Does John Armstrong live in Auckland? He certainly doesn’t seem to have a clue about the crisis in Auckland affordable housing for beneficiaries and other renters on low incomes.
Armstrong champions Labour’s housing policy over that of National’s or Greens, even though Shearer was “all over the paddock” when talking about it this week, because:it’s “gone down well with the punters.” Which punters would this be? Those who will be able to afford to buy Labour’s planned houses?
He says the Greens have got it wrong because building state houses in Hobsonville wouldn’t work – the land’s too valuable, you see. And, furthermore, Armstrong reckons that is the wrong place for work-seeking beneficiaries to live, because it’s not near jobs. Does he realise it is precisely in such outer areas that beneficiaries and other low income people are looking for places to rent because there’s nothing available closer to the city? Also, the whole Massey area is being upgraded, including the Westgate centre, because it is seen as becoming a growth area in the future – which should mean more local jobs.
All Armstrong’s latest column shows is, which team he’s throwing his lot in with for the next election.
LOLZ, John Armstrong one of the reasons why i don’t read the Herald even when it’s free online, ”The Green Party’s housing policy would require the Government to go on a continual borrowing binge”
Really, the only answer that little quip deserves from anyone is ”Ha Ha Ha”, Armstrong resorts to bullshit (as usual), The Slippery lead National Government just for Armstrong’s education has in 4 years borrowed 42 billion dollars, not a binge, a f**king orgy of borrowing, that 42 billion dollar borrowing ‘orgy’ at 300 million bucks a weeks is the biggest amount of monies borrowed in the shortest amount of time by any Government in NZ,s history, and that borrowing is set to continue right up to November 2014 where the debt mountain will be topping out at 60 odd billion dollars,
Does Armstrong ever get down to looking at what gives every appearance of being a borrowing regime by this Slippery lead National Government managed by those who suck on P pipes for breakfast,
Money, just to educate John Armstrong, when owed to the Government by us peasants is counted in the Government books as an asset as will the houses that will be built with the money owed,
Depending on coalition negotiations we could expect the Green Party housing policy to take up 25% of the Labour Party proposed 100,000 homes, and it is my contention here that Labour should actually move to include the Green Party housing policy into a position alongside it’s own where everyone has a choice of bank mortgage or Government backed ‘rent to buy’,(place your bets now on the majority opting for Government backed rent to buy),
Armstrong’s whole argument ‘against’ the Green Party housing policy relies upon His prejudice against people who are NOT definitely middle class, His writing reeks of this condescension, why wouldn’t low income Kiwi’s keep their new homes neat tidy and well maintained, why wouldn’t low income Kiwi’s having the one chance they will ever get in this life to own their own homes not pay off the ‘equity’ in their new homes that the state holds as quickly as their incomes allow,
Why in fact doesn’t the fucking toe-rag well past His use-by date Herald hack writer Armstrong just not print lines in capitals saying ‘i hate the poor’,
Does the Herald’s pet hack writer own rental properties and can see part of the rental market disappearing into ‘rent to buy’ home ownership, lowering demand and forcing the Herald’s pet hack writer to take less in rent,
More to the point, are the bank’s getting a little jittery, a wee spot nervous, as they watch the Green party unveil a perfectly logical plan where Government acts as if it were a Government and provides not only the homes for the people it governs,(along with the jobs building them),and removes from the banks completely the need to finance such homes by becoming the lender of note for these homes by holding the equity in such homes instead of the banks via mortgage finance…
I would love to know, if as a young cadet reporter, Armstrong got a Housing Corporation mortgage at 4%, with the deposit capitalised using his family benefit.
This scheme and others, ensured that NZ was free of homelessness and poverty throughout the post World War 2 era.
witofi, been milling this ova
RNZ-(from the top of the Hill) “we don’t have authoritative broadsheet press in NZ”;
anglophile excess / Nordic Exceptionalism, that’s the ‘crux’ of it.
*some Sunday morning reading please?
(Gdansk the safety danzig)
Israel update; Assyrian retaliation threatened, and the Russian Foreign Ministry concurs
while (out of context) 12M is now owed to teachers, IRD Child Support and any other freakin ap
150,000 cases of Child Abuse reported in oh 12 (but hay, its only up a penny %: 16-14) down south Antarctic rapid changes are tongueing there groove into the Deep ocean as Owen Glenns funds are frozen; it’s trustees (sic) see it “no longer appropriate to distribute philanthropy in NZ” 🙁 Ethics needed in the NZX effectively two counts of underarm trading yet don’t worry, according to the quoted bank advertisement “we can lend you enough money to get you out of debt”, sadly, been there, lost that. B.G & B.S
“Truth has no special time of it’s own. It’s hour is now always”
-Albert Schweitzer (any old dime. A dozen should do)
Armstrong’s been sucking up the spoonfuls fed from the Labour Leader’s office for the past 4 years. Sad thing is I used to respect him as a journalist. Not now.
What Armstrong cannot see is that the taxation from building the homes from the profits made by those contracted to do the building, from the higher level of consumption of building materials,from the increased taxation of an enlarged building workforce needed to build these houses and from the shift off of the dole of that labour force needed to build those houses will in fact far exceed any cost to the Government,
Economic illiterates like Armstrong are paid to seek out a plausible negative which the Herald gladly uses as a plank to beat upon the Political Party’s it’s backers dislike…
Seen the home screen on the stuff website yet? Paul Holmes ‘switching roles, he’ll be with Eve now’ the ‘resting kinght’s guide’ in the ever after. I’d link, but that means I’d have to click on it and I’m not going to give tosh like that any page views.
I can’t work out what’s worse – that a ‘news’ outlet thinks selling supernatural fairy tales is front page news, or that they’re starting to venerate Holmes, or that I feel like I’ve encountered a wormhole and I’m in a U.S. southern state. Gobsmackingly cloyingly awful.
Anyone notice that story in the NZHerald this morning about Judith Collins and the appointment of the Director of Human Rights Proceedings? The basic non-disclosure on the Conflict of Interest form is the story that will get her.
But if anyone needs to speak up for Catherine Rodgers, the applicant who was strongly recommended by the appointments panel and overruled by the Minister, Catherine Rodgers is a stunning lawyer.
It’s on Court record that under the utterly useless previous Director of Human Rights Proceedings (remember Robert Hesketh that previously disgraced District Court Judge), she marshalled the team that took on the government about the human rights of caregivers to be provided round the clock state assistance for caregivers.
The Crown and Ministers opposed her and her team every step of the way, court after court, over 7 years, and she and her team won. Right through to the Supreme Court. Anyone on the inside knows the kind of resources the Crown has at their legal disposal will understand what that means.
Catherine Rodgers is a seriously good lawyer, both in the professional and virtuous sense.
But now the story is on Collins. Hopefully its a story that gets some traction. Because if there’s one Minister who needs to go up against the wall come the revolution for crimes against the separation of judicial and executive function, it’s Judith Collins.
How deeply scummy is this government ? What does it take to chip the teflon and begin the unravelling ? Maybe this is an opportunity with the published photo at her mother-in-law’s funeral proving that Collins has been completely disingenuous in her denials of a conflict of interest. Here’s hoping the traction holds some place in the House this week .. come on Winston !!
Aye the selection of Robert Kee is looking more and more suspect. Collins and Rodgers know each other too. They spent time together on the Auckland Women Lawyers Association executive. The gossip that I have heard is that their relationship was not that good …
I think your confusing Catherine Rogers with Francis Joychild. Francis J did the caregiving case in the three Courts (Human Rights Tribunal, High Court and Appeal COurt). It never went to the Supreme Court. And the case wasn’t about round the clock assistance it was about payment for certain types of special cares for high needs family members.
Well there are some many scandals and sleazy carry on’s with this lot I think a lot of people are just turnig off. What I can’t understandis how this incompetent rable are still on top of the polls , Begs the quetion are they?
The latest payroll round – the first of the school term – was filled with errors. Staff who are on leave have incorrectly received full pay, changes that were made in November have not been actioned, staff are being forced to fill forms out twice with exactly the same information, some teachers had to be paid from school funds so they could afford groceries. It’s a nightmare – unnecessary bureaucracy, huge numbers of errors. Payroll systems have changed for the worse … The start of year is a critical period for payroll. At the start of this year, 64,733 changes were made for school employees, generating a 100% increase in workload for clerical staff.
What about NOVOPAYN. Sort of a derivative of Novocaine (a drug given to people to stop them feeling pain, especially during an operation on their teeth) – teachers getting their proper salary seems as hard as pulling teeth.
I think that all in the majority government should have their pay docked while such poor policy results continue. We need to have accountability from these well paid flunkies of our democratic institution, which is dirty and needs water blasting into all its crevices.
If I were cynical, I’d think JB was simply recycling ambergris – whale puke.
But JB’s long history of providing well researched and reputable links for his subtle and erudite analyses makes me ashamed of my own cynicism.
Green Party MP’s are today taking a canoe ride down the Waitara river in the yearly trek to highlight the plight of ‘despicable dirty rivers’,
The Waitara river as measured by NIWA has the lowest water quality of all rivers in New Zealand,
The Green Party has repeatedly ‘asked’ farmers to help clean up such filth as these rivers are not only the life-blood of continual farming they are in fact the taonga and life-blood of us all,
Fonterra the dairy giant has also repeatedly ‘asked’ farmers to clean up these rivers with little actual effect,
Those who are polluting our rivers should, while they still have time, give far more weight to having been ‘asked’ politely to address this issue,
The time when the Green Movement is willing to just ‘ask’ has all but expired, after ‘ask’ comes ‘tell’ and not long after ‘tell’ comes ‘force’, we all including the farming community have ‘choice’,
My ‘suggestion’ is that you begin to make the right ones…
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point. Stick to Shearer but replace Grant Robertson as deputy and put Andrew Little in there. This should keep most within the party content and appeal to the broader supporter base. Little needs to take the Labour spokespersons role and champion creating job. Shearer needs to be kept in check so any overly overt moves right will be stamped out with Little there.
An innovative option, but roadblocks remain. Cunliffe would need to to be given a serious front bench position and Grant would have to back the overall move. The change would also have to go through, around or over Mallard et al. Not easy.
Mallards needs to be put in his place, a return to the house will be as speaker full-stop. A few others need to go at the end of this term. Fresh blood is needed & this issue needs to be addressed this month, Labour need to take a leaf out of the Greens book ‘refresh.’
Ego’s etc aside and they are all going to need to suck it up and concentrate on the job of sorting the mess National have done. Of course Cunliffe needs to be on the front bench. A rover like Joyce perhaps certainly the innovation portfolio.
Just for clarification ‘overtly right’ are policy’s like raising the age of retirement & ‘compulsory’ Kiwi saver ( low income earners can not afford).
Yuk, Andrew Little. Gross.
Mumble-pants is already unmarketable enough without that greaseball standing next to him.
Image and communication are Labour’s most pressing problems, Little would just exasperate those.
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point.
Most people were predicting the its too late for change claim to come out in 12 months, you’re a bit early. If we take Shearer’s performance into account, I would say 3 weeks before the election should be considered the cut off point.
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point
I honestly believe the need for a leadership challenge has never been more urgent. Let’s face it. labour is going nowhere. The polls have stalled, the front bench is not firing, and the Nats keep offering up these huge targets which somehow Labour keeps missing. Key is toying with Shearer.
Honestly, something has to change or we will have three more years of tory rule.
The Monday vote is not a vote on a “leadership challenge”. It is a vote on how caucus sees the rest of the Labour Party.
We need to see evidence that caucus is willing to listen to the membership and that it is willing to give the members (and affiliates) a voice. The energy and excitement a Primary process would build for Labour going into 2014 would be amazing.
And if Key gets back in then the gloves will come off, and that Power mad, megalomaniac, will sell , mine, and drill everything in sight. And still Labour will sit with their fingers in their ears.
The time for the members and unions to have a say is now. Any shuffle within the current failed regime will be compared to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
13 MP to withhold Confidence in Shearer on Monday.
That is all that is needed to stop the paralysis of the past four years.
Mallard, TRP, various proxies, Mike Smith and Mike Williams are driving a wedge between the members and the Caucus. They have done nothing to unite the party. They think the only problem in the party is The Standard.
The Confidence Vote outcome on Monday will determine their future status. Yes, Mallard is hitting on MPs. He knows his political future is at risk. The pressure has got to him. Hence the incompetent attempt at the Leadership. He lost his rag on these pages yesterday.
Mallard will bully the List members like Darien Fenton who are dependant on a decent list position. He won’t try to bully an Electorate MP like Louisa Wall, because Trevor is a two bit coward.
For Labour to connect with the widest possible cross section of New Zealand society we need to be seen as the Party that:
a) has the right ideas;
b) the right people in place to execute the strategies derived from those ideas, and
c) the right Leader who can convince the public that Labour has a) & b).
Your friendly MP is today pondering how she/he will vote on the CONFIDENCE MOTION at the Caucus meeting on Monday.
Please help them with these three simple questions.
Call now.
My friendly MP is a deceptive Tory lawyer, another ‘safe seat’ that went west in 08 never to return with the bozo labour candidate who’s failed to hold ut or retake it in 2011. Feckless at best.
Personally I’m just sick of losing.
This leader Shearer, according to poll tracking, won’t win.
I want the right to at least ask the question with my vote:
can we please pick the right one, the one that will have the best chance of winning.
We just haven’t had the chance to even ask that question as Members.
“New Zealand needs to strengthen global linkages and tackle government spending and regulatory issues that diminish productivity and competitiveness if it is to lift its economic performance.”
“the other main way of improving prosperity in the longer run – labour productivity growth.”
“First … is the need to lift savings rates.”
“quality of investment is also an issue, with much of it going into housing rather than productivity-promoting investment.”
“New Zealand needs to be more welcoming to foreign investment, and should “re-examine the factors, including tax and regulation, that diminish and distort the incentives to both save and invest”.”
“Second on his priority list is for the Government to return its books to surplus.”
“”This is one reason why it is critical to cut back ineffective government spending, and ensure that our welfare spending is targeted better at those in need.””
“Finally Wheeler calls for a focus on the fat tail of underperformance in the education system.”
” “The bottom income deciles are populated by those with lesser skills, and those who experience prolonged and recurrent spells of unemployment. Addressing these groups would both promote productivity and reduce inequality.”
All of which is bog-standard, Right-wing, how-to-get-an-MBA-without-having-to-think singspiel.
And I somehow don’t think David Shearer et al would disagree with one single word of it.
Wheeler is using snake talk, what he is saying is a return to deregulation is needed and fast tracked at that. Foreign investment ‘sell sell sell’ New Zealand…land, houses, assets so his mates & him can make big profits! Add a more ‘flexible employment market’ ( law changes) increases productivity…and keeps those pesky Unions in their place.
This guy is scum & needs a good look into his books for any irregular behavior… Stalin style preferably!
Frak this guy Wheeler. Another 1980’s trainee of Milton Friedman. Absolutely moronic and unaware of the situation our civilisation is in, and how his ilk are directly responsible.
My point is that I can hear every point of Wheeler’s speech coming out of Shearer’s mouth – and with most of the Labour caucus standing behind him nodding.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Its like they have some speech somewhere in a word file and print it off and give it to whoever is the reserve bank governor of the time.
Wheeler has no brains, that is clear. His message there is keep spinning the wheel faster and faster. Where is some analytical thought? Some original ideas? ha ha ha what a tosser spinning the same shit.
Here is how NZ could easily improve imo….
We need to own our country and its assets. The rich always chase the asset and keep it. Because that leads to long term wealth. So that is what we should do. We can start by banning foreign ownership of our land. Business does not need to own the land. Foreign ownership of land is the most dumbfuck idea going and it is only a negative to us. That is why so many other countries do not allow it, like China. Duh.
We also need to drive down the value of capital assets such as land, housing, plant, business, machinery everything. Paying vast sums to simply buy the capital asset drains the income which flows from that asset and benefits only the creators of credit, the privately owned banks.
Drive down capital values and drive ownership into New Zealanders hands, as many of them as possible.
Then watch the country go from strength to strength.
Come on you bloody dickheads Wheeler and English, do some fucking thinking dumbos. THINK.
The benefit system is under attack by national,we know that, but my situation is that
my disabilities are long term,i had go give up work because of them,i was given a
temporary additional support aligned to my housing costs,and a disability allowance,
all went ok until renewel a month ago, where because of increased medical costs
my disability allowance increased, but i was astounded my level of benefit stayed
the same,i phoned winz and was told that the disability allowance is seen as income
when you have temporary additonal support, penny pinching or just plain nasty?
If you are within the time limit, make an appointment with your case manager and demand the papers to appeal the decision,
Yes they are trying to cut costs by doing what you point out, hoping you will not have either the skills or energy to take their decision to the appeal authority,
I have heard of peoples disability allowance cancelled because they supposedly did not file a renewal,not just once but 3 years in a row,
The problem with that little fallacy is that the disability allowance form for the Invalids Benefit is part of the yearly renewal form for that benefit and it was impossible for WINZ to have missed it…
You have the legal right to review the decision. You don’t need an appointment but as you will know when you submit the Review of Decision form make sure you get a copy that is date stamped in case it is later “lost”.
Contact your local benefit rights service. Mine in Wellington is highly informed and experienced (some benefit rights advocates have little in the way of training and basically go in with you….and that’s about it. The BRS in Wellington has the right type of experience and quality advice you can count on so consider calling them 04 2102012 between 9.30am – 3.30 Tuesday – Friday, and they are in a meeting Monday morning so phone in the afternoon.)
I don’t know about TAS because I’m still on Special benefit which started being phased out in 2006 as I’m on IB too. What happened to you sounds very fishy to me.
You will feel better after you speak with an advocate who KNOWS what they are talking about.
It will help if you take what they tell you over the phone and write this exact wording on the review of decision form (you have to state why you disagree with their decision). I’m cheering you on. LFTHG.
You may find that it never even makes it to the hearing stage as the mistake could be picked up in an internal review.
Thanks all, AWW i will use the ph num and contact them, when i posted i was
wondering if anyone else had a similar problem, I do have a fighting spirit
so now i can go in to battle,so to speak, so thanks all for your support 🙂
I do have a fighting spirit so now i can go in to battle
Every WINZ appointment should be seen as a battle. There is strength in numbers, if possible, I’d recommend going to the appointment with another person, if you feel comfortable with them witnessing the conversation. A 2 vs 1 environment will change the nature of the appointment, and therefore how you get treated.
Even better if your wing-person is knowledgeable about WINZ tricks. Places like city mission, sallies or Auckland Action Against Poverty can help.
Good luck
This has happened to me to in the last month re renewal. Both TAS for rent and my DA has not been paid. I do not receive the maximum DA so this is not a cost on TAS, (the cut off point for DA is in the mid 50,s but check this). Anything under the cut off for DA has nothing to do with TAS, but TAS can be paid for health costs once over the cut off. Tying DA with TAS is not on as both are individual supplements in there own right with different renewal dates, (TAS every 13 weeks, DA every year).
I read in the NZ Herald today that over the summer 9 million has been paid out by ACC for sunburn, insect bites, barbecue accidents etc. (All trivial stuff).
Something is going down at Work and Income, possibly a directive from Bennett as she can issue one.
an Aad for burglar Good king wencheslas (with a thin paddy and Veuve Clicquot to swallow)
literally, there is no sacred fish sword
evocatively, that’s a different kettle of wish
were you there when they crucified. My Lord!
(there Definitely / Maybe a Champagne Super nova)
From The Stiff Kittens at The Electric Circus
To The Fan Club, Tell Laura I Love Her and that she is the missing link between Elvis Presley and The Banshees. This is our happy Fun House, no need to be a Mayflower at The Electric Ballroom;
King Kong’s not AnTwerp at all swinging Dead Souls at The Moonlight Club (is Kevin The Trojan Horse candidate with Insight?) on a Manchester Beach across the Mersey they Send No Flowers from Republica. Heaven is not The Rock Garden or The Boys Club (Hitchcock Railway) Bus, Le Palace or The Hacienda.
It’s The Venue for Movement and Ceremony, Utopia / Hal4, in The Day of The Lords as New Dawn Fades Something Must Break now 24 Hours into The Eternal Decades Shadowplay just like Sister Ray said, have a good night have a good night have a good night.
-Man of Principle (new world boy on the old Kings Road)
p**s. Phil Collins Henry Rollins Murder Ballads get down get down little Henry Lee
and the wind did howl and the wind did blow she plugged him through and through
they call her The Wild Rose (sorry if I interrupted any mans coitus)
bad things come in threes
Third Eye Blind Hows It Gonna Be. Kryptonite Three Doors get Down. Come on baby light my buick
getting back to The Good Oil,
Yishar shining and clear elaion
shake the fruit with a light stick
bruise in mortar crushed in a press loaded
with wood or stones.rudely hear the whiffletree creek
reservoirs clarified Oil of Tekoa was reckoned nga best. ha!
Trade by the honorable of the earth surpassed that of the Egyptian harvests
Till mercantile cupidity purchased Hebrew slaves repaid by Nebuchadnezzar.
Alexander completed the causeway so the anti-septic function came in Handy
old oil Celsus applied externally with friction to fevers. James certainly recommended it
-Rx (Philo Pliny and Galen)
Job done at 5:13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away
12:3 a man cannot be established through wickedness yet the righteous cannot be uprooted
8:3 for whoever finds me finds life
Love changes everything (plenty to dive into or pennon there through the limestone at 60 per cm2)
dying to the self everyday wears out soles. Sikhism is strongly opposed to caste divisions.Baptised by the sword (interestingly) all may eat together in the kitchen at parties.
-Singh (thats an irreverent non-extremist pun jab) Has he lost his mind? can he see or is he blind
he was turned to steel in the great magnetic field.
The NZ Labour Party Youth section is important but has the Leadership become relevant to the 16+ young adults who will vote in 2014?
A slice of the Opinion Polls that I saw in the course of a marketing strategy session indicated that the youth of NZ will vote
1. Green
2. National, marginally ahead of
3. Labour.
NOT the positioning for a Party of Radical roots. The Youth saw the greens as the ones challenging the status quo. Many saw Labour as defenders of a status quo.
The Labour MPs need to consider how 16+ kids view them. Obviously there is a signigicant perseption thing that needs to be changed.
Boudicea, I could have told you that for half what you paid!
It is so obvious at Freshers Week in any third level institution.
The Youth will vote Green unless Labour makes a dramatic shift.
I know some union people are doing great work on making young workers politically aware. Will they become Labour voters? Probably yes. The new leaders of the Unions are the key to Labour’s much needed re-birth.
I agree with the concept of ‘new’ Union leaders having a large part in changing Labour’s fortunes. There are a high number of piss weak General Secretary’s that need to be moved out, & the standard of union organisers being employed by some outfits is also unbelievably poor. Too many of these GS’s are in with the sad old faces within labour which is the problem.
Chris Trotter had some interesting things to say about Shearers speech and his style of delivery at the recent Young Labour summer camp on Citizen A with Bomber.
Our four children are ALL Green party supporters, despite both of us having worked hard for Labour all our lives.
Last week our youngest son laughed at me and said, “Dad, why would I belong to any organization where I had no say in choosing the leaders? We Greens elect our own leaders and rank our list candidates. Labour is so past it’s use by date.”
Need to get Shearer on an electric guitar…or maybe playing bass.
Can we get him in a dub/reggae band? Like the Mayor off Portlandia?
It’ll have to be real roots reggae.
Other than that, Labour has no chance of attracting youth. Key has sewn up the idiocracy vote (despite Shearer’s best efforts). Greens get the youth who are aware of their future.
What does Labour offer youth. Look at the top MPs since 2008. Stuffy old twats. Don’t expect the youth to vote for their oppressors.
Seriously Rogue Trooper you should step up and write a blog of your own.
Would need an international audience.
But you appear to have a mind like the old arcade game Defender; flashes and reverses, and grand fractal jumps.
– You have several degrees, some of them arts, quite a lot of classics and philosophy
– You are at least in your 40s
– You have described yourself as being from somewhere Deep South
– You are saturated in Ellul and other Christianarchies
– You have memorised a whole bunch of songs, films, and Coltrane-style poetry
Most from this era have simply have that mind wrapped in lines of scar/e tissue in which the whips of the world have worn too deep a groove in their minds. How you sustain that still is quite beyond me.
You have more freedom in that spectral writing-jazz of yours than most have long since forgotten, yet with no shade of The Quiet American or other post-redemptive melancholies.
All it would take is at least a post every week.
What do you think? Can’t hide here under a little bushel forever you know.
I believe I know what the future holds for the world…yet not myself. I have an idea of what is going on since I opened up and began “commenting” on The Standard…(repeated empirical reality testing)…and it is related to words and energy forms, in particular the electromagnetic spectrum…yet this is not occurring in Isolation…I have a deep well of gratitude to many from this site and those that echo beyond…
It is a matter of conceptualization…there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies…a lot is related to what quantum physics has revealed to us…I owe a great obligation to lprent…may be on the radio and in a band soon…yet waiting patiently, reading, gardening, cooking, cleaning…(and to the tr. yes, I can go anyway in the city I live in and be greeted warmly by people from right across the spectrum yet I’m open about my politics and faith and previous flouting of the Law; may be a lesson in there?). I did not go to University (as a mature student) or develop my knowledge and “understanding” to be materialistically wealthy; I have never been ambitious, although a PhD sounded attractive for a while back…in the deep, distant past. I learn to understand, and like others on here, share that understanding for free.
Wherever you go, there you is no “point” at which our skins stop and The Universe starts.
A Very Big uncalled for ThankUturn. :). (and the A MAZERati)
nite
So I am curious about something. You have maintained that Labour is a right-wing party however the vast, overwhelming consensus among political scientists and the politicians themselves, from all sides, is that Labour is a centre left party.
however the vast, overwhelming consensus among political scientists and the politicians themselves, from all sides, is that Labour is a centre left party.
That reminds me of the old advertising trick where the advertiser would point out how many millions had been sold and then say that x millions of people can’t be wrong. The problem, of course, is that they can.
So, back up your argument.
I have. Several times in fact. Go have a look at what I’ve said about Labour’s KiwiBuild.
But there is a problem – you have personally stated your belief that Labour is a centre-right party however you also mentioned that those who can produce the most factual support for their claims is the opinion that should be more widely held rendering the second opinion worthless.
And the facts overwhelmingly support the view that Labour is a centre-left party therefore shouldn’t you declare your opinion as worthless?
N***ism may have been an ideology to which the United States was — and to which the president is — implacably opposed, but it is hardly “senseless.” By the early 1930s, the N**i party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.
On a different topic I only just noticed this across at kiwiblog:http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/02/why_did_labour_put_trevor_up.html which had been speculated about here. But was interested to see the idea that Annette won’t stand for Wellington mayor to keep Andrew out of Rongatai. Hardly the image of party renewal that they are after.
I read that too. If it is true, then it is a disgrace, and it only re-enforces my view of the hopeless state the Labour Party is in. Sorry, my view remains to be, a fresh start for the combined left can only be made by forming a new, inclusive, smart and well organised, newly staffed Left Party, that will not carry such baggage as Labour, either incorporate enough “green” policies, or work better with the Greens, and put Labour into the redundant category.
This upsets some, but I see NO other option now, with Shearer and other hopeless members in Parliament just clinging to their seats and positions.
For all those that have any “doubts” that people get BRAINWASHED by listening to private radio or other media, perhaps have a look at this quite frank set of information from the privately run ‘The Radio Network’, apparently owned largely by an Australian media corporation, and partly by a US share-holder, covering much of NZ radio:
There are comparisons between “media content distribution” and other criterias or information statistics.
I would think the “editorial” content is highly over-stated, as that must include anything but the bare net commercials they hammer your brain and mind with incessantly, repeatedly so it STICKS!
The “editorial content” will in the case of ZM, ZB, or any other of their stations, same as Radio Pacific (another radio broadcaster, not part of this lot), certainly include the highly frequent repeating of the station, it’s mission message and announcements for what comes up, what infotainment they present, and the likes.
So it does not equate with “REAL information”.
I thought this is worth having a look at, to see, how commercial radio works, compared to other commercial media, and how much of the contents is nothing but commercial advertising and much other CRAP.
NZ has the worst statistics and conditions and standards for public broadcasting, when compared with most developed “western” countries, that is for sure. It is dominated by commercial interests, and that even in the state run TV stations. Only Radio NZ National seems to be different, but even they have their internal “rules”, set by the ones that run that station.
Shocking truth. But so many grew up and grow up with this endless inundation of brainwashing into consumerism, superficiality, opportunistic thinking, and individual prioritising, which all somehow is in conflict in maintaining a working “social fabric” and unity.
Michael Bassett writes – I’m not sure that it’s much comfort to anyone to know that the post-Covid surge in violent crimes, gang activity, ram raids, random shootings, thuggery and stabbings is occurring in other countries as well as New Zealand. These days, wagging school, out-of-control welfare and ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – Cast your mind back to mid-December. A new Prime Minister had just been sworn in, the new Government started its 100-day programme, and Christmas was only days away.Amid all the haste, a report landed that would have deserved our attention.I am talking about the ...
TL;DR: An unseasonally early icy blast at the same time as some long-overdue maintenance almost caused Aotearoa-NZ’s electricity system to black out this week. That’s because a quadropoly of gentailers1 have prioritised paying dividends from their rising profits and adding debt over investing in 1.5 GigaWatts of new wind farms ...
Hi,Before we crack into today’s Webworm, I wanted to acknowledge the fact that Israel is pushing into Rafah. Over 100,000 Palestinians are now attempting to flee the one place that was deemed “safe”.Trouble is, the place they’re fleeing to is already destroyed. Total annihilation is the end goal here.“Israel is ...
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveReporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure. “These are huge, huge amounts of government spending. It’s a significant proportion of the government’s ...
Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
Buzz from the Beehive A new government agency will open for business on July 1 – the Social Investment Agency. As a new standalone central agency effective from 1 July, it will lead the development of social investment across Government, helping ministers understand who they need to invest in, what ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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 ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
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. ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
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 ...
An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report says Pillar Two could raise the industry to state of the art capability - or "crush" it "under the weight of the globe's biggest player". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marlene Longbottom, Associate Professor, Indigenous Education & Research Centre, James Cook University ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the violence experienced by First Nations people in encounters with the Australian carceral system. It also contains references to ...
“Instead of following along countries that are investing in death and better ways of killing people faster, we need to invest in life and in making Aotearoa a fair, just and equitable place where everyone has what they need for a dignified life.” ...
MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI, TPM MP FOR TAI TOKERAU This Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori. CHRISTOPHER LUXON Oh well look you know I don’t think that hard-working Kiwis want to hear language like that. It’s just really unhelpful rhetoric. My Government is genuinely committed to advancing outcomes ...
The body positivity movement started with women confronting the unrealistic expectations and unrepresentative portrayals of them in media and advertising. Men weren’t part of it … their bodies hadn’t been sexualised to the same extremes and they didn’t really need it. But now that’s changed. And in a warped sort ...
The New Zealand comedy legend takes us through her life in television, including the time she hugged Elton John and the unshakeable legacy of a girl named Lyn. In 1981, Ginette McDonald stood on the stage of Auckland’s St James Theatre and directly addressed Queen Elizabeth II. It was a ...
An essay by Lily Duval from the just-released anthology Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent.I was 22 when my friend Alice gave birth in the living room of our pokey Addington flat. She laboured in the blow-up pool for hours. Garish fish swam along the inflated ...
Ella Borrie on the best books about motherhood she’s come across so far. Over the past few years I’ve been drawn to books about motherhood. I’m fascinated by the joys and horrors of becoming a parent. The question of children also feels more pressing than it used to. It’s like ...
Out of gift ideas for mum? You can’t go wrong with a bottle of toilet cleaner and a new squeegee. Emily Writes is the writer and editor of Emily Writes Weekly. This week marks five years since I published a post on The Spinoff about Mother’s Day marketing titled ‘A ...
My husband is posted overseas for 12 months and I’m armed with an expensive, newfangled vibrator. Will I miss him? The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.A few days after my husband leaves, a new sex toy arrives at the front door. Nestled ...
Jaimie Baird’s new book Here Today Gone Tomorrow is a record of four decades of graffiti and street art in Wellington, told through more than 1,200 photographs. He spoke with Joel MacManus about what inspired the book. How did you first get interested in photographing street art? I remember ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at a busy week where food of all political leanings dominated. Sometimes you’re just going about your week thinking you’ve got a good handle on what might be coming as far as news topics and then someone (usually a politician) says something so ridiculous that ...
In a week of cold rain and frost, the climate in courtroom four upstairs at the Invercargill courthouse was simmering with restrained indignation. At times it felt like the famous Mexican standoff scene from Reservoir Dogs, or, as someone watching the proceedings described it, there was so much throwing of ...
A banner notification alerts me to the fact that I’ve received an Instagram message from @felicity.loves. She always comments on my posts. I shouldn’t have opened the message, but clicked on the notification before rationalising this. OMG! Are you in Wellys? X I debate not replying, but Instagram will inform ...
In Melbourne’s hardscrabble western suburbs where AFL – Aussie rules football – is a state religion, Callum Donaldson has been quietly grafting away, four months into an odyssey that he hopes will take him to another promised land: the NRL. It was a solid 2023 for the softly spoken 20-year-old ...
Pacific Media Watch Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities in a ceremony at Government House, reports 1News. She has been the Pacific correspondent for 1News since 2002, breaking many ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tuesday’s budget will respond to the deepening public agitation over Australia’s housing shortages by pouring new money into crisis accommodation for women and children, social housing and infrastructure. A specially-convened national cabinet late Friday ticked ...
By Kaneta Naimatu in Suva Journalists in the Pacific region play an important role as the “eyes and ears on the ground” when it comes to reporting the climate crisis, says the European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert. Speaking at The University of the South Pacific (USP) on World Press ...
Aldora Itunu is back in the Black Ferns squad after a three-year absence. The last of her 24 internationals was an underwhelming loss to France (7-29) in Castres to conclude the disastrous 2021 Northern Tour. The powerhouse prop won a Rugby World Cup in 2017 and thought she was done. ...
The fight to control major transport policy and projects in Auckland has burst into the open again, with councillors rejecting Mayor Wayne Brown’s latest attempt to steer things more under his influence. Councillors from the left and right broke ranks on the mayor’s bid to control Auckland Transport more directly ...
Exhausted by the general election campaign, horrified by the twilight zone of coalition negotiations, distracted by the silly season and waiting for the honeymoon to begin, Raw Politics has been in hibernation since October. From today, we’re back. Our weekly political video show and podcast returns for ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Authorities in the small town of Boulouparis have commemorated Armistice Day on May 8 with a new memorial honouring New Zealand soldiers who were stationed in New Caledonia during World War II. The ceremony took place in the township on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior lecturer, international migration and refugee law, University of Technology Sydney The High Court unanimously ruled today that the Australian government can keep asylum seekers in immigration detention indefinitely in cases where they do not “voluntarily” cooperate with their own ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Munro, Lecturer, Creative Industries and Digital Media, University of South Australia Twenty-four hours after the release of Macklemore’s pro-Palestine protest song Hind’s Hall on social media on May 7, the video had already notched up over 24 million views. In ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
350 Aotearoa is calling the Environment Select Committee’s decision to allow oral submissions from just 40% of individual, unique submitters who asked to speak to the committee ‘a disgraceful blight to democracy’. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Helal, Assistant Dean (Sustainability), The University of Melbourne Dubai skylineAleksandarPasaric/Pexels Since ancient times, people have built structures that reach for the skies – from the steep spires of medieval towers to the grand domes of ancient cathedrals and mosques. Today ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Musole, PhD Law Student, University of New England Girts Ragelis/ShutterstockRecent trends show Australians are increasingly buying wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. These electronics track our body movements or vital signs to provide data throughout the day, with ...
Papua New Guinea experienced a significant earthquake on 24 March in East Sepik and there has also been recent flooding there and in surrounding provinces. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland Maridav/Shutterstock You wake up, stagger to the bathroom and gaze into the mirror. No, you’re not imagining it. You’ve developed face wrinkles overnight. They’re sleep wrinkles. Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your ...
The Environment Select Committee has just announced that 60 percent of individuals who asked to speak at the hearings will not be heard. This equates to almost 700 people who made individual submissions and more than 1000 more who made a form submission. ...
The Royal New Zealand Ballet is performing Swan Lake around the country. What kind of dream does the ballet sell?Before going to see the Royal New Zealand Ballet perform Swan Lake, I had about as much familiarity with the plot of this ballet as could be expected from having ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Eamonn Tee. High Tide at Local Maxima It is only going to get worse. The streams will be narrow and fickle. The week will bend and buckle like a pot-bellied waist. You will make it to the weekend with one ...
The New Zealand entrepreneur behind beauty business Ethique is gearing up to launch a new eco-venture. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Our thirst for a tasty bevvy is insatiable, but it comes with a hefty plastic price for the planet: 580 billion ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 James by Percival Everett (Mantle, $38) A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from ...
By Kamna Kumar in Suva Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna stressed the importance of media freedom and its link to the climate and environmental crisis at the 2024 World Press Freedom Day event organised by the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme. Under the theme “A Planet for ...
Tara Ward previews a new local TV series offering alternative visions of motherhood. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. A woman is clambering up the side of her two-story house, clinging desperately to a drainpipe. Nearby, her child is perched on the ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is supportive of the cross-party approach to climate adaptation announced by the Minister of Climate Change today. ...
The Sustainable Business Council (SBC) and Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) welcome today’s announcement from Government around a bipartisan inquiry into an enduring climate adaptation framework for New Zealand. ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision by the Department of Internal Affairs, and Minister Brooke Van Velden, to abandon proposals to further regulate online speech. ...
Its new building in Wellington will not be nearly big enough for all its records, and it has also run out of money to build its new storage facility in Levin. ...
BusinessNZ is congratulating the Minister of Climate Change for his work in achieving cross-party consensus for a way forward on climate adaptation. ...
Recent research reveals the repeal of smokefree measures is not only bad for our health, but also the economy. The Government has repealed various smokefree measures to ensure it keeps collecting $1.2 billion a year in tobacco taxes, in order to pay for tax cuts already being delivered to ...
The club’s surprisingly good season is built on the desire to prove a random A-League YouTuber wrong… and a few other factors.“There’s no way that Wellington Phoenix play finals this year. I can’t see it happening at all.” Those are the words of Lachlan Raeside, an Australian football content ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology Apple TV+ As one of billions of bilingual individuals in the world, it disappoints me when a film or TV show with characters of a non-English-speaking background is ...
The under-utilised course is a waste of space, and with a little political will, it could be turned into something better. For the duration of her stay in Wellington, my long-suffering cousin listened to me rant about golf courses. They’re bad for the environment: water intensive and pesticide heavy. They ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, Podcast at MissPerceived, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows US fertility rates dropped 2% in ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Goss, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra Government spending on health has been growing so rapidly that a decade ago the then health minister Peter Dutton called it “unmanageable” and “unsustainable”. Health spending grew in real terms by ...
New Zealand's largest electricity distributor is warning the country to hurry up with controls around charging electric vehicles or face unnecessary bills running into the billions. ...
New Zealanders have been asked to conserve energy this morning to combat a possible electricity shortfall, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A call to conserve power New Zealand is facing a possible electricity shortfall, with people up ...
Writer Rebecca K Reilly breaks down the national book awards. What are the Ockhams?The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are our annual national awards for books published for adults, and have existed in this form since 2016. There are four categories: Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction and Illustrated Non-fiction. There ...
Wellington City Council should keep its 34% ownership share in Wellington International Airport, argue Unions Wellington spokespeople Finn Cordwell and Ashok Jacob. Insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Wellington City Council (WCC) is yet again proposing to dispose ...
New Zealand’s largest book publisher has undergone drastic changes this week, leaving its future role in local publishing uncertain. Two of the most recognisable local publishers in New Zealand are among those restructured out of Penguin Random House, it was announced this week. Head of publishing Claire Murdoch will leave ...
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Successive governments have tried, and failed, to count Māori. But with the return of social investment, it’s more important than ever to get good data. The post Government looks for a better way to count Māori appeared first on Newsroom. ...
I am surprised that I am getting Face TV on my free-to-air telly. It seems this will be happening until the analog switch off later in the year.
Does John Armstrong live in Auckland? He certainly doesn’t seem to have a clue about the crisis in Auckland affordable housing for beneficiaries and other renters on low incomes.
Armstrong champions Labour’s housing policy over that of National’s or Greens, even though Shearer was “all over the paddock” when talking about it this week, because:it’s “gone down well with the punters.” Which punters would this be? Those who will be able to afford to buy Labour’s planned houses?
He says the Greens have got it wrong because building state houses in Hobsonville wouldn’t work – the land’s too valuable, you see. And, furthermore, Armstrong reckons that is the wrong place for work-seeking beneficiaries to live, because it’s not near jobs. Does he realise it is precisely in such outer areas that beneficiaries and other low income people are looking for places to rent because there’s nothing available closer to the city? Also, the whole Massey area is being upgraded, including the Westgate centre, because it is seen as becoming a growth area in the future – which should mean more local jobs.
All Armstrong’s latest column shows is, which team he’s throwing his lot in with for the next election.
LOLZ, John Armstrong one of the reasons why i don’t read the Herald even when it’s free online, ”The Green Party’s housing policy would require the Government to go on a continual borrowing binge”
Really, the only answer that little quip deserves from anyone is ”Ha Ha Ha”, Armstrong resorts to bullshit (as usual), The Slippery lead National Government just for Armstrong’s education has in 4 years borrowed 42 billion dollars, not a binge, a f**king orgy of borrowing, that 42 billion dollar borrowing ‘orgy’ at 300 million bucks a weeks is the biggest amount of monies borrowed in the shortest amount of time by any Government in NZ,s history, and that borrowing is set to continue right up to November 2014 where the debt mountain will be topping out at 60 odd billion dollars,
Does Armstrong ever get down to looking at what gives every appearance of being a borrowing regime by this Slippery lead National Government managed by those who suck on P pipes for breakfast,
Money, just to educate John Armstrong, when owed to the Government by us peasants is counted in the Government books as an asset as will the houses that will be built with the money owed,
Depending on coalition negotiations we could expect the Green Party housing policy to take up 25% of the Labour Party proposed 100,000 homes, and it is my contention here that Labour should actually move to include the Green Party housing policy into a position alongside it’s own where everyone has a choice of bank mortgage or Government backed ‘rent to buy’,(place your bets now on the majority opting for Government backed rent to buy),
Armstrong’s whole argument ‘against’ the Green Party housing policy relies upon His prejudice against people who are NOT definitely middle class, His writing reeks of this condescension, why wouldn’t low income Kiwi’s keep their new homes neat tidy and well maintained, why wouldn’t low income Kiwi’s having the one chance they will ever get in this life to own their own homes not pay off the ‘equity’ in their new homes that the state holds as quickly as their incomes allow,
Why in fact doesn’t the fucking toe-rag well past His use-by date Herald hack writer Armstrong just not print lines in capitals saying ‘i hate the poor’,
Does the Herald’s pet hack writer own rental properties and can see part of the rental market disappearing into ‘rent to buy’ home ownership, lowering demand and forcing the Herald’s pet hack writer to take less in rent,
More to the point, are the bank’s getting a little jittery, a wee spot nervous, as they watch the Green party unveil a perfectly logical plan where Government acts as if it were a Government and provides not only the homes for the people it governs,(along with the jobs building them),and removes from the banks completely the need to finance such homes by becoming the lender of note for these homes by holding the equity in such homes instead of the banks via mortgage finance…
You are just too funny Mr bad12!
I would love to know, if as a young cadet reporter, Armstrong got a Housing Corporation mortgage at 4%, with the deposit capitalised using his family benefit.
This scheme and others, ensured that NZ was free of homelessness and poverty throughout the post World War 2 era.
witofi, been milling this ova
RNZ-(from the top of the Hill) “we don’t have authoritative broadsheet press in NZ”;
anglophile excess / Nordic Exceptionalism, that’s the ‘crux’ of it.
*some Sunday morning reading please?
(Gdansk the safety danzig)
Israel update; Assyrian retaliation threatened, and the Russian Foreign Ministry concurs
while (out of context) 12M is now owed to teachers, IRD Child Support and any other freakin ap
150,000 cases of Child Abuse reported in oh 12 (but hay, its only up a penny %: 16-14) down south Antarctic rapid changes are tongueing there groove into the Deep ocean as Owen Glenns funds are frozen; it’s trustees (sic) see it “no longer appropriate to distribute philanthropy in NZ” 🙁 Ethics needed in the NZX effectively two counts of underarm trading yet don’t worry, according to the quoted bank advertisement “we can lend you enough money to get you out of debt”, sadly, been there, lost that. B.G & B.S
“Truth has no special time of it’s own. It’s hour is now always”
-Albert Schweitzer (any old dime. A dozen should do)
Armstrong’s been sucking up the spoonfuls fed from the Labour Leader’s office for the past 4 years. Sad thing is I used to respect him as a journalist. Not now.
What Armstrong cannot see is that the taxation from building the homes from the profits made by those contracted to do the building, from the higher level of consumption of building materials,from the increased taxation of an enlarged building workforce needed to build these houses and from the shift off of the dole of that labour force needed to build those houses will in fact far exceed any cost to the Government,
Economic illiterates like Armstrong are paid to seek out a plausible negative which the Herald gladly uses as a plank to beat upon the Political Party’s it’s backers dislike…
I opening a book on the who Team Shearer has pencilled in to the Govt Press Secretary role:
John Armstrong. 5 to 2
Fran Mold. 33 to 1
Josie Pagani. 5 to 1
Seen the home screen on the stuff website yet? Paul Holmes ‘switching roles, he’ll be with Eve now’ the ‘resting kinght’s guide’ in the ever after. I’d link, but that means I’d have to click on it and I’m not going to give tosh like that any page views.
I can’t work out what’s worse – that a ‘news’ outlet thinks selling supernatural fairy tales is front page news, or that they’re starting to venerate Holmes, or that I feel like I’ve encountered a wormhole and I’m in a U.S. southern state. Gobsmackingly cloyingly awful.
Anyone notice that story in the NZHerald this morning about Judith Collins and the appointment of the Director of Human Rights Proceedings? The basic non-disclosure on the Conflict of Interest form is the story that will get her.
But if anyone needs to speak up for Catherine Rodgers, the applicant who was strongly recommended by the appointments panel and overruled by the Minister, Catherine Rodgers is a stunning lawyer.
It’s on Court record that under the utterly useless previous Director of Human Rights Proceedings (remember Robert Hesketh that previously disgraced District Court Judge), she marshalled the team that took on the government about the human rights of caregivers to be provided round the clock state assistance for caregivers.
The Crown and Ministers opposed her and her team every step of the way, court after court, over 7 years, and she and her team won. Right through to the Supreme Court. Anyone on the inside knows the kind of resources the Crown has at their legal disposal will understand what that means.
Catherine Rodgers is a seriously good lawyer, both in the professional and virtuous sense.
But now the story is on Collins. Hopefully its a story that gets some traction. Because if there’s one Minister who needs to go up against the wall come the revolution for crimes against the separation of judicial and executive function, it’s Judith Collins.
Yes, just read it and came here to post .. I will add the link for you.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10862947
How deeply scummy is this government ? What does it take to chip the teflon and begin the unravelling ? Maybe this is an opportunity with the published photo at her mother-in-law’s funeral proving that Collins has been completely disingenuous in her denials of a conflict of interest. Here’s hoping the traction holds some place in the House this week .. come on Winston !!
Oi yey.
Aye the selection of Robert Kee is looking more and more suspect. Collins and Rodgers know each other too. They spent time together on the Auckland Women Lawyers Association executive. The gossip that I have heard is that their relationship was not that good …
I think your confusing Catherine Rogers with Francis Joychild. Francis J did the caregiving case in the three Courts (Human Rights Tribunal, High Court and Appeal COurt). It never went to the Supreme Court. And the case wasn’t about round the clock assistance it was about payment for certain types of special cares for high needs family members.
Yep right you are Jonno. I believe Catherine was involved in the proceedings challenging the legality of working for families.
Well there are some many scandals and sleazy carry on’s with this lot I think a lot of people are just turnig off. What I can’t understandis how this incompetent rable are still on top of the polls , Begs the quetion are they?
Datacom January 2008:
The latest payroll round – the first of the school term – was filled with errors. Staff who are on leave have incorrectly received full pay, changes that were made in November have not been actioned, staff are being forced to fill forms out twice with exactly the same information, some teachers had to be paid from school funds so they could afford groceries. It’s a nightmare – unnecessary bureaucracy, huge numbers of errors. Payroll systems have changed for the worse … The start of year is a critical period for payroll. At the start of this year, 64,733 changes were made for school employees, generating a 100% increase in workload for clerical staff.
Sound familiar?
Now imagine that twice as bad and happening every single month, and you have NOGOPAY.
What about NOVOPAYN. Sort of a derivative of Novocaine (a drug given to people to stop them feeling pain, especially during an operation on their teeth) – teachers getting their proper salary seems as hard as pulling teeth.
I think that all in the majority government should have their pay docked while such poor policy results continue. We need to have accountability from these well paid flunkies of our democratic institution, which is dirty and needs water blasting into all its crevices.
Nice. Yours is better than mine. Hope the staffers notice it.
Hmmm.
If I were cynical, I’d think JB was simply recycling ambergris – whale puke.
But JB’s long history of providing well researched and reputable links for his subtle and erudite analyses makes me ashamed of my own cynicism.
lol. yeah, right.
Green Party MP’s are today taking a canoe ride down the Waitara river in the yearly trek to highlight the plight of ‘despicable dirty rivers’,
The Waitara river as measured by NIWA has the lowest water quality of all rivers in New Zealand,
The Green Party has repeatedly ‘asked’ farmers to help clean up such filth as these rivers are not only the life-blood of continual farming they are in fact the taonga and life-blood of us all,
Fonterra the dairy giant has also repeatedly ‘asked’ farmers to clean up these rivers with little actual effect,
Those who are polluting our rivers should, while they still have time, give far more weight to having been ‘asked’ politely to address this issue,
The time when the Green Movement is willing to just ‘ask’ has all but expired, after ‘ask’ comes ‘tell’ and not long after ‘tell’ comes ‘force’, we all including the farming community have ‘choice’,
My ‘suggestion’ is that you begin to make the right ones…
Ask the farmers? And there are people who belief this is not a waste of time? Makes Footrot flats a futuristic movie.
Upcoming Vote
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point. Stick to Shearer but replace Grant Robertson as deputy and put Andrew Little in there. This should keep most within the party content and appeal to the broader supporter base. Little needs to take the Labour spokespersons role and champion creating job. Shearer needs to be kept in check so any overly overt moves right will be stamped out with Little there.
An innovative option, but roadblocks remain. Cunliffe would need to to be given a serious front bench position and Grant would have to back the overall move. The change would also have to go through, around or over Mallard et al. Not easy.
Mallards needs to be put in his place, a return to the house will be as speaker full-stop. A few others need to go at the end of this term. Fresh blood is needed & this issue needs to be addressed this month, Labour need to take a leaf out of the Greens book ‘refresh.’
Ego’s etc aside and they are all going to need to suck it up and concentrate on the job of sorting the mess National have done. Of course Cunliffe needs to be on the front bench. A rover like Joyce perhaps certainly the innovation portfolio.
Just for clarification ‘overtly right’ are policy’s like raising the age of retirement & ‘compulsory’ Kiwi saver ( low income earners can not afford).
Yuk, Andrew Little. Gross.
Mumble-pants is already unmarketable enough without that greaseball standing next to him.
Image and communication are Labour’s most pressing problems, Little would just exasperate those.
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point.
Most people were predicting the its too late for change claim to come out in 12 months, you’re a bit early. If we take Shearer’s performance into account, I would say 3 weeks before the election should be considered the cut off point.
I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point
I honestly believe the need for a leadership challenge has never been more urgent. Let’s face it. labour is going nowhere. The polls have stalled, the front bench is not firing, and the Nats keep offering up these huge targets which somehow Labour keeps missing. Key is toying with Shearer.
Honestly, something has to change or we will have three more years of tory rule.
It’s not they somehow keep missing, it’s that They are incapable of hitting.
Geez the hollowmen must be loving this, trevz pillow talk must be a world class session in mutual admiration for each others awesomeness
“I honestly believe the time for any leadership challenge has past the cut off point”
“I honestly believe the need for a leadership challenge has never been more urgent.”
I honestly believe you’ve both got it right.
The Monday vote is not a vote on a “leadership challenge”. It is a vote on how caucus sees the rest of the Labour Party.
We need to see evidence that caucus is willing to listen to the membership and that it is willing to give the members (and affiliates) a voice. The energy and excitement a Primary process would build for Labour going into 2014 would be amazing.
“It is a vote on how caucus sees the rest of the Labour Party.”
Sadly amusing that either of them is going to be upset if they have to rely on the other for support at present.
And if Key gets back in then the gloves will come off, and that Power mad, megalomaniac, will sell , mine, and drill everything in sight. And still Labour will sit with their fingers in their ears.
The time for the members and unions to have a say is now. Any shuffle within the current failed regime will be compared to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
13 MP to withhold Confidence in Shearer on Monday.
That is all that is needed to stop the paralysis of the past four years.
The time for strength is now.
And you probably have the Mallafia ringing everyone over, and over, just to remind, and warn them about the vote..
Mallard, TRP, various proxies, Mike Smith and Mike Williams are driving a wedge between the members and the Caucus. They have done nothing to unite the party. They think the only problem in the party is The Standard.
The Confidence Vote outcome on Monday will determine their future status. Yes, Mallard is hitting on MPs. He knows his political future is at risk. The pressure has got to him. Hence the incompetent attempt at the Leadership. He lost his rag on these pages yesterday.
Mallard will bully the List members like Darien Fenton who are dependant on a decent list position. He won’t try to bully an Electorate MP like Louisa Wall, because Trevor is a two bit coward.
“Despite all the intractable social problems and the need for new economic positions, big ideas are largely missing from New Zealand politics at the moment.”
A commentary by Bryce Edwards:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10862864
For Labour to connect with the widest possible cross section of New Zealand society we need to be seen as the Party that:
a) has the right ideas;
b) the right people in place to execute the strategies derived from those ideas, and
c) the right Leader who can convince the public that Labour has a) & b).
Your friendly MP is today pondering how she/he will vote on the CONFIDENCE MOTION at the Caucus meeting on Monday.
Please help them with these three simple questions.
Call now.
My friendly MP is a deceptive Tory lawyer, another ‘safe seat’ that went west in 08 never to return with the bozo labour candidate who’s failed to hold ut or retake it in 2011. Feckless at best.
For me at least it’s about simply showing respect to the members and supporters who get MP’s in Labour into parliament in the first place.
I saw real flagrant self-interest from MPs at the November 2012 Conference, arguing against democratisation of the party.
They remain in power, appear not to need the members’ help in any form, and can therefore flagrantly disregard and disrespect the membership.
They are not my employers. They don’t own me.
They have to co-operate.
They have to co-operate with me if they are to win back power.
I simply want the chance to hold then to account, and to say that with my vote on the leadership of the Labour Party.
Personally I’m just sick of losing.
This leader Shearer, according to poll tracking, won’t win.
I want the right to at least ask the question with my vote:
can we please pick the right one, the one that will have the best chance of winning.
We just haven’t had the chance to even ask that question as Members.
I want the right to ask the question.
I read in the Herald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10862970
that Graeme Wheeler is saying:
“New Zealand needs to strengthen global linkages and tackle government spending and regulatory issues that diminish productivity and competitiveness if it is to lift its economic performance.”
“the other main way of improving prosperity in the longer run – labour productivity growth.”
“First … is the need to lift savings rates.”
“quality of investment is also an issue, with much of it going into housing rather than productivity-promoting investment.”
“New Zealand needs to be more welcoming to foreign investment, and should “re-examine the factors, including tax and regulation, that diminish and distort the incentives to both save and invest”.”
“Second on his priority list is for the Government to return its books to surplus.”
“”This is one reason why it is critical to cut back ineffective government spending, and ensure that our welfare spending is targeted better at those in need.””
“Finally Wheeler calls for a focus on the fat tail of underperformance in the education system.”
” “The bottom income deciles are populated by those with lesser skills, and those who experience prolonged and recurrent spells of unemployment. Addressing these groups would both promote productivity and reduce inequality.”
All of which is bog-standard, Right-wing, how-to-get-an-MBA-without-having-to-think singspiel.
And I somehow don’t think David Shearer et al would disagree with one single word of it.
Wheeler is using snake talk, what he is saying is a return to deregulation is needed and fast tracked at that. Foreign investment ‘sell sell sell’ New Zealand…land, houses, assets so his mates & him can make big profits! Add a more ‘flexible employment market’ ( law changes) increases productivity…and keeps those pesky Unions in their place.
This guy is scum & needs a good look into his books for any irregular behavior… Stalin style preferably!
Frak this guy Wheeler. Another 1980’s trainee of Milton Friedman. Absolutely moronic and unaware of the situation our civilisation is in, and how his ilk are directly responsible.
Thanks English, a genius fucking appointment.
I agree.
My point is that I can hear every point of Wheeler’s speech coming out of Shearer’s mouth – and with most of the Labour caucus standing behind him nodding.
As expected from Shonkeys mob, the opportunity to put a compliant lapdog in wasn’t missed.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Its like they have some speech somewhere in a word file and print it off and give it to whoever is the reserve bank governor of the time.
Yes I often have the feeling the same speech was used previously and will be recycled again as numerical order dictates.
I get the same impression when Shearer Says rolls out.
This one was left behind from the 1984-86 years.
Wheeler has no brains, that is clear. His message there is keep spinning the wheel faster and faster. Where is some analytical thought? Some original ideas? ha ha ha what a tosser spinning the same shit.
Here is how NZ could easily improve imo….
We need to own our country and its assets. The rich always chase the asset and keep it. Because that leads to long term wealth. So that is what we should do. We can start by banning foreign ownership of our land. Business does not need to own the land. Foreign ownership of land is the most dumbfuck idea going and it is only a negative to us. That is why so many other countries do not allow it, like China. Duh.
We also need to drive down the value of capital assets such as land, housing, plant, business, machinery everything. Paying vast sums to simply buy the capital asset drains the income which flows from that asset and benefits only the creators of credit, the privately owned banks.
Drive down capital values and drive ownership into New Zealanders hands, as many of them as possible.
Then watch the country go from strength to strength.
Come on you bloody dickheads Wheeler and English, do some fucking thinking dumbos. THINK.
Thinking not allowed, following hollowmen script is. English is below average at best and looks good alongside the rest of caucus.
The benefit system is under attack by national,we know that, but my situation is that
my disabilities are long term,i had go give up work because of them,i was given a
temporary additional support aligned to my housing costs,and a disability allowance,
all went ok until renewel a month ago, where because of increased medical costs
my disability allowance increased, but i was astounded my level of benefit stayed
the same,i phoned winz and was told that the disability allowance is seen as income
when you have temporary additonal support, penny pinching or just plain nasty?
*sigh*
If you are within the time limit, make an appointment with your case manager and demand the papers to appeal the decision,
Yes they are trying to cut costs by doing what you point out, hoping you will not have either the skills or energy to take their decision to the appeal authority,
I have heard of peoples disability allowance cancelled because they supposedly did not file a renewal,not just once but 3 years in a row,
The problem with that little fallacy is that the disability allowance form for the Invalids Benefit is part of the yearly renewal form for that benefit and it was impossible for WINZ to have missed it…
You have the legal right to review the decision. You don’t need an appointment but as you will know when you submit the Review of Decision form make sure you get a copy that is date stamped in case it is later “lost”.
Contact your local benefit rights service. Mine in Wellington is highly informed and experienced (some benefit rights advocates have little in the way of training and basically go in with you….and that’s about it. The BRS in Wellington has the right type of experience and quality advice you can count on so consider calling them 04 2102012 between 9.30am – 3.30 Tuesday – Friday, and they are in a meeting Monday morning so phone in the afternoon.)
I don’t know about TAS because I’m still on Special benefit which started being phased out in 2006 as I’m on IB too. What happened to you sounds very fishy to me.
You will feel better after you speak with an advocate who KNOWS what they are talking about.
It will help if you take what they tell you over the phone and write this exact wording on the review of decision form (you have to state why you disagree with their decision). I’m cheering you on. LFTHG.
You may find that it never even makes it to the hearing stage as the mistake could be picked up in an internal review.
Thanks all, AWW i will use the ph num and contact them, when i posted i was
wondering if anyone else had a similar problem, I do have a fighting spirit
so now i can go in to battle,so to speak, so thanks all for your support 🙂
I do have a fighting spirit so now i can go in to battle
Every WINZ appointment should be seen as a battle. There is strength in numbers, if possible, I’d recommend going to the appointment with another person, if you feel comfortable with them witnessing the conversation. A 2 vs 1 environment will change the nature of the appointment, and therefore how you get treated.
Even better if your wing-person is knowledgeable about WINZ tricks. Places like city mission, sallies or Auckland Action Against Poverty can help.
Good luck
Celebrate The Bullet when there is Too Much Pressure
Sicko
Moore clearly seen
Just plain NASTY.
Basically they are saying your increased medical costs are a luxury you should give up.
This has happened to me to in the last month re renewal. Both TAS for rent and my DA has not been paid. I do not receive the maximum DA so this is not a cost on TAS, (the cut off point for DA is in the mid 50,s but check this). Anything under the cut off for DA has nothing to do with TAS, but TAS can be paid for health costs once over the cut off. Tying DA with TAS is not on as both are individual supplements in there own right with different renewal dates, (TAS every 13 weeks, DA every year).
I read in the NZ Herald today that over the summer 9 million has been paid out by ACC for sunburn, insect bites, barbecue accidents etc. (All trivial stuff).
Something is going down at Work and Income, possibly a directive from Bennett as she can issue one.
A new TV show by charlie brooker has started, called Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe
an Aad for burglar Good king wencheslas (with a thin paddy and Veuve Clicquot to swallow)
literally, there is no sacred fish sword
evocatively, that’s a different kettle of wish
were you there when they crucified. My Lord!
(there Definitely / Maybe a Champagne Super nova)
-Victa ( a martyr for the piles) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112637/
From The Stiff Kittens at The Electric Circus
To The Fan Club, Tell Laura I Love Her and that she is the missing link between Elvis Presley and The Banshees. This is our happy Fun House, no need to be a Mayflower at The Electric Ballroom;
King Kong’s not AnTwerp at all swinging Dead Souls at The Moonlight Club (is Kevin The Trojan Horse candidate with Insight?) on a Manchester Beach across the Mersey they Send No Flowers from Republica. Heaven is not The Rock Garden or The Boys Club (Hitchcock Railway) Bus, Le Palace or The Hacienda.
It’s The Venue for Movement and Ceremony, Utopia / Hal4, in The Day of The Lords as New Dawn Fades Something Must Break now 24 Hours into The Eternal Decades Shadowplay just like Sister Ray said, have a good night have a good night have a good night.
-Man of Principle (new world boy on the old Kings Road)
p**s. Phil Collins Henry Rollins Murder Ballads get down get down little Henry Lee
and the wind did howl and the wind did blow she plugged him through and through
they call her The Wild Rose (sorry if I interrupted any mans coitus)
Ah, a random spell-check ap goes feral and attacks its master.
:), but wait, there’s more…
bad things come in threes
Third Eye Blind Hows It Gonna Be. Kryptonite Three Doors get Down. Come on baby light my buick
getting back to The Good Oil,
Yishar shining and clear elaion
shake the fruit with a light stick
bruise in mortar crushed in a press loaded
with wood or stones.rudely hear the whiffletree creek
reservoirs clarified Oil of Tekoa was reckoned nga best. ha!
Trade by the honorable of the earth surpassed that of the Egyptian harvests
Till mercantile cupidity purchased Hebrew slaves repaid by Nebuchadnezzar.
Alexander completed the causeway so the anti-septic function came in Handy
old oil Celsus applied externally with friction to fevers. James certainly recommended it
-Rx (Philo Pliny and Galen)
Job done at 5:13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away
12:3 a man cannot be established through wickedness yet the righteous cannot be uprooted
8:3 for whoever finds me finds life
Love changes everything (plenty to dive into or pennon there through the limestone at 60 per cm2)
dying to the self everyday wears out soles. Sikhism is strongly opposed to caste divisions.Baptised by the sword (interestingly) all may eat together in the kitchen at parties.
-Singh (thats an irreverent non-extremist pun jab) Has he lost his mind? can he see or is he blind
he was turned to steel in the great magnetic field.
The NZ Labour Party Youth section is important but has the Leadership become relevant to the 16+ young adults who will vote in 2014?
A slice of the Opinion Polls that I saw in the course of a marketing strategy session indicated that the youth of NZ will vote
1. Green
2. National, marginally ahead of
3. Labour.
NOT the positioning for a Party of Radical roots. The Youth saw the greens as the ones challenging the status quo. Many saw Labour as defenders of a status quo.
The Labour MPs need to consider how 16+ kids view them. Obviously there is a signigicant perseption thing that needs to be changed.
Boudicea, I could have told you that for half what you paid!
It is so obvious at Freshers Week in any third level institution.
The Youth will vote Green unless Labour makes a dramatic shift.
I know some union people are doing great work on making young workers politically aware. Will they become Labour voters? Probably yes. The new leaders of the Unions are the key to Labour’s much needed re-birth.
I agree with the concept of ‘new’ Union leaders having a large part in changing Labour’s fortunes. There are a high number of piss weak General Secretary’s that need to be moved out, & the standard of union organisers being employed by some outfits is also unbelievably poor. Too many of these GS’s are in with the sad old faces within labour which is the problem.
+1
Chris Trotter had some interesting things to say about Shearers speech and his style of delivery at the recent Young Labour summer camp on Citizen A with Bomber.
Our four children are ALL Green party supporters, despite both of us having worked hard for Labour all our lives.
Last week our youngest son laughed at me and said, “Dad, why would I belong to any organization where I had no say in choosing the leaders? We Greens elect our own leaders and rank our list candidates. Labour is so past it’s use by date.”
My replies fell on deaf ears.
Hmmmm. Far too many captured by Beltway thinking and hoping to get Parliamentary Services jobs.
analytical and applied to the grindstone
Need to get Shearer on an electric guitar…or maybe playing bass.
Can we get him in a dub/reggae band? Like the Mayor off Portlandia?
It’ll have to be real roots reggae.
Other than that, Labour has no chance of attracting youth. Key has sewn up the idiocracy vote (despite Shearer’s best efforts). Greens get the youth who are aware of their future.
What does Labour offer youth. Look at the top MPs since 2008. Stuffy old twats. Don’t expect the youth to vote for their oppressors.
The Selecto/er that you are 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you EB. I’ll request a 50% credit from the agency!
sucking back the pea
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10862973
and with a Huff
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/31/north-korea-martial-law_n_2588013.html?
and a puff
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/north-korea-under-martial-law-as-troops-told-to-be-ready-for-war-3371117.html
will there be toil and trouble
http://nwww.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130201000831
-Sam Gae Tang (Tom Yummmb)
Seriously Rogue Trooper you should step up and write a blog of your own.
Would need an international audience.
But you appear to have a mind like the old arcade game Defender; flashes and reverses, and grand fractal jumps.
Think on it. You’re good.
two kind (partly your doing)
So allow me a moments’ presumption:
– You have several degrees, some of them arts, quite a lot of classics and philosophy
– You are at least in your 40s
– You have described yourself as being from somewhere Deep South
– You are saturated in Ellul and other Christianarchies
– You have memorised a whole bunch of songs, films, and Coltrane-style poetry
Most from this era have simply have that mind wrapped in lines of scar/e tissue in which the whips of the world have worn too deep a groove in their minds. How you sustain that still is quite beyond me.
You have more freedom in that spectral writing-jazz of yours than most have long since forgotten, yet with no shade of The Quiet American or other post-redemptive melancholies.
All it would take is at least a post every week.
What do you think? Can’t hide here under a little bushel forever you know.
I believe I know what the future holds for the world…yet not myself. I have an idea of what is going on since I opened up and began “commenting” on The Standard…(repeated empirical reality testing)…and it is related to words and energy forms, in particular the electromagnetic spectrum…yet this is not occurring in Isolation…I have a deep well of gratitude to many from this site and those that echo beyond…
It is a matter of conceptualization…there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies…a lot is related to what quantum physics has revealed to us…I owe a great obligation to lprent…may be on the radio and in a band soon…yet waiting patiently, reading, gardening, cooking, cleaning…(and to the tr. yes, I can go anyway in the city I live in and be greeted warmly by people from right across the spectrum yet I’m open about my politics and faith and previous flouting of the Law; may be a lesson in there?). I did not go to University (as a mature student) or develop my knowledge and “understanding” to be materialistically wealthy; I have never been ambitious, although a PhD sounded attractive for a while back…in the deep, distant past. I learn to understand, and like others on here, share that understanding for free.
Wherever you go, there you is no “point” at which our skins stop and The Universe starts.
A Very Big uncalled for ThankUturn. :). (and the A MAZERati)
nite
-Joey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Blonde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdpTcvSn8HQ
(Three Pillars and I only Fell over the centre one just now; thats how it works, no cards up the sleeve, no sleight of hand; Real Magic and I am grateful for His / Their Blessing)
🙂 🙂 🙂
May all your liminal thresholds be danced over, all thaumaturgies turn real, all entrances en-trance, all numens illumine, ake ake ake.
reply after church
A reaction to the election of Park Geun-hye, daughter of former leader Park Chung-hee who seized power by coup in 1961?.
Now that I am off my week long block I would like to send a question Draco’s way…
Draco – you said If two people are discussing something and one person can back up their arguments with facts and the other can’t then the second opinion is worthless.
So I am curious about something. You have maintained that Labour is a right-wing party however the vast, overwhelming consensus among political scientists and the politicians themselves, from all sides, is that Labour is a centre left party.
So, back up your argument.
No wonder you got banned for a week.
They’re using the conventional contemporary political wisdom TC, we’re using a traditional perspective.
Nothing from The Bastard?
Have you ever gotten into a pendantry war with Lanthanide? You both seem like you’re cut from the same cloth.
That reminds me of the old advertising trick where the advertiser would point out how many millions had been sold and then say that x millions of people can’t be wrong. The problem, of course, is that they can.
I have. Several times in fact. Go have a look at what I’ve said about Labour’s KiwiBuild.
Thanks for answering.
But there is a problem – you have personally stated your belief that Labour is a centre-right party however you also mentioned that those who can produce the most factual support for their claims is the opinion that should be more widely held rendering the second opinion worthless.
And the facts overwhelmingly support the view that Labour is a centre-left party therefore shouldn’t you declare your opinion as worthless?
These are all your own words Draco.
RWNJ’s at the NRO hit a new low.
N***ism may have been an ideology to which the United States was — and to which the president is — implacably opposed, but it is hardly “senseless.” By the early 1930s, the N**i party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.
More crazy, spot the difference.
all at sea; maybe The South should listen to more Medlocke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9xbcPyves
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzZLBXhsnHc
and finish with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHQ_aTjXObs
(cos I been down)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaEJzoaYZk
and found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpoXBbOAS8
(I used to drink, it let me think of other people and other places)
-Sam
oops, forgot, Johnette Napolitano is my alter / ego; I was a vampire now I’m nothing all; Let the
Bloodletting begin…
On a different topic I only just noticed this across at kiwiblog:http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/02/why_did_labour_put_trevor_up.html which had been speculated about here. But was interested to see the idea that Annette won’t stand for Wellington mayor to keep Andrew out of Rongatai. Hardly the image of party renewal that they are after.
I read that too. If it is true, then it is a disgrace, and it only re-enforces my view of the hopeless state the Labour Party is in. Sorry, my view remains to be, a fresh start for the combined left can only be made by forming a new, inclusive, smart and well organised, newly staffed Left Party, that will not carry such baggage as Labour, either incorporate enough “green” policies, or work better with the Greens, and put Labour into the redundant category.
This upsets some, but I see NO other option now, with Shearer and other hopeless members in Parliament just clinging to their seats and positions.
For all those that have any “doubts” that people get BRAINWASHED by listening to private radio or other media, perhaps have a look at this quite frank set of information from the privately run ‘The Radio Network’, apparently owned largely by an Australian media corporation, and partly by a US share-holder, covering much of NZ radio:
http://www.radionetwork.co.nz/advertise/why-radio
There are comparisons between “media content distribution” and other criterias or information statistics.
I would think the “editorial” content is highly over-stated, as that must include anything but the bare net commercials they hammer your brain and mind with incessantly, repeatedly so it STICKS!
The “editorial content” will in the case of ZM, ZB, or any other of their stations, same as Radio Pacific (another radio broadcaster, not part of this lot), certainly include the highly frequent repeating of the station, it’s mission message and announcements for what comes up, what infotainment they present, and the likes.
So it does not equate with “REAL information”.
I thought this is worth having a look at, to see, how commercial radio works, compared to other commercial media, and how much of the contents is nothing but commercial advertising and much other CRAP.
NZ has the worst statistics and conditions and standards for public broadcasting, when compared with most developed “western” countries, that is for sure. It is dominated by commercial interests, and that even in the state run TV stations. Only Radio NZ National seems to be different, but even they have their internal “rules”, set by the ones that run that station.
Shocking truth. But so many grew up and grow up with this endless inundation of brainwashing into consumerism, superficiality, opportunistic thinking, and individual prioritising, which all somehow is in conflict in maintaining a working “social fabric” and unity.
See the “design” in all this?
true