Personally I’m still of the opinion those similarities are coincidental. Trump simply doesn’t have the attention span or thought processes to actually carry out a sustained strategy. Seems to me the correct view of whatever “communication” comes from Trump is that blurting out whatever is simply scratching an itch he’s got at that moment.
In 2009 Bill English was found to have rorted taxpayers by claiming $900 a week accommodation allowance for his Wellington home. The Auditor General came down with a finding that the Wellington home is his primary residence and the Dipton home was effectively a holiday home. Yes, I know that this is old news.
The twist is, where did Bill English register to vote for this period? Southland = electoral fraud: Wellington = allowance fraud. Check the historical electoral roles for Simon William English, Born 30 December 2016.
What’s the difference between Meteria Turei enrolling to vote in an electorate she didn’t live in (Mt Albert), and John and Bronagh Key enrolling in the Epsom electorate when they lived in Helensville?
I worry for the future of this country if you think we need a Green Government.
I have no problem with a Green Party, a proper Green Party.
The one we have though is a Communist Party masquerading as a Green Party.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
I thought it was 10% The Greens couldn’t crack; they must be making strong gains. In any case, calling them “communists”? That’s no way to engage in a meaningful discussion with Green supporters, imo. I notice you, RedLogix, don’t resort to inappropriate inflammatory lables, though I duid think your pffffffft was a bit unseemly.
How long has this Party been about for? How many conferences, how much money, how much effort and life energy has been poured into it? Look at all the lovely detailed policy and wonderful intentions … and still 15%. If you think that’s a ‘strong gain’ I’ve a bridge for sale.
An honest person at this point would ask themselves, just what are we doing wrong here? What’s holding us back?
Well in my experience it’s precisely this perception … right or wrong … that Greg expressed. Not so much the Green Party is a hotbed of closet Marxist loonies, but that your economic narrative doesn’t hold much appeal.
Yes we need to shut down industries that spew carbon, pollute the groundwater and fuck the planet over. But where do we go from there? That 85% who won’t vote for you still want to know where next weeks pay packet is coming from.
“and still 15%”
I sure they would be absolutely delirious to get to 15%.
They did once get 11% in an election but that was a couple of elections ago and was the absolute peak of their popularity.
Can’t see it this time though. Arden is a great deal more likeable that Little and will suck back quite a bit of the Green Party vote I should think.
Except I don’t believe labour lost votes to the greens because of the leader (unless it was Shearer). In my own case, and those I’ve read of here, it’s the too centrist policy, career politicians hanging in there for dear life and Robertson and his gang.
If Ardern’s labour moves left and chases the green vote, then sure, some old reds may switch back, but I doubt that will happen.
I expect labour will aim it’s campaign at the center, and whilst paying lip service to the underclass, will mostly hope to sway soft blue swing voters, NZ1st defectors and the bizarrely misguided voting Top.
When Labour dumped Shearer they were on about 34%. They dumped him and have been going downhill ever since. Meanwhile the Green Party and Winston’s mob have been picking up votes. I really don’t think, based on the polls of the time, that Shearer lost the Labour Party any significant number of votes.
I would have voted for a Shearer led Labour Party in this election. Not in 2014 but this year. They would have been a viable Government.
Who were the idiots who got rid of Shearer in order to get the hapless Cunliffe and the hopeless Little?
Because there was no way that Shearer got the labour party. No point in helping him win with the dumbarse attitudes he had. In the end even John Key looked better.
I’ve jumped nowhere. I’ll be voting in this election for a Green electorate candidate and my preferred outcome would be a quite interesting coalition of Lab/Grn/TOP/MP (in that order).
That would probably be, as you say, quite interesting. It would however be only about 45 seats in the house in my view.
Hardly the makings of a stable Government is it?
Why would you do that and vote green electorate candidate?
Unless they’re a dead cert to win, which I don’t think any candidate is, if you want to change the government you have to tactical vote and vote labour, who will be in either first or second position.
You sure you want to get rid of English? I’m dubious about your methodology.
Ditching mmp has nothing to do with voting for someone who will likely lose over someone who could hold or take a seat off the nats. That’s undeniably sound methodology if you want them out.
So again, why would you not vote tactically if your aim is to change the government?
I don’t agree with you about the communist bit Greg, as I’d call the current Greens left wing but not communist, but I do agree about the need for a distinctly Green party.
I’m interested in a party that can gain power to ensure that environmental issues are always sensibly represented irrespective of whether National or Labour lead the government.
That way something good is always being achieved (not just when a particular lead party is in power) and, over time, most people start to understand that supporting the environmental does not mean bad stuff happens to them.
Hence, I find myself somewhat drawn towards TOP, but as yet undecided.
So with the proper Green Party still not cracking 15% (and that’s being generous) after what is it now … 7 elections … just when do you expect them to ever have any effective influence?
I’ve given them my full card vote the past four elections; and I’m running short on justifications to ‘waste’ it a fifth time.
notice davis siding with bennett here – just saying…
“The Greens have made their bed and now they have to lie in it,” said Labour Deputy leader Kelvin Davis…
“It’s pretty ugly and I just think if you’re going to open up about yourself like that, then you’ve got to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
On the same AM Show panel, Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett said it was a “serious” matter.
“Is she someone you can sit down at a Cabinet table with, and have her running portfolios?”
Davis acknowledged that was a good question, and Labour would be assessing how much Turei’s electoral revelation could damage their own party, which has just switched leadership teams due to languishing polls seven weeks from the General Election.
Agreed. Not a promising start. This is what I meant when I used the “one hand in my pocket and the other doing a high five” line. Optimistic but waiting to see how things turned out.
It seems to me that everyone in politics has just discovered they have some feet they haven’t shot to pieces yet.
Davis’ correct play here is to dead bat it by saying that concerns about appropriate electoral activities from 20 years ago, well before someone was involved in politics, are a matter for the person concerned and not anything that the Labour party needs to comment on.
And then make a vague allusion to there being a lot of hypocrisy going around about Metiria’s actions. Make Bennett squirm a bit.
he isn’t experienced at all – that is his problem – he is well outside his pay grade and yet here he is deputy – THIS is how I know I’m getting old – when this shit happens.
+1 My hope here is that because Labour MPs routinely speak out without consensus that he might just have been speaking from his own views not that of Ardern’s or the caucus. Probably a slim hope though.
The juxtaposition of a professional class white woman getting lots of ups vs a brown working class woman being pilloried is quite something, and something that NZ is going to have to come to terms with at some point.
Davis has a experience of being in opposition, and his technique seems to suggest that he aims to pick up the “other” votes by voicing the reactionary concerns to issues.
ie. If Metiria has gained votes from people who see the untenable reality of welfare support – then there is no use going after those votes, collect the ones from those who still have a unresolved sense of disquiet.
His determination to get Mana out of Parliament last election, was noticeable in the collusion with National. Mana somehow was the enemy, because that was a button he could push – and National was not.
Collusion is the wrong word choice (by me). National hated Mana, and made that apparent. They made it obvious that they would prefer a government without any Mana Party representation.
Instead of focusing on getting rid of National, Davis took that sentiment by National and ran with it, doing their work for them without even being asked.
The failure of Labour to support those on the left of politics is what I am constantly disappointed by.
In that case, Davis didn’t even have to support Mana, he only had to run a parallel campaign. But he couldn’t resist putting the boot in.
I have some trouble with ‘guilt by association’, Marty Mars. Your ‘just saying’ is plain wrong btw.
Just because I agree with someone over an issue does not mean that I agree with that person over other important issues. That involves a serious problem of logic.
Secondly it detracts from the issue as being the important thing.
The issue is one of probity. Should a person register in another electorate in order to vote for a friend?
It raises another issue- that of wisdom. This case involves breaking the law in order to achieve something which was not then achievable- the election of a Green candidate in Mt Albert. An illegal act to achieve the unlikely.
Shades of Oscar Wilde’s quote about fox-hunting – in this case “the illegal in pursuit of the unelectable.”
He agreed with her on this issue – I have been portending these events for weeks – I am quoting and then commenting on the quotes based upon my view – I don’t like or trust either davis or bennett.
I gather you don’t trust Davis. I share your distrust of Bennett, but if Paula Bennett was to concur with Davis that Bill English was also for example a rorter that would not make her a Labour supporter.
You can’t in logic use a guilt by association argument without a large amount of proof. Your throwaway “just saying'” indicates that you know that you are stretching the bow of logic to its breaking point. Your dislike of Davis colours your thinking and thereby discounts your credibility.
Your ‘just saying’ comment indicates to me that you were being at least mischievous………… It doesn’t excuse faulty logic.
fair cop – I was stretching it slightly and legitimately I think – and borne out with the actual quotes
my point was davis sliding with bennett not the other way around – he didn’t need to say what he did – all he did is sow distrust against the left and legitimates bennett’s false and misleading statements – and HE is wrong too – look at all of the others who have done this from the PM down, and also look at what anyone did as a 23 year old and hold that standard up now – no, davis sided with bennett against a potential coalition partner – why? you tell me – I’ve said what I think.
First I’d say that I was just arguing for logic in argument- otherwise, we on the left could be accused of being just as bad as the right in the use of denigratory tactics.
I’d then say that Turei was wrong in her 23 year old action. Another commentator argues this was ‘de minimis’ which though it be a legal tenet that the law does nor bother itself with trifles, especially those twenty years old- otherwise they’d be after me for that undetected speeding offence last century- ordinary people have to consider issues of judgment, wisdom, and innate honesty.
The voters and the media will excuse her or they’ll have a mistrust of her judgement.
The Greens and Labour have an agreement. They are seen to be on the same side. That same guilt by association argument might well be used against Labour who are seen to be consorting with politicians with two admitted illegalities.
These admissions of Turei then give oxygen to the opponents of the left. They can say, as they are, that Labour as the major partner is harmed by its association with the Greens. Should Davis have pronounced as he did? He is faced with a situation which required a response. He responded. Otherwise, he can be tainted with collusion, or woolly soft thinking, or have people saying of him exactly what we say of the Right when they perform illegal or unwise actions a la Barclay, et al.
These have been, in my opinion, unwise events. A wise person should have seen that the argument and the issues would be diverted by admissions of illegality away from the issue of the plight of the impoverished.
Now we have the added electoral burden of our opponents scratching through the debris looking for other misjudgments. Consider what arrived in Australia out of the politician who had dual citizenship!
The point is- here we are, being diverted.
When recently a man died in the cold sleeping rough in God’s Own Country.
I rate Davis, I think he is naturally a man of action. Politicians typically have ripped jaw muscles, expert talkers. A common put-down towards politicians is their lack of experience in the ‘real world’. Headmaster Kelvin turned a crappy criminal prep school in the Far North right around. Made a big difference. Some of his methods were a little unorthodox but highly effective.
Folklore has it….If he suspected a kid was having a tough time at home, he’d put off calling the relevant government agencies and at the end of the school day throw the kid in the seat beside him and drive them home, walk up past the empties at the back door, knock and have a chat with Mum and/or Dad. Someone with Kelvin’s mana only needs to do something like that half a dozen times and the grapevines would be abuzz.
Nobody else was over at those tropical island bullshit jails the Aussies have Kiwis tucked up in and trying to make a difference. Kelvin doesn’t have his secretary flick out a press release about domestic violence, he buys 3 pairs of Nikes and joins the Hikoi.
I believe Kelvin is a bit green, finding his way, but I also see a guy that is at the front of the line when it comes to rolling up sleeves. He is not paying lip service to lowering prisoner return visits, he’s going to give it his best shot. I see lots to admire in the guy.
Ha, yes I’ll be voting left Marty. If I was on the TTT roll I’d vote for Kelvin. Stronger than my left inclination is my admiration of people of action. People that get things done, make a tangible difference. I may well be wrong…again…but at this stage I don’t feel my faith in Kelvin is misplaced.
“I believe Kelvin is a bit green, finding his way”.
He must be a very slow learner then.
He originally got into Parliament in 2008. That was the same year as Jacinda Arden and Stephen Joyce.
He should have been able to “find his way” by now.
yep, exactly, anything else is either malicious or inexperience and totally UNNECESSARY – this is the big point – he’ll try to fuck the Greens up because he hasn’t a clue of the bigger ‘left’ picture – he is just interested in his own little wee sandpit.
This sort of non-transparency from David Carter and the National Party government just adds to the perception they are corrupt and it adds to the perception that New Zealand is becoming more corrupt under them.
What better way to clean up fraud and the intimidation of whistle-blowers than to be absolutely transparent on this issue. But no, not David Carter, and not the National Party.
You are aware, I hope, that the decision not to complete the committee report and not to release the preliminary version was a UNANIMOUS one by the committee members.
That was members representing the Labour, Green, and New Zealand First as well as the National and Maori parties. The only parties not represented were ACT and United Future.
Still, I suppose you never let a few facts get in the way of your prejudices.
I think the Nats are going to try and bring you down. They will use Metiria Turei’s current situation to the hilt, and may even start trying to denigrates other Green MPs. Their DP team will be sifting through files and trawling social media for tid-buts they can blow up into supposed scandals. Not unlike what they did to Labour in 2014. Remember the nonsense over a letter Cunliffe’s office received 11 years earlier which he had no recall of seeing because his staff handled the matter for him? That is what they were employed to do. At the time you would have thought it was the crime of the century.
It will depend on the amount of traction gained by Labour which looks to me like it is now on track to deliver a final result that might even surpass their expectations. So, the next best thing will be to attempt to destroy their potential partner, the Greens.
Sighs. And after that shameful saga over Cunliffe’s letter John Armstrong admitted far too late that he was completely in the wrong. But no accountability and no consequences, so they keep doing it.
winnie to the rescue ( the irony will be thick) – the white night with the texts of truth and the billshitter dealt a blow, a dragon down, a reputation in tatters, a dip in the dipton gnat vote – and that is just next weeks shenanigans.
I mean he will rescue Metiria – you must admit the content of those billshitter tapes is shaping up to be a real game breaker – this will be like lomu (winnie) pushing though those hapless english (the gnats) for the try – so good to watch.
Looks very similar to 2014 to me too Anne. Hooton’s getting his ducks lined up, the right in the MSM are going hard, and the privileged classes are entrenching into their rules and money are more important than people position.
The main thing I am thinking of today is that lefties need to be good to each other. If Labour throw beneficiaries under a bus over this, it’s going to get much uglier.
Agree Anne. They will most likely have compiled a list of minor issues that they will continue to drop at regular intervals in the lead up to the election, giving the public an impression of a huge scandal.
Unfortunately, the attack dogs of National are our own journalists who are so used to playing ‘gotcha’ they enjoy the experience, and have forgotten how to critique and process revelations before playing them to an audience.
I hope the access to alternative views and media is being to take hold in NZ, which will reduce the influence of MSM.
Benefits are trivial at best, and more usefully achieved by improved face-to-face communication. But that doesn’t stop the author from promoting the use of such technology. It comes as no surprise that he is a CEO of a productivity research company.
It’s started. Some of the current journo upstarts are a perfect example of the Johnnie Come Lately syndrome. They are politically ignorant beyond the narrow bounds of current political developments and they have bugger-all knowledge or experience of past political eras. You see it all the time – brash, stupid memes that are continuously shown up to be gobbledygook. Yet their arrogance is such they just carry on doing it time after time after time.
so effectively Patrick Gower is the leader of the labour party then and Jacinda is the ‘pretty face’ to hide the fact that Patrick Gower is leader of the labour party who can / will tell her what to do? I mean the Media / he wanted Jacinda, bingo got that and now kill Turei?
Anyone wanting to know what is going on in Venezuela needs to check out Abby Martin’s documentaries that she did after she returned from a three week trip there.
The opposition are the ones doing most of the violence and murder
There is an economic war against the government by those corporations that control key commodities such as toilet paper and wheat. Supermarkets are full of other food stuffs
A tv clip I saw yesterday showed a man and his protruding rib cage bemoaning the hyper inflation that causes him to miss meals so his children can eat once a day.
By contrast, the pics of Maduro, show he isn’t short of a few good dinners.
That’s the real problem with Venezuela right now. Starving people, fat el presidente.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[you’re on a progressive political blog with a left wing bent, stop trolling (yes, I saw the rest of this the other day). If you want to retain your privilege of commenting here, then stop trying to wind people up, and definitely don’t do it off-topic on posts. Two week ban to have a think about that. – weka]
I was mulling over TOP’s offer to Labour – and it makes a kind of sense. Since the great leap to the right under Douglas, Labour has been managerialist, and in many ways like the current government, a faux technocracy. It’s faux because it isn’t working at all. Take out the migration capital inflows and the ideologically driven sacrifices of the last three decades have achieved nothing whatsoever.
A good example of the failure is the fisheries quota management system – touted as a groundbreaking resource management tool, it is in fact an economist’s charade that pretends to monetize natural resources, and thus lends itself to economic controls. What it doesn’t do is respond to variations in fish populations from either environmental or fishery inputs, and thus its impacts exaggerate negative effects – overfishing when a resource is struggling is self-defeating. So fisheries have not produced any part of a rising tide that would lift all boats because the technocratic expertise was lacking.
Morgan has an interesting menu of reforms, and some are quite promising. But his variation of the CGT would tend to push low income single home owners out of their dwellings, which is probably undesirable. His tax reform is interesting, but the focus is apparently on achieving a flat tax outcome rather than prosperity for all New Zealanders.
I doubt Labour will take up a significant proportion of his policies, but in some respects they should. The only tenable position for a managerialist government is as a successful technocracy. Of course it would be preferable if they learned the lessons of the US and UK and adopted a popular left position. But I have a feeling that hell would freeze over first.
I may have a jaundiced view of our sexist culture and the way women are treated – I am constantly appalled by how bad it is, how unfair and how sick it is – the right will use anything and everything to ensure they win – that is the lesson from dirty politics for me.
According to my partner who’s involved in marketing, it’s highly the double entendre is intentional.
One meaning for the guys as a play on Jacinda’s “hotness” and the other at women with the “yay we’re all strong women lets all get in behind Jacinda and win!”
Your partner is an idiot. There’s no deliberate marketing behind it, just a tag line she’s used previously which developed on its own to be a strong and memorable line.
I think it’s good. Direct yet broad, memorable, potential to be a cult meme, and t’s energising.
Delivering for New Zealand is boring just like Bingles. What are they delivering? Tens of thousands of cheap immigrants to keep wages down and house prices high?
TOP’s is “Care. Think. Vote.” I just laugh when I picture someone actually doing this.
Cycling again on the footpath, slowed to walking pace as I passed by a pedestrian walker, we kept the same distance any two pedestrians would. Police don’t enforce this bylaw, they rightly enforce a lacked of a helmet on my head. Reason people believe that kids cycling with their parents on the footpath while walking, should that be cycling, the dog. Coz that’s what I saw later on cycling home. Bad law criminalizes good people who cause no harm. Sure cyclists are hurt when a fellow cyclist weaponizes themselves and intention crashes into a old person, but the majority act like pedestrians on the footpath and avoid contact with older people because of their frail and notable argumentative natures. Except of course older bikers who are lovely and not at all grumpy.
You obviously are blind. A person wanted by police obviously, was on a bike with a loud speaker on the front. Maybe they had being using said loud speaker to get around previous noisy irrational acts of selfish disregard… …anyway said police officer rightly saw an opportunity to separate said person from the bike and have them fall safely onto the grass. Rather than a much more harmful arresting style of a metal bike between his legs. Was it reasonable,yeah. I pointed out how using a taser on a person poised to fall into the Waikato would have been a mistake, similarly using a taser on a person on a bike compared to just pushing them to the grass. And hey good vid almost like it was intention setup.
Police I believe have a duty to protect citizens from their citizens own potential self harming. A bike is very unstable, without a helmet,causing trouble with a loudspeaker, and liable to self harm if they were to usbike in desperate attempt to flee… …no, sorry like to help but that bike could harm him, separating them was quite reasonable. Bikes are weapons,loud speakers are… …many years ago I saw a boy racer reving his very very loud car in front of young kids, his own as it was in his driveway,now we know noise causes deafness even more so in kids. Was this child abuse, I.e did it abuse children causing them harm,sure. Now you seem to think wasting police time,causing nuisance, videoing entrapment, etc are qualifications for higher ethical standing. I do not. Police should be helped, so they move onto the child molestors murderers etc rather than waste time with nick-picking obviously poorly parented youth seeking attention.
“Police need to be conspicuously scrupulous in their use of violence. “
Therein is the crux of the matter.
Irritation with the victim, does not excuse the police to act in this manner.
I’ve seen a few of these cycling teens in and around Otara, Manurewa and Mangere. There is actually quite a skill in how they ride their bikes, and if they do it on the roads or in carparks – then you should ask, why? Is it because that is their only option?
Also, have seen (and heard) a couple of them with the megaphone. A brief glimpse and soundbite of immaturity and bravado and usually they are on their way.
If the outcome is to change behaviours, the police actions in the video are unlikely to do so.
Nothing to do with intentionality, any more than car drivers intentionally hit cyclists on the road.
“Most” cyclists are fine, but the thing is that a few bad apples do indeed ruin the barrel for everyone. You can’t just identify or exclude bad cyclists – it’s unenforcable. Cars have registration plates, but one lycra arse looks like another. So ban the lot of ’em, and try to ping the ones that draw attention to themselves.
Pedestrians should not be put at risk just because cyclists choose to cycle.
Making stuff illegal because you can imagine it harmful is not a standard for anyone but a moron since we’d have to make everything illegal. Police do not enforce bad bylaws where nobody is harmed, or better laws exist that regard harms that eventuate. People giveaway on the footpath, whether walking, cycling, skateboarding, jogging, laughing, etc, it ain’t a problem bad bylaws are a waste of ratepayers money.
No harm no foul. Cyclists and Pedestrians have no trouble passing one another and giving way to each other. Only authoritarians like yourself can imagine the evilness of all cycling. Just because old people who are not used to it should not be reason to make illegal what is harmless. I’ve pointed this out many times to you, that the state is not in the business, should not be in the business of listening to cretians.
lol “cretian” has to be a variation of Muphry’s law 🙂
Thing is, “no harm no foul” only works in the absence of harm. The fact is that people are actually hit by cyclists, just as cyclists are actually hit by cars.
What you’ve failed to point out is why I should be put at risk on the footpath just because you want to ride a bike. At least have the integrity to assume the risks of your recreational choices, rather than offloading those risks onto me.
The slight risk that a cyclist will hit you on the footpath, as against the high risk that the cyclist will be killed on the road. On balance the cyclist should be allowed on the footpath along with pedestrians, skateboards and mobility scooters.
Noting that fast cyclists prefer the road, anyway.
Even if your “slight” vs “high” risk estimate were based on actuarial data, it doesn’t say why pedestrians should bear the risks of a cyclist’s choice of transport.
And doesn’t explain why cyclists should bear the risks of motorist’s choice of transport either. And given we had one close family member killed on her cycle by a grossly irresponsible motorist just a few years ago … I’m not being all that flippant.
Overall I’m with KJT. A cyclist on the footpath, albeit moving at a modest speed, is highly unlikely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian. There is a risk I admit, and it’s not ideal for both to have to share the same space.
But the risks to cyclists being forced to always share space with motor vehicles (small trucks are the worst offenders in my experience) are much higher. I cycle about 7km to work most days, and rarely a week goes by without some close call. I’ve just gotten good at being really defensive.
In the absence of dedicated cycle lanes cyclists are constantly forced into risky spaces. We learn all sorts of mitigating strategies that aren’t in the road code.
Same with me on a motor scooter, but at least I can make a decent wicket keeping up in traffic. And I fully accept the risks of being the littlest, squishiest guy on the road – I don’t expect other people to take those risks for me.
Someone driving to work on roads designed for vehicles is the same as someone walking to work on a footpath. Movement is a necessary part of society, and we’ve designed around that. But cycling is a personal choice, too uncontrolled and fast for footpaths and too slow and fragile for road safety.
I’m in favour of decent cycle lanes, having worked near a stretch of road that’s killed several cyclists in my time here (deaths since the lanes were redesigned: zero). At the same time, I know people who have been minding their own business walking along the footpath and then been hit by cyclists.
From what I can see, if anyone tried putting cyclists through OSH or workplace safety assessments, the department of labour would press charges, regardless of whether they were on the road with cars or on the footpath with old people or kids in prams. It’s insane. And making other people assume the risks of what is essentially a selfish choice – that’s just even more selfish.
For forward motion, we need energy. Regardless of the mode of transportation. Even on foot, a person weighing 70 kg has an energy consumption of around 0.075 kWh per kilometre. This makes walking the second-most efficient form of transport. Only cycling is a more energy-saving form of transport, with a peak value of 0.025 kWh. At the other end of the scale is the car (0.56 kWh), according to the Federal Environment Agency. According to the French energy and environmental agency ADEME, aeroplanes (0.52 kWh) and motorbikes (0.51 kWh) are similarly inefficient. The most energy-saving form of public transport is the tram or underground train, at just 0.05 and 0.08 kWh per kilometre travelled. Using the ADEME calculator, energy and CO2 consumption can also be calculated for the selected form of mobility.
To find out which mode of transportation is the fastest in urban environments, the German Traffic Club (VCD) carried out a test in Berlin. The test involved the route from Schlesisches Tor to Humboldt University. The winner? The bicycle.
Food doesn’t have to be grown with fossil fuels, but it is.
So what’s the efficiency of a meat engine compared to internal combustion? And then compared to an electric motor? I don’t know, but as far as I’m concerned it’s up to the cycle missionaries to demonstrate it before I believe their preference is anything other than decorative.
And making other people assume the risks of what is essentially a selfish choice – that’s just even more selfish.
Sorry but I can equally apply that logic to motorists. They’re the ones who kill and main with their tonnes of useless, carbon-spewing metal. They’re the one’s who need the community carving motorways, that generate endless animal kill, that keep people poor, obese and unfit.
By contrast the cycle is the only form of transport humans have ever invented that’s capable of routinely carrying a payload 10 times it’s own weight. It’s quiet, clean, uses modest paths and almost never kills other beings. If you’re a little too old or need to travel further, get an electric motor. They’re bloody amazing.
If cars were all one person and barely carried the night’s dinner, I might agree.
But cars can do so much more than that, can pool and do the school run in one go, and that’s before the fact that we’d still need buses and trucks on the roads even if we had no cars.
2: and yet the ten speed or mountain bike is the one always seen on the streets. Oh, and one guy rides one of those stupid recliner cycles. That’s about it.
I doubt if there’s many ten speed around now. And just because NZ retail hasn’t been bringing in the cargo bikes and others doesn’t mean that they’re not available. What that shows is NZ managers failure to adjust to the situation, to keep thinking along the failed lines of last century.
Dunno much about styles, but 99.9% of the ones I see still seem to have two wheels and one rider (albeit in various stages of arse-presentation).
Talk all you want about management failures, the fact is that the cycles of the past are apparently still cycles of the present, even if the cycle of the future is actually a trike with a little trailer.
You’d still be slower than cars, and you’d fill up even more of the footpath, too. And still look like a bit of a twat.
Fast cycling on a footpath is very dangerous as cars coming out of driveways… ..look flock is a fool he won’t understand that people don’t as a rule break their social conditioning, I.e avoiding trouble, conflict, collision, and feels older people fear should rule all law making.
“Let’s do this! /
Rrrrolling with de Rrred Army /
Let’s do this! /
For de love of your country!”
I think Labour should lift the campaign ad in full and just superimpose Labour over the PNM logo. It really is catchy and on-message with the relentless positivity thing.
On the plus side, the PNM seem less likely to sue than Eminem.
Firstly, read the about. It will help prevent you from looking like a moronic troll.
We come from a variety of backgrounds and our political views don’t always match up but it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement and we hope that perspective will come through strongly as you read the blog.
Broad labour movement does not equal Labourite. If you are too ignorant to understand the difference, then don’t hesitate to ask. We like educate the political illiterates
Secondly, as far as I am aware I’ve never heard Stephen Mills. That probably because I’m working hard on Monday mornings. Clearly you are not. I leave the implications about what kind of audience is being targeted at that timeslot and for your simpleton mind.
If you want to try any other implied “when did you last beat your child?” types of ‘questions’, then I will be happy to continue discussing your intellectual and moral deficiencies. Otherwise if you don’t want to be labelled as just another fuckwit troll then learn to engage in robust debate.
{ but what I expect the sounds of a troll whining about how I am so nasty 😈 despite answering the question fulsomely }
I enjoyed the virulently rich, snarling sarcasm. In amongst the sort of nonsense you normally only have to take from your boss, having read through my recent posts, I have repeated myself on this topic. And ‘broad Labour Movement’ was a point.
You know, almost everything I could be doing at this moment is more important than this, and — unlike yourself –I lead an exquisitely trivial existence.
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
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The similarities between Trump’s nonstop repetition of utter horseshit and Putin’s propaganda techniques.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/trump-nonstop-lies/
Personally I’m still of the opinion those similarities are coincidental. Trump simply doesn’t have the attention span or thought processes to actually carry out a sustained strategy. Seems to me the correct view of whatever “communication” comes from Trump is that blurting out whatever is simply scratching an itch he’s got at that moment.
In 2009 Bill English was found to have rorted taxpayers by claiming $900 a week accommodation allowance for his Wellington home. The Auditor General came down with a finding that the Wellington home is his primary residence and the Dipton home was effectively a holiday home. Yes, I know that this is old news.
The twist is, where did Bill English register to vote for this period? Southland = electoral fraud: Wellington = allowance fraud. Check the historical electoral roles for Simon William English, Born 30 December 2016.
What’s the difference between Meteria Turei enrolling to vote in an electorate she didn’t live in (Mt Albert), and John and Bronagh Key enrolling in the Epsom electorate when they lived in Helensville?
I worry for the future of this country if you think we need a Green Government.
I have no problem with a Green Party, a proper Green Party.
The one we have though is a Communist Party masquerading as a Green Party.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Dear Deeply Concerned
pfffffffffft
That’s unseemly Robert.
A lot of people like Greg have considerable sympathy with the Greens stated aims, a fairer society and much better protection of the environment etc.
Where they fall over is they aren’t compelled by the means by which the Greens expect to achieve these ends.
And that’s a legitimate discussion for another thread sometime.
If they were interested in genuine conversation, sure. But their use of the word communist is both inaccurate and a blatant derail.
“The one we have though is a Communist Party masquerading as a Green Party.”
you’re defending that statement red – which is patently untrue, over the top and idiotic. really pffft is a mellow response to that imo.
And the perception Greg is expressing, albeit crudely, is exactly why after all these years the Greens still cannot crack 15%.
pfffffft yourself.
I thought it was 10% The Greens couldn’t crack; they must be making strong gains. In any case, calling them “communists”? That’s no way to engage in a meaningful discussion with Green supporters, imo. I notice you, RedLogix, don’t resort to inappropriate inflammatory lables, though I duid think your pffffffft was a bit unseemly.
How long has this Party been about for? How many conferences, how much money, how much effort and life energy has been poured into it? Look at all the lovely detailed policy and wonderful intentions … and still 15%. If you think that’s a ‘strong gain’ I’ve a bridge for sale.
An honest person at this point would ask themselves, just what are we doing wrong here? What’s holding us back?
Well in my experience it’s precisely this perception … right or wrong … that Greg expressed. Not so much the Green Party is a hotbed of closet Marxist loonies, but that your economic narrative doesn’t hold much appeal.
Yes we need to shut down industries that spew carbon, pollute the groundwater and fuck the planet over. But where do we go from there? That 85% who won’t vote for you still want to know where next weeks pay packet is coming from.
time ticking – hits us all – let it go – young persons game and gain – reconcile this for happiness
“and still 15%”
I sure they would be absolutely delirious to get to 15%.
They did once get 11% in an election but that was a couple of elections ago and was the absolute peak of their popularity.
Can’t see it this time though. Arden is a great deal more likeable that Little and will suck back quite a bit of the Green Party vote I should think.
Except I don’t believe labour lost votes to the greens because of the leader (unless it was Shearer). In my own case, and those I’ve read of here, it’s the too centrist policy, career politicians hanging in there for dear life and Robertson and his gang.
If Ardern’s labour moves left and chases the green vote, then sure, some old reds may switch back, but I doubt that will happen.
I expect labour will aim it’s campaign at the center, and whilst paying lip service to the underclass, will mostly hope to sway soft blue swing voters, NZ1st defectors and the bizarrely misguided voting Top.
Shearer losing votes to the Greens?
When Labour dumped Shearer they were on about 34%. They dumped him and have been going downhill ever since. Meanwhile the Green Party and Winston’s mob have been picking up votes. I really don’t think, based on the polls of the time, that Shearer lost the Labour Party any significant number of votes.
I would have voted for a Shearer led Labour Party in this election. Not in 2014 but this year. They would have been a viable Government.
Who were the idiots who got rid of Shearer in order to get the hapless Cunliffe and the hopeless Little?
Because there was no way that Shearer got the labour party. No point in helping him win with the dumbarse attitudes he had. In the end even John Key looked better.
I know a few people who swore off labour because of captain snapper.
cos they is commies lol
you’ve jumped ship to the opps and some of us have come back home to the Greens – I’m happy, are you?
I’ve jumped nowhere. I’ll be voting in this election for a Green electorate candidate and my preferred outcome would be a quite interesting coalition of Lab/Grn/TOP/MP (in that order).
I apologise – with all of your opp postings and defense i thought you had jumped to gareth’s baby.
Fair enough … peace. All I’m attempting is to make the case that gareth’s baby isn’t necessarily ‘opposition’.
That would probably be, as you say, quite interesting. It would however be only about 45 seats in the house in my view.
Hardly the makings of a stable Government is it?
Why would you do that and vote green electorate candidate?
Unless they’re a dead cert to win, which I don’t think any candidate is, if you want to change the government you have to tactical vote and vote labour, who will be in either first or second position.
You sure you want to get rid of English? I’m dubious about your methodology.
If you really want a dead cert methodology you’d ditch MMP and go back to FPP.
Ditching mmp has nothing to do with voting for someone who will likely lose over someone who could hold or take a seat off the nats. That’s undeniably sound methodology if you want them out.
So again, why would you not vote tactically if your aim is to change the government?
I didn’t mean to be unseemly, RedLogics – I just found the comment unconvincing. I’ll aim for 100% seemliness from here on in.
It is… but they’d better come with a set of pearls to clutch. Fran O’S could set herself up in bizz as their advisor
Bollocks. Can you back up that statement with facts?
the Green Party we have is a proper Green Party. You don’t like it because National can’t throw them in to a nice little box and ignore them.
And it’s coming clearer by the day that neither Labour nor National can address the biggest problem we have – capitalism.
I don’t agree with you about the communist bit Greg, as I’d call the current Greens left wing but not communist, but I do agree about the need for a distinctly Green party.
I’m interested in a party that can gain power to ensure that environmental issues are always sensibly represented irrespective of whether National or Labour lead the government.
That way something good is always being achieved (not just when a particular lead party is in power) and, over time, most people start to understand that supporting the environmental does not mean bad stuff happens to them.
Hence, I find myself somewhat drawn towards TOP, but as yet undecided.
Clearly you need a blue-green party. Please find one and vote for them – spare us your teenaged angst.
Nope – not blue-green.
Just green alone would be good.
But yes, I’ll look out for one and let you know if I find it.
So with the proper Green Party still not cracking 15% (and that’s being generous) after what is it now … 7 elections … just when do you expect them to ever have any effective influence?
I’ve given them my full card vote the past four elections; and I’m running short on justifications to ‘waste’ it a fifth time.
notice davis siding with bennett here – just saying…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/95438005/metiria-tureis-electoral-admission-not-good–labour
you have made a BIG mistake promoting davis labour – and you’ll find out soon enough.
Agreed. Not a promising start. This is what I meant when I used the “one hand in my pocket and the other doing a high five” line. Optimistic but waiting to see how things turned out.
It seems to me that everyone in politics has just discovered they have some feet they haven’t shot to pieces yet.
Davis’ correct play here is to dead bat it by saying that concerns about appropriate electoral activities from 20 years ago, well before someone was involved in politics, are a matter for the person concerned and not anything that the Labour party needs to comment on.
And then make a vague allusion to there being a lot of hypocrisy going around about Metiria’s actions. Make Bennett squirm a bit.
Exactly. And Davis is far too experienced to have made such a mistake innocently. He must have known precisely what message he’s sending.
he isn’t experienced at all – that is his problem – he is well outside his pay grade and yet here he is deputy – THIS is how I know I’m getting old – when this shit happens.
+1 My hope here is that because Labour MPs routinely speak out without consensus that he might just have been speaking from his own views not that of Ardern’s or the caucus. Probably a slim hope though.
The juxtaposition of a professional class white woman getting lots of ups vs a brown working class woman being pilloried is quite something, and something that NZ is going to have to come to terms with at some point.
Again I’m with you on that. Philip Field’s bloody story has the same ugly element buried in too.
Davis has a experience of being in opposition, and his technique seems to suggest that he aims to pick up the “other” votes by voicing the reactionary concerns to issues.
ie. If Metiria has gained votes from people who see the untenable reality of welfare support – then there is no use going after those votes, collect the ones from those who still have a unresolved sense of disquiet.
His determination to get Mana out of Parliament last election, was noticeable in the collusion with National. Mana somehow was the enemy, because that was a button he could push – and National was not.
How did Kelvin Davis collude with National?
Ironic that it’s now Hone Harawira doing deals with the National led Maori Party.
Collusion is the wrong word choice (by me). National hated Mana, and made that apparent. They made it obvious that they would prefer a government without any Mana Party representation.
Instead of focusing on getting rid of National, Davis took that sentiment by National and ran with it, doing their work for them without even being asked.
The failure of Labour to support those on the left of politics is what I am constantly disappointed by.
In that case, Davis didn’t even have to support Mana, he only had to run a parallel campaign. But he couldn’t resist putting the boot in.
He is appears to be doing the same with Metiria.
I have some trouble with ‘guilt by association’, Marty Mars. Your ‘just saying’ is plain wrong btw.
Just because I agree with someone over an issue does not mean that I agree with that person over other important issues. That involves a serious problem of logic.
Secondly it detracts from the issue as being the important thing.
The issue is one of probity. Should a person register in another electorate in order to vote for a friend?
It raises another issue- that of wisdom. This case involves breaking the law in order to achieve something which was not then achievable- the election of a Green candidate in Mt Albert. An illegal act to achieve the unlikely.
Shades of Oscar Wilde’s quote about fox-hunting – in this case “the illegal in pursuit of the unelectable.”
He agreed with her on this issue – I have been portending these events for weeks – I am quoting and then commenting on the quotes based upon my view – I don’t like or trust either davis or bennett.
I gather you don’t trust Davis. I share your distrust of Bennett, but if Paula Bennett was to concur with Davis that Bill English was also for example a rorter that would not make her a Labour supporter.
You can’t in logic use a guilt by association argument without a large amount of proof. Your throwaway “just saying'” indicates that you know that you are stretching the bow of logic to its breaking point. Your dislike of Davis colours your thinking and thereby discounts your credibility.
Your ‘just saying’ comment indicates to me that you were being at least mischievous………… It doesn’t excuse faulty logic.
fair cop – I was stretching it slightly and legitimately I think – and borne out with the actual quotes
my point was davis sliding with bennett not the other way around – he didn’t need to say what he did – all he did is sow distrust against the left and legitimates bennett’s false and misleading statements – and HE is wrong too – look at all of the others who have done this from the PM down, and also look at what anyone did as a 23 year old and hold that standard up now – no, davis sided with bennett against a potential coalition partner – why? you tell me – I’ve said what I think.
Thanks for replying.
First I’d say that I was just arguing for logic in argument- otherwise, we on the left could be accused of being just as bad as the right in the use of denigratory tactics.
I’d then say that Turei was wrong in her 23 year old action. Another commentator argues this was ‘de minimis’ which though it be a legal tenet that the law does nor bother itself with trifles, especially those twenty years old- otherwise they’d be after me for that undetected speeding offence last century- ordinary people have to consider issues of judgment, wisdom, and innate honesty.
The voters and the media will excuse her or they’ll have a mistrust of her judgement.
The Greens and Labour have an agreement. They are seen to be on the same side. That same guilt by association argument might well be used against Labour who are seen to be consorting with politicians with two admitted illegalities.
These admissions of Turei then give oxygen to the opponents of the left. They can say, as they are, that Labour as the major partner is harmed by its association with the Greens. Should Davis have pronounced as he did? He is faced with a situation which required a response. He responded. Otherwise, he can be tainted with collusion, or woolly soft thinking, or have people saying of him exactly what we say of the Right when they perform illegal or unwise actions a la Barclay, et al.
These have been, in my opinion, unwise events. A wise person should have seen that the argument and the issues would be diverted by admissions of illegality away from the issue of the plight of the impoverished.
Now we have the added electoral burden of our opponents scratching through the debris looking for other misjudgments. Consider what arrived in Australia out of the politician who had dual citizenship!
The point is- here we are, being diverted.
When recently a man died in the cold sleeping rough in God’s Own Country.
I rate Davis, I think he is naturally a man of action. Politicians typically have ripped jaw muscles, expert talkers. A common put-down towards politicians is their lack of experience in the ‘real world’. Headmaster Kelvin turned a crappy criminal prep school in the Far North right around. Made a big difference. Some of his methods were a little unorthodox but highly effective.
Folklore has it….If he suspected a kid was having a tough time at home, he’d put off calling the relevant government agencies and at the end of the school day throw the kid in the seat beside him and drive them home, walk up past the empties at the back door, knock and have a chat with Mum and/or Dad. Someone with Kelvin’s mana only needs to do something like that half a dozen times and the grapevines would be abuzz.
Nobody else was over at those tropical island bullshit jails the Aussies have Kiwis tucked up in and trying to make a difference. Kelvin doesn’t have his secretary flick out a press release about domestic violence, he buys 3 pairs of Nikes and joins the Hikoi.
I believe Kelvin is a bit green, finding his way, but I also see a guy that is at the front of the line when it comes to rolling up sleeves. He is not paying lip service to lowering prisoner return visits, he’s going to give it his best shot. I see lots to admire in the guy.
are you a left voter David?
plus this mythology around davis is not necessarily correct.
Ha, yes I’ll be voting left Marty. If I was on the TTT roll I’d vote for Kelvin. Stronger than my left inclination is my admiration of people of action. People that get things done, make a tangible difference. I may well be wrong…again…but at this stage I don’t feel my faith in Kelvin is misplaced.
I see Shane Jones V2.0
“I believe Kelvin is a bit green, finding his way”.
He must be a very slow learner then.
He originally got into Parliament in 2008. That was the same year as Jacinda Arden and Stephen Joyce.
He should have been able to “find his way” by now.
Yes, I think Davis faltered.
The answer to any “What do you think of what the Greens are doing?” questions is as simple as Jacinda made it at her press conference.
“They have their campaign, we have ours, (insert Labour policy favourable outcome here)”
It doesn’t matter what the question is re: the Greens, that can be the answer, varied by the insertion of the Labour bumper sticker soundbite.
yep, exactly, anything else is either malicious or inexperience and totally UNNECESSARY – this is the big point – he’ll try to fuck the Greens up because he hasn’t a clue of the bigger ‘left’ picture – he is just interested in his own little wee sandpit.
This sort of non-transparency from David Carter and the National Party government just adds to the perception they are corrupt and it adds to the perception that New Zealand is becoming more corrupt under them.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/336462/speaker-defends-call-to-keep-fraud-handling-report-secret
What better way to clean up fraud and the intimidation of whistle-blowers than to be absolutely transparent on this issue. But no, not David Carter, and not the National Party.
You are aware, I hope, that the decision not to complete the committee report and not to release the preliminary version was a UNANIMOUS one by the committee members.
That was members representing the Labour, Green, and New Zealand First as well as the National and Maori parties. The only parties not represented were ACT and United Future.
Still, I suppose you never let a few facts get in the way of your prejudices.
Of course, Labour did it too!
Beware Greens!
I think the Nats are going to try and bring you down. They will use Metiria Turei’s current situation to the hilt, and may even start trying to denigrates other Green MPs. Their DP team will be sifting through files and trawling social media for tid-buts they can blow up into supposed scandals. Not unlike what they did to Labour in 2014. Remember the nonsense over a letter Cunliffe’s office received 11 years earlier which he had no recall of seeing because his staff handled the matter for him? That is what they were employed to do. At the time you would have thought it was the crime of the century.
It will depend on the amount of traction gained by Labour which looks to me like it is now on track to deliver a final result that might even surpass their expectations. So, the next best thing will be to attempt to destroy their potential partner, the Greens.
Be prepared!
I expect the GCSB will be looking into things.
Sighs. And after that shameful saga over Cunliffe’s letter John Armstrong admitted far too late that he was completely in the wrong. But no accountability and no consequences, so they keep doing it.
Nonsense, this will all be Labour driven.
Labours got Jacinda now who needs the Greens? Jacinda is going to romp in with at least 90% of the vote.
winnie to the rescue ( the irony will be thick) – the white night with the texts of truth and the billshitter dealt a blow, a dragon down, a reputation in tatters, a dip in the dipton gnat vote – and that is just next weeks shenanigans.
That was always Labours preference
A Labour/NZ First coalition.
I mean he will rescue Metiria – you must admit the content of those billshitter tapes is shaping up to be a real game breaker – this will be like lomu (winnie) pushing though those hapless english (the gnats) for the try – so good to watch.
Looks very similar to 2014 to me too Anne. Hooton’s getting his ducks lined up, the right in the MSM are going hard, and the privileged classes are entrenching into their rules and money are more important than people position.
The main thing I am thinking of today is that lefties need to be good to each other. If Labour throw beneficiaries under a bus over this, it’s going to get much uglier.
Agree Anne. They will most likely have compiled a list of minor issues that they will continue to drop at regular intervals in the lead up to the election, giving the public an impression of a huge scandal.
Unfortunately, the attack dogs of National are our own journalists who are so used to playing ‘gotcha’ they enjoy the experience, and have forgotten how to critique and process revelations before playing them to an audience.
I hope the access to alternative views and media is being to take hold in NZ, which will reduce the influence of MSM.
Cheerleading article in The Independent for the practice of microchipping employees.
Benefits are trivial at best, and more usefully achieved by improved face-to-face communication. But that doesn’t stop the author from promoting the use of such technology. It comes as no surprise that he is a CEO of a productivity research company.
The dropped pie wants Ardern to rule out Turei from government now because, wait for it, John Key did it!
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/08/patrick-gower-jacinda-ardern-must-rule-out-metiria-turei-if-she-won-t-stand-down.html
It’s started. Some of the current journo upstarts are a perfect example of the Johnnie Come Lately syndrome. They are politically ignorant beyond the narrow bounds of current political developments and they have bugger-all knowledge or experience of past political eras. You see it all the time – brash, stupid memes that are continuously shown up to be gobbledygook. Yet their arrogance is such they just carry on doing it time after time after time.
A journo version of the Dunning-Kruger effect?
so effectively Patrick Gower is the leader of the labour party then and Jacinda is the ‘pretty face’ to hide the fact that Patrick Gower is leader of the labour party who can / will tell her what to do? I mean the Media / he wanted Jacinda, bingo got that and now kill Turei?
right?
oh fucking dear.
Good article on the costs to the British taxpayer of the Private Finance Initiative, from the Guardian.
(Good short video on the economic benefit of flying to Berlin in order to get from Sheffield to Essex – rather than catching the train.)
Anyone wanting to know what is going on in Venezuela needs to check out Abby Martin’s documentaries that she did after she returned from a three week trip there.
The opposition are the ones doing most of the violence and murder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig6yFP8HjVQ
There is an economic war against the government by those corporations that control key commodities such as toilet paper and wheat. Supermarkets are full of other food stuffs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYWrPiUeWY
Here’s the perspective of the government on what is going on from the Economy Minister
A tv clip I saw yesterday showed a man and his protruding rib cage bemoaning the hyper inflation that causes him to miss meals so his children can eat once a day.
By contrast, the pics of Maduro, show he isn’t short of a few good dinners.
That’s the real problem with Venezuela right now. Starving people, fat el presidente.
What is a ‘RWNJ’?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[you’re on a progressive political blog with a left wing bent, stop trolling (yes, I saw the rest of this the other day). If you want to retain your privilege of commenting here, then stop trying to wind people up, and definitely don’t do it off-topic on posts. Two week ban to have a think about that. – weka]
I think example might be more useful than explanation in this instance.
Your request for clarification probably belongs on Open Mike however.
Look in the mirror.
No reflection!
First choose a four figure number consisting of the numbers 1,2,or 3.
Then consult the table below.
1. right woolly nincompoop joker
2. really witless nutter job
3. rabid woo-woo ninny jejune
For example a 3123 is a ”right woolly nutter jejune” person.
I’m sure you can have similar fun with LWNJ.
I hope that the political debate 2017 descends no lower than this.
I was mulling over TOP’s offer to Labour – and it makes a kind of sense. Since the great leap to the right under Douglas, Labour has been managerialist, and in many ways like the current government, a faux technocracy. It’s faux because it isn’t working at all. Take out the migration capital inflows and the ideologically driven sacrifices of the last three decades have achieved nothing whatsoever.
A good example of the failure is the fisheries quota management system – touted as a groundbreaking resource management tool, it is in fact an economist’s charade that pretends to monetize natural resources, and thus lends itself to economic controls. What it doesn’t do is respond to variations in fish populations from either environmental or fishery inputs, and thus its impacts exaggerate negative effects – overfishing when a resource is struggling is self-defeating. So fisheries have not produced any part of a rising tide that would lift all boats because the technocratic expertise was lacking.
Morgan has an interesting menu of reforms, and some are quite promising. But his variation of the CGT would tend to push low income single home owners out of their dwellings, which is probably undesirable. His tax reform is interesting, but the focus is apparently on achieving a flat tax outcome rather than prosperity for all New Zealanders.
I doubt Labour will take up a significant proportion of his policies, but in some respects they should. The only tenable position for a managerialist government is as a successful technocracy. Of course it would be preferable if they learned the lessons of the US and UK and adopted a popular left position. But I have a feeling that hell would freeze over first.
Now official!
I hope they’ve considered this carefully, I really do.
What are your reservations? That it’s open to some attack from National by association with other uses of the phrase?
double entendre springs to mind – probably just my devious mind
Oh, I see what you mean. Not sure it’s a route of attack for the National Party though.
I may have a jaundiced view of our sexist culture and the way women are treated – I am constantly appalled by how bad it is, how unfair and how sick it is – the right will use anything and everything to ensure they win – that is the lesson from dirty politics for me.
You weren’t the only one.
Good Grief!
🙄
According to my partner who’s involved in marketing, it’s highly the double entendre is intentional.
One meaning for the guys as a play on Jacinda’s “hotness” and the other at women with the “yay we’re all strong women lets all get in behind Jacinda and win!”
Your partner is an idiot. There’s no deliberate marketing behind it, just a tag line she’s used previously which developed on its own to be a strong and memorable line.
I think it’s good. Direct yet broad, memorable, potential to be a cult meme, and t’s energising.
Delivering for New Zealand is boring just like Bingles. What are they delivering? Tens of thousands of cheap immigrants to keep wages down and house prices high?
TOP’s is “Care. Think. Vote.” I just laugh when I picture someone actually doing this.
UF’s is ‘Vote Peter Dunne’. Amaaaaazing!
Caring is laughable.
Thinking is laughable.
Voting is laughable.
Attempting all three at once must be a complete riot I guess …
I agree.
It reminds me of Nike’s “Just Do It”.
It’s quite possibly what went through Jacinda Ardern’s mind when she had to decide to become the Leader of the Opposition.
“Vote Peter Dunne” just wants me to get some of his hair and make a Voodoo doll …
Cycling again on the footpath, slowed to walking pace as I passed by a pedestrian walker, we kept the same distance any two pedestrians would. Police don’t enforce this bylaw, they rightly enforce a lacked of a helmet on my head. Reason people believe that kids cycling with their parents on the footpath while walking, should that be cycling, the dog. Coz that’s what I saw later on cycling home. Bad law criminalizes good people who cause no harm. Sure cyclists are hurt when a fellow cyclist weaponizes themselves and intention crashes into a old person, but the majority act like pedestrians on the footpath and avoid contact with older people because of their frail and notable argumentative natures. Except of course older bikers who are lovely and not at all grumpy.
Police are selective in their enforcement of cycling.
http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/regional/teen-pushed-bike-police-officer
Helmets have caused a drop in cycling that renders their effectiveness moot.
You obviously are blind. A person wanted by police obviously, was on a bike with a loud speaker on the front. Maybe they had being using said loud speaker to get around previous noisy irrational acts of selfish disregard… …anyway said police officer rightly saw an opportunity to separate said person from the bike and have them fall safely onto the grass. Rather than a much more harmful arresting style of a metal bike between his legs. Was it reasonable,yeah. I pointed out how using a taser on a person poised to fall into the Waikato would have been a mistake, similarly using a taser on a person on a bike compared to just pushing them to the grass. And hey good vid almost like it was intention setup.
Tasers are for use against armed assailants. The cyclist wasn’t armed.
Police I believe have a duty to protect citizens from their citizens own potential self harming. A bike is very unstable, without a helmet,causing trouble with a loudspeaker, and liable to self harm if they were to usbike in desperate attempt to flee… …no, sorry like to help but that bike could harm him, separating them was quite reasonable. Bikes are weapons,loud speakers are… …many years ago I saw a boy racer reving his very very loud car in front of young kids, his own as it was in his driveway,now we know noise causes deafness even more so in kids. Was this child abuse, I.e did it abuse children causing them harm,sure. Now you seem to think wasting police time,causing nuisance, videoing entrapment, etc are qualifications for higher ethical standing. I do not. Police should be helped, so they move onto the child molestors murderers etc rather than waste time with nick-picking obviously poorly parented youth seeking attention.
Police need to be conspicuously scrupulous in their use of violence.
You have tried and convicted the cyclist without being fully apprised of the facts – a judge might well reach a very different conclusion.
“Police need to be conspicuously scrupulous in their use of violence. “
Therein is the crux of the matter.
Irritation with the victim, does not excuse the police to act in this manner.
I’ve seen a few of these cycling teens in and around Otara, Manurewa and Mangere. There is actually quite a skill in how they ride their bikes, and if they do it on the roads or in carparks – then you should ask, why? Is it because that is their only option?
Also, have seen (and heard) a couple of them with the megaphone. A brief glimpse and soundbite of immaturity and bravado and usually they are on their way.
If the outcome is to change behaviours, the police actions in the video are unlikely to do so.
Nothing to do with intentionality, any more than car drivers intentionally hit cyclists on the road.
“Most” cyclists are fine, but the thing is that a few bad apples do indeed ruin the barrel for everyone. You can’t just identify or exclude bad cyclists – it’s unenforcable. Cars have registration plates, but one lycra arse looks like another. So ban the lot of ’em, and try to ping the ones that draw attention to themselves.
Pedestrians should not be put at risk just because cyclists choose to cycle.
Making stuff illegal because you can imagine it harmful is not a standard for anyone but a moron since we’d have to make everything illegal. Police do not enforce bad bylaws where nobody is harmed, or better laws exist that regard harms that eventuate. People giveaway on the footpath, whether walking, cycling, skateboarding, jogging, laughing, etc, it ain’t a problem bad bylaws are a waste of ratepayers money.
But I’m not imagining harm. I know harm has occurred. To people I know.
Not all people give way. Sometimes people bump into each other. Why should your choice of transport or recreation endanger me?
No harm no foul. Cyclists and Pedestrians have no trouble passing one another and giving way to each other. Only authoritarians like yourself can imagine the evilness of all cycling. Just because old people who are not used to it should not be reason to make illegal what is harmless. I’ve pointed this out many times to you, that the state is not in the business, should not be in the business of listening to cretians.
lol “cretian” has to be a variation of Muphry’s law 🙂
Thing is, “no harm no foul” only works in the absence of harm. The fact is that people are actually hit by cyclists, just as cyclists are actually hit by cars.
What you’ve failed to point out is why I should be put at risk on the footpath just because you want to ride a bike. At least have the integrity to assume the risks of your recreational choices, rather than offloading those risks onto me.
He may have meant “all Cretians lie”. 🙂
The slight risk that a cyclist will hit you on the footpath, as against the high risk that the cyclist will be killed on the road. On balance the cyclist should be allowed on the footpath along with pedestrians, skateboards and mobility scooters.
Noting that fast cyclists prefer the road, anyway.
Even if your “slight” vs “high” risk estimate were based on actuarial data, it doesn’t say why pedestrians should bear the risks of a cyclist’s choice of transport.
And doesn’t explain why cyclists should bear the risks of motorist’s choice of transport either. And given we had one close family member killed on her cycle by a grossly irresponsible motorist just a few years ago … I’m not being all that flippant.
Overall I’m with KJT. A cyclist on the footpath, albeit moving at a modest speed, is highly unlikely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian. There is a risk I admit, and it’s not ideal for both to have to share the same space.
But the risks to cyclists being forced to always share space with motor vehicles (small trucks are the worst offenders in my experience) are much higher. I cycle about 7km to work most days, and rarely a week goes by without some close call. I’ve just gotten good at being really defensive.
In the absence of dedicated cycle lanes cyclists are constantly forced into risky spaces. We learn all sorts of mitigating strategies that aren’t in the road code.
Same with me on a motor scooter, but at least I can make a decent wicket keeping up in traffic. And I fully accept the risks of being the littlest, squishiest guy on the road – I don’t expect other people to take those risks for me.
Someone driving to work on roads designed for vehicles is the same as someone walking to work on a footpath. Movement is a necessary part of society, and we’ve designed around that. But cycling is a personal choice, too uncontrolled and fast for footpaths and too slow and fragile for road safety.
I’m in favour of decent cycle lanes, having worked near a stretch of road that’s killed several cyclists in my time here (deaths since the lanes were redesigned: zero). At the same time, I know people who have been minding their own business walking along the footpath and then been hit by cyclists.
From what I can see, if anyone tried putting cyclists through OSH or workplace safety assessments, the department of labour would press charges, regardless of whether they were on the road with cars or on the footpath with old people or kids in prams. It’s insane. And making other people assume the risks of what is essentially a selfish choice – that’s just even more selfish.
Driving and thus pushing climate change is the selfish choice.
Well, that’s arguable.
How efficient is a meat-engine running on food grown largely with fossil-fertilisers vs an internal combustion engine?
Food doesn’t have to be grown with fossil fuels.
And the efficiency’s good:
So, yeah, the twits are still the ones in cars.
Food doesn’t have to be grown with fossil fuels, but it is.
So what’s the efficiency of a meat engine compared to internal combustion? And then compared to an electric motor? I don’t know, but as far as I’m concerned it’s up to the cycle missionaries to demonstrate it before I believe their preference is anything other than decorative.
And making other people assume the risks of what is essentially a selfish choice – that’s just even more selfish.
Sorry but I can equally apply that logic to motorists. They’re the ones who kill and main with their tonnes of useless, carbon-spewing metal. They’re the one’s who need the community carving motorways, that generate endless animal kill, that keep people poor, obese and unfit.
By contrast the cycle is the only form of transport humans have ever invented that’s capable of routinely carrying a payload 10 times it’s own weight. It’s quiet, clean, uses modest paths and almost never kills other beings. If you’re a little too old or need to travel further, get an electric motor. They’re bloody amazing.
If cars were all one person and barely carried the night’s dinner, I might agree.
But cars can do so much more than that, can pool and do the school run in one go, and that’s before the fact that we’d still need buses and trucks on the roads even if we had no cars.
Cycles… not so much.
For example:
https://cargocycles.com.au/
The fastest growing category in Europe.
Lots of incredibly talented people coming up with a hugely diverse range of designs the past few years. Your grandfathers’ ten speed is history.
1: bwahahahaha
2: and yet the ten speed or mountain bike is the one always seen on the streets. Oh, and one guy rides one of those stupid recliner cycles. That’s about it.
I doubt if there’s many ten speed around now. And just because NZ retail hasn’t been bringing in the cargo bikes and others doesn’t mean that they’re not available. What that shows is NZ managers failure to adjust to the situation, to keep thinking along the failed lines of last century.
Dunno much about styles, but 99.9% of the ones I see still seem to have two wheels and one rider (albeit in various stages of arse-presentation).
Talk all you want about management failures, the fact is that the cycles of the past are apparently still cycles of the present, even if the cycle of the future is actually a trike with a little trailer.
You’d still be slower than cars, and you’d fill up even more of the footpath, too. And still look like a bit of a twat.
Fast cycling on a footpath is very dangerous as cars coming out of driveways… ..look flock is a fool he won’t understand that people don’t as a rule break their social conditioning, I.e avoiding trouble, conflict, collision, and feels older people fear should rule all law making.
So it seems Labour’s fresh new slogan was already used by the People’s National Movement in Trinidad and Tobago last year. Here is their campaign ad:
https://youtu.be/gNesq_P4luE
“Let’s do this! /
Rrrrolling with de Rrred Army /
Let’s do this! /
For de love of your country!”
I think Labour should lift the campaign ad in full and just superimpose Labour over the PNM logo. It really is catchy and on-message with the relentless positivity thing.
On the plus side, the PNM seem less likely to sue than Eminem.
Too late , but do any of you supposed Labourites support Stephen Mills as the voice of the Left on RNZ’s Monday morning ‘Left v. Right’ ?
Firstly, read the about. It will help prevent you from looking like a moronic troll.
Broad labour movement does not equal Labourite. If you are too ignorant to understand the difference, then don’t hesitate to ask. We like educate the political illiterates
Secondly, as far as I am aware I’ve never heard Stephen Mills. That probably because I’m working hard on Monday mornings. Clearly you are not. I leave the implications about what kind of audience is being targeted at that timeslot and for your simpleton mind.
If you want to try any other implied “when did you last beat your child?” types of ‘questions’, then I will be happy to continue discussing your intellectual and moral deficiencies. Otherwise if you don’t want to be labelled as just another fuckwit troll then learn to engage in robust debate.
{ but what I expect the sounds of a troll whining about how I am so nasty 😈 despite answering the question fulsomely }
I enjoyed the virulently rich, snarling sarcasm. In amongst the sort of nonsense you normally only have to take from your boss, having read through my recent posts, I have repeated myself on this topic. And ‘broad Labour Movement’ was a point.
You know, almost everything I could be doing at this moment is more important than this, and — unlike yourself –I lead an exquisitely trivial existence.