokes etc 🙂

      • Colonial Viper 8.1.1

        Yes, but Hitler’s malice was probably caused by an enlarged amygdala and shell shock

        And given his voice by a weak liberal democratic German government that proved unable to listen to, articulate and act on the deep economic and social concerns of millions of German voters, which Hitler and the National Socialists promised to do.

  8. Mike 9

    Yeah right. The only problem with all the talk about the planet warming, sea levels rising and it all being anthropogenic is that so far no-one can offer any hard evidence that this is happening anywhere. Until this evidence is offered up most thinking people will recognise that this chicken-licken scaremongering is just a way for more controls and worst of all more taxes. NZ creates 0.1% of the world CO2 emmissions. If we turned Amish and produced virtually no CO2 emmissions the difference to the world would be …..nothing! There is nothing in it for NZ to adopt a world leader stance on this issue except a downgrading of our living standards.

    • Murray Olsen 9.1

      It’s a lot more than talk, which is all you’re offering, Mike. The climate scientists do not propose more taxes and more controls, they do the science. The rest is up to us. At the moment, most of us are getting the downgrading of living standards anyway, while more greenhouse gases are spewed into the atmosphere. Some of us want to do something about it. Idiots want to develop a new type of grass. Haha, what a bloody joke.

  9. weka 10

    This is good

    http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/03/24/3968981.htm

    IMAGINE THAT YOU woke up tomorrow with complete trust in climate science and its implications. By trust I do not just mean a kind of dispassionate intellectual understanding. I mean a trust that combines the intellect with an emotional and psychological acceptance. How would such a trust change your life?

    Would you quit your job? Plant a vegetable garden? Have children? Have a vasectomy or tubal ligation? Write more? Write less? Talk to your neighbours? Build a survival bunker in the hills? Go inward spiritually and bear witness to the devastation? Phone your parents? Hug your children? Become an environmental activist? Cry?

    and

    There is no ‘one right way’ to grieve but if you have strong networks of support the experience can be liberating and even enriching. Grieving can help us detach from our old vision and expectations for the future and adjust to a new reality. We all have capacity to readjust and in fact many of us have experienced something similar after a family member dies or a relationship unexpectedly ends.

    Following this, it is well documented that a healthy and effective response to grief is to join with others and take action using whatever skills and opportunities available to us.

    and

    “You can have the most resilient communities you want, but if temperatures rise above 4°C, there will be no communities left.”

    To have even a modest chance of avoiding this scenario all of us need to become politically active. To quote academic Clive Hamilton, “we need a new environmental radicalism made up of those willing to put their bodies on the line.”

    and

    The bottom line is that if we don’t have a movement in the streets, prepared to get arrested, willing to take those chances, you cannot get the best out of even the most progressive government. By contrast, if you have a movement, you can get something even out of a terrible government.

    For example, 1970s US President Richard Nixon hated the environment movement but he signed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and created the US Environmental Protection Agency. Why? There was a movement powerful enough to force his hand.

    It is incredibly important that environmentalists around Australia become aware of this history — particularly as we face conservative governments around Australia and the regression of even the most basic environmental protection laws.

    my emphasis.

    The whole thing is worth a read, one of the better essays I’ve come across recently. It hits the spot of personal and political.

    • Bill 10.1

      It is a good piece, but…. ‘the politics of small green fences’

    • Ad 10.2

      I’m a really early pessimist.

      I’m going to continue activism and personal responses as good as I can… Knowing (like all Calvinists at base) that we are generally damned and doomed. Feels right anyway. 😉

      • Colonial Viper 10.2.1

        Access to a good scotch does soften the blow.

        • In Vino 10.2.1.1

          So I should just refill my glass..

          I have told my peers and their grandchildren that my generation may have been the luckiest…

          But I teach in a secondary school, and I cannot look at those damned wonderful youngsters and believe that they are doomed.

          We have to live in hope.

  10. Jenny 11

    “I still think that most people can’t bring themselves to believe that it’s real. It’s hugely cognitively and emotionally challenging to take in the reality and lots of people don’t have the skills to manage that. We need to change that if we want people to do the right thing.”
    weka

    Public opinion has changed, climate change is a vote winner, this is a lesson that Labour and the Greens need to take on board.

    In an August 2012 Horizon Poll over 60% indicated that they wanted the government to do more on climate change.

    https://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/page/244/people-want

    64.4 per cent wanting Parliament to do more
    60.6 per cent wanting the Prime Minister to do more and
    62.9 per cent saying government officials should do more.

    “The news isn’t good for Prime Minister John Key, with 15.4 per cent saying he’s doing the right amount, 26.1 per cent saying he should do more, and 34.5 per cent saying he should do much more. Just 2.7 per cent want him to do less.”
    Horizon August 10, 2012

    Since the above poll was taken the world has witnessed Sandy and Bopha and Haiyan, and two record breaking Australian heatwaves, California is in a record breaking drought that may never end. And the devastating cold snap in the Midwest and the Atlantic coast has been linked to climate change.

    In giving a lead over climate change the current government is failing miserably, they could really take some big hits here. But it will mean the opposition parties stepping up and taking up the lead dropped by the government. It will mean the opposition parties openly challenging the government head on, over their support for more coal mining and fracking and oil drilling and motorways.

    No more hiding, no more back peddling, no more avoidance, no more excuses, no more dodging the issue, no more censorship and self censorship. Climate Change is the greatest challenge of our generation, courageous and forthright leadership is what is called for.

    Climate change needs to become an electoral issue.

    We need to have serious debate over state investment in renewables, as opposed to government spending on fossil fuel subsidies, we need to argue for diverting government funding away from more motorways and into public transport.

    Climate change has been called the elephant in the room, the big problem that the policy makers refuse to seriously address.

    From Hot Topic 2011:

    “The snake has swallowed the elephant in the room…..” election analysis 2011

    You know what really strikes me about climate change in the election? It’s the absence. It is as if climate change is nearly completely absent from the campaign. When climate change does pop up, it’s portrayed in simplistic soundbites.

    Nick Smith (National) says anthropogenic climate change is real and complex and ‘wicked’. But promises more moderating, balancing and delaying of the NZETS.

    Labour says anthropogenic climate change is real and we will fiddle with some NZETS details for agriculture slightly earlier than National as farmers don’t vote for us anyway.

    The Greens say anthropogenic climate change is real and we have a detailed wonk-friendly exposition on our website, but for this election we are running with “jobs, kids, rivers”

    Simon Johnson at Hot Topic

    Back peddling and deliberate avoidance of discussion about climate change by our politicians, particularly our Green Politicians, can no longer be tolerated or excused, it was barely acceptable in 2011.

    The political parties that decide to take up the issue of climate change and seriously run with it, will seize the time.

    The Labour leader David Cunliffe made a serious mistake when he came out and supported Deep Sea Oil Drilling.

    Labour also made a big mistake when they refused to join the Greens in questioning the government’s $155 million bail out of Solid Energy our biggest coal miner.

    But the Greens also need to take heed. Instead of declaring that they “have no bottom lines” in negotiation with Labour. The Greens need to state clearly that there can be no compromise with Labour over Denniston, or deep sea oil drilling and fracking, just to get cabinet posts. That these positions are bottom lines. That any coalition agreement with Labour if it is to be a just and honourable agreement must cancel both Denniston and Deep Sea Oil Drilling and fracking.

    It is no good at all saying you have “no bottom lines” and then expecting to get anything concrete out of the coalition agreement, The Greens will only win concessions around the big climate change issues like coal and oil and transport, if they have a mandate to do so, and to get a mandate they will have to fight for it, the Greens will have to campaign openly and hard on these issues to gain the mandate to make demands on labour.

    Silence, and wishful thinking is not an option. These issues have to be thrashed out on the campaign trail. Let National and Labour try and justify their positions if they can. The truth is they can’t and if they are openly challenged will prove to be wanting.

    Let’s do it.

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    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
    4 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
    5 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
    8 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
    8 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
    8 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
    8 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
    9 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
    10 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
    13 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 ...
    1 day 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
    1 day 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
    3 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
    3 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
    4 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
    4 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 ...
    5 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
    5 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
  • There’s a name for this
    Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    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
    1 hour 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
    6 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
    8 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
    9 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
    22 hours 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
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  • Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024
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