English interviewed on newshub this morning… But Prime Minister you have introduced 16 new taxes since national took office…. pause… but that was part of our tax reform…English was also reminded they raised GST and brought in more fuel taxes.
Since taking the reins in 2008, National has introduced at least 18 new taxes and levies – six of them on petrol. Others include:
raising GST (after promising not to)
a tax on employer KiwiSaver contributions
new student loan and Family Court fees
the bright line capital gains tax on flipping houses
a border clearance levy
including GST on digital purchases
removing tax refunds for kids doing part-time work.
Thanks Cinny. Bill is quick isn’t he. “But Prime Minister you raised taxes 18 times.”
Pause. No change of expression. Then into deflection and justification. Wow! Would you buy a car from this man?
Paula Bennett: “Some have fewer human rights than others when they are creating a string of victims behind them … there is a different standard.”
Where are the howls of outrage from the MSM? This is the thin end of the wedge for ushering in a police state! Of course, if ‘you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,’ Dr. Goebbels.
Bennett is a threat to democracy and as such, has no place in our parliament! IMHO.
Plus being in power with ACT and their education policy that essentially removes the right to freedom of association in the workplace. Hmmm. Democracy at it’s best. /sarc
Alwyn – appropriate that you should choose a stage instruction from ‘A Winter’s Tale’.
As I’m sure you know, the late romances (tragicomedies) are marked by incipient tragedies turned somehow into magical/mystical redemptions. And young women/girls play an important role in that change of fortune in ‘The Tempest’, ‘A Winter’s Tale’ , ‘Pericles’ and ‘Cymbeline’.
Seems to describe our current political situation rather well?
“As I’m sure you know”.
Then you are a great deal more sure of it than I am.
I only ever read, and watched, Shakespeare’s plays because they were fun. You obviously know a great deal more about his work than I do.
I have known cases, and they are the ones I think of, where the words “until the last minute” was used to mean “until disaster strikes and we have to run”.
As in. “We kept adding sandbags to the top of the levees in New Orleans until the last possible minute”.
It may not be the standard use of the phrase but it is the one I think of. Hence, when all hope is lost of affecting the result of the election Ad is heading for the hills.
I didn’t hear the clarification – but what troubles me is the ‘mind-set’ of people like Bennett and Seymour. Their first inclination is to ‘strengthen police rights!’
The fact that the teacher unions are strong is one reason education is not a complete basket case already, like in some states of America.
English did a good job on RNZ saying Bennett was wrong, didn’t articulate the policy correctly, and Prof Andrew Geddis noted that clarification.
He didn’t “clarify” his own statement that he’s pleased NZ doesn’t have a constitution to put constraints on his power to decide who has human rights and who doesn’t?
“making it superior law”.
We don’t have any such concept in our legal system, do we?
That is a concept in the US system where a Court can rule that an act of the Government is antithetical to the Constitution I would have thought.
Surely our rule, that a Government cannot bind its successor, would prevent us having anything like these “superior laws”?
Even an entrenched law doesn’t really mean what it says. Can’t you remove the entrenchment by a simple majority in Parliament and then revoke the law by a simple majority after that?
Ps. I am not a lawyer, and don’t claim that these suppositions are what the law really means.
We don’t have any such concept in our legal system, do we?
Nope. That is the position that a written constitution would fill and why Blinglish is so happy that we don’t have one.
That is a concept in the US system where a Court can rule that an act of the Government is antithetical to the Constitution I would have thought.
Surely our rule, that a Government cannot bind its successor, would prevent us having anything like these “superior laws”?
That is correct and so we end up with governments that rule against human rights and other stuff that are detrimental to the general populace (but good for business and the rich) because there’s no restrictions on them doing so.
Can’t you remove the entrenchment by a simple majority in Parliament and then revoke the law by a simple majority after that?
Let’s get this clear not all people whom work in our justice systems are bad most of them work to try and make our society
Safer but some are bad and Will use any means to get there mark man.
So this new law Bennett is backing will be used by these bad cops as a tool to manipulate these people lives and could be used to manipulate these people children lives to.
I have stayed off the topic of our youths suicide.
Most of our best stars can not see a light at the end of there tunnel they can not see a future they like.
Yes its our youths that can predict there future and they are intelligent .
My friend whom was really intelligent his dad had all his financial needs solve for him . But he would take not his money he was like young a brother to me .
But I was to busie trying to make a nest egg for my family to notice my friends problems he had a lot of school friends
If some one starts giving away things take note of that person because this is the first sign of that problem.
Most times our youth just want to be loved and cared for someone to listen to them any life lost is not on.
But our youth that are the brightest stars that do this are a BIG BAD STAIN ON OUR SOCIETY AND A WASTE OF OUR BEST CHILDREN WTF.
Bennett using Trump tack ticks to stir up the emotional and racial cards in our society.
Gangs most times pray on the underprivileged the people who are desperate and poor the people they can intimidate they. They could affect our youth.But you won’t see these people harass anyone that will ring the cops on them because they no the people who will do this and who won’t ring the cops on them.
So don’t let Bennett play with your emotions.
Now people don’t listen to the lies that have are being spread about me cops lie
1 when have u heard a cop plead guilty
2 if you are hearing these lies Somme is breaking the law
3 If these lies were true I wound not be blogging now to u.
4 my old clients no that I’m not a threat and Don’t want me to sell my lawn run the cops can’t have the public no there are cheat s in there force enough said the facts of there behaving like this are out there
Now I DON’T believe in fathers day and all that stuff just to get us spend money.
As I’m a father grandfather 360 days of the year so I would rather save my money and give it to my family in times of there need!!!!
Now I’m using my position of power to fight the neo liberals that are control freaks and who run our world I’m fighting these people for my HUMAN rights and privacy rights as I am a human I’m fighting for the rights for all the underprivileged in our WORLD
I’m using my position of power to fight for our children our greatgrandchildern future our environment our wildlife all of this will be exploited by the neo liberals if they can make a buck out of them
Congratulations to Kenyans for winning the first battle to have a legitimate President elected the people of Kenya will have to keep a sharp eye on every process in the next election .
Don’t let foreigners advise you on how to run your country as only Kenyans no what is good for all the people of Kenya ALL THE BEST TO Kenya.
Uruguay has become the first country to legalise marijuana for recreational use but United States banks won’t deal with any Uruguay banks that do business with businesses selling marijuana in that country making it impossible for the Uruguayan banks to accept money from those businesses. Not only does this show how difficult it will be for marijuana to be legalised by countries but also just how powerful the American banking system.
All these sanctions are just causing other countries to abandon the American banking system and US dollar as exchange currency , and set up their own systems., with alternative SWIFT arrangements Russia,China, Iran , even Saudi Arabia are using their own currencies for oil trade.
Despite terrible US sanctions against Iran that went on for decades, Iran survived and even grew by learning to circumvent those sanctions.
Cuba is another example of successful resistance
The more desperate the US gets, the more it seals its own fate as more and more countries learn to bypass the US banking system
I fail to see what your comments about SWIFT mean.
SWIFT is not a US organisation and is not governed by US law. It is incorporated in Belgian and is governed by Belgian, and hence EU law.
It is also only a messaging system and does not hold or transfer funds between banks or other parties, It merely transfers, securely, messages between its banking shareholder members.
With reference to yesterday’s discussion on Brodifacoum and the Brook Valley sanctuary, here’s why I don’t take anti-poisoning campaigners very seriously – they tend to make anti-vaxxers and anti-fluoride campaigners look reasonable. These two have managed to inspire sympathy for Nick Smith, a feat I would have considered Herculean up until now.
There are many people in Nelson who are so angry with Smith. Most Saturday mornings his caravan is protested at the Nelson market by many different factions.
What they did with the poison was a bit OTT, but they are at the end of their tether, the Brook Valley Sanctuary is a very polarising issue for Nelson.
It appears that Nick is looking for sympathy, the thing is I doubt he will find much in Nelson no matter how many newspapers he asks to print his story because Nick being targeting is nothing new for Nelsonians.
Maybe protestors should looking at getting the fantastic toilet sculpture trucked up here and placed next to Smith as a prop at his street corner meetings and brought to the Saturday market, now that would create a bit of interest and a good reminder to people what he has done.
Am expecting him to have quite a large drop in votes this election, would be thrilled if he lost. People are talking about tactical voting to get rid of him, my advice vote for the next strongest candidate, Matt Lawrey from the Greens.
That’s one way of putting it. Another way would be that people who feel very strongly about something but don’t have rational arguments to back up those strong feelings should maybe do a bit of self-reflection, rather than just assuming they have to resort to vandalism and assault because it’s impossible their emotions could misguide them.
These guys are resorting to vandalism and assault because their various attempts to persuade the courts to agree with them have failed – due to the weakness of their arguments. Having strong feelings about something is never an acceptable substitute for having a persuasive argument, and pointing that out is not ad hominem.
It’s actually more of an accurate description than an ad hom. At the very least, the anti-poisoners seem to have some difficulty in expressing a rational argument against the poison drop.
Some rational arguments might revolve around points such as:
X is in practise ineffective against the target species;
X is in practise less effective than other comparable control methods;
X is in practise more damaging to species we wish to preserve than the pests X is supposed to destroy;
X in practise presents a realistic danger to people;
X in practise is less cost-effective than other methods (not just short-term “cheaper”, just literally you get more effect from a given dollar value of X than of Y).
No, I mean that when the arguments against X were presented for rational consideration, they did not outweigh whatever arguments were presented in favour of X.
Their attampts at rational argument having failed, some people (as psycho milt points out) are resorting to vandalism and assault.
can you perhaps explain to me how you “rationally” compare
X is in practise less effective than other comparable control methods;
with
X makes the loudest bang per dollar
or
X in practise presents a realistic danger to people;
with
X makes the loudest bang per dollar
or
X is money paid overseas to produce toxic chemicals that could be paid to NZ residents for meaningful employ
with
but X makes the loudest bang per dollar
at some point “rational” has to give way to “whats more important?”!
It’s possible for something to be cheaper as well as less effective: washing dishes with cold water rather than hot, for example.
But that was merely a list of example arguments you might want to explore if you wish the effectiveness of your arguments to match your obvious passion.
I don’t know what arguments were presented in court. I don’t particularly care. By and large, courts try to rest on rational arguments, especially in judge rather than jury trials. This is not always the case, but you have not presented any rational argument as to why I should be doubtful about the court’s decision.
If you’re under the impression a court would find it difficult to rationally assess choices like “this one is cheaper but presents a realistic danger to people,” you’re woefully under-estimating the cognitive abilities of the nation’s judges.
Ah while I do have a very low estimation of the cognitive abilities of the nation’s judges, I think the problem lies deeper than that.
It is that the terms of reference for the court are so restrictive that the Judge in the end is not deciding the matter.
Perhaps this is why some feel that the minister should be brought to understand his personal responsibility in this?
Perhaps this is why some feel that the minister should be brought to understand his personal responsibility in this?
I’ve yet to see any of the Brook Waimarama protesters provide an argument for their objection to this poison drop that made any sense. Their inability to make a compelling case against the poison drop isn’t the courts’ responsibility or Nick Smith’s responsibility, it’s theirs.
There are two people out there though who really do need to be “brought to understand their personal responsibility in this,” and hopefully the Police will be assisting them with that shortly.
Well, I’m sure he’d be reassured by his doctor when it’s pointed out to him that the poison is low dose, slow acting, and easily treatable with vitamin K1.
He probably faced a bigger risk from the grubby hands of the assaulters.
xanthe: In the quick scan I gave the wiki link you provided there was nothing about long term soil life impacts, nor on invertebrates.
Amongst all the impassioned cries about our wonderful native avians there is remarkably little interest shown in the populations that are far greater in number and importance than the visible few at the top of the food chain.
Who, now, is undertaking those lengthy monitoring programs – and where?
And, just to be impish – who is monitoring human interference, with a view to curtailing our sense of entitlement and our wish to play ‘god’, now that we’ve played merry hell with the ecologies, ranges and habitats?
Can’t be DoC: they’re grossly underfunded and lack the means whereby. Which means that gut-feeling protesters can’t readily refer to pertinent, modern, and local science-based facts to make a case. (Not that science is all that reliable or unbiased…)
However, residues do not appear to persist
in arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans) beyond a
few days. Brodifacoum is perceived to lack insecticidal
properties due to the different circulatory physiology of
invertebrates.
That seems plausible, since Brodifacoum works by by messing with blood clotting.
Thanks mcflock, the study seems to show that invertebrates are largely unaffected by the brodifacoum , however they will happily consume the baits and do so ,meaning birds that feed on them are subject to secondary poisioning. they (invertebrates) excrete the toxin rapidly so this risk exists mainly while baits are present. the study is silent on what then happens to the weta shit
I mean, you could have done the math and figured that a bird would need to eat its weight in wetas as they left the bait station. You could have also read the bit about the poison being broken down by soil bacteria – much the same as I assume weta shit is broken down.
You could then have googled the department of conservation for native bird deaths, as I doubt they’d differentiate between primary and secondary poisoning. And any analyses on whether bird populations recover quicker than rodent populations – if not, the poison should not occur.
As it is, you simply made a pointless statement with no argument whatsoever.
Correct mcflock I did not make any argument whatsoever, You are welcome to make assumptions and draw conclusions from them if that seems the rational course to you
Cheers.
In considering the debate over the last couple of days, I’ve made 2 conclusions:
1) the poison seems to be a reasonable choice for air dropping to control rodents and preserve native species, especially avian;
2) you have no rational argument against my first conclusion.
In truth no-one knows for a few weeks. But the folk who’ve suffered most from Nick Smith – those with housing stress or affected by swimmable bovine sewers mostly live outside his electorate.
Any of the big engineering consultancies would snap him up if National lost. Almost he alone now knows the new RMA so he could command a high consulting price by himself.
But it’s a close run thing – they may well have a fourth term so he’s well placed either way.
If he wins the electorate then there’s nothing that they can do about removing him from parliament. They could remove him from the National Party Caucus and have him deselected for the next election.
He might, like Mussolini after losing power, be partially hanged then torn to pieces by a mob. It’s one of the endgames for failed anti-democratic officials, like defenestration.
Beneficiaries called for end of the “toxic culture” at Work and Income, and want to raise welfare benefits by hundreds of dollars a week.
…
“Overwhelmingly, the responses from beneficiaries we have spoken to are that benefit rates are too low to live on with dignity,” group co-ordinator Vanessa Cole says.
She says they amassed their demands based on stories and ideas gathered from beneficiaries.
“[These include] liveable incomes for all, building a culture at Work and Income based on respect and redistribution, a mass build of state housing with secure tenures, and a tax on wealth.”
This twitter feed had a link to the longer version of that video (on facebook). It is also well worth following for the artwork emphasising the written accounts of some other experiences with the; “toxic culture at Work and Income” (though it does make cut and pasting the text difficult):
[5:15] was told not to go on the housing list because they were accomodated… because they were living in their car they have somewhere to live.
[speaker changes] We have had people who have wheelchairs that have been sleeping on the street…
If anyone wants to see a major business leader slam National to their core and request a change of government, check out the interview with Mainfreight CE Don Braid in the NZHerald today.
National have acquired a trenchant critic in both Braid and O’Sullivan at the worst time, as we go down to the wire.
Even higher weights for trucks……traceys right as they’ve done very well out of nationals destruction of rail and allowing even heavier trucks to destroy and clog the roads.
It’s a pr stunt for the incoming govt…..transparent and disingenuous.
Like Gisbourne, Northland etc Heavy trucks are smashing the roads to pieces, we have these ‘safety improvements’ projects now that are filling in the destroyed shoulder as regular maintenance isnt sufficient.
To rIght tc these trucks stuff the roads they drive to fast and when accidents happen well what a mess they fuck the roads and then this cause more accidents and more wear and tear to our cars I have to change my lower ball joints every 12 months now use to be every 2 years. I got a good idea lets set up more speed cameras and this will stop all the accidents YEAR RIGHT.
Just revenue gathering. most of the people paying these fines are poor and on a benefit that system is just a money go round .
8am National Radio news had a claim from Bill English that the “Jacinda Mania” momentum had peaked and was diminishing. Interestingly the RNZ journalist did not ask Bill English as to what this opinion was based on. My guess is that his claim is based on wishes and it is the latest National effort to try a and stem the momentum.
This brings up an interesting (and disturbing) aspect about voter behaviour; namely, the tendency of voters to report voting and voting intentions that places them with the winning party.
Post-election surveys have shown that the number of people who report that they voted for the successful political party is statistically very unlikely. That is, the if a party achieved 55% of the the vote then you would expect a post-election poll result to show 55% with a margin of error of 3.5% at a confidence level of 95%. Post-election polls can indicate an overstatement at 6% above expected voting numbers.
So having established that part of the electorate will incorrectly report themselves’ as being part of the “winners”, the question is how much of the voting population identify with the “momentum party” prior to the actual vote occurring due to the likelihood of the that party being the “winning” party? Is policy irrelevant to this type of voter?
His opinion was based on one poll giving Labour 43%, then a completely different poll giving them 39%. Note – this was not a change in the SAME poll, but from different ones. And the trend in both polls was for Labour to be rising fast and National to be falling slowly. I guess Bill hasn’t learnt to treat data with scepticism yet – or he was trying to make something happen by claiming that it was already happening, or he was just billshitting again.
Some people actually do go simply with the way the winds blow. It’s why I think polls should either be banned in the run up to the election or simply not published.
The Radio New Zealand article explaining their poll of polls makes the point that the Colmar Brunton poll was taken later than the Reid Research one, even though the CB was released earlier. As a result, it’s disingenuous to deduce from these two polls that the momentum is slowing
DtB
I entirely agree that there should be a moratorium on publishing polls after writ day. Not just because of the bandwagon effect, but also because of the amount of limited political reporting space they take away from other events. However, I am not so much behind banning them from being conducted – although there is the problem of push-polling.
timbeau
What I’ve found most interesting about that RR poll is just how different the headlines for exactly the same thing have been: From the rather bland RNZ one you link, to Newshub’s (who paid for the poll); “National and Labour in one-on-one fight for power”, Scoop’s grammatical peculiar; “Newshub-Reid Research Poll Shows Gap tightest”, and finally NZH’s; “New poll: Has National halted Labour’s rise? “.
Don Braid nails Bill English to the cross and slips the knife in for good measure:
“In a video interview for the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom Election Survey, Mainfreight chief executive Don Braid said the country was “being run by a couple of accountants, rather than visionaries”.
Braid said National’s sudden decision to invest in the country’s infrastructure after three terms and just ahead of an election looked unconvincing to voters.”
The “do-nothing” government ‘s chickens are finally coming home to roost. I almost feel sorry for Bill because Lord Key should be taking most of the blame.
If we follow the logic of the Right, Bill’s biggest problem is he has never had a real world job. University, some farm work and then Treasury, then an MP.
But National do not apply the rhetoric of their attacks to themselves
Bill’s biggest problem is he never learns from his mistakes. He’s still pretending everything is working wonderfully when he knows that a lot of his crap has never worked.
If he’d actually grown the productive economy or achieved low unemployment (now around 11%) he wouldn’t be on the way out.
Imo bill gets to play PM then sling his hook if they lose as hes a list MP. They didnt have a plan if they won last time but they seem to have this one all sorted.
Leave pullya, crusher and the others to it whilst a progressive govt rebuilds….so nz can vote them back in to plunder all over again as the electorate has the memory of a ZX80.
With the NZ population growing at over 40,000 each year (or the equavalent of over one new MP per annum), sooner or later the size of Parliament will need to grow.
Back in 1993, prior to MMP being introduced, there where 99 MPs and the population was 3.57m people (or about 36,080 people per MP). When MMP was introduced there were 120 MPs for 3.68m people (or about 30,700 people per MP). It’s now 2017 with 4.60m people in New Zealand. Currently the average number of people per MP has grown to 38,358 people.
If the initial MMP ratio of MPs to people was implemented today, then we would be looking at 150 MPs.
If the last FPP ratio was used (36,000 people per MP) as a guide we would see the current Parliament re-sized to 128 MPs.
Sooner or later increasing the number of MPs will need to be addressed. Any thoughts on how big Parliament should be?
I think it was a joke told in the film Brassed Off: On the eighth day of creation, one of God’s angels came to Him and said, we’ve run out of brains, hearts and backbones, but we’ve still got a lot of arseholes left.” “I’m sure I can do something with those,” God said, and Lo and Behold, He created the Tory Party.
The cited article refers to the US situation and is examining plurality with particular reference to what happens when election funding constraints are removed. Does this biased plurality occur in NZ? Yes, but not to the same extent.
I prefer tight election funding rules that limit individual and group contributions and where contributions sources have to be revealed.
One model for decision making is that everybody gets a vote. Everybody is asked to pass that vote to a proxy whom they respect as a “wise and trust worthy” person. These first level proxies are then asked the same question and they pass on all their proxy votes to a second level proxy. Rinse and repeat until you get to a sufficiently small group of proxies holders to run the country.
Does this biased plurality occur in NZ? Yes, but not to the same extent.
I’m in two minds about that actually. The sale of our assets over the last 30 years to the private sector against the will of the people tends to indicate to me that they’re acting for business rather than the people. Even if it isn’t to the same extent as the US the fact that we seem to be following their footsteps in many ways isn’t a good indication either.
One model for decision making is that everybody gets a vote. Everybody is asked to pass that vote to a proxy whom they respect as a “wise and trust worthy” person. These first level proxies are then asked the same question and they pass on all their proxy votes to a second level proxy. Rinse and repeat until you get to a sufficiently small group of proxies holders to run the country.
I’ve been tending towards a parliament the same as we have now. It does everyday government business but the policies are decided by referendum – and voting in them is compulsory.
After the last UK Election we were surprised to see that Labour was supported largely by educated socially aware people as opposed to the ignorant. (Suppose the latter voted Tory?)
Why should we decide that the average number of people/MP in 1993 in New Zealand was the optimal ratio?
For example the US has 435 members in the Lower house and a population of about 330m. That is about 750,000 people/congressman.
India has about 1,500,000/representative. That would be 3 people for the whole of New Zealand. Sounds pretty good to me. 2 in the North Island and 1 in the South. It would be easy to decide what was the majority view.
Under FPP, there was a legislated ratio of registered voters to MPs, being the average number of registered voters per South Island electorate. Thus, as the population expanded, the North Island added electorates and Parliament got bigger.
We still have that system for the electorates under MMP, but Parliament itself has not added MPs, so we have gone from 64 electorates to 71, but still have 120 MPs. This will have to change at some point, or MMP will become Supplementary Member instead.
That is true. There must be 16 General electorates in the South Island. I don’t really see why that number is so sacred. I believe the reasoning is that otherwise electorates could get too large. I can’t see it would be a problem if the number were to drop to 15 or 14.
After all one of the Maori electorates covers the whole of the South Island.
Even that is a midget of course compared to Durack in Western Australia. That covers 1.63 million km2. That is 6 times the area of New Zealand.
Apparently there is an even bigger one in Canada. Nunavut is about 2.1 million km2.
Imagine going door knocking in one of those babies?
That is a digression of course. I don’t see why we need as many MPs as we have. One excuse given is that it gives more people from whom to pick a Cabinet. That is a furphy. It is the number of MPs in the Government that determines the size of the Cabinet, not the other way around.
In order for the Cabinet to control the Government caucus, and prevent them over-riding the Cabinet there must be about half the Government in Cabinet, or at least be Ministers.
That is why we have about 20 of them in Cabinet and 7 Ministers outside Cabinet. Back in the 1950s, when we had 80 MPs there were only about a dozen in Cabinet. They did just fine. Doubling the population doesn’t double the work to be done.
I am disinclined to use the electoral system in the USA as anything but a cautionary tale.
The Senate system sees 2 US senators per state. So Californa has two for 40m people and Vermont has 2 for 0.67m.
US Congressmen and Congresswomen are shared by states on a more proportional manner.
Your count of elected officials missed the gubernatorial and state legislatures. This would add thousands of people to your count. ( Though not in the District of Columbia, where the US Congress has taken on itself to be the state legislature.)
As to how much representation do we need, my answer is:
1. It has to maintain the capability of list seats to create proportionality. Currently the list seats are being converted into electorate seats and as CH notes, this means we have gone from a 60:60 split to a 71:49 split. Population growth being focused in the Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga triangle will see continued trend of losing list seats and electorate seats being created in these areas. My preference is to ensure that at between 50% and 40% of the total number of MPs come from the list before triggering automatic growth. So right now we are one seat away from that threshold being reached.
2. The electorate seats continue to be driven from maintaining a minimum number of seats in the South Island due to size v’s representation issues. Reducing below the existing 16 is impractical and the argument of growing it by a 2 or 3 can be strongly mounted.
3. Given the population diffences between North Island (3.596m) and South Island (1.043m) the number of electorates in the North Island would need to be increased to 62 to match 18 in the South Island. This gives 80 electorate MPs.
4. Having 80 electorate MPs then means that there would be between 134 and 160 MPs in total.
Briefly.
Yes I left out the Senate but we don’t have any form of Upper House and the House of Representatives seemed to be the most relevant comparison.
We also don’t have a State Government system. Perhaps we should adopt the Texas approach. We could have Parliament sit for 60 days every second year. I’m sure that would be enough.
Or as a Texas friend of mind proposed. They should meet for 2 days every 60 years. That would be perfect.
You don’t need a particular ratio of Electorate/List seats to maintain proportionality. You only need to have a very small number of overhang seats. There was only one of those in the 2014-2017 Parliament. Apart from that one seat we had perfect proportionality. The Green Party for example would have exactly the same number of seats whether we had 50 or 90 list seats.
I can see no reason at all to prefer some rather arbitrary number of list seats.
I cannot see any reason why we cannot reduce the number of South Island seats. Why do you say it is “impractical” to go below 16? If you think a few seats are to large would you prefer the old country quota?
Even if we did have 80 electorate seats we wouldn’t necessarily have a non-proportional status. It would just mean that neither National nor Labour would have as many list members as they do. The NZF and Green parties would still have exactly as many members as they do now.
Having talked to both Cabinet and other MPs they all talk about the high demand local meetings and consultation puts on them. This is how it should be and fobbing constituents off with local office managers leads to the sort of events seen in the Southland electorate.
“So more people does mean more work for MPs to do”.
That may be true. However it is a very good argument for a greater proportion of them being Electorate rather than List MPs. It shouldn’t really matter unless we start getting a whole lot of overhang members. I haven’t done the calculation properly but 40, and perhaps even 30 list seats would still allow all the parties currently in the house to have exactly the same number of MPs as they do now.
It is possible that having only 30 list members, and inflating the number of electorate seats for each party in proportion to the larger number of electorates would mean some overhang Labour MPs. It is almost impossible to work out what would really happen without nominating new electorate boundaries and looking at last elections polling place results.
We have a significant corruption problem at present – it wouldn’t hurt to replace up to half of MPs with randomly selected citizen jurors who would serve for a month or so. You’d see a bit more common sense.
I have to say that I thought 2014 was as interesting as an election in NZ would be especially since the Lord, High Commander, Doctor and Sir John Key announced his retirement
Well in this instance I’m glad to be wrong, this election is going down right to the wire 🙂
Or wintergreen: Wintergreen Oil Benefits. Research shows that wintergreen oil has the ability to act like a natural analgesic (pain reducer), antiarthritic, antiseptic and astringent. Wintergreen oil primarily contains the active ingredient methyl salicylate, which makes up about 85 percent to 99 percent of wintergreen essential oil.
Voltaren’s my go-to for leg sprains and inflammation. I could have kissed my doctor when he said I could do up to 150mg a day.
Also a good prophylactic when I feel my ankle starting to get gouty (although when I started allopurinol that one seems to have been put under control).
This was supposed to be out in April, but it took the Green Party to release it (and I imagine, someone in the Environment Ministry frustrated with the long delay to leak it to them). It is long (284 pages, though the last 26 are references – I’ve copied it over as a pdf, but don’t have the software setup to extract text from that), however what I’ve read so far depicts a daunting future:
The report estimates that property and infrastructure lying 1.5m below the high water spring mark would face ‘higher levels of coastal risk exposure’.
And it estimates risk exposure in those low lying areas would affect:
133,000 people (resident population)
43,680 residential buildings
5 airports
More than 2000kms of road
46kms of railway
It puts replacement costs for buildings in coastal areas lying 1.5m below high water spring mark at $19 billion.
“Bill English, as Finance Minister, has previously dismissed the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s findings on the impact and cost of coastal risks from climate change as ‘speculative’…
NIWA research in 2015 estimated that if a climate change sea level danger zone was doubled to 3.0m below the high water spring mark, total replacement costs for buildings alone would be $52 billion… based on 2011 building costs.
More than half describe him as a ‘bully’. 44% think that he’s ‘unstable, barely over a third think that he’s ‘competent’. Less than a third think that he’s a ‘problem solver’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘honest, ‘steady’ or ‘compassionate’ (and only 26% for the last). Only a quarter think that he’s a ‘moral leader’ or ‘presidential.’
A clear majority of polled voters said that the terms ‘presidential’, ‘moral leader’, ‘compassionate’, and ‘steady leader’ do not apply at all.
Moreover, over half – 56% – say that he is ‘tearing the country apart’ rather than almost a third who think that he is uniting the country.
Again, this is a poll of Fox News viewers, the group most likely to support him after people who keep the Reader’s Digest abridged edition of Mein Kampf as bedtime reading.
Supposedly only 1 in 18 Trump voters say would change their vote (https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2017-07-20/do-over-1-in-8-people-who-voted-for-trump-want-to-change-their-vote-reuters-ipsos-poll), but I think that a defining characteristic of these people, and what made Trump appealing to them, is a defiant attitude. Asking a direct question will get a defiant ‘NO!’ These are people who get tattoos saying ‘No Regerts’ after all. Questions about specific personal and moral qualities will get different answers with a different cumulative result. This is why psychologists routinely use multiple indirect questions about individual circumstances when assessing personality instead of one big question.
Now the next Presidential election is in 2020, but the congressional mid-terms are next year and a lot of Republican congresscreatures are going to be thinking about rats and sinking ships.
Going to channel my inner paddy gower and demand a simple yes or no from one of the labour heavies that lurk her,
Is labour’s water tax going to be 100% spent on cleaning up rivers?????
Labour candidate Jo Luxton told the crowd that during a recent meeting with Ashburton councillors, the possibility of using the revenue generated for projects such as roading, rather than solely for environmental purposes, was raised.
Labour’s water spokesman, David Parker, was at that meeting, and said he would be open to discussing that possibility, Luxton said.
When contacted on Friday, Parker said revenue would primarily need to be distributed to regional councils to clean up waterways.
However, money left over could be given to local councils, which would “decide what to do with it”, he said.
If money were to be “left over” then the levy is too high. It will take a long time to sort so it shouldnt be a problem. Now, where a road might be needed is getting access to areas to carry out the “cleaning”
my suspicion is ‘wedge politics’ as farmers are an easy target for townies to hate on as the have no idea what’s happening in rural nz , and it stinks,
Bwaghorn, you seem to be one of the more sensible commentators on this site.
I’m also farming, and just can’t be involved with Labour or the left anymore, so antagonistic to farming and farmers.
I’m wondering why you support the left?
You poor farmers. You don’t understand what is going on. There are a number of different farming sectors actually, so are you into industrial farming, capital accretion farming (buying up farms to create a huge block like Crafar who had eyes bigger than his gut.)
We alert townies try and keep up with the numerous dodges that farmers and their support businesses adopt. And of course as I pointed out there are Queen Street farmers whose dream is to sit in their leather office chair watching their computer screens, electronically opening and closing gates, and using low-price, high-volume third world labourers while ignoring the NZs who would like to have an opportunity.
You make me weep with your simple-minded talk about antagonism to farmers. The facts about irrigation drying up rivers, nutrient seepage and animal pollution are out there.
Stop feeling sorry for yourselves and man up to the problems.
Jimmy has had to go and attend to lambing? Rescue animals from flood waters. We will never know what sort of farmer he is or what his ‘beef’ with townies is as he is a Southern man and has an allowance of 100 words a day!@
How many different sorts of farmers are there?
1 Dairy
2 Dairy/beef
3 Fattening bobby calves
4 Sheep and wool
5 Slinks?
6 Family farm/mixed
7 Farms Amalgamated with managers
8 Corporate
??
Had to go and calve a cow that was having an extremely difficult breech birth.
I never said I had a “beef” with townies, I said I found the left too be antagonistic to farmers.
I’m more Northern than southern, and dairy is the farm type.
many reasons but the biggy for me is the depths that the right will plumb to stay in power , also as we saw with the barclay stuff the first instinct of a cornered nat is to lie , the same as they are doing with the 11 bill fiscal hole lie they are touting now , any party that thinks key shipley or brash are fit leaders i could never support, also collins as an mp defies belief .
in saying that i like top but unless i see him getting close i’ll hold my nose and vote labour despite their water wedge politics
If they stop at ‘rivers’ then they’ve barely begun.
Aquifers are also at risk and it takes time for leachate to percolate. More time than a parliamentary term. Mapping and monitoring are both long term basic management work.
Nor have we begun to look at long term harms and changes in soil populations or effects on DNA and resilience to viruses and fungal outbreaks.
The levy won’t be ‘too high’. Probably grossly underfunded and at risk from a scare that shifts people away from bottled and back to tap.
(Whoever thought water in plastic was a ‘good’ idea, anyway?)
Good piece inspired by AAAP at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11916289
It claims that “NZ First has not made any promises on welfare except to “ensure that benefits (and abatement levels) are inflation adjusted” and I can find nothing to the contrary on their website (http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/policies)
If indeed they have no policy to increase benefits above the rate of inflation I am appalled.
I think that Seymour had the best comment on all the promises and demands that Winston First has been announcing.
“Winston has more bottom lines than a 100 year old Elephant”.
I ignore any claims The Right Honourable Winston Raymond Peters makes. Any similarity between what he says and what actually happens is entirely coincidental.
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 ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
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 Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
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 ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia Cameron Prins/Shutterstock If you spend a lot of time exploring fitness content online, you might have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has become more ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
By Melyne Baroi in Port Moresby A Papua New Guinea MP, Peter Isoaimo, who had been ousted by the National Court in an alleged bribery case, has been reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal. A three-member Supreme Court bench found that the National Court had erred in finding that ...
Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
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Last night’s dismal poll result for the coalition government shows the limits of trying to govern as an opposition, argues Joel MacManus. There’s a quote from the American political activist Barbara Deming: “Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds, the thought ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Morris, Associate Professor and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School, Macquarie University Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock Foreign interference in Australian democracy poses a growing risk to our national sovereignty. It refers to coercive, corrupt or ...
A defendant charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining by deception in relation to a mortgage fraud scheme. Sentencing has been scheduled for 14 August 2024. ...
What to say when pesky journalists ask gotcha questions like ‘can you name a single book you’ve ever read?’ and ‘did you read it, or did you just see the movie?’This week, Act Party arts spokesperson Todd Stephenson foolishly agreed to an interview with Newsroom’s Steve Braunias regarding his ...
Explainer - What will a ban on cellphones in schools achieve? Can students use them during lunch breaks? And what happens if you need to contact your child? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Jodi Rowley, CC BY-NC-ND In winter 2021, Australia’s frogs started dropping dead. People began posting images of dead frogs on social media. Unable to travel to investigate the deaths ...
In the year ended March 2024, 0.4 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasay Majid, Research Assistant , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau New Zealand’s accommodation supplement scheme is facing scrutiny, with Social Development Minister Louise Upston recently saying “there is merit in considering whether the current settings are fair and sustainable long-term”. The ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare. The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government. ...
Protesting the removal of bins by leaving piles of your dog’s shit for others to deal with doesn’t make you a hero – it’s precious and entitled behaviour. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve stood on the shoreline of Auckland’s Cheltenham beach, desperately trying to scoop increasingly liquid dog shit ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon will be alert to the factors driving the dire polling, but won't be waving the white flag just yet, RNZ political editor Jo Moir writes. ...
Writer, teacher and academic Vincent O’Sullivan died on Sunday 28 April. Here we gather tributes from friends, colleagues, and students who remember his extraordinary contributions. I went down to the garage tonight. There was a bird shrieking out in the bush, in the dark, maybe a kākā. Miraculously, through the ...
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A petition signed by more than 16,500 people, demanding the government take stronger action to halt the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel, is being presented to the House of Representatives today by Hon Phil Twyford. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University jenmartin/Shutterstock April has been a bad month for the Australian environment. The Great Barrier Reef was hit, yet again, by intense coral bleaching. And Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek delayed ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia The rate of women killed by their partners in Australia grew by 28% from 2021–22 to 2022–23, according to new statistics released today by the Australian Institute of Criminology ...
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English interviewed on newshub this morning… But Prime Minister you have introduced 16 new taxes since national took office…. pause… but that was part of our tax reform…English was also reminded they raised GST and brought in more fuel taxes.
English, living in a glass house throwing stones
Since taking the reins in 2008, National has introduced at least 18 new taxes and levies – six of them on petrol. Others include:
raising GST (after promising not to)
a tax on employer KiwiSaver contributions
new student loan and Family Court fees
the bright line capital gains tax on flipping houses
a border clearance levy
including GST on digital purchases
removing tax refunds for kids doing part-time work.
Link for this mornings interview.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/decision-17-bill-english-promises-no-new-taxes.html
At 2.30 in Duncan reminds him that national has no credibility when it comes to not introducing new taxes
Thanks Cinny. Bill is quick isn’t he. “But Prime Minister you raised taxes 18 times.”
Pause. No change of expression. Then into deflection and justification. Wow! Would you buy a car from this man?
Paula Bennett: “Some have fewer human rights than others when they are creating a string of victims behind them … there is a different standard.”
Where are the howls of outrage from the MSM? This is the thin end of the wedge for ushering in a police state! Of course, if ‘you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,’ Dr. Goebbels.
Bennett is a threat to democracy and as such, has no place in our parliament! IMHO.
Plus being in power with ACT and their education policy that essentially removes the right to freedom of association in the workplace. Hmmm. Democracy at it’s best. /sarc
English did a good job on RNZ saying Bennett was wrong, didn’t articulate the policy correctly, and Prof Andrew Geddis noted that clarification.
Are you going to vote for him?
I will continue campaigning for Labour until the last minute.
And at the last minute you will obey Shakespeare’s stage direction.
“Exit, pursued by a bear”.
Where does the bear come into things??
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExitPursuedByABear
That’s a bit harsh
Alwyn – appropriate that you should choose a stage instruction from ‘A Winter’s Tale’.
As I’m sure you know, the late romances (tragicomedies) are marked by incipient tragedies turned somehow into magical/mystical redemptions. And young women/girls play an important role in that change of fortune in ‘The Tempest’, ‘A Winter’s Tale’ , ‘Pericles’ and ‘Cymbeline’.
Seems to describe our current political situation rather well?
“As I’m sure you know”.
Then you are a great deal more sure of it than I am.
I only ever read, and watched, Shakespeare’s plays because they were fun. You obviously know a great deal more about his work than I do.
I have known cases, and they are the ones I think of, where the words “until the last minute” was used to mean “until disaster strikes and we have to run”.
As in. “We kept adding sandbags to the top of the levees in New Orleans until the last possible minute”.
It may not be the standard use of the phrase but it is the one I think of. Hence, when all hope is lost of affecting the result of the election Ad is heading for the hills.
I didn’t hear the clarification – but what troubles me is the ‘mind-set’ of people like Bennett and Seymour. Their first inclination is to ‘strengthen police rights!’
The fact that the teacher unions are strong is one reason education is not a complete basket case already, like in some states of America.
So you’ll admit his deputy is not on top of party policy?
Pretty embarrassing for him to have to clarify things.
Clarify?
Bennett told the truth. English did his best to obscure it.
Typical National Party: they have to lie about their intentions and values or they’d never get elected.
Like Jacinda on CGT just the other day??
That’s the joke, idiot.
Your joke telling ability is rather substandard.
Jones had to be “clarified” last night.
Davis had to be “clarified” last week.
It’s all in how they recover.
Did either of them propose something that contravened the international standards on human rights?
Nope. And each media flurry was done in hours. It’s a good campaign.
English did a good job on RNZ saying Bennett was wrong, didn’t articulate the policy correctly, and Prof Andrew Geddis noted that clarification.
He didn’t “clarify” his own statement that he’s pleased NZ doesn’t have a constitution to put constraints on his power to decide who has human rights and who doesn’t?
If any party wants to entrench BORA they should say so. Then say how.
It’s not a question of entrenchment but of making it superior law so that even the government can’t break it.
And I can’t seen any government doing that.
“making it superior law”.
We don’t have any such concept in our legal system, do we?
That is a concept in the US system where a Court can rule that an act of the Government is antithetical to the Constitution I would have thought.
Surely our rule, that a Government cannot bind its successor, would prevent us having anything like these “superior laws”?
Even an entrenched law doesn’t really mean what it says. Can’t you remove the entrenchment by a simple majority in Parliament and then revoke the law by a simple majority after that?
Ps. I am not a lawyer, and don’t claim that these suppositions are what the law really means.
It depends on how yo entrench it and what, if any ,other legislative provisions it is subject to.
In NZ we have tended toward things like 75% of parliament or more than 50% in a referendum
Nope. That is the position that a written constitution would fill and why Blinglish is so happy that we don’t have one.
That is correct and so we end up with governments that rule against human rights and other stuff that are detrimental to the general populace (but good for business and the rich) because there’s no restrictions on them doing so.
Yep.
Thank you. I am happy to see that my understanding was correct.
Edit.
That means I am happy I understood it, not that I am happy that it is the way things are by the way.
Bennett gleefully supported the idea. Bill’s “she didn’t articulate…” doesn’t erase her delight in what she believed the proposal was.
Except for the bit when he stood next to her when she said it, and didnt correct her, suggesting he agrees.
Let’s get this clear not all people whom work in our justice systems are bad most of them work to try and make our society
Safer but some are bad and Will use any means to get there mark man.
So this new law Bennett is backing will be used by these bad cops as a tool to manipulate these people lives and could be used to manipulate these people children lives to.
I have stayed off the topic of our youths suicide.
Most of our best stars can not see a light at the end of there tunnel they can not see a future they like.
Yes its our youths that can predict there future and they are intelligent .
My friend whom was really intelligent his dad had all his financial needs solve for him . But he would take not his money he was like young a brother to me .
But I was to busie trying to make a nest egg for my family to notice my friends problems he had a lot of school friends
If some one starts giving away things take note of that person because this is the first sign of that problem.
Most times our youth just want to be loved and cared for someone to listen to them any life lost is not on.
But our youth that are the brightest stars that do this are a BIG BAD STAIN ON OUR SOCIETY AND A WASTE OF OUR BEST CHILDREN WTF.
Bennett using Trump tack ticks to stir up the emotional and racial cards in our society.
Gangs most times pray on the underprivileged the people who are desperate and poor the people they can intimidate they. They could affect our youth.But you won’t see these people harass anyone that will ring the cops on them because they no the people who will do this and who won’t ring the cops on them.
So don’t let Bennett play with your emotions.
Now people don’t listen to the lies that have are being spread about me cops lie
1 when have u heard a cop plead guilty
2 if you are hearing these lies Somme is breaking the law
3 If these lies were true I wound not be blogging now to u.
4 my old clients no that I’m not a threat and Don’t want me to sell my lawn run the cops can’t have the public no there are cheat s in there force enough said the facts of there behaving like this are out there
Now I DON’T believe in fathers day and all that stuff just to get us spend money.
As I’m a father grandfather 360 days of the year so I would rather save my money and give it to my family in times of there need!!!!
Now I’m using my position of power to fight the neo liberals that are control freaks and who run our world I’m fighting these people for my HUMAN rights and privacy rights as I am a human I’m fighting for the rights for all the underprivileged in our WORLD
I’m using my position of power to fight for our children our greatgrandchildern future our environment our wildlife all of this will be exploited by the neo liberals if they can make a buck out of them
Some viewers won’t get my last 2 post but some people in NZ will
Congratulations to Kenyans for winning the first battle to have a legitimate President elected the people of Kenya will have to keep a sharp eye on every process in the next election .
Don’t let foreigners advise you on how to run your country as only Kenyans no what is good for all the people of Kenya ALL THE BEST TO Kenya.
Great work, Eco maori and if I could grant you five extra days a year, I would!
LoL Robert Guyton that post was in between lawns
🙂
Uruguay has become the first country to legalise marijuana for recreational use but United States banks won’t deal with any Uruguay banks that do business with businesses selling marijuana in that country making it impossible for the Uruguayan banks to accept money from those businesses. Not only does this show how difficult it will be for marijuana to be legalised by countries but also just how powerful the American banking system.
All these sanctions are just causing other countries to abandon the American banking system and US dollar as exchange currency , and set up their own systems., with alternative SWIFT arrangements Russia,China, Iran , even Saudi Arabia are using their own currencies for oil trade.
Despite terrible US sanctions against Iran that went on for decades, Iran survived and even grew by learning to circumvent those sanctions.
Cuba is another example of successful resistance
The more desperate the US gets, the more it seals its own fate as more and more countries learn to bypass the US banking system
I fail to see what your comments about SWIFT mean.
SWIFT is not a US organisation and is not governed by US law. It is incorporated in Belgian and is governed by Belgian, and hence EU law.
It is also only a messaging system and does not hold or transfer funds between banks or other parties, It merely transfers, securely, messages between its banking shareholder members.
+ 100 francesca
With reference to yesterday’s discussion on Brodifacoum and the Brook Valley sanctuary, here’s why I don’t take anti-poisoning campaigners very seriously – they tend to make anti-vaxxers and anti-fluoride campaigners look reasonable. These two have managed to inspire sympathy for Nick Smith, a feat I would have considered Herculean up until now.
Anti-poisoning campaigners and poisoning campaigns are two very different “things”.
There are many people in Nelson who are so angry with Smith. Most Saturday mornings his caravan is protested at the Nelson market by many different factions.
What they did with the poison was a bit OTT, but they are at the end of their tether, the Brook Valley Sanctuary is a very polarising issue for Nelson.
It appears that Nick is looking for sympathy, the thing is I doubt he will find much in Nelson no matter how many newspapers he asks to print his story because Nick being targeting is nothing new for Nelsonians.
Maybe protestors should looking at getting the fantastic toilet sculpture trucked up here and placed next to Smith as a prop at his street corner meetings and brought to the Saturday market, now that would create a bit of interest and a good reminder to people what he has done.
Am expecting him to have quite a large drop in votes this election, would be thrilled if he lost. People are talking about tactical voting to get rid of him, my advice vote for the next strongest candidate, Matt Lawrey from the Greens.
…they are at the end of their tether…
That’s one way of putting it. Another way would be that people who feel very strongly about something but don’t have rational arguments to back up those strong feelings should maybe do a bit of self-reflection, rather than just assuming they have to resort to vandalism and assault because it’s impossible their emotions could misguide them.
pshcho “people who feel very strongly about something but don’t have rational arguments to back up those strong feelings… etc”
is ad-hominem … todays reading for you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
These guys are resorting to vandalism and assault because their various attempts to persuade the courts to agree with them have failed – due to the weakness of their arguments. Having strong feelings about something is never an acceptable substitute for having a persuasive argument, and pointing that out is not ad hominem.
xanthe – misspelling names real or ersatz is impolite…”todays(sic) reading for you”
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/politeness.html
Robert – Could not find any reference to misspelling names in the link provided. Did you read it yourself before posting it?
It’s actually more of an accurate description than an ad hom. At the very least, the anti-poisoners seem to have some difficulty in expressing a rational argument against the poison drop.
Some rational arguments might revolve around points such as:
X is in practise ineffective against the target species;
X is in practise less effective than other comparable control methods;
X is in practise more damaging to species we wish to preserve than the pests X is supposed to destroy;
X in practise presents a realistic danger to people;
X in practise is less cost-effective than other methods (not just short-term “cheaper”, just literally you get more effect from a given dollar value of X than of Y).
And if those rational arguments were presented and then ignored (or ruled secondary to “biggest bang for bucks”) in the appropriate court hearings ?
Then, rationally, they weren’t as good as the arguments in favour of X, were they.
ahhh you mean “loudest bang for bucks” ?… seems rational enough if you squint hard and touch your left ear when you say it!
No, I mean that when the arguments against X were presented for rational consideration, they did not outweigh whatever arguments were presented in favour of X.
Their attampts at rational argument having failed, some people (as psycho milt points out) are resorting to vandalism and assault.
can you perhaps explain to me how you “rationally” compare
X is in practise less effective than other comparable control methods;
with
X makes the loudest bang per dollar
or
X in practise presents a realistic danger to people;
with
X makes the loudest bang per dollar
or
X is money paid overseas to produce toxic chemicals that could be paid to NZ residents for meaningful employ
with
but X makes the loudest bang per dollar
at some point “rational” has to give way to “whats more important?”!
It’s possible for something to be cheaper as well as less effective: washing dishes with cold water rather than hot, for example.
But that was merely a list of example arguments you might want to explore if you wish the effectiveness of your arguments to match your obvious passion.
I don’t know what arguments were presented in court. I don’t particularly care. By and large, courts try to rest on rational arguments, especially in judge rather than jury trials. This is not always the case, but you have not presented any rational argument as to why I should be doubtful about the court’s decision.
If you’re under the impression a court would find it difficult to rationally assess choices like “this one is cheaper but presents a realistic danger to people,” you’re woefully under-estimating the cognitive abilities of the nation’s judges.
Ah while I do have a very low estimation of the cognitive abilities of the nation’s judges, I think the problem lies deeper than that.
It is that the terms of reference for the court are so restrictive that the Judge in the end is not deciding the matter.
Perhaps this is why some feel that the minister should be brought to understand his personal responsibility in this?
Yes. Because tories respond so favourable to being assaulted /sarc
well its just within the realms of possibility Smith was prompted to search for and read this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodifacoum#Toxicology
which could be seen as a positive?
Perhaps this is why some feel that the minister should be brought to understand his personal responsibility in this?
I’ve yet to see any of the Brook Waimarama protesters provide an argument for their objection to this poison drop that made any sense. Their inability to make a compelling case against the poison drop isn’t the courts’ responsibility or Nick Smith’s responsibility, it’s theirs.
There are two people out there though who really do need to be “brought to understand their personal responsibility in this,” and hopefully the Police will be assisting them with that shortly.
which could be seen as a positive?
Only by someone who’s become a stranger to reason.
Well, I’m sure he’d be reassured by his doctor when it’s pointed out to him that the poison is low dose, slow acting, and easily treatable with vitamin K1.
He probably faced a bigger risk from the grubby hands of the assaulters.
xanthe: In the quick scan I gave the wiki link you provided there was nothing about long term soil life impacts, nor on invertebrates.
Amongst all the impassioned cries about our wonderful native avians there is remarkably little interest shown in the populations that are far greater in number and importance than the visible few at the top of the food chain.
Who, now, is undertaking those lengthy monitoring programs – and where?
And, just to be impish – who is monitoring human interference, with a view to curtailing our sense of entitlement and our wish to play ‘god’, now that we’ve played merry hell with the ecologies, ranges and habitats?
Can’t be DoC: they’re grossly underfunded and lack the means whereby. Which means that gut-feeling protesters can’t readily refer to pertinent, modern, and local science-based facts to make a case. (Not that science is all that reliable or unbiased…)
One Anonymous Bloke pointed us to the DoC factsheet on Brodifacoum yesterday. It says:
However, residues do not appear to persist
in arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans) beyond a
few days. Brodifacoum is perceived to lack insecticidal
properties due to the different circulatory physiology of
invertebrates.
That seems plausible, since Brodifacoum works by by messing with blood clotting.
Someone did a phd thesis on it. Have fun.
And always remember: Google can be your friend.
Thanks mcflock, the study seems to show that invertebrates are largely unaffected by the brodifacoum , however they will happily consume the baits and do so ,meaning birds that feed on them are subject to secondary poisioning. they (invertebrates) excrete the toxin rapidly so this risk exists mainly while baits are present. the study is silent on what then happens to the weta shit
You almost made a rational argument there.
I mean, you could have done the math and figured that a bird would need to eat its weight in wetas as they left the bait station. You could have also read the bit about the poison being broken down by soil bacteria – much the same as I assume weta shit is broken down.
You could then have googled the department of conservation for native bird deaths, as I doubt they’d differentiate between primary and secondary poisoning. And any analyses on whether bird populations recover quicker than rodent populations – if not, the poison should not occur.
As it is, you simply made a pointless statement with no argument whatsoever.
Correct mcflock I did not make any argument whatsoever, You are welcome to make assumptions and draw conclusions from them if that seems the rational course to you
Cheers.
In considering the debate over the last couple of days, I’ve made 2 conclusions:
1) the poison seems to be a reasonable choice for air dropping to control rodents and preserve native species, especially avian;
2) you have no rational argument against my first conclusion.
17,000 majority for Smith undiminished.
The activists did themselves no favours.
He’s in there for as long as he wants unless they get from angry to smarter
Will need more than smarts to reduce 17k margin. Is thete a precedent?
In truth no-one knows for a few weeks. But the folk who’ve suffered most from Nick Smith – those with housing stress or affected by swimmable bovine sewers mostly live outside his electorate.
Would he stay in Parliament if National lost the election, do you think?
I think he might come under pressure from his colleagues to quit, on the basis that it was in substantial part perceived to be his fault…
A.
Any of the big engineering consultancies would snap him up if National lost. Almost he alone now knows the new RMA so he could command a high consulting price by himself.
But it’s a close run thing – they may well have a fourth term so he’s well placed either way.
He alone knows the new RMA? What a strange fellow you are
He personally approved every clause.
WTF? Just 4 days ago you were saying it was in the bag for Labour. You seem quite unhinged.
The campaign feels great.
The result is too close to call.
That’s not what you said the other day.
If he wins the electorate then there’s nothing that they can do about removing him from parliament. They could remove him from the National Party Caucus and have him deselected for the next election.
He might, like Mussolini after losing power, be partially hanged then torn to pieces by a mob. It’s one of the endgames for failed anti-democratic officials, like defenestration.
Was wondering the same, but then again I think he enjoys the salary and the prestige.
The Nick Smith taking a crap sculpture is coming to Nelson, woop woop, thrilled about that news.
He may be quite happy to remain an electorate MP outside Govt
Newshub reports on Auckland Action Against poverty’s video – the video includes beneficiaries talking about the realities of being on a benefit and dealing with W&I. Video at the link.
This twitter feed had a link to the longer version of that video (on facebook). It is also well worth following for the artwork emphasising the written accounts of some other experiences with the; “toxic culture at Work and Income” (though it does make cut and pasting the text difficult):
https://twitter.com/WeBeneficiaries
https://www.facebook.com/AAAPNZ/posts/2017375961609670
If anyone wants to see a major business leader slam National to their core and request a change of government, check out the interview with Mainfreight CE Don Braid in the NZHerald today.
National have acquired a trenchant critic in both Braid and O’Sullivan at the worst time, as we go down to the wire.
Someone ensuring they get a warm welcome on the 9th floor post election.
I dont put much stock in the views of a business leader that waits til the polls change to step up.
He’s been sniping at the government for a few years now
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/71576224/Mainfreight-boss-takes-swipe-at-Steven-Joyce-over-rail-and-technology
he’s one of the good ones out imo , i know it’s hard for some lefties to believe but be successful and being good person can happen
Yes it can. But it bothers me when being a successful CEO gets you listened on Education and Health ahead of, well, Education and Health experts.
Braid has been making huge donations to the Māori Party – more than $150,000 at last count. Not sure what his end game is.
A flourishing democracy by the looks of it.
A de facto donation to the National Party, more like.
Even higher weights for trucks……traceys right as they’ve done very well out of nationals destruction of rail and allowing even heavier trucks to destroy and clog the roads.
It’s a pr stunt for the incoming govt…..transparent and disingenuous.
Nah they’ve been integrating road and rail for years.
As soon as you get into depots and transfer stations, rather than point to point, rail makes much more sense. Mate of mine works for them.
Like Gisbourne, Northland etc Heavy trucks are smashing the roads to pieces, we have these ‘safety improvements’ projects now that are filling in the destroyed shoulder as regular maintenance isnt sufficient.
To rIght tc these trucks stuff the roads they drive to fast and when accidents happen well what a mess they fuck the roads and then this cause more accidents and more wear and tear to our cars I have to change my lower ball joints every 12 months now use to be every 2 years. I got a good idea lets set up more speed cameras and this will stop all the accidents YEAR RIGHT.
Just revenue gathering. most of the people paying these fines are poor and on a benefit that system is just a money go round .
8am National Radio news had a claim from Bill English that the “Jacinda Mania” momentum had peaked and was diminishing. Interestingly the RNZ journalist did not ask Bill English as to what this opinion was based on. My guess is that his claim is based on wishes and it is the latest National effort to try a and stem the momentum.
This brings up an interesting (and disturbing) aspect about voter behaviour; namely, the tendency of voters to report voting and voting intentions that places them with the winning party.
Post-election surveys have shown that the number of people who report that they voted for the successful political party is statistically very unlikely. That is, the if a party achieved 55% of the the vote then you would expect a post-election poll result to show 55% with a margin of error of 3.5% at a confidence level of 95%. Post-election polls can indicate an overstatement at 6% above expected voting numbers.
So having established that part of the electorate will incorrectly report themselves’ as being part of the “winners”, the question is how much of the voting population identify with the “momentum party” prior to the actual vote occurring due to the likelihood of the that party being the “winning” party? Is policy irrelevant to this type of voter?
His opinion was based on one poll giving Labour 43%, then a completely different poll giving them 39%. Note – this was not a change in the SAME poll, but from different ones. And the trend in both polls was for Labour to be rising fast and National to be falling slowly. I guess Bill hasn’t learnt to treat data with scepticism yet – or he was trying to make something happen by claiming that it was already happening, or he was just billshitting again.
Bandwagon Effect
Some people actually do go simply with the way the winds blow. It’s why I think polls should either be banned in the run up to the election or simply not published.
The Radio New Zealand article explaining their poll of polls makes the point that the Colmar Brunton poll was taken later than the Reid Research one, even though the CB was released earlier. As a result, it’s disingenuous to deduce from these two polls that the momentum is slowing
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/338623/labour-s-poll-average-still-climbing
DtB
I entirely agree that there should be a moratorium on publishing polls after writ day. Not just because of the bandwagon effect, but also because of the amount of limited political reporting space they take away from other events. However, I am not so much behind banning them from being conducted – although there is the problem of push-polling.
timbeau
What I’ve found most interesting about that RR poll is just how different the headlines for exactly the same thing have been: From the rather bland RNZ one you link, to Newshub’s (who paid for the poll); “National and Labour in one-on-one fight for power”, Scoop’s grammatical peculiar; “Newshub-Reid Research Poll Shows Gap tightest”, and finally NZH’s; “New poll: Has National halted Labour’s rise? “.
Don Braid nails Bill English to the cross and slips the knife in for good measure:
“In a video interview for the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom Election Survey, Mainfreight chief executive Don Braid said the country was “being run by a couple of accountants, rather than visionaries”.
Braid said National’s sudden decision to invest in the country’s infrastructure after three terms and just ahead of an election looked unconvincing to voters.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11916469
The “do-nothing” government ‘s chickens are finally coming home to roost. I almost feel sorry for Bill because Lord Key should be taking most of the blame.
Thanks I just count figure how to add the link from my mobile.
If they make it, hope Labour court him well. Hes a big “integrated rail+road” believer.
Heh, yep. That’s the difference between a trucking company and a logistics company.
Yes that’s right, key stuck it to the Natz as he slithered out the back door.
Standard management practice – polish your reputation by leaving your successor knee-deep in shit and making it look like their fault.
Blinglish deserves this…..a dishonest man who gladly peddles his christian values whilst punishing the vulnerable.
Let the hypocrisy burn nationals vote down, they’ve certainly worked hard on it.
+111
😈
Ask yourself this, why did the right put up bill if he is not the best choice?
Why did they go for someone recognisable as a Christian conservative?
hint: quick exit…
They thought they were more than the John Key party even though they created the John Key facade. They thought they could remake steady billy a bit…
Well Bill does have some good points but he should have stuck to being finance minister
If we follow the logic of the Right, Bill’s biggest problem is he has never had a real world job. University, some farm work and then Treasury, then an MP.
But National do not apply the rhetoric of their attacks to themselves
Bills biggest problem (imho) is that he comes across as a bit boring, a bit dull
Bill’s biggest problem is he never learns from his mistakes. He’s still pretending everything is working wonderfully when he knows that a lot of his crap has never worked.
If he’d actually grown the productive economy or achieved low unemployment (now around 11%) he wouldn’t be on the way out.
He’s a fucking liar. Just hope whoever in the media attempts to expose tonight’s lies gets cut through.
And as Bill is “On the List” he can exit stage right on the 24th September.
Imo bill gets to play PM then sling his hook if they lose as hes a list MP. They didnt have a plan if they won last time but they seem to have this one all sorted.
Leave pullya, crusher and the others to it whilst a progressive govt rebuilds….so nz can vote them back in to plunder all over again as the electorate has the memory of a ZX80.
With the NZ population growing at over 40,000 each year (or the equavalent of over one new MP per annum), sooner or later the size of Parliament will need to grow.
Back in 1993, prior to MMP being introduced, there where 99 MPs and the population was 3.57m people (or about 36,080 people per MP). When MMP was introduced there were 120 MPs for 3.68m people (or about 30,700 people per MP). It’s now 2017 with 4.60m people in New Zealand. Currently the average number of people per MP has grown to 38,358 people.
If the initial MMP ratio of MPs to people was implemented today, then we would be looking at 150 MPs.
If the last FPP ratio was used (36,000 people per MP) as a guide we would see the current Parliament re-sized to 128 MPs.
Sooner or later increasing the number of MPs will need to be addressed. Any thoughts on how big Parliament should be?
Needs a bigger heart than it has presently.
I think it was a joke told in the film Brassed Off: On the eighth day of creation, one of God’s angels came to Him and said, we’ve run out of brains, hearts and backbones, but we’ve still got a lot of arseholes left.” “I’m sure I can do something with those,” God said, and Lo and Behold, He created the Tory Party.
Sacks and sacks of arseholes, pallets stacked high with them, my mind boggles!!
Is that the right question or should we be asking if representation levels be maintained?
Which brings up another question: Are our MPs actually representing us or are they representing business and rich people?
The evidence is that they’re representing business and rich people.
The cited article refers to the US situation and is examining plurality with particular reference to what happens when election funding constraints are removed. Does this biased plurality occur in NZ? Yes, but not to the same extent.
I prefer tight election funding rules that limit individual and group contributions and where contributions sources have to be revealed.
One model for decision making is that everybody gets a vote. Everybody is asked to pass that vote to a proxy whom they respect as a “wise and trust worthy” person. These first level proxies are then asked the same question and they pass on all their proxy votes to a second level proxy. Rinse and repeat until you get to a sufficiently small group of proxies holders to run the country.
I’m in two minds about that actually. The sale of our assets over the last 30 years to the private sector against the will of the people tends to indicate to me that they’re acting for business rather than the people. Even if it isn’t to the same extent as the US the fact that we seem to be following their footsteps in many ways isn’t a good indication either.
I’ve been tending towards a parliament the same as we have now. It does everyday government business but the policies are decided by referendum – and voting in them is compulsory.
After the last UK Election we were surprised to see that Labour was supported largely by educated socially aware people as opposed to the ignorant. (Suppose the latter voted Tory?)
Why should we decide that the average number of people/MP in 1993 in New Zealand was the optimal ratio?
For example the US has 435 members in the Lower house and a population of about 330m. That is about 750,000 people/congressman.
India has about 1,500,000/representative. That would be 3 people for the whole of New Zealand. Sounds pretty good to me. 2 in the North Island and 1 in the South. It would be easy to decide what was the majority view.
Small countries, counting only sovereign states are Nauru and San Marino at about 500 people/rep.
The ultimate is apparently Vatican City with 114 people/rep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_country
Please explain why you think that 36,000 is optimal and any other value is wrong.
Under FPP, there was a legislated ratio of registered voters to MPs, being the average number of registered voters per South Island electorate. Thus, as the population expanded, the North Island added electorates and Parliament got bigger.
We still have that system for the electorates under MMP, but Parliament itself has not added MPs, so we have gone from 64 electorates to 71, but still have 120 MPs. This will have to change at some point, or MMP will become Supplementary Member instead.
That is true. There must be 16 General electorates in the South Island. I don’t really see why that number is so sacred. I believe the reasoning is that otherwise electorates could get too large. I can’t see it would be a problem if the number were to drop to 15 or 14.
After all one of the Maori electorates covers the whole of the South Island.
Even that is a midget of course compared to Durack in Western Australia. That covers 1.63 million km2. That is 6 times the area of New Zealand.
Apparently there is an even bigger one in Canada. Nunavut is about 2.1 million km2.
Imagine going door knocking in one of those babies?
That is a digression of course. I don’t see why we need as many MPs as we have. One excuse given is that it gives more people from whom to pick a Cabinet. That is a furphy. It is the number of MPs in the Government that determines the size of the Cabinet, not the other way around.
In order for the Cabinet to control the Government caucus, and prevent them over-riding the Cabinet there must be about half the Government in Cabinet, or at least be Ministers.
That is why we have about 20 of them in Cabinet and 7 Ministers outside Cabinet. Back in the 1950s, when we had 80 MPs there were only about a dozen in Cabinet. They did just fine. Doubling the population doesn’t double the work to be done.
I am disinclined to use the electoral system in the USA as anything but a cautionary tale.
The Senate system sees 2 US senators per state. So Californa has two for 40m people and Vermont has 2 for 0.67m.
US Congressmen and Congresswomen are shared by states on a more proportional manner.
Your count of elected officials missed the gubernatorial and state legislatures. This would add thousands of people to your count. ( Though not in the District of Columbia, where the US Congress has taken on itself to be the state legislature.)
As to how much representation do we need, my answer is:
1. It has to maintain the capability of list seats to create proportionality. Currently the list seats are being converted into electorate seats and as CH notes, this means we have gone from a 60:60 split to a 71:49 split. Population growth being focused in the Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga triangle will see continued trend of losing list seats and electorate seats being created in these areas. My preference is to ensure that at between 50% and 40% of the total number of MPs come from the list before triggering automatic growth. So right now we are one seat away from that threshold being reached.
2. The electorate seats continue to be driven from maintaining a minimum number of seats in the South Island due to size v’s representation issues. Reducing below the existing 16 is impractical and the argument of growing it by a 2 or 3 can be strongly mounted.
3. Given the population diffences between North Island (3.596m) and South Island (1.043m) the number of electorates in the North Island would need to be increased to 62 to match 18 in the South Island. This gives 80 electorate MPs.
4. Having 80 electorate MPs then means that there would be between 134 and 160 MPs in total.
Briefly.
Yes I left out the Senate but we don’t have any form of Upper House and the House of Representatives seemed to be the most relevant comparison.
We also don’t have a State Government system. Perhaps we should adopt the Texas approach. We could have Parliament sit for 60 days every second year. I’m sure that would be enough.
Or as a Texas friend of mind proposed. They should meet for 2 days every 60 years. That would be perfect.
You don’t need a particular ratio of Electorate/List seats to maintain proportionality. You only need to have a very small number of overhang seats. There was only one of those in the 2014-2017 Parliament. Apart from that one seat we had perfect proportionality. The Green Party for example would have exactly the same number of seats whether we had 50 or 90 list seats.
I can see no reason at all to prefer some rather arbitrary number of list seats.
I cannot see any reason why we cannot reduce the number of South Island seats. Why do you say it is “impractical” to go below 16? If you think a few seats are to large would you prefer the old country quota?
Even if we did have 80 electorate seats we wouldn’t necessarily have a non-proportional status. It would just mean that neither National nor Labour would have as many list members as they do. The NZF and Green parties would still have exactly as many members as they do now.
Having talked to both Cabinet and other MPs they all talk about the high demand local meetings and consultation puts on them. This is how it should be and fobbing constituents off with local office managers leads to the sort of events seen in the Southland electorate.
So more people does mean more work for MPs to do.
“So more people does mean more work for MPs to do”.
That may be true. However it is a very good argument for a greater proportion of them being Electorate rather than List MPs. It shouldn’t really matter unless we start getting a whole lot of overhang members. I haven’t done the calculation properly but 40, and perhaps even 30 list seats would still allow all the parties currently in the house to have exactly the same number of MPs as they do now.
It is possible that having only 30 list members, and inflating the number of electorate seats for each party in proportion to the larger number of electorates would mean some overhang Labour MPs. It is almost impossible to work out what would really happen without nominating new electorate boundaries and looking at last elections polling place results.
We have a significant corruption problem at present – it wouldn’t hurt to replace up to half of MPs with randomly selected citizen jurors who would serve for a month or so. You’d see a bit more common sense.
I have to say that I thought 2014 was as interesting as an election in NZ would be especially since the Lord, High Commander, Doctor and Sir John Key announced his retirement
Well in this instance I’m glad to be wrong, this election is going down right to the wire 🙂
To the moderators, Weka asked for a more appropriate name so hopefully I’ve chosen better
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96450064/Pair-rub-poison-in-face-of-Nelson-MP-Nick-Smith-threaten-family?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
This is pretty bad, not hearing a lot of outrage about it though
You could try reading the thread up at comment 6,
Bugger (but thanks)
na its allgood because according to the nats some people have less human rights than others , and obviously the attackers decided nick is one of them
😈
very good b.
Clever
The left go low, the right go high 🙂
yet the left is still miles above the right.
you’re on form today matey.
got a knee that resembles a football so lots of time to sit and think. in voltaren we shepherds trust
Don’t know much about herbals, just read that comfrey ointment is supposed to be good for sprains etc. Anyone know about that?
i believe science when it comes to global warming etc why would i not believe science when it comes to healing
Boil up some comfrey leaves, soak a crepe bandage in the cooled liquid, wrap it around your knee – Voltaren begone!
Or wintergreen: Wintergreen Oil Benefits. Research shows that wintergreen oil has the ability to act like a natural analgesic (pain reducer), antiarthritic, antiseptic and astringent. Wintergreen oil primarily contains the active ingredient methyl salicylate, which makes up about 85 percent to 99 percent of wintergreen essential oil.
Your visitors will probably stay upwind, however…
Voltaren’s my go-to for leg sprains and inflammation. I could have kissed my doctor when he said I could do up to 150mg a day.
Also a good prophylactic when I feel my ankle starting to get gouty (although when I started allopurinol that one seems to have been put under control).
This was supposed to be out in April, but it took the Green Party to release it (and I imagine, someone in the Environment Ministry frustrated with the long delay to leak it to them). It is long (284 pages, though the last 26 are references – I’ve copied it over as a pdf, but don’t have the software setup to extract text from that), however what I’ve read so far depicts a daunting future:
https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/CH_Guide_Draft4-webversion.pdf
https://www.greens.org.nz/news/press-release/new-coastal-hazards-report-reveals-inconvenient-truths-national-led-government
Sigh
Fox News poll of their own viewers on Der Orangegropenfuhrer’s performance:
http://www.distractify.com/politics/2017/09/03/PuqRu/fox-poll-trump?utm_content=inf_10_53_2&tse_id=INF_9893f18090f111e7a7253d7eefa2109b
More than half describe him as a ‘bully’. 44% think that he’s ‘unstable, barely over a third think that he’s ‘competent’. Less than a third think that he’s a ‘problem solver’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘honest, ‘steady’ or ‘compassionate’ (and only 26% for the last). Only a quarter think that he’s a ‘moral leader’ or ‘presidential.’
A clear majority of polled voters said that the terms ‘presidential’, ‘moral leader’, ‘compassionate’, and ‘steady leader’ do not apply at all.
Moreover, over half – 56% – say that he is ‘tearing the country apart’ rather than almost a third who think that he is uniting the country.
Again, this is a poll of Fox News viewers, the group most likely to support him after people who keep the Reader’s Digest abridged edition of Mein Kampf as bedtime reading.
Supposedly only 1 in 18 Trump voters say would change their vote (https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2017-07-20/do-over-1-in-8-people-who-voted-for-trump-want-to-change-their-vote-reuters-ipsos-poll), but I think that a defining characteristic of these people, and what made Trump appealing to them, is a defiant attitude. Asking a direct question will get a defiant ‘NO!’ These are people who get tattoos saying ‘No Regerts’ after all. Questions about specific personal and moral qualities will get different answers with a different cumulative result. This is why psychologists routinely use multiple indirect questions about individual circumstances when assessing personality instead of one big question.
Now the next Presidential election is in 2020, but the congressional mid-terms are next year and a lot of Republican congresscreatures are going to be thinking about rats and sinking ships.
Going to channel my inner paddy gower and demand a simple yes or no from one of the labour heavies that lurk her,
Is labour’s water tax going to be 100% spent on cleaning up rivers?????
i will start shouting it if i get no answer
less processing and packaging of course. 🙂
https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/96383507/Revenue-from-Labours-water-levy-could-go-to-projects-such-as-roading?cid=app-iPhone
Labour candidate Jo Luxton told the crowd that during a recent meeting with Ashburton councillors, the possibility of using the revenue generated for projects such as roading, rather than solely for environmental purposes, was raised.
Labour’s water spokesman, David Parker, was at that meeting, and said he would be open to discussing that possibility, Luxton said.
When contacted on Friday, Parker said revenue would primarily need to be distributed to regional councils to clean up waterways.
However, money left over could be given to local councils, which would “decide what to do with it”, he said.
If money were to be “left over” then the levy is too high. It will take a long time to sort so it shouldnt be a problem. Now, where a road might be needed is getting access to areas to carry out the “cleaning”
Or “left over” goes to DOC for that area?
Well I’d say the farmers being charged probably think its a bit of a problem especially if the money used goes elsewhere (Auckland roads for example)
my suspicion is ‘wedge politics’ as farmers are an easy target for townies to hate on as the have no idea what’s happening in rural nz , and it stinks,
Bwaghorn, you seem to be one of the more sensible commentators on this site.
I’m also farming, and just can’t be involved with Labour or the left anymore, so antagonistic to farming and farmers.
I’m wondering why you support the left?
You poor farmers. You don’t understand what is going on. There are a number of different farming sectors actually, so are you into industrial farming, capital accretion farming (buying up farms to create a huge block like Crafar who had eyes bigger than his gut.)
2012 http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6323850/Crafar-farms-sale-to-Chinese-group-approved (Government got away with selling for $14 million
by bringing in Landcorp)
2017 https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/94279420/oxford-dairy-farm-sold-to-overseas-interests-for-182m
We alert townies try and keep up with the numerous dodges that farmers and their support businesses adopt. And of course as I pointed out there are Queen Street farmers whose dream is to sit in their leather office chair watching their computer screens, electronically opening and closing gates, and using low-price, high-volume third world labourers while ignoring the NZs who would like to have an opportunity.
You make me weep with your simple-minded talk about antagonism to farmers. The facts about irrigation drying up rivers, nutrient seepage and animal pollution are out there.
Stop feeling sorry for yourselves and man up to the problems.
He worked he did not have a gut the.The problem is National did sweet f all except give Bills mates a hand out and import workers .
Here is an example Robert!
Where? What cause to non-farmers have to dislike farming and farmers?
Jimmy – what reason do you think “the left” have or give for being antagonistic to farming and farmers?
Jimmy has had to go and attend to lambing? Rescue animals from flood waters. We will never know what sort of farmer he is or what his ‘beef’ with townies is as he is a Southern man and has an allowance of 100 words a day!@
How many different sorts of farmers are there?
1 Dairy
2 Dairy/beef
3 Fattening bobby calves
4 Sheep and wool
5 Slinks?
6 Family farm/mixed
7 Farms Amalgamated with managers
8 Corporate
??
Had to go and calve a cow that was having an extremely difficult breech birth.
I never said I had a “beef” with townies, I said I found the left too be antagonistic to farmers.
I’m more Northern than southern, and dairy is the farm type.
many reasons but the biggy for me is the depths that the right will plumb to stay in power , also as we saw with the barclay stuff the first instinct of a cornered nat is to lie , the same as they are doing with the 11 bill fiscal hole lie they are touting now , any party that thinks key shipley or brash are fit leaders i could never support, also collins as an mp defies belief .
in saying that i like top but unless i see him getting close i’ll hold my nose and vote labour despite their water wedge politics
If they stop at ‘rivers’ then they’ve barely begun.
Aquifers are also at risk and it takes time for leachate to percolate. More time than a parliamentary term. Mapping and monitoring are both long term basic management work.
Nor have we begun to look at long term harms and changes in soil populations or effects on DNA and resilience to viruses and fungal outbreaks.
The levy won’t be ‘too high’. Probably grossly underfunded and at risk from a scare that shifts people away from bottled and back to tap.
(Whoever thought water in plastic was a ‘good’ idea, anyway?)
Good piece inspired by AAAP at
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11916289
It claims that “NZ First has not made any promises on welfare except to “ensure that benefits (and abatement levels) are inflation adjusted” and I can find nothing to the contrary on their website (http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/policies)
If indeed they have no policy to increase benefits above the rate of inflation I am appalled.
They are going to recriminalise prostitution so what did you expect.
I think that Seymour had the best comment on all the promises and demands that Winston First has been announcing.
“Winston has more bottom lines than a 100 year old Elephant”.
I ignore any claims The Right Honourable Winston Raymond Peters makes. Any similarity between what he says and what actually happens is entirely coincidental.
ACT is also offering a serious increase in benefits, although I don’t think Seymour realises that.
Assange goes full Islamaphobe.