I understand that a deal has been struck for the waste to be relocated back to Tiwai Point.
Then what? Surely as part of Rio Tinto's conditions to operate includes appropriate actions to deal with waste. Not get a third party to 'store' it elsewhere.
Can't wait for the Nats to get rid of the RMA../sarc.
There's a worthwhile dispassionate commentary on Spinoff from a rightist who I've never agreed with before. He dissects the swirling currents of the public mood created by pandemic and election comprehensively, accurate enough for me to endorse.
Force one was the nose-tapping savants who have divined in their Machiavellian brilliance that the move to alert level two in Auckland is “political”, that the government has decided it can’t afford to keep Auckland in level three lockdown a moment longer because it could cost them the election.
When a rightist critiques a rightist critique, we get an effective reality check. There's enough cut-through of the mean-spirited sectarianism to strengthen common sense.
armchair experts, conspiracy theorists and the less scrupulous of the government’s political opponents are happy to suggest that this decision is just about Jacinda Ardern making sure she wins the election. Well hang on a second, Maestro. What if she’s wrong, the virus gets away on us because of the level two decision and it’s rampant by October 17?
Indeed. That's the risk the govt is taking. Civil disobedience by non-mask-wearers is a thing in Oz & the USA, fortunately not yet large-scale here and we must get heavy with those who defy convention to ensure it doesn't get traction.
Jacinda-maniacs who will hear nothing said against their favourite angel
The most that can reasonably be said against her is that she's too tolerant of public service insubordination and incompetence.
the inexplicably alarmist instruction over the weekend telling everyone in south and west Auckland to get a Covid test. That was a botch-up. Someone will pay a price for it.
How will we ever know that?? The privileged caste always evades public accountability. It's a relic of colonialism. It was established by the empire. Above the people forever, by design.
And Jacinda telling everyone `the only information to believe is on the govt websites' while the media show everyone the crap right there on the govt website for all to see. Unbelievable! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
But for the cynical armchair experts, it’s all just part of the plan to frighten and control, while the loyalists say anyone can make a mistake. Get over it, they say, especially journalists asking about it. It’s only 700,000 people being told to do something unnecessary and worrying that took an age to correct. So what?
What a lot of the critics of what are essentialy minor mistakes and mis-steps have forgotten or never really wanted to believe is that the Covid fight is a war, and in war you can only react to what the enemy has surprised you with.
There is an old saying that the problem with an army is that it only prepares to fight the last war, that was obvious in Vietnam and even Afghanistan and particularly WW2, who for instance in 1939 could have expected V2 rockets. It is known as Aysemmetrical War, different to that which has gone before and bloody difficult to counter.
This virus is exactly the same, it is markedly different to Sars Covid-2 as it hides its infectiousness for several days to give it an element of surprise so of course there will be scrambling to counter all sorts of subtelties thrown at those we hope and trust can counter the threat, so stop bagging them at ever turn, from Jacinda and Ashley and some of the worlds best virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and whatever we are immensely lucky to have on our side.
Oh, indeed. 🤫 I use it as a colloquialism. Very handy. Stuff being real is relative to how closely one looks. Near enough is good enough for most folk in the room…
6% is a remarkably low number for the anti-lockdown opinion.
But it's a familiar story … all (yes, all) the serious surveys since we went to level 4 in March have registered overwhelming support for the government's approach. (This includes polls by Reid Research, Colmar Brunton, Horizon, Spin-Off/Sticky Beak, etc).
The vast gulf between commentators and actual public opinion has been an unchanging feature of NZ's response to Covid.
She told Stuff about novel elements of her govt's foreign policy:
We’re very focused on engaging with Māori business and understanding where we can find benefits in terms of the free trade agreement for both the UK and New Zealand, particularly thinking about the Māori economy and Māori small and medium-size enterprises.”
“We want to work with Māori on our climate change agenda, drawing on that indigenous knowledge and perspective,” Clarke said. “The UK, with its COP presidency as a whole, is wanting to put indigenous perspectives at the heart of its work.
“We’re saying, ‘We’ve got this shared planet, we have these shared taonga, we need to work together going forward, and where there are difficulties we need to be honest about it and work on them’.”
She's been making a Green connection here too:
Greenvale Pastures in Methven, which produces high-quality specialist seeds and cereals using environmentally sustainable farming practices. “They’re doing really innovative work in terms of agritech and making sure that as you do your farming you’re not using any more water or putting any more inputs into the soil than you should, and a whole load of things you can do in terms of using technology and best practice."
"There’s a lot of that sort of thinking going on in the UK as well, and so if the UK and New Zealand can come together to collaborate more and share that best practice more widely across the world, collectively that’s going to reduce overall emissions quite a lot.”
What's Biden doing about it? He gave a pretty good speech saying Trump (as president) can't escape responsibility for what is happening. A start – but he needs to announce something specific and credible on policing reform – a serious promise to deliver reform combined with a call to people to get off the streets before it all escalates out of control.
This is from his Criminal Justice policy – and it falls way short of what is needed in terms of specifics:
"Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day."
Is he relying on flowery Obama-style rhetoric or sentimental homilies to carry the day? Such rhetoric peters out into nothing under pressure from special interests. Look's like he's playing safe and remaining what he considers to be 'electable' – but there are times when the apparently safe option is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Gimme more of a clue, huh? 18 minutes of my day is a big chunk, so I'm only like to watch a mathematician if he proves capable of telling me something I don't already know. I paused at 1min 40, when he had introduced an algorithm explaining how negative feedback cycles stabilise populations in ecosystems.
Well, I'm already giving him too much credit. He did not in fact deduce & declare the general principle – merely used rabbits as an example of his equation. Metaphysics is just so damn hard when you're a typical product of the antique education system!
Well I tried that, got to 11 mins & he was still telling us what we learnt in the late '80s so I baled out. Cool for those who missed chaos theory tho…
Cyber attacks ' Asghar believes the Government needs to step in and help fight the cyber attacks. Media companies Stuff and RNZ have also been hit by attempted hacks.'
This funding of the Green School in Taranaki gets even more bizarre Not only crystals and 5th dimension consciousness but the owners name is Christof ( or Christ of) thinks he is a King and a Priest. His last name Melchizedek is a role in Abrahamic religions, modelled on Melchizedek, combining the dual position of king and priest.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_of_Melchizedek
No, seems sincere. Just a typical new-ager. I've got several in my circle of old friends. One eventually develops self-discipline around tolerance of loopiness.
Further down the page you get to the connection between the Goddess & World Cup cricket, which Mark Richardson would find inspiring. Perhaps. I was mildly irritated that he didn't specify which goddess but we can't expect precision from folks who talk (and think) in words starting with capital letters…
Yeah but don't forget this stuff has real deep cultural roots. Not just the christians. Snake oil salesmen were the 19th century exponents, right? PT Barnum (`there's one born every minute'). Illuminati (18th century).
It's even something the political left & right share. Peale's Power of Positive Thinking, Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich exemplify the capitalist strands. The communist strands constitute a spider's web emanating from the 19th.
In science you have cold fusion etc. The human psyche consists of a real/imaginal interface. Imagining alternate realities is hard-wired.
In science you prove it with actual repeatable demonstrations of hard evidence. So Fleischmann and Pons very rapidly got deservedly ridiculed when their claims could not be substantiated.
(Muon-catalysed cold-fusion is an actual real thing, but so far utterly useless for any real or imagined application)
The persistence of this kind of snake-oil is as least partly due to apologists who should fkn know better validating the evidence-free bullshit as somehow legitimate.
Yeah, I share your bias. I differ inasmuch as having a `feet on the ground & head in the clouds' kind of outlook. So I concede that flakiness does work for some. Who are we too condemn choices others make on a spiritual basis? And if they make commercial choices consequent?
Karmic consequences are a personal learning curve. We can't really say that the delusional new-agers are wrong, because social reality is co-created. But we can erect boundaries around them to protect our peace of mind.
As an aside – I saw a genuine snake oil salesman at a market in Gupo, near Seoul. There was no deception, though there were a couple of pythons on show. The oil was in small bottles, each with a small snake, no more than 15cm long in it. It was genuine snake oil, and local belief was apparently that it had some benefit for sufferers of joint pain.
The expression may have arisen more from the US medicine shows, that variously sold alcohol or low end religion or some mixture of the two, than the relatively humble bottled snake.
Got any linky about the Melchizedeks having any ownership stake in the Green School?
Everything I've seen describes them as school parents. While they certainly appear to own the entity that's peddling crystal woo-nonsense and even kookier conspiracy stuff, that doesn't appear have a formal Green School ownership connection.
"Funding scandal" or more realistically small "funding mistake" that has been hysterically blown up by the media in order to discredit the Greens even though it is an all-government initiative.
Even Hipkins, when questioned on the issue on Morning Report today, didn’t mention the Greens.
I wish he hadn't. Should have refused as no matter how clearly it is explained the media will use it to beat him/Green Party up. The ignorance about how governments work is not helped by juicy soundbites.
And since when has a normal decision made by a Govt committee been a ‘scandal’. Either it fitted the criteria or it did not…..end of story. All this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and responding to Nats is not going to clarify anything.
The 'bad' is totally manufactured by the media. A mistake by no means necessitates this over the top over-reaction. It shows up an ignorance about how Govt works, and also about how people make mistakes. There is no story and I wish they had just stood staunch. The application apparently met the criteria and what we are seeing is a woe is me about the concept of the school and who announced the decision.
No-one answered my earlier query about if there would have been a problem if the approval had been announced by Labour, NZ First so I will answer it myself
Of course there would not have been. But all hell breaks loose when the Govt's decision is announced by a Minister who is also a Green Party MP.
If it had been shown that the approval had been given even though the application did not meet the Govt's criteria for accessing the fund then we would have a legitimate reason for concern. No, a minor mistake or something not related to the application itself was made by one of those approving that does not go to the heart of the application and its merits.
In terms of decision making it is a grounds for an administrative review had material not relevant to the making of the decision been made part of the decision making process. If Shaw had concerns he should have disqualified himself, but I am not sure how that looks either legally. The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision.
By continuing this we are all falling into where the Nats want us.
You are entirely correct, Shanreagh. This is hair-pulling-out time for some of us. Still, this it to be expected in this period of the electoral cycle. Cringeworthy though. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Yeah that's the guts. But James must cater to that body of opinion within the Greens that does knee-jerk moral outrage with brain disengaged. Their numbers are sufficiently large to be catered to.
It is out of his hands now yet it was never fully and solely in his hands to start with. His mistake was to claim credit for it and therefore ownership and responsibility for its justification. Shane Jones would not have encountered the same problem had he announced it instead.
Shaw is sacrificing his own persona and taking on his shoulders all the hoop-lah from the loud and scatty of whom there appear to be many in Greens. Perhaps they have been in space-type suspended animation for the last few decades and have just woken up. The shock, the fluster of how things appear to these Rip van Winkles, horrific!
Now we have a fluster-cluster muster just when we should be tramping along like the old tortoise that is guaranteed to get over the finishing line in the fable The Hare and the Tortoise. How did Aesop know all this stuff, he an Nostradamus really had muchly foresight, I hope it doesn't end up a foresigh.
(Nostradamus from Wikpedia – had experience of plague effects and dealing with people in authority who had closed minds. Nothing changes does it dear Nostra!)
Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this turn of events; it happens every time. If it's not a Green School, it's Morris dancing, or Metiria's past, or the Exclusive Brethren flyers, or.. whatever the Right wing can devise, whip up, fabricate or beat up. It's pretty much impossible to counter; those who seek to destroy the chances of a Green presence in Government are skilled at the dark art of dirty politics, but it galls when "our own people" add fuel to the Right's indignant fires.
Well, that was such a pile of steaming unfossilised coprolite that I'm embarrassed to have even clicked the link. FFS, starting out by fantasising two bizarre scenarios and pretending that out of the entire universe of things that might have led to the situation, those are the only two to be considered.
Andre & Pat Are you the only ones who can try to examine the entrails of politics? You certainly come up with some questionable ideas yourselves. And that is good – we need to be questioning stuff, but not just what you decide we should.
Occam’s Razor allows of only two reasonable explanations.
1) That the action was deliberate and its consequences foreseen.
2) That the calibre of the staff responsible for its release was so abysmal that the notice’s glaring deficiencies passed unnoticed.
Neither explanation offers us much comfort. The first admits to sabotage. The second to utter incompetence.
The question to be decided, therefore, is whether we are looking at a conspiracy or a cock-up?
As usual, I will apply both/and logic. Public servants who vote National have been awarded management roles, plus public servants who vote Labour have been likewise awarded management roles, and they have collaborated (conspired) to orchestrate a cock-up. Everybody happy?
Interesting. There's probably a name for whatever it is that might result from an attempted synthesis starting from a false dichotomy, but I've no idea what it is.
He's not eminent, but he is greasy, and he sure as shit isn't a power behind a throne.
Trotter has a unique ability to smmon up a thousand-odd words of enbloviated indignation merely by inserting the word "glaring" into the phrase "the notice’s deficiencies".
I do agree with the jist of your reponses to this bruhaha, I've gotta draw the line at this being a right wing beat-up.
James Shaw stood on a landmine that did trigger a lot of upset. Sure some of those do get upset out of proportion, but he has owned it and gone up a little in my eyes.
As for the right making hay out of this, they are so desperate for a break they would pay big money for any straws you may have.
Oh, this one wasn't a Right-wing set up, but they're certainly beating it up as far as it can be beaten. Sadly, they were aided in their work by a lot of Lefties who might have held their breath until James had fully explained where it was he went wrong. Perhaps next time, there'll be some pause taken.
yep. I wonder if people feel so powerless now that they don't consider their words have an effect. Or that the collective and compounding nature of left wing response actually matters.
The Greens are vulnerable because they will tell the truth and they will do right by process. The left's ability to eat its young never ceases to amaze me.
I've been debating with conspiracy types lately, weka – followers of Billy Te Kahika and Jamie-Lee Ross, trying to open up some channels through which fresh air and light might flow, but have made precious little progress, despite my love for story, words, language and imagination. At one point, I asked an assembled group, "How do you form your ideas? From whom do you get your information? Who are your trusted-advisors? I hoped to use the analogy of a waka ama, a canoe with outriggers to try to create a model that showed how important it is to have relationships with trusted friends and mentors, face to face and distant, present and past, to test ones ideas against, to check-in and see if their view is close to yours. I wanted also to suggest that those people need not be commenting on the issue of the day, but in general terms, if they showed they had their heads screwed on right over a period of time, they were likely to be trustworthy and could provide guidance when times got tricky, as these times are, when media reports, memes, gossip, cartoons, video-clips etc. swamp the mind of the inquisitive person and create confusion. However, all I got from them was, on-line sources and "my gut, my heart" which surprised me a little. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon and explains the situations we find ourselves in now. I'm not really exploring the depths of the idea but I hope you get my drift
This is a very good description, better than my go to which is to talk about critical thinking (which everyone thinks they have).
I'm avoiding my friends who are BTK followers, because I don't trust myself not to say things that will make it worse. This whole phenomena is one of the top things that worries me about NZ now.
I think we are so far down the rabbit hole of fear, distrust, and stress from CC, Australian bushfires, the Trump presidency, Dirty Politics and so on, that the good man that Shaw is will be missed or maybe people just won't care in their bloodlust for vengeance. It actually breaks my heart to see lefties still doing this, still believing that anger and blame will be enough to see us through.
Otoh, I am heartend by the poll, 11.5 is truly excellent and I am pleased for the Greens it came out today.
I've been wrassling a few of these online – their sources are almost always ranter websites. Soros + sheeple + wake up + pedos + NWO + Killary is a pretty common equation – like they formed out of the tail of the product that was used against Hillary Clinton.
I'd like to see some of that material taken down – it has no basis in fact and seems to be designed to radicalize folk unfamiliar with ideas about weight of sources.
Andre ( 10.2) I stand corrected, assumed was an owner from the press , i have no evidence of such, thus a friend / supporter of the school is probably more appropriate
A pathetic reparation sum for such vile behaviour from a landlord. He is the one who should now be in prison.
First he tried an illegal 12.5% rent increase, then he tried an illegal eviction, then he went into their home, took the front door and destroyed their property.
No charges, just a fine, where are the police?
Some landlords are pure evil, and the tenancy tribunal is soft on those evil landlords.
What puzzles me about the whole shenanigans is that for 2 years the tenants were OK. Then over the time of Covid a rush of blood to the head and the landlord behaves in this despicable and frightening way.
I didn't say the school is a real whack job. The Melchicks seem a bit odd but the school and its curriculum is probably reasonably sound for those wealthy enough to attend. The test will be if/when they get full approval.
There'll be plenty of crystal enthusiast parents at most schools in rural New Zealand and Titirangi, don't worry about that.
Stuff reported the school when it opened last summer, so the kids attending have had half a year or more. I had some interrupt my conversation with their CEO the other day when I went to have a look.
You could always look at the new-age time slots as entertainment, eh? I trust the teachers & kids both to provide reality checks so no real prospect of brainwashing.
Are the airlines required to conduct basic screening for covid in passengers before flying them? We seem to have an uptick of cases caught at the border and the fewer of those we have the better surely.
The only way to be sure someone does not have Covid is to quarantine them for 14 days. If they then stay in full surgical grade PPE all the way to the airport and on the flight and to the arrivals gate, then they will be safe. Anything else is false reassurance and theatre.
I was more wondering if some vaguely symptomatic people where getting on planes (temperature up, coughing etc) and not being rejected given how quickly they are diagnosed here.
Historic tax grab will see Treasury push for a raid on capital gains, pensions, internet sales, fuel and inheritance
Treasury officials are pushing for the largest tax rises in a generation to plug the gaping holes in the public finances, in a move being resisted by Downing Street, The Telegraph can disclose….
Thanks Barfly. I'll try again – but note there is a paywall and I put it as my source. Go to google with heading is the idea and get a vid link I think.
Coronavirus: Positive tests in Scotland rise by 123 in 24 hours
(Not good but overall not bad — percentage of positives under 1% with 'record' testing) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-53965868
Wales – Quarter of Covid cases in England and Wales have dementia.
UK records 1715 cases in worst weekend since mid-May https://www.theguardian.com/uk/wales
Wales has one of the lowest mortality rates for coronavirus during the pandemic so far, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The 75.7 deaths per 100,000 people up until the end of July is lower than England and all its regions, apart from the south west and south east. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53946092
As with all other polling that measures approval, there is no indication of any mood for change. Party vote numbers can vary within the "blocs", but the underlying trend has been consistent for many months.
Greens support increased 3.5% to 11.5% in August and is now up 5.2% since the 2017 election and the party is on track to repeat the result of the 2011 NZ Election when it won 14 seats.
Whoopee! Thud! The yoyo effect from wealth tax & Green school funding. So let's wait for the next poll!
…and stuff-up an excellent Environment Court decision in Wanaka, that represented sustainable management of the landscape, so that he could make more money.
Collins has apologised for the National party’s misleading Facebook ad about Hipkins’s parliamentary answers to questions from Shane Reti. Hipkins had sought to have the matter referred to the Privilege’s Committee. Collins is named as authorising the ad but claims to have not done so.
Considering National's focus on the individual and that everyone should be able to do what they like I suspect that being their leader is an exercise* in herding cats.
* I did consider the option of using lesson instead but figured she wouldn't learn anything from it
“but you should see what Judith Collins’ husband has been posting.”
Sneaky and dishonest, National Party. Got away with it because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday.
“"The post involved the manufacture of a fake ministerial letterhead to lend authenticity to the misrepresentation."“
“Mallard said Collins has apologised and he has no plans to take any further action because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday ahead of the election. “
But more importantly, as you point out- "Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes." World class and will, in time, be reflected on and used as a blueprint for future responses. Yet if you scan the print media, Act/Nat utterances, or talkhate radio you would think it was an incompetent balls-up.
The big end of the fat national party is continuing to expose itself downwards to the utter gutter.
The old worn out wrecks in national are bashing the young, talented Jacinda Ardern who has been building a new Democracy in New Zealand.
Ms Jacinda Ardern is just 40yrs and World renowned in her fields.
Mrs Collins, an aging, weighty woman, is headed for her seventies. And is not known much anywhere. Not even in Auckland. She wrangles and mangles and calls herself Crusher. She does cook nice cakes for the wealthy.
National has totally parted from NZ Youth in the most disgusting way. National Does not know what Democracy is. But Has a big interest in keeping the poor poorly paid unhoused.
They built One House in their 9yr term – under the command of J.Key and Mr English. They absolutely abused our Kiwi Youth. and denied them work and housing.
Possibly because of age, Mrs Collins has allowed her uncouth husband to write unadulterated abuse of our Prime Minister, Ms Jacinda Ardern. in Auckland rags,
I can see the National Party soon dying the death. They are there for the money. Your money.
Democracy will, I believe make a great Parliament.
Democracy does not look anything like the present rabid national party. It must depart. And it will.
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These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”. Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong ...
How worried should we be about the cloud? This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. I currently have a few thousand unread emails languishing in my inbox, mostly old marketing newsletters and piles of unread science journal press releases. I have a similar number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies College of Arts and Sciences Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication Studies, Northern State University Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Asian governments not only have to deal with the virus but also with the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murakami Wood, Professor of Critical Surveillance and Securities Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa The skyline of Riyadh, the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.(Shutterstock) There is a long history of planned city building by both governments ...
The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin today at 12:45pm May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment of ...
The Boil Up’s Lucinda Bennett considers the oyster – from freshness to pearls to the joy of shucking your own. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. In Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘Eight Bites’, a woman begins her last supper before bariatric surgery with “a cavalcade ...
Asia Pacific Report A group of 65 Auckland University academics have written an open letter to vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater criticising the institution’s stance over students protesting in solidarity with Palestine. They have called on her administration to “support” the students who were denied permission to establish an “overnight encampment” by ...
The Student Volunteer Army is on the march, generating approximately 1.6 million hours of volunteering from roughly 35,000 secondary school students in just five years. For Rebekah Brown, the pathway to volunteering started with her singing coach. With a passion for the arts, the suggestion to volunteer at Acting Antics, ...
Keeping up with online communication can be exhausting, so Fran Barclay enlisted the help of Meta’s new ‘intelligent assistant’ to respond to all her messages. Could her mates tell the difference? For centuries, technology has ruled the ways in which we communicate. From the dawn of written language, to the ...
Jamie Arbuckle, a councillor who has become an member of parliament, says he has settled into having two roles so comfortably he's going to keep both pay cheques. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jose Antonio Lara-Hernandez, Senior Researcher in Architecture, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images The COVID-19 pandemic and the hybrid work patterns it fostered have changed the way we think about office space, and central business districts in general. While fears ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law, UNSW Sydney There’s a good reason your local volunteer-run netball club doesn’t pay tax. In Australia, various nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying income tax, including those that do charitable work, such as churches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Deller, Casual Academic, Creative Writing and English Literature, Flinders University NetflixComedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told. In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink ...
The workplace can be a minefield of bad comms and passive aggression. Kinksters can help you navigate it. A friend and colleague recently gave me a compliment I loved. They told me I’d always been good at emotional communication and making people feel comfortable. “But I feel like it’s really ...
Even if some students are now just texting on their laptops. Stewart Sowman-Lund writes in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Councils from Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City will meet this Friday to work together on a plan for a Greater Wellington region water deal. ...
Renowned musician, advocate, and proud born and raised daughter of Tauranga, Ria Hall, is announcing her candidacy for Mayor of Tauranga and Pāpāmoa Ward for the upcoming election on July 20th. ...
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I feel for the residents in and around Mataura, dealing with having a ticking pile of waste in their back yard.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424912/we-shouldn-t-have-to-live-like-this-mataura-resident-on-third-toxic-waste-scare
I understand that a deal has been struck for the waste to be relocated back to Tiwai Point.
Then what? Surely as part of Rio Tinto's conditions to operate includes appropriate actions to deal with waste. Not get a third party to 'store' it elsewhere.
Can't wait for the Nats to get rid of the RMA../sarc.
And this…wtf ?!
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/no-risk-toxic-waste-fire-sparks-fear-among-mataura-residents
Hissing Collinsss is keen to open "negotiations" with those rio tinto slime. By whatever power let the nats NEVER regain control.
There was this small victory against the corporate creeps…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/424299/rio-tinto-executives-stripped-of-bonuses-over-destruction-of-juukan-gorge-rock-shelters
The mayor has all the drive and energy of a limp fish.
There's a worthwhile dispassionate commentary on Spinoff from a rightist who I've never agreed with before. He dissects the swirling currents of the public mood created by pandemic and election comprehensively, accurate enough for me to endorse.
When a rightist critiques a rightist critique, we get an effective reality check. There's enough cut-through of the mean-spirited sectarianism to strengthen common sense.
Indeed. That's the risk the govt is taking. Civil disobedience by non-mask-wearers is a thing in Oz & the USA, fortunately not yet large-scale here and we must get heavy with those who defy convention to ensure it doesn't get traction.
The most that can reasonably be said against her is that she's too tolerant of public service insubordination and incompetence.
How will we ever know that?? The privileged caste always evades public accountability. It's a relic of colonialism. It was established by the empire. Above the people forever, by design.
And Jacinda telling everyone `the only information to believe is on the govt websites' while the media show everyone the crap right there on the govt website for all to see. Unbelievable! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
Freak out the masses in the middle of a pandemic, no problem. Bureaucrats doing their usual thing. Move on, nothing to see here…
What a lot of the critics of what are essentialy minor mistakes and mis-steps have forgotten or never really wanted to believe is that the Covid fight is a war, and in war you can only react to what the enemy has surprised you with.
There is an old saying that the problem with an army is that it only prepares to fight the last war, that was obvious in Vietnam and even Afghanistan and particularly WW2, who for instance in 1939 could have expected V2 rockets. It is known as Aysemmetrical War, different to that which has gone before and bloody difficult to counter.
This virus is exactly the same, it is markedly different to Sars Covid-2 as it hides its infectiousness for several days to give it an element of surprise so of course there will be scrambling to counter all sorts of subtelties thrown at those we hope and trust can counter the threat, so stop bagging them at ever turn, from Jacinda and Ashley and some of the worlds best virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and whatever we are immensely lucky to have on our side.
Common sense isn't.
Oh, indeed. 🤫 I use it as a colloquialism. Very handy. Stuff being real is relative to how closely one looks. Near enough is good enough for most folk in the room…
A Message to Young People from Andrei Tarkovsky
https://twitter.com/swordfish7774/status/1300538075093716993
Interesting the consistency across the age groups.
[fixed the name in this one and deleted the other comment, as this one stays as a reply to – weka]
6% is a remarkably low number for the anti-lockdown opinion.
But it's a familiar story … all (yes, all) the serious surveys since we went to level 4 in March have registered overwhelming support for the government's approach. (This includes polls by Reid Research, Colmar Brunton, Horizon, Spin-Off/Sticky Beak, etc).
The vast gulf between commentators and actual public opinion has been an unchanging feature of NZ's response to Covid.
That's because the commentators are trying to change public opinion and not just report it.
Swordfish@4..wait for the 'rogue poll' narrative along with DPF's dodgy data distractions
Who knew this?
British High Commissioner Laura Clarke is married to a kiwi human rights barrister (https://www.gov.uk/government/people/laura-clarke).
She told Stuff about novel elements of her govt's foreign policy:
She's been making a Green connection here too:
Trump promising to visit the high protest areas shows his team need to read the likely response better.
Last time Trump stepped in to the protest arena – the one with the Bible in front of the church – Biden got a good bump.
However Law and Order is a supremely strong sat of cards for Trump to play. Fear, played well, trumps hope most times.
If BLM and the crowds really go nuts on tv with fires and overturned cars, Trump could well win Florida and Pennsylvania back.
Law and Order would be a supremely powerful set of cards for Drongo Unbrained to play if he were the challenger. Like Nixon in '68.
But since all this American carnage has built up on his watch, it's a more difficult trick to to play.
What's Biden doing about it? He gave a pretty good speech saying Trump (as president) can't escape responsibility for what is happening. A start – but he needs to announce something specific and credible on policing reform – a serious promise to deliver reform combined with a call to people to get off the streets before it all escalates out of control.
This is from his Criminal Justice policy – and it falls way short of what is needed in terms of specifics:
"Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day."
Is he relying on flowery Obama-style rhetoric or sentimental homilies to carry the day? Such rhetoric peters out into nothing under pressure from special interests. Look's like he's playing safe and remaining what he considers to be 'electable' – but there are times when the apparently safe option is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Why the world is always more complex than you can think:
Gimme more of a clue, huh? 18 minutes of my day is a big chunk, so I'm only like to watch a mathematician if he proves capable of telling me something I don't already know. I paused at 1min 40, when he had introduced an algorithm explaining how negative feedback cycles stabilise populations in ecosystems.
Well, I'm already giving him too much credit. He did not in fact deduce & declare the general principle – merely used rabbits as an example of his equation. Metaphysics is just so damn hard when you're a typical product of the antique education system!
Patience grasshopper.
Well I tried that, got to 11 mins & he was still telling us what we learnt in the late '80s so I baled out. Cool for those who missed chaos theory tho…
And so you missed the interesting bit.
Bugger. And you don't want to give me a clue. 😥
http://www.ams.org/notices/200009/fea-lyubich.pdf
Mathematics is everywhere..
Mathematics is everywhere
Yeah, I know, I had to pass stage 3 maths at university to graduate in physics long ago! But it didn't take you 18 mins to write that…
This series is quite interesting. Episode 4 Digits gives another maths example. Currently showing on Netflix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_(2020_TV_series)#:~:text=Zero%20Point%20Zero%20Production%20Inc.&text=Connected%3A%20The%20Hidden%20Science%20of%20Everything%20is%20a%202020%20docuseries,each%20other%20and%20the%20universe.
Cyber attacks ' Asghar believes the Government needs to step in and help fight the cyber attacks. Media companies Stuff and RNZ have also been hit by attempted hacks.'
Have all media companies been hit?
This funding of the Green School in Taranaki gets even more bizarre Not only crystals and 5th dimension consciousness but the owners name is Christof ( or Christ of) thinks he is a King and a Priest. His last name Melchizedek is a role in Abrahamic religions, modelled on Melchizedek, combining the dual position of king and priest.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_of_Melchizedek
Dude's a barking con artist.
https://www.christof.love/about/
Oh wow. Their Lemurian heritage is what enables them to bring us these blessings.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gRfdq0chx4QJ:https://www.christof.love/nz2020/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz&client=firefox-b-d
Einstein was wrong. Along with human stupidity, the cray-cray is also infinite.
I'm torn between the heart and lung clearing protocols and the corona sound frequency zapper.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristofMelchizedek/videos
Reckon that might be where One Two disappeared to?
Oh Jeebus. I shouldn't have clicked those links. Now all my google ads are for weirdy-beardies shilling shit like "Inner Engineering".
No, seems sincere. Just a typical new-ager. I've got several in my circle of old friends. One eventually develops self-discipline around tolerance of loopiness.
Nice wormhole photo here but doesn't say which starship it was taken from: https://www.christof.love/processing-through-the-portal/
Further down the page you get to the connection between the Goddess & World Cup cricket, which Mark Richardson would find inspiring. Perhaps. I was mildly irritated that he didn't specify which goddess but we can't expect precision from folks who talk (and think) in words starting with capital letters…
I'm in pain. I think I ruptured something from laughing so hard. That has to be one of the generator's better outputs.
Yeah but don't forget this stuff has real deep cultural roots. Not just the christians. Snake oil salesmen were the 19th century exponents, right? PT Barnum (`there's one born every minute'). Illuminati (18th century).
It's even something the political left & right share. Peale's Power of Positive Thinking, Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich exemplify the capitalist strands. The communist strands constitute a spider's web emanating from the 19th.
In science you have cold fusion etc. The human psyche consists of a real/imaginal interface. Imagining alternate realities is hard-wired.
In science you prove it with actual repeatable demonstrations of hard evidence. So Fleischmann and Pons very rapidly got deservedly ridiculed when their claims could not be substantiated.
(Muon-catalysed cold-fusion is an actual real thing, but so far utterly useless for any real or imagined application)
The persistence of this kind of snake-oil is as least partly due to apologists who should fkn know better validating the evidence-free bullshit as somehow legitimate.
Yeah, I share your bias. I differ inasmuch as having a `feet on the ground & head in the clouds' kind of outlook. So I concede that flakiness does work for some. Who are we too condemn choices others make on a spiritual basis? And if they make commercial choices consequent?
Karmic consequences are a personal learning curve. We can't really say that the delusional new-agers are wrong, because social reality is co-created. But we can erect boundaries around them to protect our peace of mind.
As an aside – I saw a genuine snake oil salesman at a market in Gupo, near Seoul. There was no deception, though there were a couple of pythons on show. The oil was in small bottles, each with a small snake, no more than 15cm long in it. It was genuine snake oil, and local belief was apparently that it had some benefit for sufferers of joint pain.
The expression may have arisen more from the US medicine shows, that variously sold alcohol or low end religion or some mixture of the two, than the relatively humble bottled snake.
Got any linky about the Melchizedeks having any ownership stake in the Green School?
Everything I've seen describes them as school parents. While they certainly appear to own the entity that's peddling crystal woo-nonsense and even kookier conspiracy stuff, that doesn't appear have a formal Green School ownership connection.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/couple-who-called-covid-19-manufactured-natural-disaster-held-dna-activation-event-at-green-school.html
Maybe he hypnotised James Shaw, or cast a spell or sutin.
'Murica
https://twitter.com/KagroX/status/1299779623765585920
Shaw going live on funding scandal now.
"Funding scandal" or more realistically small "funding mistake" that has been hysterically blown up by the media in order to discredit the Greens even though it is an all-government initiative.
Even Hipkins, when questioned on the issue on Morning Report today, didn’t mention the Greens.
I wish he hadn't. Should have refused as no matter how clearly it is explained the media will use it to beat him/Green Party up. The ignorance about how governments work is not helped by juicy soundbites.
And since when has a normal decision made by a Govt committee been a ‘scandal’. Either it fitted the criteria or it did not…..end of story. All this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and responding to Nats is not going to clarify anything.
Good to see Davidson recognise that the issue was so serious for them that it could affect them making 5%. They get how bad it is.
The 'bad' is totally manufactured by the media. A mistake by no means necessitates this over the top over-reaction. It shows up an ignorance about how Govt works, and also about how people make mistakes. There is no story and I wish they had just stood staunch. The application apparently met the criteria and what we are seeing is a woe is me about the concept of the school and who announced the decision.
No-one answered my earlier query about if there would have been a problem if the approval had been announced by Labour, NZ First so I will answer it myself
Of course there would not have been. But all hell breaks loose when the Govt's decision is announced by a Minister who is also a Green Party MP.
If it had been shown that the approval had been given even though the application did not meet the Govt's criteria for accessing the fund then we would have a legitimate reason for concern. No, a minor mistake or something not related to the application itself was made by one of those approving that does not go to the heart of the application and its merits.
In terms of decision making it is a grounds for an administrative review had material not relevant to the making of the decision been made part of the decision making process. If Shaw had concerns he should have disqualified himself, but I am not sure how that looks either legally. The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision.
By continuing this we are all falling into where the Nats want us.
There is no story.
You are entirely correct, Shanreagh. This is hair-pulling-out time for some of us. Still, this it to be expected in this period of the electoral cycle. Cringeworthy though. We have met the enemy and he is us.
a Govt decision
Yeah that's the guts. But James must cater to that body of opinion within the Greens that does knee-jerk moral outrage with brain disengaged. Their numbers are sufficiently large to be catered to.
"The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision."
Indeed it was though for whatever reason Shaw has taken it upon himself to personally wear it….curiouser and curiouser.
It is out of his hands now yet it was never fully and solely in his hands to start with. His mistake was to claim credit for it and therefore ownership and responsibility for its justification. Shane Jones would not have encountered the same problem had he announced it instead.
It would be interesting to know whose idea it was for Shaw to announce it.
Trouble for the Greens and Shane Jones in the same sentence
It is the difference between a minor scratch and the airbags inflating.
Shaw is sacrificing his own persona and taking on his shoulders all the hoop-lah from the loud and scatty of whom there appear to be many in Greens. Perhaps they have been in space-type suspended animation for the last few decades and have just woken up. The shock, the fluster of how things appear to these Rip van Winkles, horrific!
Now we have a fluster-cluster muster just when we should be tramping along like the old tortoise that is guaranteed to get over the finishing line in the fable The Hare and the Tortoise. How did Aesop know all this stuff, he an Nostradamus really had muchly foresight, I hope it doesn't end up a foresigh.
(Nostradamus from Wikpedia – had experience of plague effects and dealing with people in authority who had closed minds. Nothing changes does it dear Nostra!)
Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this turn of events; it happens every time. If it's not a Green School, it's Morris dancing, or Metiria's past, or the Exclusive Brethren flyers, or.. whatever the Right wing can devise, whip up, fabricate or beat up. It's pretty much impossible to counter; those who seek to destroy the chances of a Green presence in Government are skilled at the dark art of dirty politics, but it galls when "our own people" add fuel to the Right's indignant fires.
The source of your gall may have be about to have company
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2020/09/what-just-didnt-happen.html
Well, that was such a pile of steaming unfossilised coprolite that I'm embarrassed to have even clicked the link. FFS, starting out by fantasising two bizarre scenarios and pretending that out of the entire universe of things that might have led to the situation, those are the only two to be considered.
Andre & Pat Are you the only ones who can try to examine the entrails of politics? You certainly come up with some questionable ideas yourselves. And that is good – we need to be questioning stuff, but not just what you decide we should.
Wouldnt dream of speaking for Andre but for myself Im not sure how you can arrive at that conclusion from a link and the accompanying comment
I recall a similar sentiment being expressed around funding streams recently.
What golden trickling down on you?
lol….mustve missed that
Thus from the éminence grise:
As usual, I will apply both/and logic. Public servants who vote National have been awarded management roles, plus public servants who vote Labour have been likewise awarded management roles, and they have collaborated (conspired) to orchestrate a cock-up. Everybody happy?
so a combination of the two….plausible but the result is potentially the same…the upsetting of a delicate balancing act.
Interesting. There's probably a name for whatever it is that might result from an attempted synthesis starting from a false dichotomy, but I've no idea what it is.
Whether its a false dichotomy or not may (or may not) be established, maybe, sometime….they think.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/424882/covid-19-review-ordered-into-testing-order-blunder
the explanation would appear to be something difficult to ascertain
He's not eminent, but he is greasy, and he sure as shit isn't a power behind a throne.
Trotter has a unique ability to smmon up a thousand-odd words of enbloviated indignation merely by inserting the word "glaring" into the phrase "the notice’s deficiencies".
Spot on Robert….or the dope smoking dreadlocked deadbeat benefit scroungers
I do agree with the jist of your reponses to this bruhaha, I've gotta draw the line at this being a right wing beat-up.
James Shaw stood on a landmine that did trigger a lot of upset. Sure some of those do get upset out of proportion, but he has owned it and gone up a little in my eyes.
As for the right making hay out of this, they are so desperate for a break they would pay big money for any straws you may have.
Oh, this one wasn't a Right-wing set up, but they're certainly beating it up as far as it can be beaten. Sadly, they were aided in their work by a lot of Lefties who might have held their breath until James had fully explained where it was he went wrong. Perhaps next time, there'll be some pause taken.
yep. I wonder if people feel so powerless now that they don't consider their words have an effect. Or that the collective and compounding nature of left wing response actually matters.
The Greens are vulnerable because they will tell the truth and they will do right by process. The left's ability to eat its young never ceases to amaze me.
I've been debating with conspiracy types lately, weka – followers of Billy Te Kahika and Jamie-Lee Ross, trying to open up some channels through which fresh air and light might flow, but have made precious little progress, despite my love for story, words, language and imagination. At one point, I asked an assembled group, "How do you form your ideas? From whom do you get your information? Who are your trusted-advisors? I hoped to use the analogy of a waka ama, a canoe with outriggers to try to create a model that showed how important it is to have relationships with trusted friends and mentors, face to face and distant, present and past, to test ones ideas against, to check-in and see if their view is close to yours. I wanted also to suggest that those people need not be commenting on the issue of the day, but in general terms, if they showed they had their heads screwed on right over a period of time, they were likely to be trustworthy and could provide guidance when times got tricky, as these times are, when media reports, memes, gossip, cartoons, video-clips etc. swamp the mind of the inquisitive person and create confusion. However, all I got from them was, on-line sources and "my gut, my heart" which surprised me a little. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon and explains the situations we find ourselves in now. I'm not really exploring the depths of the idea but I hope you get my drift
This is a very good description, better than my go to which is to talk about critical thinking (which everyone thinks they have).
I'm avoiding my friends who are BTK followers, because I don't trust myself not to say things that will make it worse. This whole phenomena is one of the top things that worries me about NZ now.
I think we are so far down the rabbit hole of fear, distrust, and stress from CC, Australian bushfires, the Trump presidency, Dirty Politics and so on, that the good man that Shaw is will be missed or maybe people just won't care in their bloodlust for vengeance. It actually breaks my heart to see lefties still doing this, still believing that anger and blame will be enough to see us through.
Otoh, I am heartend by the poll, 11.5 is truly excellent and I am pleased for the Greens it came out today.
I've been wrassling a few of these online – their sources are almost always ranter websites. Soros + sheeple + wake up + pedos + NWO + Killary is a pretty common equation – like they formed out of the tail of the product that was used against Hillary Clinton.
I'd like to see some of that material taken down – it has no basis in fact and seems to be designed to radicalize folk unfamiliar with ideas about weight of sources.
Andre ( 10.2) I stand corrected, assumed was an owner from the press , i have no evidence of such, thus a friend / supporter of the school is probably more appropriate
Cheers. I'm relieved. If there actually was any ownership link, that would have been a vastly greater failure of due diligence.
The press I read was quite clear. Perhaps you didn't read it properly?
A pathetic reparation sum for such vile behaviour from a landlord. He is the one who should now be in prison.
First he tried an illegal 12.5% rent increase, then he tried an illegal eviction, then he went into their home, took the front door and destroyed their property.
No charges, just a fine, where are the police?
Some landlords are pure evil, and the tenancy tribunal is soft on those evil landlords.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/122623348/landlord-ordered-to-pay-tenants-6500-after-prison-threats-removing-front-door
What puzzles me about the whole shenanigans is that for 2 years the tenants were OK. Then over the time of Covid a rush of blood to the head and the landlord behaves in this despicable and frightening way.
Muttonbird 10.2 Perhaps you are right, irrespective sounds like that school is a real whack job
[Fixed typo in e-mail address]
I didn't say the school is a real whack job. The Melchicks seem a bit odd but the school and its curriculum is probably reasonably sound for those wealthy enough to attend. The test will be if/when they get full approval.
There'll be plenty of crystal enthusiast parents at most schools in rural New Zealand and Titirangi, don't worry about that.
Stuff reported the school when it opened last summer, so the kids attending have had half a year or more. I had some interrupt my conversation with their CEO the other day when I went to have a look.
You could always look at the new-age time slots as entertainment, eh? I trust the teachers & kids both to provide reality checks so no real prospect of brainwashing.
Are the airlines required to conduct basic screening for covid in passengers before flying them? We seem to have an uptick of cases caught at the border and the fewer of those we have the better surely.
The only way to be sure someone does not have Covid is to quarantine them for 14 days. If they then stay in full surgical grade PPE all the way to the airport and on the flight and to the arrivals gate, then they will be safe. Anything else is false reassurance and theatre.
I was more wondering if some vaguely symptomatic people where getting on planes (temperature up, coughing etc) and not being rejected given how quickly they are diagnosed here.
Airlines have rejected symptomatic people all along.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/29/treasury-officials-push-bombshell-tax-hikes-pay-virus/Treasury officials push for bombshell tax hikes to pay for virus
Aug.29/20
Historic tax grab will see Treasury push for a raid on capital gains, pensions, internet sales, fuel and inheritance
Treasury officials are pushing for the largest tax rises in a generation to plug the gaping holes in the public finances, in a move being resisted by Downing Street, The Telegraph can disclose….
"error 404 page not found"
Thanks Barfly. I'll try again – but note there is a paywall and I put it as my source. Go to google with heading is the idea and get a vid link I think.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/29/treasury-officials-push-bombshell-tax-hikes-pay-virus/
Further uk –
Coronavirus: Positive tests in Scotland rise by 123 in 24 hours
(Not good but overall not bad — percentage of positives under 1% with 'record' testing)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-53965868
Wales – Quarter of Covid cases in England and Wales have dementia.
UK records 1715 cases in worst weekend since mid-May
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/wales
Wales has one of the lowest mortality rates for coronavirus during the pandemic so far, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The 75.7 deaths per 100,000 people up until the end of July is lower than England and all its regions, apart from the south west and south east. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53946092
But Wales recently had a cut-price airline flight from Zante Ionian Islands with TUI Airline with 193 passengers plus crew told to self-isolate and has resulted in 16 positive cases. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coronavirus-cases-flight-zante-cardiff-18856588
Voters want certainty, clarity, and honesty, which they won’t get from National’s flip-flopping yo-yoing weathercock’s pin-head dancing on policies.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300096912/coronavirus-national-still-keen-to-let-international-students-selfisolate-in-dorms-when-it-is-safe
New Roy Morgan poll:
Scroll down for the confidence rating – the real story.
As with all other polling that measures approval, there is no indication of any mood for change. Party vote numbers can vary within the "blocs", but the underlying trend has been consistent for many months.
Looks rather good for a Labour/Green coalition.
Whoopee! Thud! The yoyo effect from wealth tax & Green school funding. So let's wait for the next poll!
On the current rating Lab-Green could govern. Wonder what happens if Lab-Green dropped to say 48%?
Zero MIQ workers have tested positive. Back to the drawing board, National.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424948/no-quarantine-or-managed-isolation-staff-have-tested-positive-woods
"Useless" Sam Morgan can't peddle his Covid-Card. I thought he was supposed to be a genius business man?
Perhaps all he has done in his life is use dad's money to copy E-Bay.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122626522/sam-morgan-gives-up-on-covidcard-in-frustration-with-ministry-of-health
…and stuff-up an excellent Environment Court decision in Wanaka, that represented sustainable management of the landscape, so that he could make more money.
The current app as one of the IT peeps put it "is a rich person's solution". At least the covid card was an attempt to be an all persons gig.
Collins has apologised for the National party’s misleading Facebook ad about Hipkins’s parliamentary answers to questions from Shane Reti. Hipkins had sought to have the matter referred to the Privilege’s Committee. Collins is named as authorising the ad but claims to have not done so.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/judith-collins-apologises-over-national-party-ad-chris-hipkins-complained-was-misleading.html
Cool! We're in the middle of Politicians Apology Week. How contagious will it get? 😍
PAW Week. Who's the catspaw here?
Who's the mouse?
It's great for New Zealand that Labour is standing up for itself and calling out National's continued Dirty Politics.
This was a social media ad clearly forged and fabricated, and authorised by Mrs Wong-Tung.
Good on Hipkins.
Looks like she has someone else that she needs to control a bit more.
Does she have any control on those around her?
Considering National's focus on the individual and that everyone should be able to do what they like I suspect that being their leader is an exercise* in herding cats.
* I did consider the option of using lesson instead but figured she wouldn't learn anything from it
“but you should see what Judith Collins
’ husbandhas been posting.”Sneaky and dishonest, National Party. Got away with it because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday.
“"The post involved the manufacture of a fake ministerial letterhead to lend authenticity to the misrepresentation."“
“Mallard said Collins has apologised and he has no plans to take any further action because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday ahead of the election. “
Jingoes!
In case any more evidence was needed how unfit to govern they are.
Perhaps her hubby authorised it and she couldn't stop him because he's 64.
EQC was ill-equipped for the Earthquakes. Over 9 years it was not fixed by the then Government.
NZ was ill-equipped to handle a pandemic. Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes.
So which Parties would be good to handle future crisis?
"So which Parties would be good to handle future crisis?"
Well not one Gerry Brownlee is involved in. According to him you need a standing army to deal with it…
"You don't have a standing army waiting around for a natural disaster, and that's what would have had to have happened…"
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/424881/government-plans-to-transform-earthquake-commission-in-wake-of-inquiry
But more importantly, as you point out- "Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes." World class and will, in time, be reflected on and used as a blueprint for future responses. Yet if you scan the print media, Act/Nat utterances, or talkhate radio you would think it was an incompetent balls-up.
Was Collins' apology for lying printed in the Herald.
I know there'll be many of her lies/mistruths so I'll narrow it down – https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/judith-collins-apologises-over-national-party-ad-chris-hipkins-complained-was-misleading.html
Beginning of the end – for National
The big end of the fat national party is continuing to expose itself downwards to the utter gutter.
The old worn out wrecks in national are bashing the young, talented Jacinda Ardern who has been building a new Democracy in New Zealand.
Ms Jacinda Ardern is just 40yrs and World renowned in her fields.
Mrs Collins, an aging, weighty woman, is headed for her seventies. And is not known much anywhere. Not even in Auckland. She wrangles and mangles and calls herself Crusher. She does cook nice cakes for the wealthy.
National has totally parted from NZ Youth in the most disgusting way. National Does not know what Democracy is. But Has a big interest in keeping the poor poorly paid unhoused.
They built One House in their 9yr term – under the command of J.Key and Mr English. They absolutely abused our Kiwi Youth. and denied them work and housing.
Possibly because of age, Mrs Collins has allowed her uncouth husband to write unadulterated abuse of our Prime Minister, Ms Jacinda Ardern. in Auckland rags,
I can see the National Party soon dying the death. They are there for the money. Your money.
Democracy will, I believe make a great Parliament.
Democracy does not look anything like the present rabid national party. It must depart. And it will.