"Duncan said that any support for Israel’s current tactics in Gaza was “morally unacceptable”. “It’s what Israel has been doing for years has been wrong because the Israeli defence does not follow international law,” he said.
“It has been backing and supporting illegal settlers in the West Bank who steal Palestinian land and it is that land theft, that annexation of Palestine, which is the origin of the problem, which has given rise to the Hamas atrocity and the battles we’re seeing.”
In their defense, have you heard Simeon Brown or Nicola Willis getting interviewed?
If I was their staffers, I'd try keep the pair of them locked in a broom cupboard in the Beehive as far away from the media (or any other human beings) as possible.
A quick look at Alan Duncan's wikipedia page shows he has long been targetted by the Israel lobby for daring to have an opinion contrary to the hard line Likud party.
"She rounded on fellow Conservatives who seek to have a monopoly on how to support Israel, saying support for an extremist Likud-led government was not the same as support for Israel……There is nothing anti-Israeli, much less antisemitic, in taking a tougher line with the Netanyahu government. The reality is that how Israel prosecutes this war, that is the problem we have. We support their right to self-defence but they are making themselves and us less safe in the way they are doing it.”
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey scrambled a late evening press release insisting the Suicide Prevention Office was not a victim of the Government’s cost cutting driving, as news of public service cuts continued on Thursday.
Doocey’s assurance was at odds with the Public Service Association, which said the office would close after the Ministry of Health confirmed 134 job losses.
His comments also appeared to clash with the Ministry of Health itself.
Suicide Prevention Office to be canned–what could be a likely result of that one might ask…
Thousands of public servants & contractors to be slashed also…will they be on the pitiful “Job Seeker Allowance” subject to the sadistic maze that is WINZ/MSD, or move to the provinces and milk cows with Filipinos? Middle class Wellington is in for a shake up alright–and around the country actually via gutting various Depts. and groups like the Regional Skills Leadership Groups (RSLG), people doing good work for our fellow citizens are running scared.
Maybe the State Sector unions will learn from this and finally drop their political neutrality stance. Sometimes they are out to get you! Time for an old school NZCTU led industrial action fightback.
Except that one has to be practically destitute to even get Jobseekers in the first place. Only once they've burned through all their savings and sold off any sellable assets (except the family home), will they qualify for the pittance. That's assuming they aren't in a relationship, and their partner isn't earning over a certain amount and is expected to be able to foot the bill for everything. The State will do everything possible to abdicate their responsibility.
I don't think that's quite right. Everyone in NZ is entitled to the core JS benefit if they have no income. It is not asset tested, so people with savings or a caravan or whatever won't have those count against the core benefit (they do count against some of the supplementary benefits eg accommodation and hardship benefits and grants). JS is income tested, so income from any source (including interest, but not including capital gains from housing natch) will be used to abate the core benefit.
But it's still very bad. The couples stuff is just insane and weirdly anti-family. And anyone on a benefit for more than a few weeks is going to have to supplement their income somehow. WINZ make that very difficult and long term beneficiaries are basically forced into poverty by the state.
Benefits are not asset tested only some additional payments are. It is sad that some people keep perpetuating this. When advocating for people I often come across cases where they had spent all their redundancy payments or savings before applying for a benefit. One case this gentleman had gone for three years eking out his redundancy. Three years he could have been getting a benefit.
People just need to stop saying this. It does incredible harm.
I agree telling people they can get a benefit is really important.
Afaik, base benefits are abated after the first $160 of other income. Supplementaries are abated from $0 at 100%, or someone is just not eligible in the first place because of assets. From Kay's link,
Single clients who get over $160 gross a week have their benefit reduced by 70 cents for every $1.00 of income.
For clients with a partner where both are getting or entitled to get a benefit in their own right then:
35 cents is taken from each of their benefits for each $1.00 of the combined income of the client and their partner over $160 (gross) a week
Members of the PS in redundancy days gone by were actually not entitled to benefits if they had received a redudancy payment. It is not just ‘people’ saying this.
I went several times to DSW to apply and was told that my redudancy money had to be minimised before I could apply & get a benefit. I was also told 'you don't need a benefit' and 'you'll have no trouble getting another job' This was in 1987 & 1996. By 2005 when my PS job was again made redundant I asked to take early retirement. All times and the earlier times in particular times I too divided my payment by a reduced amount of 'pay' and lived off that.
So if they have changed the rules in the intervening years that is good. For myself I got a series of lesser paid and lesser stable jobs in the PS unitl I took early retirement in 2005. In those days the PS was a hellhole to work in with constant restructuring, realignment, right sizing as both left & right govts dug in to attain this ‘nirvana’ of not needing PS. I worked for myself and in the private sector. When I went back to one of the workplaces I formerly worked in, colleagues had had 8 or 9 or 11 restructurings depending on where they had been.
You were mis-informed. I was helping railworkers back then and we had to keep countering this. One annoying union delegate kept telling people they had to use all their redundancy and savings. Holiday pay was a different issue as you had been paid for those days and some railway workers had lots of holiday pay accrued.
But there is no doubt people were officially told this.
Redundancy pay
If you’re made redundant and get redundancy pay, you’ll have a stand-down of 1 or 2 weeks. It depends how much your redundancy pay is.
The stand-down period for redundancy pay has changed over time. If you’ve had a redundancy payment, you can ask us to check if we treated this correctly when working out your stand-down period.
Single clients who get over $160 gross a week have their benefit reduced by 70 cents for every $1.00 of income.
DSW applied some sort of formula to draw down on the redundancy until we did not qualify. I had such terrible experiences there it has made me very scared to even see if I am able to get any additions say to my super, that I live on now.
I think this experience plus the hardline redundancy experiences has caused much distress and waste of brain power in the PS. One of my collegues in one PS agency never got a formal PS job again, always worked on contract and was skipping ahead of restructurings for the rest of the time he was a PS. He said he just cld not go through a restructuring experience again. This was a person who was a highly skilled health sector accountant working in the of pricing etc. To my knowledge he was also told he did not qualify for any type of benefit, four children.
Yes, one of my refugee friends got good advice when her daughter left home and she no longer qualified for the DPB. She got 2 part time jobs in Rest Homes, but was looking for full time work. She got the JSB on the basis of that. There were adjustments of course because of her other income, but she got some top ups for transport expenses etc.
She did eventually find full time work and went off the benefit.
Given how hard it is to live on a limited income – such as MW in this high cost economy (let alone benefits and super) without any savings to draw on from time to time, it is unwise to delay application for income support when eligible.
My apologies, you are of course correct about the core benefits not being asset tested, but as Weka points out, the supplementary benefits are. And the major problem here is, that practically EVERYONE receiving a core benefit is now reliant on at least one of the supplements ('Temporary' Additional Support really needs a name change to 'Permanent') given that housing costs are now more than the core benefit, unless you're in social housing, or maybe freehold.
So you might be able to (just) keep the roof over your head, but depending on how long it takes to get employed again, prepare to lose any nest egg you might have.
As an aside- I was unexpectantly left a small monetary gift by my best friend who died tragically. I couldn't take it, because I would've lost my accommodation and TAS and been expected to use that gift to pay my rent, not a few nice things for myself. This is what we're dealing with.
Main benefits are income tested so when a person receives income from sources such as wages, investments or interest payments their benefit rate may be reduced.
Additional financial support such as Accommodation Supplement and Temporary Additional Support is also cash asset tested. If a person’s cash assets are over specified thresholds, they may not qualify for any additional support payments
Yes it will be hard for those with a working partner. Very few will be eligible for income support.
For those who cannot pay their rent
1.couch surfing (offer $50 a night), others will need the money.
2.caravan or container sleep out.
3.parents house, knock down a wall to create a double bedroom and sound proof the wall closest to parent)
4.granny flat in parents backyard (they can move in later and baby sit the grandkids).
Note it is also hard for those with a non-working partner who also pay about $4,000 per annum more tax than a couple earning the same amount.
Our parents got a tax rebate for that until Roger Douglas arrived. Labour screwed up so many things for common sense and decency.
Everything is predicated on a two income family these days.
When you see this talking about families earning $180,000 per year getting help with childcare you realise they don't give a shit about people with disabilities with partners who work who don't get a cent in support either of them.
“National’s FamilyBoost childcare tax rebate is expected to help 130,000 low- and middle-income families keep more of what they earn, with up to $75 more in their after-tax pay each week.
“Families earning up to $180,000 will receive a 25 per cent rebate on their early childhood education expenses, to a maximum of $3,900 per year depending on their income.
“A teacher and a plumber earning $125,000 between them who are spending $300 a week on childcare would receive a weekly rebate of $75, paid fortnightly by IRD to their bank account.
The benefit is not asset tested. However something that I find concerning over the past 3 or years (BTW, I’m in banking/finance/investment, mainly Kiwisaver), WINZ have been telling people that they MUST apply for a serious hardship withdrawal from their Kiwisaver before WINZ will consider paying people the benefit. This is completely wrong, the rules around Kiwisaver is that it’s for retirement from 65, and to make a withdrawal under the serious financial hardship rules, the customer must affirm that they have been declined any further financial assistance from WINZ/IRD.
If WINZ ask you to use your Kiwisaver before you can get the benefit, 1) say no, or if they insist, 2) Ask for WINZ to put it in writing advising that you have to use your Kiwisaver first, which they won’t do, because they are not allowed to ask you to use your Kiwisaver.
W and I are bureaucrats (who make too many mistakes and have to be called on it#), they are doing what they do because they would have to do a re-adjustment of entitlements above based benefit if the person claimed the Kiwi Saver hardship after being placed on income support*.
Their inconvenience in those cases is no excuse to delay provision of income support etc.
And as you note, the application for KS hardship withdrawal application is an action to be made after the income support is provided … *#
Oh yes I remember this. Some of us had PS retirement savings, GSF, and/or other insurance premiums that may have had bonuses attached to them. Most of us were told we had to apply to withdraw GSF, actually some in redundancy times they forcibly paid us out, we were not allowed to leave the $$$ there. They went through any insurances and we were told to cash in the bonuses.
Some of it was trying to find out our entitlements in a climate, very like now, where we PS were told that we were bludgers and too highly paid. There was a very punitive attitude from DSW to other PS and no consistency.
I was lucky when I was made redundant in the late 1990's. I knew the Union Delegate at the local WINZ office. I knew I did not qualify for any benefit as I had other income, but I wanted my name included in the numbers of the unemployed in the dying days of the then Nat Government.
I got my name on the books, and was told to come back in 3 months if I had not found a job. I spent a couple of months helping with the Local Body elections, and by the time the 3 months were up – I had another job.
Yeah in the first round of railway ones they hit up those close to turning 50 first. This was because you got paid out your GSF and you couldn't get ongoing GSF payments. They tried this with my father who had lots of accumulated leave that took him past 50. They then tried to say he should have taken his leave and he supplied them with a large pile of declined leave requests. I was in a different town by then but they had a really good union delegate who knew what they were doing. Dad said 100% of those who were 49 ended up getting GSF rather than a payout through this means.
They really were a pack of bastards who deliberately targeted like this.
”The United States Deputy Secretary of State has made an unusual linkage between the AUKUS security pact and deterring any Chinese move against Taiwan.”
The link is about the NATO EU nations increasing training and army numbers. One of the reasons is the decline in the reliability of the USA as an ally.
The GOP nominee for POTUS has said he is not that committed to the defence of NATO nations. Have you not being paying attention?
I am well aware of what the orange be-wigged idiot has said about NATO. I didn't think that the GOP would go along with him though.
In December last year there was bi-partisan agreement that would require a super majority of the Senate to agree to such a thing. Surely the Republican Senators wouldn't go along with Trump's madness?
Trump during a rally in South Carolina said he once told an unnamed foreign leader that the US would not defend that leader's country if it failed to pay enough for its defense.
"No, I would not protect you," Trump said he told that president. "In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills."
Rubio, one of the authors of the NATO provision, later told CNN that he did not take the former president to be suggesting he would not defend all NATO members.
It only prevents him withdrawing the USA from NATO, it does not guarantee that a POTUS Trump would not do as he says and "encourage" a nation to attack a NATO nation he had a disagreement with.
Trump is threatening to make US defence guarantee conditional when he is POTUS.
Not only is he still the nominee, the GOP agreed to backtrack from a deal they made on a border agreement and aid to Ukraine when he told them to.
The GOP has shown little resolve in the matter and Europe knows it.
New Zealand recognises that Taiwan is part of China.
If they want to connect AUKUS Pillar 2 to the function of QUAD (containment of China) and onto a defence of Taiwan we should not sign up.
The USA GOP (not just Trump) is abandoning Ukraine and NATO secular and democratic Europe to Russia (white race fascism and pretend Christian leadership) because they have more in common with “social conservative” Russia.
As soon as their Pacific fleet is sunk off Taiwan, they will abandon us to China and slink off back to their 19th C isolationism.
I received the latest AA (Automobile Association) magazine today.
I expected that they might tackle the new transport minister on charging RUC on EVs, but no. They posed passive, almost bootlicking questions. It seems they are so starry eyed at having a government promising to spend a whole heap more on roads that they don't dare ask any difficult questions in case he changes his mind.
Whenever any charges went up (like WOFs) under the Labour government the AA were screaming long and loud but when National do the same it seems to be OK with them. You can imagine the outrage that would have come from them had it been a Labour government that brought in RUC for EVs.
I don't think I will bother to renew my AA subscription this year. I'm not interested in funding another National Party front.
The AA mag has long been a total waste of trees and china clay (used to make those glossy pages). I wish they'd make it optional in return for a reduction in the sub.
Obtrectatrix once sent them a draft article detailing the trouble we'd had contesting an incorrectly-issued traffic offence notice supposedly involving our Australian hire-car (some fool had transposed a pair of digits in the rego when issuing the ticket). No interest from them whatever. The following issue carried some worthless piece about what CDs or tapes various celebs listened to while driving, with a full-colour illustration of it on the cover. 'Nuff said.
Also the petrol price is slowly moving up towards previous highs.
Before the election there were near daily articles about high petrol prices, while it's very quiet about it at the moment (at least on NZ Herald and Stuff).
Let's fix NZ's Citizen Initiated Referenda along the lines of the last two government referenda. Make it a vote to pass a bill that's already been drafted. How would this work in practice?
Once the organisers of a CIR get the required number of signatures, Parliament has to pass the bill through first and second readings, so it can go through select committee processes. Then the referendum serves as the Third Reading vote. This way, people know exactly what they're voting on, and that it can definitely happen if the referendum passes.
If you have an account in the fediverse, you can discuss this there too;
This is poor journalism, misinformation in fact. The regulatory shakeup would not cut women or Maaori out of policy talks, as there are many women and Maaori in the current government. Seymour is just suggesting the government bypass the "expertise" of two activist-dominated ministries of doubtful utility.
Most proposals have to be farmed out to population ministries like the Ministries for Women, Māori, and Pacific Peoples asking whether they think any policy changes will impact the people they are responsible for.
So Seymour wants more of the fast tracking of legislation without impact statements that occurred last year, placed on a more permanent basis. The intent seems to diminish the role of the three ministries to reduce the relevance of their continued existence.
Already environment, bio-security and conservation concerns have been treated in the same way.
What next, auditing, given the not so accurate basis of near all policy costings pre election. Already the government has sidestepped adherence to norms as to statements prior to the budget.
Problem with 'cheap' insurance, is that the government can't afford to pay out if/when a disaster happens.
Spreading the risk to the insurance companies (who then reinsure off shore) – is the only way that NZ can afford it.
If Wellington properties are increasingly expensive to insure – and even become uninsurable – then surely that's a signal that those houses/apartments are in the wrong place….
Having said that, insurance for the average Kiwi isn’t looking too bad. Current premium according to the article is still under 2K/pa – not a lot compared to the cost of rebuilding a house in today's building climate (from the article, rebuild costs up by more than 30% over the last 2 years.) – and the reinsurance costs (disasters affecting the cost/availability of reinsurance) increased up to 40%.
Uninsurable areas are what 'unmanaged' retreat looks like. Perhaps it's time to look at 'managed' retreat.
If we take quakes, liquefaction, tsunamis, sea rise, slips and flooding, there aren't actually that many places in NZ that are safe to live. In the South Island, that's places like Lumsden in Southland. Inland on the Canterbury plains. But forget the coasts and mountains.
All those medium sized tourist towns beside lakes: Queenstown, Wanaka, Te Anau, they're all going to be a big problem in a big quake.
West Coast, how would we even fix all the roads and bridges?
Dunedin is not too bad, but tsunami risk, and in the longer term sea level rise. Shift people out onto the Taeri Plains for a while, until sea level rise and flooding kicks in?
Well, why do you think they can stay?
There are places which no investment of money can make safe (sea level rise, river flood plain, unstable cliffs).
Is it better to just go on band-aiding? Paying to rebuild (or 'earthquake strengthen') in the same demonstrably unsafe locations?
Earthquakes are a different level of risk. And totally unpredictable (who would have thought Christchurch, before 2010). Climate-related events are much more predictable in their consequences.
I don't think they can stay. There are obvious places in the SI already that need to be relocated. South Dunedin and Westport being two. My point is it's not enough to say managed retreat without talking about where to rebuild. As I said the other day, NZ is very bad at building in stupid places, even now.
Disagree about quakes being totally unpredictable. We don't know the timing, but we have some good ideas on what will happen. We're simply not prepared.
There is also going to be an intersection between quakes, tsunamis, and extreme weather events. Hopefully people still start to see soon the value in designing built spaces for resiliency, and that includes powering down and relocalising.
I'm a fan of local design. The solutions for Te Anau are going to be very specific compared to Westport or Chch.
RNZ's Corin Dann grills economist Eric Crampton at the right-wing think tank NZ Initiative over levels of government spending as %GDP being still too high.. Around 3 min is a feisty exchange, as Corin does what a good journalist should, quoting facts and challenging Crampton's assumptions.
I'd hardly call the exchange 'feisty', but it's a good interview. Eric makes some good points, particularly around the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the media reporting of the context of current proposed cuts in staffing.
”Confounding the doomsters and gloomsters of the late 1990s, the minimum wage has raised the pay of millions of Britain’s lowest-paid workers by an average of £6,000 a year without lengthening dole queues. It has been described by one thinktank as the most successful economic policy in a generation.”
Gun laws are going to change – so begs a couple of questions.
If we have a school shooting, will the act party be held to account ?
If we get another mass shooting, will the act party be paying for the costs the event causes?
They want the guns, they should pay for it – from ACC to all medical cost, from police to prison costs these should all be charged to the act party. If one, just one mass shooting in any guise should occur. Then the when the party is bankrupt, we should look at the laws again.
Best thing the liberals ever did in Australia was getting rid of all the automatic weapons. Shame our Tories are so bloody stupid in comparison.
Luxon's advisors (if they are any good at all) will tell him to steer well clear of making center fire assault rifles legal to obtain for anyone in NZ. From memory well over 80% of the population supported a ban on these weapons and I can't imagine that has changed much if at all so it would be a really bad political move for Luxon.
He could win this politically by agreeing to ACT's proposed changes which seem mostly sensible but have a red line in regards to these military weapons and ensure they remain banned. As stated by post author there is absolutely zero need for anyone to own a military assault rifle other than the military itself. The hunters I know use hunting rifles and / or bows. None of them have suggested to me that they need an AK47 or similar to put some venison in the freezer.
This might be quite a good little test to see how politically savvy Luxon (or his advisors) is / are.
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She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Asia Pacific Report A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination. The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) Alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in ...
Koi Tū New Zealand cannot sit back and see the collapse of its Fourth Estate, the director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Sir Peter Gluckman, says in the foreword of a paper published today. The paper, “If not journalists, then who?” paints a picture of an industry ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Foreign investment proposals with implications for Australia’s strategic or economic security will face tougher scrutiny, under a policy overhaul to be announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday. At the same time, the government ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia Cameron Prins/Shutterstock If you spend a lot of time exploring fitness content online, you might have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has become more ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
By Melyne Baroi in Port Moresby A Papua New Guinea MP, Peter Isoaimo, who had been ousted by the National Court in an alleged bribery case, has been reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal. A three-member Supreme Court bench found that the National Court had erred in finding that ...
Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
Those profiled in the stamp series served on overseas deployments from 1995 onwards, and all have been awarded theNew Zealand Operational Service Medal. ...
Last night’s dismal poll result for the coalition government shows the limits of trying to govern as an opposition, argues Joel MacManus. There’s a quote from the American political activist Barbara Deming: “Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds, the thought ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Morris, Associate Professor and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School, Macquarie University Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock Foreign interference in Australian democracy poses a growing risk to our national sovereignty. It refers to coercive, corrupt or ...
A defendant charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining by deception in relation to a mortgage fraud scheme. Sentencing has been scheduled for 14 August 2024. ...
What to say when pesky journalists ask gotcha questions like ‘can you name a single book you’ve ever read?’ and ‘did you read it, or did you just see the movie?’This week, Act Party arts spokesperson Todd Stephenson foolishly agreed to an interview with Newsroom’s Steve Braunias regarding his ...
Explainer - What will a ban on cellphones in schools achieve? Can students use them during lunch breaks? And what happens if you need to contact your child? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Jodi Rowley, CC BY-NC-ND In winter 2021, Australia’s frogs started dropping dead. People began posting images of dead frogs on social media. Unable to travel to investigate the deaths ...
In the year ended March 2024, 0.4 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasay Majid, Research Assistant , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau New Zealand’s accommodation supplement scheme is facing scrutiny, with Social Development Minister Louise Upston recently saying “there is merit in considering whether the current settings are fair and sustainable long-term”. The ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare. The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government. ...
Protesting the removal of bins by leaving piles of your dog’s shit for others to deal with doesn’t make you a hero – it’s precious and entitled behaviour. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve stood on the shoreline of Auckland’s Cheltenham beach, desperately trying to scoop increasingly liquid dog shit ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon will be alert to the factors driving the dire polling, but won't be waving the white flag just yet, RNZ political editor Jo Moir writes. ...
Writer, teacher and academic Vincent O’Sullivan died on Sunday 28 April. Here we gather tributes from friends, colleagues, and students who remember his extraordinary contributions. I went down to the garage tonight. There was a bird shrieking out in the bush, in the dark, maybe a kākā. Miraculously, through the ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a burnt-out corporate escapee explains how she gets by ‘working as little as possible’. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female Age: 31 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Contractor in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney Albert Russ / Shutterstock The icebreaker of many a barbeque conversation is something like “what do you do for a crust?” “I teach chemistry at university,” is what we usually reply. Then silence. Our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asher Flynn, Associate Professor of Criminology, Monash University Shutterstock Sexual harassment is often considered to be a person-to-person act, but new research shows Australians are also experiencing and perpetrating workplace harassment in large numbers through technology. Our latest study shows one ...
A petition signed by more than 16,500 people, demanding the government take stronger action to halt the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel, is being presented to the House of Representatives today by Hon Phil Twyford. ...
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Here is a turn up for the book-a Conservative MP in the UK with genuine principles.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/04/conservatives-investigating-former-mp-alan-duncan-pro-israel-extremists-gaza
I was particularly impressed with this:
"Duncan said that any support for Israel’s current tactics in Gaza was “morally unacceptable”. “It’s what Israel has been doing for years has been wrong because the Israeli defence does not follow international law,” he said.
“It has been backing and supporting illegal settlers in the West Bank who steal Palestinian land and it is that land theft, that annexation of Palestine, which is the origin of the problem, which has given rise to the Hamas atrocity and the battles we’re seeing.”
Whatever the political stripe if he is pointing out the obvious about Israel’s behaviour in public, good on Mr Duncan.
Unlike our current Govt. Ministers, RNZ now seems to get important stories via OIAs because Natzo Ministers regularly refuse interviews.
In their defense, have you heard Simeon Brown or Nicola Willis getting interviewed?
If I was their staffers, I'd try keep the pair of them locked in a broom cupboard in the Beehive as far away from the media (or any other human beings) as possible.
A quick look at Alan Duncan's wikipedia page shows he has long been targetted by the Israel lobby for daring to have an opinion contrary to the hard line Likud party.
Corbyn will have a wry smile at that.
And here is another senior Conservative calling for a ceasefire and a halt to UK weapon sales.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/05/israel-gaza-aid-tipping-point-senior-tory-alicia-kearns
"She rounded on fellow Conservatives who seek to have a monopoly on how to support Israel, saying support for an extremist Likud-led government was not the same as support for Israel……There is nothing anti-Israeli, much less antisemitic, in taking a tougher line with the Netanyahu government. The reality is that how Israel prosecutes this war, that is the problem we have. We support their right to self-defence but they are making themselves and us less safe in the way they are doing it.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350235161/mental-health-minister-scrambles-suicide-prevention-office-caught-cuts
ANOTHER OOPS
Suicide Prevention Office to be canned–what could be a likely result of that one might ask…
Thousands of public servants & contractors to be slashed also…will they be on the pitiful “Job Seeker Allowance” subject to the sadistic maze that is WINZ/MSD, or move to the provinces and milk cows with Filipinos? Middle class Wellington is in for a shake up alright–and around the country actually via gutting various Depts. and groups like the Regional Skills Leadership Groups (RSLG), people doing good work for our fellow citizens are running scared.
Maybe the State Sector unions will learn from this and finally drop their political neutrality stance. Sometimes they are out to get you! Time for an old school NZCTU led industrial action fightback.
Except that one has to be practically destitute to even get Jobseekers in the first place. Only once they've burned through all their savings and sold off any sellable assets (except the family home), will they qualify for the pittance. That's assuming they aren't in a relationship, and their partner isn't earning over a certain amount and is expected to be able to foot the bill for everything. The State will do everything possible to abdicate their responsibility.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/main-benefits/jobseeker-support/charging-income-01.html
I don't think that's quite right. Everyone in NZ is entitled to the core JS benefit if they have no income. It is not asset tested, so people with savings or a caravan or whatever won't have those count against the core benefit (they do count against some of the supplementary benefits eg accommodation and hardship benefits and grants). JS is income tested, so income from any source (including interest, but not including capital gains from housing natch) will be used to abate the core benefit.
But it's still very bad. The couples stuff is just insane and weirdly anti-family. And anyone on a benefit for more than a few weeks is going to have to supplement their income somehow. WINZ make that very difficult and long term beneficiaries are basically forced into poverty by the state.
Benefits are not asset tested only some additional payments are. It is sad that some people keep perpetuating this. When advocating for people I often come across cases where they had spent all their redundancy payments or savings before applying for a benefit. One case this gentleman had gone for three years eking out his redundancy. Three years he could have been getting a benefit.
People just need to stop saying this. It does incredible harm.
I agree telling people they can get a benefit is really important.
Afaik, base benefits are abated after the first $160 of other income. Supplementaries are abated from $0 at 100%, or someone is just not eligible in the first place because of assets. From Kay's link,
The rate of abatement is only 30 cents in the dollar (still after tax) in the dollar for those on the DPB.
Members of the PS in redundancy days gone by were actually not entitled to benefits if they had received a redudancy payment. It is not just ‘people’ saying this.
I went several times to DSW to apply and was told that my redudancy money had to be minimised before I could apply & get a benefit. I was also told 'you don't need a benefit' and 'you'll have no trouble getting another job' This was in 1987 & 1996. By 2005 when my PS job was again made redundant I asked to take early retirement. All times and the earlier times in particular times I too divided my payment by a reduced amount of 'pay' and lived off that.
So if they have changed the rules in the intervening years that is good. For myself I got a series of lesser paid and lesser stable jobs in the PS unitl I took early retirement in 2005. In those days the PS was a hellhole to work in with constant restructuring, realignment, right sizing as both left & right govts dug in to attain this ‘nirvana’ of not needing PS. I worked for myself and in the private sector. When I went back to one of the workplaces I formerly worked in, colleagues had had 8 or 9 or 11 restructurings depending on where they had been.
You were mis-informed. I was helping railworkers back then and we had to keep countering this. One annoying union delegate kept telling people they had to use all their redundancy and savings. Holiday pay was a different issue as you had been paid for those days and some railway workers had lots of holiday pay accrued.
But there is no doubt people were officially told this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416174/work-and-income-acts-unlawfully-over-benefits-and-redundancy-payments
Just checked current policy.
Redundancy pay
If you’re made redundant and get redundancy pay, you’ll have a stand-down of 1 or 2 weeks. It depends how much your redundancy pay is.
The stand-down period for redundancy pay has changed over time. If you’ve had a redundancy payment, you can ask us to check if we treated this correctly when working out your stand-down period.
From my recollection this happened.
DSW applied some sort of formula to draw down on the redundancy until we did not qualify. I had such terrible experiences there it has made me very scared to even see if I am able to get any additions say to my super, that I live on now.
I think this experience plus the hardline redundancy experiences has caused much distress and waste of brain power in the PS. One of my collegues in one PS agency never got a formal PS job again, always worked on contract and was skipping ahead of restructurings for the rest of the time he was a PS. He said he just cld not go through a restructuring experience again. This was a person who was a highly skilled health sector accountant working in the of pricing etc. To my knowledge he was also told he did not qualify for any type of benefit, four children.
Yes, one of my refugee friends got good advice when her daughter left home and she no longer qualified for the DPB. She got 2 part time jobs in Rest Homes, but was looking for full time work. She got the JSB on the basis of that. There were adjustments of course because of her other income, but she got some top ups for transport expenses etc.
She did eventually find full time work and went off the benefit.
Given how hard it is to live on a limited income – such as MW in this high cost economy (let alone benefits and super) without any savings to draw on from time to time, it is unwise to delay application for income support when eligible.
My apologies, you are of course correct about the core benefits not being asset tested, but as Weka points out, the supplementary benefits are. And the major problem here is, that practically EVERYONE receiving a core benefit is now reliant on at least one of the supplements ('Temporary' Additional Support really needs a name change to 'Permanent') given that housing costs are now more than the core benefit, unless you're in social housing, or maybe freehold.
So you might be able to (just) keep the roof over your head, but depending on how long it takes to get employed again, prepare to lose any nest egg you might have.
As an aside- I was unexpectantly left a small monetary gift by my best friend who died tragically. I couldn't take it, because I would've lost my accommodation and TAS and been expected to use that gift to pay my rent, not a few nice things for myself. This is what we're dealing with.
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/information-releases/changes-to-income-and-cash-assets-regulations/cabinet-paper-changes-to-income-and-cash-assets-regulations-exempting-lump-sum-payments-made-by-msd.pdf
Yes it will be hard for those with a working partner. Very few will be eligible for income support.
For those who cannot pay their rent
1.couch surfing (offer $50 a night), others will need the money.
2.caravan or container sleep out.
3.parents house, knock down a wall to create a double bedroom and sound proof the wall closest to parent)
4.granny flat in parents backyard (they can move in later and baby sit the grandkids).
Note it is also hard for those with a non-working partner who also pay about $4,000 per annum more tax than a couple earning the same amount.
Our parents got a tax rebate for that until Roger Douglas arrived. Labour screwed up so many things for common sense and decency.
Everything is predicated on a two income family these days.
When you see this talking about families earning $180,000 per year getting help with childcare you realise they don't give a shit about people with disabilities with partners who work who don't get a cent in support either of them.
“National’s FamilyBoost childcare tax rebate is expected to help 130,000 low- and middle-income families keep more of what they earn, with up to $75 more in their after-tax pay each week.
“Families earning up to $180,000 will receive a 25 per cent rebate on their early childhood education expenses, to a maximum of $3,900 per year depending on their income.
“A teacher and a plumber earning $125,000 between them who are spending $300 a week on childcare would receive a weekly rebate of $75, paid fortnightly by IRD to their bank account.
The benefit is not asset tested. However something that I find concerning over the past 3 or years (BTW, I’m in banking/finance/investment, mainly Kiwisaver), WINZ have been telling people that they MUST apply for a serious hardship withdrawal from their Kiwisaver before WINZ will consider paying people the benefit. This is completely wrong, the rules around Kiwisaver is that it’s for retirement from 65, and to make a withdrawal under the serious financial hardship rules, the customer must affirm that they have been declined any further financial assistance from WINZ/IRD.
If WINZ ask you to use your Kiwisaver before you can get the benefit, 1) say no, or if they insist, 2) Ask for WINZ to put it in writing advising that you have to use your Kiwisaver first, which they won’t do, because they are not allowed to ask you to use your Kiwisaver.
Good advice.
W and I are bureaucrats (who make too many mistakes and have to be called on it#), they are doing what they do because they would have to do a re-adjustment of entitlements above based benefit if the person claimed the Kiwi Saver hardship after being placed on income support*.
Their inconvenience in those cases is no excuse to delay provision of income support etc.
And as you note, the application for KS hardship withdrawal application is an action to be made after the income support is provided … *#
Oh yes I remember this. Some of us had PS retirement savings, GSF, and/or other insurance premiums that may have had bonuses attached to them. Most of us were told we had to apply to withdraw GSF, actually some in redundancy times they forcibly paid us out, we were not allowed to leave the $$$ there. They went through any insurances and we were told to cash in the bonuses.
Some of it was trying to find out our entitlements in a climate, very like now, where we PS were told that we were bludgers and too highly paid. There was a very punitive attitude from DSW to other PS and no consistency.
I was lucky when I was made redundant in the late 1990's. I knew the Union Delegate at the local WINZ office. I knew I did not qualify for any benefit as I had other income, but I wanted my name included in the numbers of the unemployed in the dying days of the then Nat Government.
I got my name on the books, and was told to come back in 3 months if I had not found a job. I spent a couple of months helping with the Local Body elections, and by the time the 3 months were up – I had another job.
Yeah in the first round of railway ones they hit up those close to turning 50 first. This was because you got paid out your GSF and you couldn't get ongoing GSF payments. They tried this with my father who had lots of accumulated leave that took him past 50. They then tried to say he should have taken his leave and he supplied them with a large pile of declined leave requests. I was in a different town by then but they had a really good union delegate who knew what they were doing. Dad said 100% of those who were 49 ended up getting GSF rather than a payout through this means.
They really were a pack of bastards who deliberately targeted like this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/513455/senior-us-diplomat-suggests-aukus-will-deter-any-china-moves-against-taiwan
”The United States Deputy Secretary of State has made an unusual linkage between the AUKUS security pact and deterring any Chinese move against Taiwan.”
Ummmm, did NATO deter Putin?
Ummmmm Poland and the baltics continue to exist despite Russia very much wanting them not to, so yes.
NATO EU is attempting to boost the deterrent, unsurprising given the GOP has abandoned NATO.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68728096
What is your evidence that the GOP has abandoned NATO. That link doesn't support the claim
The link is about the NATO EU nations increasing training and army numbers. One of the reasons is the decline in the reliability of the USA as an ally.
The GOP nominee for POTUS has said he is not that committed to the defence of NATO nations. Have you not being paying attention?
The GOP is currently blocking aid to Ukraine.
I am well aware of what the orange be-wigged idiot has said about NATO. I didn't think that the GOP would go along with him though.
In December last year there was bi-partisan agreement that would require a super majority of the Senate to agree to such a thing. Surely the Republican Senators wouldn't go along with Trump's madness?
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nato-withdraw-congress-defense-bill-2023-12
It only prevents him withdrawing the USA from NATO, it does not guarantee that a POTUS Trump would not do as he says and "encourage" a nation to attack a NATO nation he had a disagreement with.
Trump is threatening to make US defence guarantee conditional when he is POTUS.
Not only is he still the nominee, the GOP agreed to backtrack from a deal they made on a border agreement and aid to Ukraine when he told them to.
The GOP has shown little resolve in the matter and Europe knows it.
"Ummmm, did NATO deter Putin?"
Seems so. Putin has invaded three non-NATO neighbours in recent years (Chechnya (twice), Georgia, Ukraine), and zero NATO neighbours.
New Zealand recognises that Taiwan is part of China.
If they want to connect AUKUS Pillar 2 to the function of QUAD (containment of China) and onto a defence of Taiwan we should not sign up.
The USA GOP (not just Trump) is abandoning Ukraine and NATO secular and democratic Europe to Russia (white race fascism and pretend Christian leadership) because they have more in common with “social conservative” Russia.
As soon as their Pacific fleet is sunk off Taiwan, they will abandon us to China and slink off back to their 19th C isolationism.
I received the latest AA (Automobile Association) magazine today.
I expected that they might tackle the new transport minister on charging RUC on EVs, but no. They posed passive, almost bootlicking questions. It seems they are so starry eyed at having a government promising to spend a whole heap more on roads that they don't dare ask any difficult questions in case he changes his mind.
Whenever any charges went up (like WOFs) under the Labour government the AA were screaming long and loud but when National do the same it seems to be OK with them. You can imagine the outrage that would have come from them had it been a Labour government that brought in RUC for EVs.
I don't think I will bother to renew my AA subscription this year. I'm not interested in funding another National Party front.
The AA mag has long been a total waste of trees and china clay (used to make those glossy pages). I wish they'd make it optional in return for a reduction in the sub.
Obtrectatrix once sent them a draft article detailing the trouble we'd had contesting an incorrectly-issued traffic offence notice supposedly involving our Australian hire-car (some fool had transposed a pair of digits in the rego when issuing the ticket). No interest from them whatever. The following issue carried some worthless piece about what CDs or tapes various celebs listened to while driving, with a full-colour illustration of it on the cover. 'Nuff said.
Also the petrol price is slowly moving up towards previous highs.
Before the election there were near daily articles about high petrol prices, while it's very quiet about it at the moment (at least on NZ Herald and Stuff).
Let's fix NZ's Citizen Initiated Referenda along the lines of the last two government referenda. Make it a vote to pass a bill that's already been drafted. How would this work in practice?
Once the organisers of a CIR get the required number of signatures, Parliament has to pass the bill through first and second readings, so it can go through select committee processes. Then the referendum serves as the Third Reading vote. This way, people know exactly what they're voting on, and that it can definitely happen if the referendum passes.
If you have an account in the fediverse, you can discuss this there too;
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/112211976400309046
"David Seymour looks at regulatory shake up, potentially cutting Women, Māori out of policy talks", claims Thomas Coughlan.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/david-seymour-looks-at-regulatory-shake-up-potentially-cutting-women-maori-disabled-ministries-out-of-policy-talks/IIRSKEU5DZC6HJZKBV35FADSWA/
This is poor journalism, misinformation in fact. The regulatory shakeup would not cut women or Maaori out of policy talks, as there are many women and Maaori in the current government. Seymour is just suggesting the government bypass the "expertise" of two activist-dominated ministries of doubtful utility.
To be fair, the headline is the problem, not the actual article itself. AFAIK the journalists don't write the headlines.
Keep the "Maaori" to Kiwblog spider.
So Seymour wants more of the fast tracking of legislation without impact statements that occurred last year, placed on a more permanent basis. The intent seems to diminish the role of the three ministries to reduce the relevance of their continued existence.
Already environment, bio-security and conservation concerns have been treated in the same way.
What next, auditing, given the not so accurate basis of near all policy costings pre election. Already the government has sidestepped adherence to norms as to statements prior to the budget.
30% per annum increases in insurance.
$500 … $1000 … $2000pa when will it stop?
At some point the government has to consider a cheap insurance alternative for homeowners, including those in high rise building (Wellington).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/513358/very-significant-rise-in-home-insurance-premiums-revealed
Problem with 'cheap' insurance, is that the government can't afford to pay out if/when a disaster happens.
Spreading the risk to the insurance companies (who then reinsure off shore) – is the only way that NZ can afford it.
If Wellington properties are increasingly expensive to insure – and even become uninsurable – then surely that's a signal that those houses/apartments are in the wrong place….
Having said that, insurance for the average Kiwi isn’t looking too bad. Current premium according to the article is still under 2K/pa – not a lot compared to the cost of rebuilding a house in today's building climate (from the article, rebuild costs up by more than 30% over the last 2 years.) – and the reinsurance costs (disasters affecting the cost/availability of reinsurance) increased up to 40%.
Uninsurable areas are what 'unmanaged' retreat looks like. Perhaps it's time to look at 'managed' retreat.
where do you think everyone could go?
If we take quakes, liquefaction, tsunamis, sea rise, slips and flooding, there aren't actually that many places in NZ that are safe to live. In the South Island, that's places like Lumsden in Southland. Inland on the Canterbury plains. But forget the coasts and mountains.
All those medium sized tourist towns beside lakes: Queenstown, Wanaka, Te Anau, they're all going to be a big problem in a big quake.
West Coast, how would we even fix all the roads and bridges?
Dunedin is not too bad, but tsunami risk, and in the longer term sea level rise. Shift people out onto the Taeri Plains for a while, until sea level rise and flooding kicks in?
Well, why do you think they can stay?
There are places which no investment of money can make safe (sea level rise, river flood plain, unstable cliffs).
Is it better to just go on band-aiding? Paying to rebuild (or 'earthquake strengthen') in the same demonstrably unsafe locations?
Earthquakes are a different level of risk. And totally unpredictable (who would have thought Christchurch, before 2010). Climate-related events are much more predictable in their consequences.
I don't think they can stay. There are obvious places in the SI already that need to be relocated. South Dunedin and Westport being two. My point is it's not enough to say managed retreat without talking about where to rebuild. As I said the other day, NZ is very bad at building in stupid places, even now.
Disagree about quakes being totally unpredictable. We don't know the timing, but we have some good ideas on what will happen. We're simply not prepared.
There is also going to be an intersection between quakes, tsunamis, and extreme weather events. Hopefully people still start to see soon the value in designing built spaces for resiliency, and that includes powering down and relocalising.
I'm a fan of local design. The solutions for Te Anau are going to be very specific compared to Westport or Chch.
RNZ's Corin Dann grills economist Eric Crampton at the right-wing think tank NZ Initiative over levels of government spending as %GDP being still too high.. Around 3 min is a feisty exchange, as Corin does what a good journalist should, quoting facts and challenging Crampton's assumptions.
I'd hardly call the exchange 'feisty', but it's a good interview. Eric makes some good points, particularly around the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the media reporting of the context of current proposed cuts in staffing.
Interesting. Quite the opposite to what our CoC believes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/the-doomsters-were-wrong-about-the-minimum-wage-theyre-wrong-about-labours-new-deal-for-workers-too?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
”Confounding the doomsters and gloomsters of the late 1990s, the minimum wage has raised the pay of millions of Britain’s lowest-paid workers by an average of £6,000 a year without lengthening dole queues. It has been described by one thinktank as the most successful economic policy in a generation.”
Gun laws are going to change – so begs a couple of questions.
If we have a school shooting, will the act party be held to account ?
If we get another mass shooting, will the act party be paying for the costs the event causes?
They want the guns, they should pay for it – from ACC to all medical cost, from police to prison costs these should all be charged to the act party. If one, just one mass shooting in any guise should occur. Then the when the party is bankrupt, we should look at the laws again.
Best thing the liberals ever did in Australia was getting rid of all the automatic weapons. Shame our Tories are so bloody stupid in comparison.
From what I can see, most of what the ACT website says on this looks pretty sensible.
https://www.act.org.nz/firearms
Luxon's advisors (if they are any good at all) will tell him to steer well clear of making center fire assault rifles legal to obtain for anyone in NZ. From memory well over 80% of the population supported a ban on these weapons and I can't imagine that has changed much if at all so it would be a really bad political move for Luxon.
He could win this politically by agreeing to ACT's proposed changes which seem mostly sensible but have a red line in regards to these military weapons and ensure they remain banned. As stated by post author there is absolutely zero need for anyone to own a military assault rifle other than the military itself. The hunters I know use hunting rifles and / or bows. None of them have suggested to me that they need an AK47 or similar to put some venison in the freezer.
This might be quite a good little test to see how politically savvy Luxon (or his advisors) is / are.