In amongst the plethora of lamentations for Tom Petty (who was Tom Petty?) in Daily Review last night, CoroDale slipped in two references to a RNZ broadcast which may have passed unnoticed! The whole is worth listening to, but here’s a couple of extracts:
“When you’ve got a government that comes out and says, we’ve got to tolerate 8 or 9 percent unemployment or that one third of children in New Zealand live in poverty, when you’ve got a prime minister who then says ‘well, we can’t do anything about that now because we’ll run out of money’, that’s an insidious lie.”
and
“The Greens are neo-liberals on bikes and the Labour Party are neoliberal lite. They say ‘I’ll do austerity but I’ll do it fairer’.
“There’s no such thing as fair austerity when you’ve got a third of your children living in poverty.”
Yep… this is the basis for Bill Mitchell’s statement. And he’s right. Unless Labour and Greens are prepared to tear up their fiscal pledge, it looks like more of the same neo-liberal economics… but with a nicer face.
Unfortunately @Carolyn, it all starts with that Natzi type mindset such that employees should be grateful if an employer deigns to employ them.
You issue an immigrant a visa that ties him or her to a specific employer. If the employer is good – count yourself lucky.
You then shift the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ under a business focussed Ministry and completely under-resource them.
If the employer turns out to be an arsehole, tough luck. If you want to change employer, you’re then faced with INZ application fees, and perhaps the cost of an immigration lawyer – something hard to do if you’re living hand to mouth, underpaid/less than minimum wage – sometimes even having your passport retained, and living in some shithole somewhere.
It’s actually a form of bondage of employee to employer.
Then of course the other unintended/(actually probably intended) consequence.
Why would the unscrupulous employer employ an unemployed Kiwi (who does not have to suffer that form of bondage) when you can exploit the immigrant for all they’re worth and make a tidy (often cash-based) profit?
It has now been going on for years. And of course if the exploited do get a bit uppity and challenge either the employer, OR the Inspectorate, OR both – you can always make them in breach of their visa conditions and boot them out of the country and get another one.
It all dovetails in nicely with some of the shoddy private tertiary institutions and labour supply/recruitment/contractor companies – some of whom have cosy little relationships with immigration consultants.
Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest
So according to the legal requirements of these ‘public servants’ they are legally required to serve the public interests firstly and not their own needs right?
1 :the business of supplying a commodity (such as electricity or gas) or service (such as transportation) to any or all members of a community
2 :a service rendered in the public interest
3 :governmental employment; especially :civil service
“Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest”
That’s the theory @ Cleengreen, but it hasn’t been the case since neo-liberalism took hold and was allowed to run rampant. It’s been corporatised into a series of little fiefdoms – the chiefs being ‘CEOs’ ffs! and senior management chiefs who get to choose who best serves their agendas. (Usually good honest frontline Public Servant peons doing there best, but who often operate in fear of their masters – their masters who take credit for the ‘win wins going forward’, but who apportion blame down the heirarchy when things go tits up)
The ‘Public’ Service as a bizzniss – equipped with all its purchase agreements and KPI’s that (as it can be shown) are regularly abused without consequence.
At the time of the reforms I think we were promised greater efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and non-partisan administration – that is improvements to what we once had. Instead – the opposite. You only have to look at the sucking up and arse protecting of Ministers – or even just the record to date in areas such as Health, Education, NZTA, MPI (border incursions for example), MoBIE (shitty steel and suspect buildings, exploitation of workers, etc., etc., etc.). Then of course there’s abuse of OIAs and cronyism. And then there’s the real standouts such as WINZ and CYPS.
But then back to the exploitation that @Carolyn-nth mentions.
It’s a “win win” for the exploiters and those engaged in preserving the (so-called public ‘service’) structure that enables it.
– An unthinking public that has blind faith in others supposedly serving their interests (that romantic notion of an actual Public/Civil Service) can simply see that it’s all these bloody immigrants coming over here taking all our jobs!
– A Minister – supposedly responsible but who can rely on his Munstry to protect his arse – who now screams ‘low quality immigrant’ in Peter Dutton fashion. Even the fairly reasonable Senior Public Servant (I could name names) who occasionally fronts media and who now has a big mortgage to pay, is likely to succumb to the cool aid – and after all – those ‘low quality immigrants’ are probably used to it.
After their supping the cool aid for so long – its now all NORMAL!, and why would they seriously want to challenge it all?
There’s a simple starting point:
– IF the only way you can run a business profitably by exploiting those economic units (that we’ll put on the spreadsheet, OR the MYOB/Xero equivalent as a COST), then your bizzniss IS NOT VIABLE – (going forward of course). I’ve even personally witnessed Labour Inspectorate managers tell me they know of worker exploitation based prices being charged for lunches and coffee ‘deals’ that aren’t sustainable considering their overheads – such as rent, electricity, etc., and that the only other option in order they break even – LET ALONE amass profit -is through worker exploitation. But then …. they go home to the missus and the kuds, and tomorrow is another day.
– ELSE if those managers can’t actually challenge the shit they know is happening or the heat in the kitchen, then get the fuck out!
Then there’s some obvious solutions – AT LEAST as a starting point – unless of course 3rd World humanity is OK in ‘lil ‘ole Nu Zull and now something we’re all supposed to aspire to in this neo-liberal nirvana of the market the market! (Perhaps THIS since we’ve set up the structure to encourage and enable: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/as-chinas-economy-slows-business-cults-prey-on-young-job-seekers/articleshow/60881676.cms),
OR any other SS Joyce/ACTian view of the future). I hope they’re really confident in the security of their local gated community – well it’s probably not really a community, rather a number of individualists living in close proximity to one another. But then “yeow” as Mister Farrar and Chem Slator would say – the Murrays might get restless.
STOP bonding employees to employers
PURGE those employers from the country RATHER than their victims (when they only have residency status)
STOP the conflicts of interest – those that exist between contractors/PTEs/etc. and immigration officials. (we could go deeper and talk about things like Swamp Kauri PS enablers)
START resourcing INZ, LI, NZQA properly and take them the fuck away from a Munstry that was founded on promoting/enabling the bizznizz interest over and above the citizen and person as a social being.
A close reading of the Herald article ( ignore the headline) gives 4 reasons for the slowing of the housing crisis.
winter
bank lending limits
the election
China’s crackdown on capital flows
The most interesting section is this……
‘ James Steele, QV Auckland senior consultant, said sales volumes were down to very low levels because demand was halted “by the ability for purchasers to finance property deals.
Steele said Auckland had continued to flatten to reach what Steele called a stalemate situation. A change would only occur if a significant economic shock destabilised prices by further reducing demand or there was an easing of lending restrictions, he said.’
Is the banks’ reluctance to lend caused by a realisation of a future ‘significant economic shock’? They do not want to get burnt. That added to ‘China’s crackdown on capital flows’ could see a crash on its way.
Time for a return to a ‘self sufficient society’ again thank god as NZ is in a prime position to become this better than any other country I know today.
I have some history of what a country can become when it turned into a self sufficient society while in Rhodesia during the 1970 era PM Ian Smith actually turned that country around by restoring almost everything from cars trucks homes and industry as well as food and electricity sources and water.
The origional african people got homes built and jobs so it worked, until UK Government forced a deal to turn the government over to a “tyrant’ who still runs a murdering government today under a invested interested ‘corporate’ controlled system.
All previous successful self sufficient regions/countries have been toppled by corporate interests and their media persuasion.
Now it is Spain last year it was Venezuela remember this, as what is next?
Pretty simple question BM I am surprised you dont know the answer.
self-sufficient
This refers to single persons as well as countries, so my interest is for our Government consisting of “public servants” to carry out their role to provide our needs and interests as required under legal references to “public servants” to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
Of course the excess product can then be used to sell to any exrternal buyer for further financial income.
Here are the dictonary expanation of self sufficient.
‘The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.’
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
able to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.
2.
having extreme confidence in one’s own resources, powers, etc.:
It’s what we used to do back when we had a more egalitarian society with less poverty.
The idea that we just keep trading more commodities is making us poorer. Of course, that does seem to be what it was designed to do:
The income gap between rich countries and poor countries is not diminishing. It has been increasing dramatically, and not only during colonialism. Since the 1960s, the income gap between north and south has tripled.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong and it won’t be changed with a bit of aid here and there,” Hickel says. “We need to fundamentally restructure the global economy and make it fair.”
Hickel’s central thesis is that there is nothing natural about poverty. His book examines structurally determined behaviour, designed in-fact, to deliver the poverty outcomes we witness around the world.
That article is about aid but it applies to this thread because the entire financial system is designed to benefit a few at everyone else’s expense and we’re getting poorer because of it.
And then there’s the point that if we had kept making TVs in NZ they wouldn’t be anywhere near as labour intensive as then. In fact, with the correct development, producing them wouldn’t use any labour at all.
No, I’m not, I’m actually interested to see how a trading nation such as NZ is supposed to survive if it shuts the door and turns its back on the world.
BM we can be part of the British Commonweath again without the decietful rules imposed upon us now under some other trade pratices like TPPA and NAFTA. while remain ‘independent’ as we were under the British commonwealth trade system , as we see now clearly those later ones dont work for us thanks.
And before you rubbish the idea of ‘self sufficient’ remeber I qualified the use of overproduction of our own surplus products to sell to other countries who wanted it without any trade rules.
That way we get our finances to expand our lives and communities without borrowing offshore again.
Yes it is. The question is more if Labour can understand the lessons that are coming and get rid of the delusional financial system that they implemented all those years ago. To ban foreign ownership and investment which are making us poorer.
“Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.”
I know that’s meant as a sly jab but there’s truth in it too. It is a good time for them to take over. National’s immigration driven economic ‘growth’ has almost reached its zenith and now it’s time for a housing surge to prop up the economy.
A big house building boom should see Labour through two terms at least I’d think. We’re in more risk of a recession under National.
The big house building boom under Labour isn’t going to happen until some fairly basic issues are solved
1) Who’s going to be developing the land
2) Lack of tradespeople, apprentice builders don’t cut it.
3)Lack of materials
4)Lack of building component companies within the construction pipeline, eg: Aluminium joiners, kitchen makers
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
I think you’ll find it’s you whose spouting nonsense, homes are complicated and there’s a fuck load of trades involved in the building process both on-site and off.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
Didn’t realise the Govt owned any earth moving gear?
We had an entire ministry with earth moving gear and that sort of thing at one stage. Fuckers sold it off. Now tories are all “ohmahgerd, govt doesn’t have bulldozers! You’re silly!”
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
Personally, I don’t really like it, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in currently, haven’t read anything about Labour changing anything either
Oh, when faced with a rorting private sector and 100k homes to build, the government will either get into the contruction business (like prefabrication factories) or do the same fuckall you’re lot have been up to as the crisis deepens.
lol, you’re only now just catching up with the policies you’ve been shitting on for months?
ISTR the local community trust has already bought a mill or something, and the $20mil was based on a decent business case to expand the site into a full prefabrication facility.
Oh, and there was already interest. The policy didn’t come out of thin air, it came from the region as part of Labour’s consultation, where they actually listened to what the regions needed. The idea of listening to the people is alien to you as a National shill, of course.
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
The government is never at the whim of the private sector.
We now find ourselves in a crisis brought about by shifting governance to the private sector. The only way to correct that is to take it back into the hands of the populace.
Personally, I don’t really like it
That’d be a lie. you wouldn’t support profit and the private sector the way you do if you didn’t think that’s the way it should be. That’s why you vote National.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
They need tradesmen to supervise and oversee a less skilled workforce, they don’t need tradesmen to do every job. Anyone with reasonable hand-eye co-ordination and memory can work on a building site. That’s how the world was built.
The building industry *wants* more tradespeople. It doesn’t need them, there’s already plenty to go around. Of course they’d want them, it’s much less hassle for the management to hire people who can work unsupervised. But want doesn’t mean need.
When there’s more work than tradespeople you turn some of the tradesmen into supervisors and hire unskilled labour. The building industry has worked that way since, well, forever
And before you come up with another snide and ignorant comment look at your history. The allied WWI and WWII efforts were won by filling the factories with unskilled labour.
Leafing through my uncle’s journal of New Zealand Houses from the 1950’s there is barely any difference to what a regular new build looks like today and the building processes are all the same. You could bring back all the tradies from that era onto a new build and they would be fine apart from not knowing how to work a power drill and getting pissed off with most of the regulations.
LOL at the banning the export of building materials.
Why? Same as when Russia, when they had that drought a few years ago, banned the export of food. They needed it for themselves because they didn’t have enough.
The profits of the private sector come second to that.
Comrade Jacinda will make an appearance on The Peoples National TV Station (RadioNZ) and loudly shout into the camera.
“Nyet to the export of building materials from this day forward !!!, citizens who ignore this decree will be sent to the gulags (Dunedin), I Comrade Jacinda have spoken!!.
Interesting that the Chinese have a government that does things……
They don’t believe in the invisible hand of the all seeing market.
They also don’t allow foreigners to buy land or property in their country.
Funny, that – having a government that protects the sovereignty of the nation.
Jarrod Gilbert’s take down of Joyce and English is worth a thread of its own.
I’m sure others have spotted it.
‘I write this one for all of the morons out there.
The fools, the buffoons, the vapid oxygen thieves who are the enemies of reason, whose foolishness is only matched by their self-righteousness, whose understanding of key issues is inversely proportional to the loudness with which they speak. Gather around my enemies, I wish to have a word.
I need to talk about political tribalism, this phenomenon that so often mocks the principles that uphold our democracy while chipping away at its foundations……
…..Whether of not Joyce set out to cause mischief, or he simply misread the books and embarrassment and pigheadedness meant he was unable to back down (the latter theory I favour), we’re all aware that a swath of leading economists came out and debunked what he said.
What did Joyce do? Deny, deny, attack, deny, deny. And, of course, many of his people defended it, made excuses, or misrepresented the evidence.
All good people should have called that nonsense out in unison.
To the tribalists who didn’t I ask this: if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not. And that’s what defines you as a moron.
In fact, looking at any issue and asking how you would react if the other side did it is a handy test we should all employ. Even when we claim neutrality such a test often teases out our unconscious biases……..
……..What ugliness awaits us now that this brazen low has been established? Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas?
Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.’
Gilbert = sore loser. It is just his opinion, though no doubt loved by Standardnistas.
The figures Labour presented did add up, but only if there was no new spending (other than heath and education) in 2019 and 2020. Having no provision for new spending in the proposed 2019 and 2020 budgets was not credible. For instance National provides $1.5 billion unallocated expenditure in each of the out years.
The failure to provide additional spending meant there was a wide open hole for National to exploit, especially when the argument is made by the very people with the most real world experience of how government budgets are made up.
So for instance adding back $2 billion new spending in each of these years adds up to $6 billion, since you have to baseline the $2 billion from 2019. I would say for Labour $2 billion would be light. The $11 billion figure was based on $3.7 billion new spending in each year.
There are hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert who could easily see the logic of Joyce and English’s arguments.
“The figures Labour presented did add up” Then we are in agreement and the National Party were lying like a flat fish. No need for a further four paragraphs twisting words like a column of smoke. Two ticks NZF here i hope Winnie goes with the Greens and Labour you lot are nothing but liars.
Attempting to spin them into something else only demeans you further…
It is noticeable that when Nats start feeling the pressure, the nasty streak which is present in every one of them rises to the surface for all to see.
Yep Wayne’s big hole revelation is disingenous in the extreme. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. Rewriting history is just par for the course. At least he’s stopped blathering on about the greens saving the gnats – I’m thankful for small mercies.
Actually, Wayne, when you said “The figures Labour presented did add up” you were admitting that Joyce told lies. He was very specific about the lines of expenditure that he claimed weren’t being accounted for and therefore did not add up. If he wasn’t lying deliberately at first (and was simply incompetent), then his and English’s shifting versions of this smear over time (morphing over time into your – false – claim that there was no allowance for new spending in 2019 and 2020 other than health and education) and refusal to back away from the “hole” idea was definitely a lie. As for your claim that this allegation came from the people who know the process best, I’d say Michael Cullen knows a thing or two about budgets, wouldn’t you?
Fake news spin for fakery. Scum tactics to win are still scum tactics and you must be so proud, beaming with pride, at the result. Legacy and honour builder FAIL.
What “loser?” The outcome of the election isn’t known yet. The fact the Nats think they “won” the election when they’re no more able to form a government than anyone else is a manifestation of Tory born-to-rule mentality – it has comedy value only.
I’d like to draw your attention to the following if you don’t mind. It was towards the end and you may have missed it:
Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas? Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.
It seems to me that Gilbert is arguing that there is indeed a “loser” but it is not him; it is all of us …
Hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert and the many, many experts who rubbished Joyce and English?
Those whose superior financial intellect saw them vote for Joyce and English
are probably still partying for the Argentina win over All Blacks last weekend.
I think BM has set himself up as the lefts conscience, well done BM, the troll that trawls, he/she probably reads these comments more closely than the rest of us, to correct the groupthink, meanwhile defending Nationals blatant lying, lovely, just lovely.
I also think it’s interesting that BM assumes that it’s a bad thing to have a boyfriend, and that any statement with an inbuilt assumption that a person might have one must therefore be a homophobic slur.
Wayne, Joyce’s failed academic record and English’s shifty and shifting answers on the Todd Barclay affair, does not make for confidence in their abilities. In other words, flexible integrity or lack of it. What they do have is ability to bluster, twist, distort ….. And through handing out cosy jobs for the boys they can wheel out people like yourself and other past their use by types to make it seem there is a groundswell of support for Greens to hold hands with National, despite the years and years of insults thrown at them.
Whatever the outcome, Jacinda and her team are behaving impeccably in contrast.
@Wayne: I accept that you have managed to create a justification for your belief in the invisible black hole that wasn’t evident to Cameron Bagrie, Ganesh Nana, Dr Vernon Small, Keith Ng, Brian Fallow, Bernard Hickey or Shamubeel Eaqub. I was impressed by the position that you took supporting an inquiry into Afghanistan civilian deaths. Therefore, why do I find it hard to understand how you can continue to support and defend a government that has continually behaved in an underhand way, that I would not have thought that you would condone.
Jeeez Wayne,
You should have let Stephen and Bill know that you believed their BILLSHIT about the 11 billion dollar hole that way when they were asked to provide one person that backed up what they said……..just one person…..even a taxi driver…. they could have confidently said well actually Wayne believes us and everything would have been sweet as. As it weas they couldnt name one person bbecause it was a lie.
By the way, typical Nat ploy by you, play the man (Jarrod Gilbert) not the ball as it was not him that said the hole didn’t exist he was merely reporting on what leading NZ economists had said. What he was saying is how sad it is that people are so indoctrinated into their own political beliefs that they refuse to see the truth in front of them.
Ed: “if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not.”
Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not? NO. Even a Privileges Committee “trial.”
And what happens to Joyce, Key, English much more serious lies? Nothing but support from the Media.
Actually, National supporters, including the tribalists, would consider the idea that they should vote for some other party, simply because Joyce made a boo boo, downright silly.
Don’t minimise this, mikesh – Joyce didn’t “make a boohoo” – he and his PM deliberately lied and misled their supporters. This was a clear, demonstrated example – one that even the most committed tribalist should be able to acknowledge. Given that, and the scale of the lie, how is anyone meant to believe that this was the only lie? Politics is about trust – are these people trustworthy?
Plus, let’s remember that it wasn’t only Nat tribalists who were being lied to – the aim was to influence swinging voters, and all the evidence suggests that they succeeded in this aim. That makes this a very significant lie.
“Whatever.”
So, you now concede that it was a lie, but hey – what does truth matter when decisions are being made about our nation’s future?
“National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.”
Did you fail to read or comprehend the final paragraph of my comment, mikesh? The lie wasn’t targeted at Nat supporters (they were always going to overlook the dirty politics and stay with their team, just as they have in the past) – it was aimed at swinging voters. The evidence of the polls before and after the lie and its constant repetition suggest that it had an effect on them. It didn’t have to be a big effect in order to make a difference in this very tight race.
I see the Herald has wheeled out another opinion piece denigrating Peters and extolling the worth of a Nat/Greens coalition. This time its Michael Cox.
Michael Cox who? I hear you say. He was an insignificant Nat MP in the 1980s. Cox has gone even further back in time to dredge up another politician to link Peters to – Benjamin Disraeli.
The authorities in Vegas are still trying to ascertain the motive of yet another mass killing. Well as our ” dear friend” Richard Prebble once opined… I’ve been thinking.
I’m a minor Dixie Chick fan because of their song “I’m not ready to make nice” ,which was penned by Natalie Main (lead singer) over what happened to the band after they commented at a concert in London that they were embarrassed that the President (G W Bush) came from Texas, which they did too. A documentary “Shut up and sing” was made about the severe antagonism and hatred the group then suffered. Death threats etc…. it was serious stuff for what was only an aside at a concert in a foreign land. The Country and Western Southern base went totally ballistic in their hatred for the Dixie Chicks…….
Maybe Paddock didn’t like something the group featuring at the concert in Vegas had said or sung, so he flipped and decided to do something about it and set about it thoroughly. Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
I could be totally wrong.
I’m being frivolous, which is inexcusable on such a serious subject as the mass killing of innocent people – but perhaps the killer just didn’t like country and western music!
that’s all most of these pieces of shit want , their 15 minutes , there name should never be made public and their corpses should be ground and feed to the pigs .
in saying that the us is getting what it votes for so i lose no sleep over it.
Central and South America really do have a worse problem with gun violence than the US. Along with a lot of southern Africa, some of the middle east and some of Asia. Check out the graphic at the bottom of this article.
Thanks I suppose I also thought it was an apple orange scenario in that the total gun deaths in the us over the same period would be an apt comparison.
Your maths leave a little to desire….there are about 10,000 firearm murders in USA each year, that is 0.003% of the population.
In Honduras yearly murders average 5,500 each year, that is 0.061% of the population. That is a rate TWENTY TIMES that in the USA….I repeat why are 60 American deaths headlines?
The point being you could refer to Guatemala or Brazil or El Salvador etc etc and make the same point.
Because it’s much more likely the readers of our local media will have some sort of connection with the victims and/or where it happened and/or a feeling of “it could have been me” when it happens it the US compared to when it happens in Honduras.
Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
Oh kee-rist…the ignorance burns…it just goes to show that nowhere is immune from someone making ludicrous claims.
The Nevada secretary of state’s office on Friday reported there are 1,464,819 active registered voters statewide who are eligible to participate in the Nov. 8 general election.
There are 577,679 Democrats, 488,861 Republicans and 304,528 nonpartisans. The rest are minor- party registered voters.
Democrats represent 39.4 percent of the total active registered voters, Republicans 33.4 percent and nonpartisans 20.8 percent.
How often do you read an article with the words ‘ since the 1980s’?
More precise reporting would say ‘since the advent of neoliberalism.’
‘Moerewa, near Kaikohe, has embarked on a makeover that it hopes will continue under whatever new government is formed this month.
The town was once a thriving community where nearly everyone had a job at the freezing works or dairy factory.
But since the 1980s it has gone downhill, with more than 80 percent of its people on a benefit or retired.’
How about all the empty local Dairy factories, drove past about 10 in the Naki recently.
Imagine the potential in those sites if we break the shackles of neo liberal market driven behaviour and moved to a sustainable produce/manufacture/distribute locally model.
There do appear a lot for sale at the moment.
Wonder if that is more land being bought up by foreigners?
This book is very interesting on the subject.
The Land Grabbers – The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth
by Fred Pearce
‘An unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. ‘
Perfect plan tc we need local industry now to work more effeciently and produce local jobs and secure families.
I live 80kms north of gisborne and daily see a flood of milk tankers going south 300+ kms to Palmerston north factories and then they are shiped north again as export products 280 kms to Port of Napier.
What a waste of transportation and pollution along the way and waste of fuel!!!!!!!
got a mate – did some hemp growing – great plant so many uses just so many, and the flax is so good too. Some great areas for growing harakeke, areas not drained for cowland. I see these two resources/crops/plants as being ESSENTIAL for future sustainability and survivability.
Like all good things, greenies will have been promoting it for a decade or three before it’s taken up by the mainstream – as someone here often says, “follow the hippies”.
Yep there are lots of places where great things could be started. Neo liberalism has a lot to answer for. Going small and local and community orientated are the way to roll back the neo liberal 1980s experiment.
🙂 “But since the return of Liberalism in the 1980s…”
“since the advent of neoliberalism” suggest something new popped up. But nothing new popped up. You can read Dickens and get a very good understanding of what kind of society gets created by Liberalism/neo-liberalism, but won’t make the connection if you think the 80s was all about something that had never been tried before – tried and then rejected some time around the 30s/40s by “the west” but still foisted on “the global south” by “the west” by way of “structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)
Last week, rapper B.o.B made headlines after setting up a GoFundMe page to finance a rather bizarre project; sending a satellite into space to prove that the Earth is flat. His plans involve sending a satellite “as far into space as possible” to take a photo of the Earth, which he believes will look like a map.
Caught up with an angry voter, angry because they now want to change their vote, angry because they have only recently realised they’ve been lied to and misled by national. They can’t change their vote, but they said they are never voting for national again. They are also very embarrassed that they believed the tax lies flowing from the mouths of national mps during the election and perpetuated by a media who gave it airplay again and again and again.
Ethics in schools please, at least the misinformed voter would have been more informed by their kids if civics was being taught in schools.
Meanwhile… 3 more sleeps until Saturday 😀 Bring on the special vote count 😀
Because we are all political junkies, well versed in DP the media etc etc. Some people believe everything the pm says, he’s the pm he must be telling the truth.
But Bill Ralston said…… but Bill Ralston writes bill englishes speeches.. etc etc.
But the soundbites… and the facebook… if you are not versed in media manipulation then you’ll probably swallow it hook line and sinker.
But mum and dad said…… sorry huni mum and dad are being manipulated by soundbites and fake news as well
It’s amazing how much trust and faith some put in the media or people in power, they neglect to realise that some of those people are only manipulating others for their own gains.
As well as ethics in schools can we please have a 24hr kiwi tv channel, as well giving parental, practical, mental health, lifestyle and social advice and info, chuck in some educational documentaries too, please and thank you.
I no that there are some who will try and pin any bull shit on me because that is there mentality to fuck me up there are many story’s that I have not told about my interaction with these people and these stories would do more damage to there image and they would not give a shit because they can hide in plain clothes. and unmarked cars while OUR people in uniforms take the heat This is the last I commenting on this subject .The pepper is doing a better job than I thought probably got a few more miles in the old truck.
Baby cheeses. Just published …. corruption within corruption …. part of ACC sold off without tender to staff …. so much is wrong with this .. Sir Owen Woodhouse must be turning in his grave …
I guess Pence and his Xtian Taliban are running the shop.
The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.
Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.
The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.
This article and research paper is worth a thread its own right.
‘Most river pollution comes from streams that don’t need fencing, research shows
Most of New Zealand’s river pollution comes from streams that would be exempt from waterway fencing rules, new research shows.
It calls into question the effectiveness of current efforts, which would become law under legislation proposed by the National Government.
A paper published by the American Journal of Environmental Quality found that 77 per cent of contaminants in New Zealand’s rivers came from smaller waterways exempt from proposed fencing rules.
The paper, by Ag Research scientist Dr Richard McDowell as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, found that most pollution does not come from those waterways.
It modelled the contaminant load for over half a million stream segments around the country, which were divided into those that would need to be fenced and those that would not.
It determined 77 per cent of the pollution load nationwide came from streams that would not require fencing.
The contribution of individual pollutants from smaller streams ranged from 73 per cent of total nitrogen to 84 per cent of dissolved reactive phosphorus.
It was particularly evident in agriculturally-productive regions such as Canterbury, Southland, Nelson and Hawkes Bay, which “exhibited large contaminant loads from exempt catchments”, the research said.’
An evil industry.
A killing machine.
An immoral operation.
And they know that if people really found out how their industry operates, it would be all over.
‘Dairy farmers jumpy over media attention at calving time
Springtime, and the paranoia is rising – at least among dairy farmers.
Chastened by scrapes with animal rights groups and the media in recent years, farmers are on high alert for cameras lurking behind cowsheds or drones whirring in the skies.
In calving season images of distressed or abused bobby calves are the last thing the industry needs.’
Funny, myself and others got roundly criticized for pointing this out before the election, I’m guessing the Blairite hacks will carry on with those attacks.
Skinner’s key policy points were that he wanted :
– Free education
– Free healthcare
– Scrapping zero-hour contracts
– A return to high unionism
So, just on the policy front Labour’s policies going into the election covered all of that, as Trotter is well aware.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
Skinner was also clear to praise the new Labour leader for his electoral success. If only Trotter could pull himself out of his sickly nostalgia and do the same. It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
Finally on the results front whee all of this matters, Ardern is even closer to achieving actual government than Corbyn. And in far shorter a time than Corbyn.
On the policy front, the historical context front, the leadership front, and on the results front, New Zealand’s own Labour Party is at least as advanced as UK Labour if not moreso.
Skinner’s career was protected by massive union membership and total state control of the coalmines, and never even got close to having to make Cabinet., so he hasn’t had to face business at all.
His best quality was that he had a great turn of phrase and taught Blair most of his rhetorical skills.
Jacinda gave a better speech at the Auckland Town Hall at the launch.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
I’d say we do:
Under funded health
Under funded police
Housing crisis
Climate Change (this one alone more than meets the criteria – it’s not our ‘nuclear-free issue of a generation’ but ‘the WWI & II at the same bloody time’ issue of generations.)
It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
It’s interesting to note that the problem, in both places, seems to be a bunch of self-righteous politicians not listening to the party members and, in fact, telling them that they’re wrong.
I’d say that Corbyn is doing a slightly better job of uniting UK Labour because he’s getting rid of the white-anters.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead. Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change, and will continue to do so even if she cannot lead a government this time.
Don’t bother trying to measure self-righteousness in politicians – the really good ones just keep the rhetorical arm-waving in check.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time. Corbyn’s Labour is still unstable by comparison.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead.
I didn’t.
Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change,
Not really. Still tied to ‘the market’ delivering rather than the government giving full direction.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time.
I do seem to recall a few instances here and there. I also note that NZ Labour now has a leader chosen by the caucus rather than the members.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
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. ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
By Robin Martin, RNZ News reporter A New Zealand local authority, Whanganui District Council, has passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, condemnation of all acts of violence and terror against civilians on both sides of the conflict and the immediate return of hostages. It comes as ...
Asia Pacific Report The Aotearoa chapter of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has appealed to the New Zealand government to call out Israel over the “cruel and barbaric use of force” in Gaza and demand a permanent ceasefire. The league’s open letter was sent to Prime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will invest $566 million over a decade on data, maps and other tools to promote exploration and development in Australia’s resources industry. The project will fund “the first comprehensive map of what’s ...
Asia Pacific Report Following an open letter by Auckland University academics speaking out in support of their students’ right to protest against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, a group of academics at Otago University have today also called on New Zealand academic institutions to “repair colonial violence” and end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda J. Graham, Professor and Director of the Centre for Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology Ryan Tauss/ Unsplash, CC BY Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Reserve Bank is now assuming Australians will see no interest rate cuts this year – and quite possibly none before the next federal election, due next May. That’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University The Victorian budget offered more of the same on Tuesday, with the only change being how the budget papers were packaged. The usual shrink wrap was gone, hinting at savings in the pages ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition is demanding extensive amendments to the government’s legislation targeting non-citizens who refuse to co-operate with their removal. In a dissenting report to the senate inquiry into the legislation, the Coalition says it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanita Yadav, Senior Research Fellow, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Brett Boardman/Belvoir The complex and grappling issue of violence against women takes centre stage in the soul-stirring solo dance drama Nayika: A Dancing Girl. During a dinner conversation ...
Disruption to patient care from a nationwide junior doctors strike is bordering on unsafe, a senior doctor claims, despite what health officials say. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Ground Picture/Shutterstock The anti-cancer drug abemaciclib (also known as Vernezio) has this month been added to the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat certain ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic McAfee, Postdoctoral researcher, marine ecology, University of Adelaide Robbie Porter, OzFish Unlimited Around Australia, hundreds of people are coming together to help a once-prized, but decimated and largely forgotten marine ecosystem. They’re busy restoring Australia’s native oyster and mussel reefs. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Austin Human/Unsplash How does Earth stop meteors from hitting Earth and hurting people? –Asher, 6 years 11 months, New South Wales Alright, let’s embark on a meteor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rory Mulcahy, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of the Sunshine Coast Professional sports organisations regularly promote and develop initiatives to support diversity, equity and inclusion. While sport has the power to change attitudes by sparking conversations about political issues and social ...
Comment: The weekly Monday post-Cabinet press conference is a useful forum for observing Christopher Luxon and how he is developing into the job of Prime Minister. He attempts to convey the impression of a man of action, speaking fast, delivering memorised National Party strategies in a connect-the-slogans kind of way, ...
Double votes, missing ballot boxes, tired tech and stressed staff: how tick-tallying went astray at last year’s election. Cast your mind back to November 2023, that bleary-eyed post-election period duringwhichwewaited, andwaited, for a coalition deal to be hammered out. A distraction from the hotel-hopping of our ...
International audiences are starting to discover what New Zealand already knew about After the Party.When After the Party aired in New Zealand last year, the response was fast and furious. In his preview for Rec Room, Duncan Greive said it was a “gritty, wrenching and highly confronting” series. By ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shahram Akbarzadeh, Convenor of the Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), and Acting Director the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Iran’s leadership has been a direct beneficiary of the months-long war in Gaza. With every missile that Israel fires ...
Claire Mabey reviews the haunting and sexy debut novel from Sinéad Gleeson, who is about to touch down in Aotearoa for a string of live events.When Irish writer Sinéad Gleeson was in Aotearoa in 2018 with her spectacular collection of essays, Constellations, she told me she was working on ...
PNG Post-Courier Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makiba has described the Post-Courier’s front page story yesterday regarding a meeting between Bougainville and national government leaders as “sensationalised” and without substance. The Autonomous Bougainville Government (AGB) had warned it might use “other avenues to gain its independence” should the PNG government “continue ...
Where some saw the worst press conference given by the government to date, Anna Rawhiti-Connell recognised girl maths game.Nicola Willis, recently exasperated by comparisons to Ruth Richardson, said she was “a bit sick of being compared with every female finance minister that’s ever been out there.”Some think that’s ...
The March results are reported against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2023 (HYEFU 2023), published on 20 December 2023 and the results for the same period for the previous year. ...
Jamie Arbuckle, the district councillor who became an MP but decided to keep getting paid for both roles, will instead donate one salary to charity. ...
Adding gender to the Human Rights Act would simply make the implicit explicit. So why is it so controversial? Paul Thistoll explain. At present, Aotearoa’s 1993 Human Rights Act (HRA) includes sex, marital status, religious belief, ethical belief (meaning a lack of religious belief), colour, race, ethnicity or national origin, ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, an 18-year-old who’s studying and working in hospo shares their approach to spending and saving. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Transmasc Age: 18 Ethnicity: Pākehā/Māori Role: Student, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Resources Minister Shane Jones has reportedly asked officials for advice on whether oil and gas companies could be offered “bonds” as compensation if drilling rights offered by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Gleeson, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University Shutterstock The Albanese government is weighing up the costs of delivering an election promise to protect religious people from discrimination in Commonwealth law. Such protections were relatively uncontroversial when included in state anti-discrimination ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yen Ying Lim, Associate Professor, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio Dementia is often described as “the long goodbye”. Although the person is still alive, dementia slowly and irreversibly chips away at their memories and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judy Bush, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne Adam Calaitzis/Shutterstock I met with a friend for a walk beside Merri Creek, in inner Melbourne. She had lived in the area for a few years, and as we walked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Macquarie University Arts companies and individual artists in Australia are supported by government arts agencies, philanthropists, industry bodies, private donors and patrons. However, it is frequently overlooked that a major source of support for the arts ...
Harm Reduction Coalition Aotearoa, a new incorporated society dedicated to ending harmful drug policies, officially launched today, seeks a new fit-for-purpose drug law for Aotearoa New Zealand, rooted in science, experience and evidence. ...
The Corrections Minister admits he "muddied the water" after he and the Prime Minister repeatedly provided incorrect information about a $1.9 billion prison spend-up. ...
It took a post-post-cabinet statement to confirm that 810 new beds will be built at Waikeria, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Lili Tokaduadua was only 15 when she left her family in Fiji to pursue her netball dream in New Zealand. She’d been playing the sport for 10 years and was offered a netball scholarship at Auckland’s Howick College. Now, in her first year out of high school, the 19-year-old defender ...
The beloved local grocers lost a legal challenge to stop a new cycleway outside their store. Joel MacManus reports. In the annals of New Zealand legal history, there are a few brave people who have dared to stand up to the powers that be, no matter how bleak the odds ...
How what we produce and what we eat connects us to the world beyond our shores, visualised. Walking around a supermarket or vege shop, it might be obvious that everything on the shelves came from somewhere. But you might ...
Professor Jemma Geoghegan, of the University of Otago, Otakou Whakaihu Waka, co-leads a Te Niwha project aimed at understanding how and where avian influenza could affect Aotearoa New Zealand, as the highly infectious H5N1 virus spreads globally. The virus has now spread to all continents except Oceania and was recently ...
Thirty years on from Rwanda’s genocide, is guilt over the atrocities is blinding the world to the true nature of its current leadership? The post The repressive underside of Rwanda’s regime appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: Last week, important recommendations for our criminal justice system were made by the international community. Every five years, each member of the United Nations has its human rights practices reviewed. This rolling event – the Universal Periodic Review – is the culmination of a government reporting on its human ...
Highly pathogenic avian influenza – H5N1, or bird flu – has been flying around the world since the late 1990s. New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands are so far free of it, but now it’s been discovered in mainland Antarctica and scientists say it’s only a matter of time ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 7 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The following interview with auto electrician and former caver Stu Berendt, 68, of Charleston on the West Coast, came about because he was part of the caving team that found the rare and amazing fossil remains of the giant Haast eagle, the subject of one of the year’s best books, ...
A $1.8b funding boost for Pharmac still won’t enable it to buy more drugs, raising questions about the Government’s approach to the agency The post Can Pharmac do more with the same pot of money? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Stokan, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County If you live in one of the most economically deprived neighborhoods in your city, you might think the government is directing a smaller share of public funds to your community. ...
Wansolwara The news media’s crucial role in climate change and environment journalism was the focus of The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme 2024 World Press Freedom Day celebrations. The European Union Ambassador to the Pacific, Barbara Plinkert, and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna were the chief ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Adams, Professor of Corporate Law & Academic Director of UNE Sydney campus, University of New England Last August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched legal proceedings against Qantas. The consumer watchdog accused the airline of selling thousands of tickets ...
This episode of A View From Afar was recorded LIVE on May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, May 5, 2024 at 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Assistant Professor, Bond University Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures At the crux of the critical response to Luca Guadagnino’s new movie Challengers is one word: “sexy”. The film charts a love triangle between three up-and-coming tennis players: Tashi (Zendaya), ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy, ADFA Canberra, UNSW Sydney For years, First Nations people have been telling governments they want to be listened to. In particular, they want more ownership of the programs and services that are supposed to help them. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Why do trees have bark? Julien, age 6, Melbourne. This is a great question, Julien. We are so familiar with bark on trees, that most of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Nasser, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Technology Sydney PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important ligament in the knee. It runs from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia) and helps stabilise ...
In amongst the plethora of lamentations for Tom Petty (who was Tom Petty?) in Daily Review last night, CoroDale slipped in two references to a RNZ broadcast which may have passed unnoticed! The whole is worth listening to, but here’s a couple of extracts:
“When you’ve got a government that comes out and says, we’ve got to tolerate 8 or 9 percent unemployment or that one third of children in New Zealand live in poverty, when you’ve got a prime minister who then says ‘well, we can’t do anything about that now because we’ll run out of money’, that’s an insidious lie.”
and
“The Greens are neo-liberals on bikes and the Labour Party are neoliberal lite. They say ‘I’ll do austerity but I’ll do it fairer’.
“There’s no such thing as fair austerity when you’ve got a third of your children living in poverty.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/201852897/there-s-no-such-thing-as-fair-austerity
Does he explain how the GP’s economic plan is austerity, or is he just using the surplus slogan without explanation?
Both Labour and the Greens have committed themselves to some ¨responsible¨ budgeting agreement.
Yep… this is the basis for Bill Mitchell’s statement. And he’s right. Unless Labour and Greens are prepared to tear up their fiscal pledge, it looks like more of the same neo-liberal economics… but with a nicer face.
On RNZ this morning – 70 companies banned from hiring migrant workers since April – new law focusing on employers breaching employment regulations when hiring migrant workers. The bans last from 6-18 months.
One of the banned companies is Mainfreight.
Plus, there aren’t enough inspectors to investigate all the complaints.
Link to the list of 70 at the RNZ article.
Unfortunately @Carolyn, it all starts with that Natzi type mindset such that employees should be grateful if an employer deigns to employ them.
You issue an immigrant a visa that ties him or her to a specific employer. If the employer is good – count yourself lucky.
You then shift the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ under a business focussed Ministry and completely under-resource them.
If the employer turns out to be an arsehole, tough luck. If you want to change employer, you’re then faced with INZ application fees, and perhaps the cost of an immigration lawyer – something hard to do if you’re living hand to mouth, underpaid/less than minimum wage – sometimes even having your passport retained, and living in some shithole somewhere.
It’s actually a form of bondage of employee to employer.
Then of course the other unintended/(actually probably intended) consequence.
Why would the unscrupulous employer employ an unemployed Kiwi (who does not have to suffer that form of bondage) when you can exploit the immigrant for all they’re worth and make a tidy (often cash-based) profit?
It has now been going on for years. And of course if the exploited do get a bit uppity and challenge either the employer, OR the Inspectorate, OR both – you can always make them in breach of their visa conditions and boot them out of the country and get another one.
It all dovetails in nicely with some of the shoddy private tertiary institutions and labour supply/recruitment/contractor companies – some of whom have cosy little relationships with immigration consultants.
100% to Once was Tim,
Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest
So according to the legal requirements of these ‘public servants’ they are legally required to serve the public interests firstly and not their own needs right?
Here is the proof;
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20service
Webster dictonary
Definition of public service
1 :the business of supplying a commodity (such as electricity or gas) or service (such as transportation) to any or all members of a community
2 :a service rendered in the public interest
3 :governmental employment; especially :civil service
“Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest”
That’s the theory @ Cleengreen, but it hasn’t been the case since neo-liberalism took hold and was allowed to run rampant. It’s been corporatised into a series of little fiefdoms – the chiefs being ‘CEOs’ ffs! and senior management chiefs who get to choose who best serves their agendas. (Usually good honest frontline Public Servant peons doing there best, but who often operate in fear of their masters – their masters who take credit for the ‘win wins going forward’, but who apportion blame down the heirarchy when things go tits up)
The ‘Public’ Service as a bizzniss – equipped with all its purchase agreements and KPI’s that (as it can be shown) are regularly abused without consequence.
At the time of the reforms I think we were promised greater efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and non-partisan administration – that is improvements to what we once had. Instead – the opposite. You only have to look at the sucking up and arse protecting of Ministers – or even just the record to date in areas such as Health, Education, NZTA, MPI (border incursions for example), MoBIE (shitty steel and suspect buildings, exploitation of workers, etc., etc., etc.). Then of course there’s abuse of OIAs and cronyism. And then there’s the real standouts such as WINZ and CYPS.
But then back to the exploitation that @Carolyn-nth mentions.
It’s a “win win” for the exploiters and those engaged in preserving the (so-called public ‘service’) structure that enables it.
– An unthinking public that has blind faith in others supposedly serving their interests (that romantic notion of an actual Public/Civil Service) can simply see that it’s all these bloody immigrants coming over here taking all our jobs!
– A Minister – supposedly responsible but who can rely on his Munstry to protect his arse – who now screams ‘low quality immigrant’ in Peter Dutton fashion. Even the fairly reasonable Senior Public Servant (I could name names) who occasionally fronts media and who now has a big mortgage to pay, is likely to succumb to the cool aid – and after all – those ‘low quality immigrants’ are probably used to it.
After their supping the cool aid for so long – its now all NORMAL!, and why would they seriously want to challenge it all?
There’s a simple starting point:
– IF the only way you can run a business profitably by exploiting those economic units (that we’ll put on the spreadsheet, OR the MYOB/Xero equivalent as a COST), then your bizzniss IS NOT VIABLE – (going forward of course). I’ve even personally witnessed Labour Inspectorate managers tell me they know of worker exploitation based prices being charged for lunches and coffee ‘deals’ that aren’t sustainable considering their overheads – such as rent, electricity, etc., and that the only other option in order they break even – LET ALONE amass profit -is through worker exploitation. But then …. they go home to the missus and the kuds, and tomorrow is another day.
– ELSE if those managers can’t actually challenge the shit they know is happening or the heat in the kitchen, then get the fuck out!
Then there’s some obvious solutions – AT LEAST as a starting point – unless of course 3rd World humanity is OK in ‘lil ‘ole Nu Zull and now something we’re all supposed to aspire to in this neo-liberal nirvana of the market the market! (Perhaps THIS since we’ve set up the structure to encourage and enable: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/as-chinas-economy-slows-business-cults-prey-on-young-job-seekers/articleshow/60881676.cms),
OR any other SS Joyce/ACTian view of the future). I hope they’re really confident in the security of their local gated community – well it’s probably not really a community, rather a number of individualists living in close proximity to one another. But then “yeow” as Mister Farrar and Chem Slator would say – the Murrays might get restless.
STOP bonding employees to employers
PURGE those employers from the country RATHER than their victims (when they only have residency status)
STOP the conflicts of interest – those that exist between contractors/PTEs/etc. and immigration officials. (we could go deeper and talk about things like Swamp Kauri PS enablers)
START resourcing INZ, LI, NZQA properly and take them the fuck away from a Munstry that was founded on promoting/enabling the bizznizz interest over and above the citizen and person as a social being.
I got 2 wake up calls last night from Civil Defence.
Anyone else get the same?
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/10/civil-defence-trials-alert-in-middle-of-the-night-waking-thousands.html
Well that’s confidence inspiring.
After the second I had to get up and check that Trump hadn’t dropped a fucking bomb.
A close reading of the Herald article ( ignore the headline) gives 4 reasons for the slowing of the housing crisis.
winter
bank lending limits
the election
China’s crackdown on capital flows
The most interesting section is this……
‘ James Steele, QV Auckland senior consultant, said sales volumes were down to very low levels because demand was halted “by the ability for purchasers to finance property deals.
Steele said Auckland had continued to flatten to reach what Steele called a stalemate situation. A change would only occur if a significant economic shock destabilised prices by further reducing demand or there was an easing of lending restrictions, he said.’
Is the banks’ reluctance to lend caused by a realisation of a future ‘significant economic shock’? They do not want to get burnt. That added to ‘China’s crackdown on capital flows’ could see a crash on its way.
I sense the economy is about to get very bumpy.
Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.
Good luck Chaps.
Yup – God knows we wouldn’t want that Bill fella anywhere near the wheel – he never had a clue.
Time for a return to a ‘self sufficient society’ again thank god as NZ is in a prime position to become this better than any other country I know today.
I have some history of what a country can become when it turned into a self sufficient society while in Rhodesia during the 1970 era PM Ian Smith actually turned that country around by restoring almost everything from cars trucks homes and industry as well as food and electricity sources and water.
The origional african people got homes built and jobs so it worked, until UK Government forced a deal to turn the government over to a “tyrant’ who still runs a murdering government today under a invested interested ‘corporate’ controlled system.
All previous successful self sufficient regions/countries have been toppled by corporate interests and their media persuasion.
Now it is Spain last year it was Venezuela remember this, as what is next?
What’s your definition of a ‘self-sufficient” NZ?
Pretty simple question BM I am surprised you dont know the answer.
self-sufficient
This refers to single persons as well as countries, so my interest is for our Government consisting of “public servants” to carry out their role to provide our needs and interests as required under legal references to “public servants” to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
Of course the excess product can then be used to sell to any exrternal buyer for further financial income.
Here are the dictonary expanation of self sufficient.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/self-sufficient
‘The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.’
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
able to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.
2.
having extreme confidence in one’s own resources, powers, etc.:
to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance
So we make everything and cancel all our trade agreements?
It’s what we used to do back when we had a more egalitarian society with less poverty.
The idea that we just keep trading more commodities is making us poorer. Of course, that does seem to be what it was designed to do:
That article is about aid but it applies to this thread because the entire financial system is designed to benefit a few at everyone else’s expense and we’re getting poorer because of it.
Yes, the good o’l days.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/at-home/610220/Rebirth-of-the-K9
I didn’t say it was perfect.
And then there’s the point that if we had kept making TVs in NZ they wouldn’t be anywhere near as labour intensive as then. In fact, with the correct development, producing them wouldn’t use any labour at all.
Bm is trolling you….
No, I’m not, I’m actually interested to see how a trading nation such as NZ is supposed to survive if it shuts the door and turns its back on the world.
Let’s look at how countries like Sweden and Norway operate.
Sweden is in the EU, not exactly cut off from the world.
Norway is a European free trade association member.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93European_Union_relations
Have you seen their tax rates?
Tax rates? what’s that got to do with self-sufficiency.
BM we can be part of the British Commonweath again without the decietful rules imposed upon us now under some other trade pratices like TPPA and NAFTA. while remain ‘independent’ as we were under the British commonwealth trade system , as we see now clearly those later ones dont work for us thanks.
And before you rubbish the idea of ‘self sufficient’ remeber I qualified the use of overproduction of our own surplus products to sell to other countries who wanted it without any trade rules.
That way we get our finances to expand our lives and communities without borrowing offshore again.
Yes it is. The question is more if Labour can understand the lessons that are coming and get rid of the delusional financial system that they implemented all those years ago. To ban foreign ownership and investment which are making us poorer.
“Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.”
I know that’s meant as a sly jab but there’s truth in it too. It is a good time for them to take over. National’s immigration driven economic ‘growth’ has almost reached its zenith and now it’s time for a housing surge to prop up the economy.
A big house building boom should see Labour through two terms at least I’d think. We’re in more risk of a recession under National.
The big house building boom under Labour isn’t going to happen until some fairly basic issues are solved
1) Who’s going to be developing the land
2) Lack of tradespeople, apprentice builders don’t cut it.
3)Lack of materials
4)Lack of building component companies within the construction pipeline, eg: Aluminium joiners, kitchen makers
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
I think you’ll find it’s you whose spouting nonsense, homes are complicated and there’s a fuck load of trades involved in the building process both on-site and off.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
Didn’t realise the Govt owned any earth moving gear?
They can buy it or, even better, make it.
We had an entire ministry with earth moving gear and that sort of thing at one stage. Fuckers sold it off. Now tories are all “ohmahgerd, govt doesn’t have bulldozers! You’re silly!”
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
Personally, I don’t really like it, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in currently, haven’t read anything about Labour changing anything either
Correct me if I’m wrong though
Oh, when faced with a rorting private sector and 100k homes to build, the government will either get into the contruction business (like prefabrication factories) or do the same fuckall you’re lot have been up to as the crisis deepens.
So, the plan is to fund a prefabrication factory in Gisborne and freight the houses to Auckland?
What happens if no one puts their hand up? has there been any interest shown?
lol, you’re only now just catching up with the policies you’ve been shitting on for months?
ISTR the local community trust has already bought a mill or something, and the $20mil was based on a decent business case to expand the site into a full prefabrication facility.
Oh, and there was already interest. The policy didn’t come out of thin air, it came from the region as part of Labour’s consultation, where they actually listened to what the regions needed. The idea of listening to the people is alien to you as a National shill, of course.
The government is never at the whim of the private sector.
We now find ourselves in a crisis brought about by shifting governance to the private sector. The only way to correct that is to take it back into the hands of the populace.
That’d be a lie. you wouldn’t support profit and the private sector the way you do if you didn’t think that’s the way it should be. That’s why you vote National.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
They need tradesmen to supervise and oversee a less skilled workforce, they don’t need tradesmen to do every job. Anyone with reasonable hand-eye co-ordination and memory can work on a building site. That’s how the world was built.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
What a ridiculous comment. 🙄
Only because it’s showing you up as ignorant.
The building industry *wants* more tradespeople. It doesn’t need them, there’s already plenty to go around. Of course they’d want them, it’s much less hassle for the management to hire people who can work unsupervised. But want doesn’t mean need.
When there’s more work than tradespeople you turn some of the tradesmen into supervisors and hire unskilled labour. The building industry has worked that way since, well, forever
And before you come up with another snide and ignorant comment look at your history. The allied WWI and WWII efforts were won by filling the factories with unskilled labour.
Leafing through my uncle’s journal of New Zealand Houses from the 1950’s there is barely any difference to what a regular new build looks like today and the building processes are all the same. You could bring back all the tradies from that era onto a new build and they would be fine apart from not knowing how to work a power drill and getting pissed off with most of the regulations.
1. The government
2. Training
3. ban export of building materials
4. Training or, even better, development of automated systems
The big problem with you RWNJs is that you’re still stuck in the 19th century mindset that’s a proven failure.
So the great building revolution will what start in about 10 years time?
LOL at the banning the export of building materials.
We’re still waiting for the Great Leap Forward.
Blinded by the Brighter Future – oh, wait, that’s because of delayed eye surgery…
Why? Same as when Russia, when they had that drought a few years ago, banned the export of food. They needed it for themselves because they didn’t have enough.
The profits of the private sector come second to that.
Yes, I can see it now
Comrade Jacinda will make an appearance on The Peoples National TV Station (RadioNZ) and loudly shout into the camera.
“Nyet to the export of building materials from this day forward !!!, citizens who ignore this decree will be sent to the gulags (Dunedin), I Comrade Jacinda have spoken!!.
BM – if symptoms persist, consult your medical specialist.
+111
mmm Auckland house prices crash 0.6 % to an average of $1.04m a house. Some slump.
The headline should really be “Auckland house prices remain at outrageously high levels despite Chinese finance crackdown”.
Interesting that the Chinese have a government that does things……
They don’t believe in the invisible hand of the all seeing market.
They also don’t allow foreigners to buy land or property in their country.
Funny, that – having a government that protects the sovereignty of the nation.
Yes Ed if the chinese dont let us buy houses in their country we shouldn’t let them buy in ours should we?
This is how a free trade system works???
No thanks!!!!! we should get out now.
Jarrod Gilbert’s take down of Joyce and English is worth a thread of its own.
I’m sure others have spotted it.
‘I write this one for all of the morons out there.
The fools, the buffoons, the vapid oxygen thieves who are the enemies of reason, whose foolishness is only matched by their self-righteousness, whose understanding of key issues is inversely proportional to the loudness with which they speak. Gather around my enemies, I wish to have a word.
I need to talk about political tribalism, this phenomenon that so often mocks the principles that uphold our democracy while chipping away at its foundations……
…..Whether of not Joyce set out to cause mischief, or he simply misread the books and embarrassment and pigheadedness meant he was unable to back down (the latter theory I favour), we’re all aware that a swath of leading economists came out and debunked what he said.
What did Joyce do? Deny, deny, attack, deny, deny. And, of course, many of his people defended it, made excuses, or misrepresented the evidence.
All good people should have called that nonsense out in unison.
To the tribalists who didn’t I ask this: if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not. And that’s what defines you as a moron.
In fact, looking at any issue and asking how you would react if the other side did it is a handy test we should all employ. Even when we claim neutrality such a test often teases out our unconscious biases……..
……..What ugliness awaits us now that this brazen low has been established? Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas?
Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11929095
Gilbert = sore loser. It is just his opinion, though no doubt loved by Standardnistas.
The figures Labour presented did add up, but only if there was no new spending (other than heath and education) in 2019 and 2020. Having no provision for new spending in the proposed 2019 and 2020 budgets was not credible. For instance National provides $1.5 billion unallocated expenditure in each of the out years.
The failure to provide additional spending meant there was a wide open hole for National to exploit, especially when the argument is made by the very people with the most real world experience of how government budgets are made up.
So for instance adding back $2 billion new spending in each of these years adds up to $6 billion, since you have to baseline the $2 billion from 2019. I would say for Labour $2 billion would be light. The $11 billion figure was based on $3.7 billion new spending in each year.
There are hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert who could easily see the logic of Joyce and English’s arguments.
“The figures Labour presented did add up” Then we are in agreement and the National Party were lying like a flat fish. No need for a further four paragraphs twisting words like a column of smoke. Two ticks NZF here i hope Winnie goes with the Greens and Labour you lot are nothing but liars.
So you support Joyce’s lies?
Thought you were better than that.
Those sinecures (Law commission etc) don’t get handed out for honesty Ed.
They were not lies, as I have explained.
Bullshit and jellybeans. They were lies.
Attempting to spin them into something else only demeans you further…
It is noticeable that when Nats start feeling the pressure, the nasty streak which is present in every one of them rises to the surface for all to see.
Yep Wayne’s big hole revelation is disingenous in the extreme. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. Rewriting history is just par for the course. At least he’s stopped blathering on about the greens saving the gnats – I’m thankful for small mercies.
Dear, dear.
How the mighty have fallen….
You are reminding me of an industry gag about Microsoft Wayne who like to exercise their market share in lieu of customer centric behaviour.
How many MS engineers does it take to change a lightbulb ?
None, define darkness as a new standard.
Actually, Wayne, when you said “The figures Labour presented did add up” you were admitting that Joyce told lies. He was very specific about the lines of expenditure that he claimed weren’t being accounted for and therefore did not add up. If he wasn’t lying deliberately at first (and was simply incompetent), then his and English’s shifting versions of this smear over time (morphing over time into your – false – claim that there was no allowance for new spending in 2019 and 2020 other than health and education) and refusal to back away from the “hole” idea was definitely a lie. As for your claim that this allegation came from the people who know the process best, I’d say Michael Cullen knows a thing or two about budgets, wouldn’t you?
They were lies.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/economist-consensus-there-s-no-11-7b-hole-in-labour-s-budget/_jcr_content/par/image.dynimg.full.q75.jpg/v1504582340023/D-LABOURHOLE-LBU-05-09.jpg
They were lies as has been explained to you.
But you’ll keep playing the spin because of your sociopathic need for control of everybody else.
Fake news spin for fakery. Scum tactics to win are still scum tactics and you must be so proud, beaming with pride, at the result. Legacy and honour builder FAIL.
Gilbert = sore loser.
What “loser?” The outcome of the election isn’t known yet. The fact the Nats think they “won” the election when they’re no more able to form a government than anyone else is a manifestation of Tory born-to-rule mentality – it has comedy value only.
And that very first sentence Wayne, defines you.
And around about there, with that first sentence, your credibility and argument fall
flat.
Hi Wayne,
I’d like to draw your attention to the following if you don’t mind. It was towards the end and you may have missed it:
It seems to me that Gilbert is arguing that there is indeed a “loser” but it is not him; it is all of us …
Thank you Wayne, for so thoroughly illustrating exactly what Gilbert was talking about.
” hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge”
No doubt you mean the menkurt ideologues who thrust your worthless, dishonest, and above anti-democratic regime upon us.
Your time is done, reptilian, crawl back to the swamp and make fossils.
Hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert and the many, many experts who rubbished Joyce and English?
Those whose superior financial intellect saw them vote for Joyce and English
are probably still partying for the Argentina win over All Blacks last weekend.
By mentioning the All Blacks as a counter, you show yourself to be the type of moron to whom Gilbert’s address was directed towards.
Yawn — yeah wayne? === nah nah nah!!!!
You are a very very very sore loser!!
You sound angry.
Did your boyfriend leave you?
Did your boyfriend leave you
Seriously? Homophobic slurs on The Standard, are you trying to Darwin yourself?
Youre a ‘mate’ (I call a boyfriend) of Steven Joyce are you not?
So are you implying something else please explain yourself, as I have had you denigrate me several times before now.
As an unwell person (as explained recently) am so over your insinuations.
Grow up, or run back to your National Party bunker will you!!!!!
Bm is very careful around these things unless he’s denigrating his own people then he doesn’t give a shit.
I think BM has set himself up as the lefts conscience, well done BM, the troll that trawls, he/she probably reads these comments more closely than the rest of us, to correct the groupthink, meanwhile defending Nationals blatant lying, lovely, just lovely.
I also think it’s interesting that BM assumes that it’s a bad thing to have a boyfriend, and that any statement with an inbuilt assumption that a person might have one must therefore be a homophobic slur.
How is using ‘boyfriend’ homophobic?
I’d have thought “homophilic” better – is that right?
Edit: what red-blooded said, above.
Wayne, Joyce’s failed academic record and English’s shifty and shifting answers on the Todd Barclay affair, does not make for confidence in their abilities. In other words, flexible integrity or lack of it. What they do have is ability to bluster, twist, distort ….. And through handing out cosy jobs for the boys they can wheel out people like yourself and other past their use by types to make it seem there is a groundswell of support for Greens to hold hands with National, despite the years and years of insults thrown at them.
Whatever the outcome, Jacinda and her team are behaving impeccably in contrast.
+ 1 truth
@Wayne: I accept that you have managed to create a justification for your belief in the invisible black hole that wasn’t evident to Cameron Bagrie, Ganesh Nana, Dr Vernon Small, Keith Ng, Brian Fallow, Bernard Hickey or Shamubeel Eaqub. I was impressed by the position that you took supporting an inquiry into Afghanistan civilian deaths. Therefore, why do I find it hard to understand how you can continue to support and defend a government that has continually behaved in an underhand way, that I would not have thought that you would condone.
Jeeez Wayne,
You should have let Stephen and Bill know that you believed their BILLSHIT about the 11 billion dollar hole that way when they were asked to provide one person that backed up what they said……..just one person…..even a taxi driver…. they could have confidently said well actually Wayne believes us and everything would have been sweet as. As it weas they couldnt name one person bbecause it was a lie.
By the way, typical Nat ploy by you, play the man (Jarrod Gilbert) not the ball as it was not him that said the hole didn’t exist he was merely reporting on what leading NZ economists had said. What he was saying is how sad it is that people are so indoctrinated into their own political beliefs that they refuse to see the truth in front of them.
Ed: “if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not.”
Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not? NO. Even a Privileges Committee “trial.”
And what happens to Joyce, Key, English much more serious lies? Nothing but support from the Media.
100% ianmac; – brillance there. I vividly remember this, and was the reason I now suppoort NZF.
“Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not?”
Actually, National supporters, including the tribalists, would consider the idea that they should vote for some other party, simply because Joyce made a boo boo, downright silly.
Don’t minimise this, mikesh – Joyce didn’t “make a boohoo” – he and his PM deliberately lied and misled their supporters. This was a clear, demonstrated example – one that even the most committed tribalist should be able to acknowledge. Given that, and the scale of the lie, how is anyone meant to believe that this was the only lie? Politics is about trust – are these people trustworthy?
Plus, let’s remember that it wasn’t only Nat tribalists who were being lied to – the aim was to influence swinging voters, and all the evidence suggests that they succeeded in this aim. That makes this a very significant lie.
Whatever. National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.
“Whatever.”
So, you now concede that it was a lie, but hey – what does truth matter when decisions are being made about our nation’s future?
“National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.”
Did you fail to read or comprehend the final paragraph of my comment, mikesh? The lie wasn’t targeted at Nat supporters (they were always going to overlook the dirty politics and stay with their team, just as they have in the past) – it was aimed at swinging voters. The evidence of the polls before and after the lie and its constant repetition suggest that it had an effect on them. It didn’t have to be a big effect in order to make a difference in this very tight race.
I see the Herald has wheeled out another opinion piece denigrating Peters and extolling the worth of a Nat/Greens coalition. This time its Michael Cox.
Michael Cox who? I hear you say. He was an insignificant Nat MP in the 1980s. Cox has gone even further back in time to dredge up another politician to link Peters to – Benjamin Disraeli.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=280
National “deep dark state operations” are dredging every past of politicians whom pose a threat to their lib/con sellout policy to denigrate them.
Best we get our coalition of Labour/green/NZF to throw them out pronto.!!!!!!!!
The authorities in Vegas are still trying to ascertain the motive of yet another mass killing. Well as our ” dear friend” Richard Prebble once opined… I’ve been thinking.
I’m a minor Dixie Chick fan because of their song “I’m not ready to make nice” ,which was penned by Natalie Main (lead singer) over what happened to the band after they commented at a concert in London that they were embarrassed that the President (G W Bush) came from Texas, which they did too. A documentary “Shut up and sing” was made about the severe antagonism and hatred the group then suffered. Death threats etc…. it was serious stuff for what was only an aside at a concert in a foreign land. The Country and Western Southern base went totally ballistic in their hatred for the Dixie Chicks…….
Maybe Paddock didn’t like something the group featuring at the concert in Vegas had said or sung, so he flipped and decided to do something about it and set about it thoroughly. Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
I could be totally wrong.
I’m being frivolous, which is inexcusable on such a serious subject as the mass killing of innocent people – but perhaps the killer just didn’t like country and western music!
… and saw it as part of a Communist plot to take over America.
They’re crazy enough to believe anything over there.
A bunch of articles I’ve read have said apparently he was a fan of country music.
The scariest suggested motive I’ve seen yet is that maybe he just wanted to set a record with his 15 minutes of fame.
Yep it is plausible that he wanted a record. As less and less is found, that scenario is more likely imo.
that’s all most of these pieces of shit want , their 15 minutes , there name should never be made public and their corpses should be ground and feed to the pigs .
in saying that the us is getting what it votes for so i lose no sleep over it.
39,000 firearm murders in Honduras 2008-2015… why is it that 60 American deaths are headline news?
Because 39000 / 7 / 365 = 15 not 60.
Central and South America really do have a worse problem with gun violence than the US. Along with a lot of southern Africa, some of the middle east and some of Asia. Check out the graphic at the bottom of this article.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html
Just for perspective, Honduras’ population is around 9 million, US around 320 million.
Thanks I suppose I also thought it was an apple orange scenario in that the total gun deaths in the us over the same period would be an apt comparison.
Your maths leave a little to desire….there are about 10,000 firearm murders in USA each year, that is 0.003% of the population.
In Honduras yearly murders average 5,500 each year, that is 0.061% of the population. That is a rate TWENTY TIMES that in the USA….I repeat why are 60 American deaths headlines?
The point being you could refer to Guatemala or Brazil or El Salvador etc etc and make the same point.
The 15 is related to the 60
And the 60 happened in one place at about the same time by a murderer who apparently wanted to set a hideous record and did.
THAT is why it is a headline.
I get your point and agree to a point.
Note: All are “Banana Republics”, with RWNJ Governments installed by the CIA.
Because it’s much more likely the readers of our local media will have some sort of connection with the victims and/or where it happened and/or a feeling of “it could have been me” when it happens it the US compared to when it happens in Honduras.
Oh kee-rist…the ignorance burns…it just goes to show that nowhere is immune from someone making ludicrous claims.
Las Vegas leans Democratic (for what’s that worth, I don’t know), but residents are not 99% Republican.
How often do you read an article with the words ‘ since the 1980s’?
More precise reporting would say ‘since the advent of neoliberalism.’
‘Moerewa, near Kaikohe, has embarked on a makeover that it hopes will continue under whatever new government is formed this month.
The town was once a thriving community where nearly everyone had a job at the freezing works or dairy factory.
But since the 1980s it has gone downhill, with more than 80 percent of its people on a benefit or retired.’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/340805/makeover-for-northland-town
How about all the empty local Dairy factories, drove past about 10 in the Naki recently.
Imagine the potential in those sites if we break the shackles of neo liberal market driven behaviour and moved to a sustainable produce/manufacture/distribute locally model.
There do appear a lot for sale at the moment.
Wonder if that is more land being bought up by foreigners?
This book is very interesting on the subject.
The Land Grabbers – The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth
by Fred Pearce
‘An unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. ‘
http://www.beacon.org/The-Land-Grabbers-P887.aspx
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/10/05/who-owns-earth-review-fred-pearces-land-grabbers
Perfect plan tc we need local industry now to work more effeciently and produce local jobs and secure families.
I live 80kms north of gisborne and daily see a flood of milk tankers going south 300+ kms to Palmerston north factories and then they are shiped north again as export products 280 kms to Port of Napier.
What a waste of transportation and pollution along the way and waste of fuel!!!!!!!
Imagine a kick started textile/paper industry based on Flax and Hemp.
One is a return to something we used to do, the other a booming 21st century market we could get into with a progressive attitude.
Both are natural products suited to our climate with one already a native species.
+ 100
got a mate – did some hemp growing – great plant so many uses just so many, and the flax is so good too. Some great areas for growing harakeke, areas not drained for cowland. I see these two resources/crops/plants as being ESSENTIAL for future sustainability and survivability.
Like all good things, greenies will have been promoting it for a decade or three before it’s taken up by the mainstream – as someone here often says, “follow the hippies”.
Yep there are lots of places where great things could be started. Neo liberalism has a lot to answer for. Going small and local and community orientated are the way to roll back the neo liberal 1980s experiment.
🙂 “But since the return of Liberalism in the 1980s…”
“since the advent of neoliberalism” suggest something new popped up. But nothing new popped up. You can read Dickens and get a very good understanding of what kind of society gets created by Liberalism/neo-liberalism, but won’t make the connection if you think the 80s was all about something that had never been tried before – tried and then rejected some time around the 30s/40s by “the west” but still foisted on “the global south” by “the west” by way of “structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)
Good point.
Why you shouldn’t idolise rappers:
Or give them money.
Why you shouldn’t idolise this rapper or give him money – I think you mean.
It is illogical to take one swallow and assume it is summer.
Caught up with an angry voter, angry because they now want to change their vote, angry because they have only recently realised they’ve been lied to and misled by national. They can’t change their vote, but they said they are never voting for national again. They are also very embarrassed that they believed the tax lies flowing from the mouths of national mps during the election and perpetuated by a media who gave it airplay again and again and again.
Ethics in schools please, at least the misinformed voter would have been more informed by their kids if civics was being taught in schools.
Meanwhile… 3 more sleeps until Saturday 😀 Bring on the special vote count 😀
More fool them for believing the lie.
If they haven’t worked National out yet…….
100% agree.
It’s difficult to figure something out correctly when all the information available is the lies.
So how come you and I can see the lies?
Because we are all political junkies, well versed in DP the media etc etc. Some people believe everything the pm says, he’s the pm he must be telling the truth.
But Bill Ralston said…… but Bill Ralston writes bill englishes speeches.. etc etc.
But the soundbites… and the facebook… if you are not versed in media manipulation then you’ll probably swallow it hook line and sinker.
But mum and dad said…… sorry huni mum and dad are being manipulated by soundbites and fake news as well
It’s amazing how much trust and faith some put in the media or people in power, they neglect to realise that some of those people are only manipulating others for their own gains.
As well as ethics in schools can we please have a 24hr kiwi tv channel, as well giving parental, practical, mental health, lifestyle and social advice and info, chuck in some educational documentaries too, please and thank you.
I no that there are some who will try and pin any bull shit on me because that is there mentality to fuck me up there are many story’s that I have not told about my interaction with these people and these stories would do more damage to there image and they would not give a shit because they can hide in plain clothes. and unmarked cars while OUR people in uniforms take the heat This is the last I commenting on this subject .The pepper is doing a better job than I thought probably got a few more miles in the old truck.
Baby cheeses. Just published …. corruption within corruption …. part of ACC sold off without tender to staff …. so much is wrong with this .. Sir Owen Woodhouse must be turning in his grave …
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/10/03/51308/questions-continue-over-acc-disputes-entity
I guess Pence and his Xtian Taliban are running the shop.
The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.
Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.
The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-gay-sex-death-penalty-un-same-sex-relations-human-rights-council-saudi-arabia-iraq-nikki-haley-a7980981.html
This article and research paper is worth a thread its own right.
‘Most river pollution comes from streams that don’t need fencing, research shows
Most of New Zealand’s river pollution comes from streams that would be exempt from waterway fencing rules, new research shows.
It calls into question the effectiveness of current efforts, which would become law under legislation proposed by the National Government.
A paper published by the American Journal of Environmental Quality found that 77 per cent of contaminants in New Zealand’s rivers came from smaller waterways exempt from proposed fencing rules.
The paper, by Ag Research scientist Dr Richard McDowell as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, found that most pollution does not come from those waterways.
It modelled the contaminant load for over half a million stream segments around the country, which were divided into those that would need to be fenced and those that would not.
It determined 77 per cent of the pollution load nationwide came from streams that would not require fencing.
The contribution of individual pollutants from smaller streams ranged from 73 per cent of total nitrogen to 84 per cent of dissolved reactive phosphorus.
It was particularly evident in agriculturally-productive regions such as Canterbury, Southland, Nelson and Hawkes Bay, which “exhibited large contaminant loads from exempt catchments”, the research said.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/97528658/most-river-pollution-comes-from-streams-that-dont-need-fencing-research-shows
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/jeq/articles/46/5/1038
Dairy New Zealand.
An evil industry.
A killing machine.
An immoral operation.
And they know that if people really found out how their industry operates, it would be all over.
‘Dairy farmers jumpy over media attention at calving time
Springtime, and the paranoia is rising – at least among dairy farmers.
Chastened by scrapes with animal rights groups and the media in recent years, farmers are on high alert for cameras lurking behind cowsheds or drones whirring in the skies.
In calving season images of distressed or abused bobby calves are the last thing the industry needs.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/97530353/dairy-farmers-jumpy-over-media-attention-at-calving-time
Well said Chris Trotter, well said.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/the-difference-between-jeremy-and.html
Funny, myself and others got roundly criticized for pointing this out before the election, I’m guessing the Blairite hacks will carry on with those attacks.
Skinner’s key policy points were that he wanted :
– Free education
– Free healthcare
– Scrapping zero-hour contracts
– A return to high unionism
So, just on the policy front Labour’s policies going into the election covered all of that, as Trotter is well aware.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
Skinner was also clear to praise the new Labour leader for his electoral success. If only Trotter could pull himself out of his sickly nostalgia and do the same. It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
Finally on the results front whee all of this matters, Ardern is even closer to achieving actual government than Corbyn. And in far shorter a time than Corbyn.
On the policy front, the historical context front, the leadership front, and on the results front, New Zealand’s own Labour Party is at least as advanced as UK Labour if not moreso.
Skinner is not scared of big business.
NZ Labour is.
Skinner’s career was protected by massive union membership and total state control of the coalmines, and never even got close to having to make Cabinet., so he hasn’t had to face business at all.
His best quality was that he had a great turn of phrase and taught Blair most of his rhetorical skills.
Jacinda gave a better speech at the Auckland Town Hall at the launch.
I’d say we do:
Under funded health
Under funded police
Housing crisis
Climate Change (this one alone more than meets the criteria – it’s not our ‘nuclear-free issue of a generation’ but ‘the WWI & II at the same bloody time’ issue of generations.)
It’s interesting to note that the problem, in both places, seems to be a bunch of self-righteous politicians not listening to the party members and, in fact, telling them that they’re wrong.
I’d say that Corbyn is doing a slightly better job of uniting UK Labour because he’s getting rid of the white-anters.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead. Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change, and will continue to do so even if she cannot lead a government this time.
Don’t bother trying to measure self-righteousness in politicians – the really good ones just keep the rhetorical arm-waving in check.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time. Corbyn’s Labour is still unstable by comparison.
I didn’t.
Not really. Still tied to ‘the market’ delivering rather than the government giving full direction.
I do seem to recall a few instances here and there. I also note that NZ Labour now has a leader chosen by the caucus rather than the members.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/02/labour-mp-poto-williams-defied-leader-to-speak-out-against-willie-jackson.html
From what I’m seeing UK Labour is quite stable – their MPs aren’t. Same as what happened to Cunliffe really.
Katherine Rich Is a nasty piece of work, who will do anything to shill for big sugar.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/10/04/51558/whaleoil-ex-mp-pr-man-to-face-jury-trial
Rich was quoted on Kiwiblog this week, getting at people who make up and use crap.
How fucken rich was that? Her, on there.
She is symptomatic of what is wrong with this country.
Sadly we thought as an MP that she was one pf the good guys. How wrong we were.
She showed her true colours in Nigel Latta’s show on Sugar.
Another Nat liar and pimp.