“People are crying out for economic justice and cultural security. Whoever grasps this will control the immediate political future”. Security is an eternal primary political motivator in nation states, and Brexit makes it the key to the future, but it seems significant that this analyst identifies post-neoliberalism as equally determinant.
Phillip Blond is the director of the ResPublica thinktank, and the author of Red Tory: How the Left and Right Have Broken the System and How We Can Fix It. Here’s his main point: “it is clear we are in the middle of a significant reframing of our political reality. The shift is probably equal to, if not greater than, the 1945 moment that founded welfare states across Europe or the Thatcher revolution in 1979, which began the dismantling of them in the name of free-market economics. The tectonic shift taking place now is away from liberalism in both its social and economic forms.”
His balanced view is that Labour is ahead in regard to economic security, while the Conservatives are ahead on cultural security – but both have yet to orient themselves to the new reality with a comprehensive political program.
The Guardian is a bourgeois publication that has a vested interest in doing anything and promoting everything that pretends that class politics are no longer relevant.
I’m inclined to agree, inasmuch as it has yet to apologise to readers for getting itself on the wrong side of history (supporting Blairites, etc). But the author is a guest there: “ResPublica’s ideas are founded on the principles of a post-liberal vision of the future which moves beyond the traditional political dichotomies of left and right, and which prioritise the need to recover the language and practice of the common good.[Wikipedia]
I personally think class politics have become potentially relevant again in recent years, due to widening inequality in all western countries. However there is a noticeable lack of any intellectual advocacy to make it actually relevant. Until we get contenders filling that vacuum class consciousness will remain suppressed, and identity politics will divide everyone as usual.
Yes, it’s the ones bleating “identity politics” who divide us. They tell others that their subjectivity is not as valid or worthy of acceptance, or important enough for politics.
I intended no implication of either/or. I’m well aware that identity politics is a naturally-emergent phenomenon. My first such was via the teenage rebel wave in the sixties and there’s been others since.
Seems that humans initially identify with social groups via differentiation. Although natural, when we do differentiate between groups and identify with one or more, the divisions between the groups often outweigh the common ground between folks. It’s in that sense that I meant identity politics usually divides us.
You notice that in this forum too; respondents tend to disagree more than agree because we clarify our comprehension of stuff via differentiating. Political psychology motivates political behaviour. Consensus happens when participants integrate instead. Funny how we got taught in college maths the various uses of integration & differentiation – would have been better for us to have been taught the psychological benefits too.
I find that people talking and activating around their experience helps me to understand a little of their experience. For instance I am able bodied (in general). If someone says I’m in a wheelchair and i can’t access this service or resource and we need to fix this. I think ‘wow I didn’t realise that’ and it helps me connect to them and work with them to make it better for them. I don’t use the difference to create MORE difference instead it creates LESS difference.
Identity politics is being diverted into a type of elite globalism against pluralism.
It is pluralism that celebrates individuals differences and cultures not globalism which puts everyone into one lump…
the globalists want every nation to be free of ‘nationality’ and just have blind competition for all resources… so greedy beats needy… unless you can harness the growing needy into some sort of greedy way to make more money of course and the rise of corporate “charitable trusts” and PPP’s “helping” with prisons and social housing…
“Identity politics will divide everyone as usual”.
Let’s wind back a bit.
Why is class important? Because it’s an affront to natural justice that some people lead better lives and wield power over other people due to their greater access to, and control of, economic resources. Doubly so when that access and control is not even tenuously attributable to merit or effort.
When is identity important? When people of one identity wield power over people of a different identity for no reason whatsoever other than that difference in identity.
So there is a big overlap in the underlying principles for both class and identity politics, i.e. who has power, who doesn’t and the lack of any justification for that difference. So it should be possible for class and identity politics to work harmoniously together.
However there is a weak form of identity politics which implicitly believes that class differences ARE actually merit or effort based. Identity politics then becomes merely making sure that everyone has the same chance (or equality of opportunity) to get rich and assume power over others. The cry for “more women on Boards” is a classic example of this weak identity politics.
If criticising “identity politics” it would pay not to throw the baby out with the bathwater by making sweeping statements.
Yes, a good explanation. For most people both class & identity seem to be more tacit than consciously referenced. Kind of like niche in an ecosystem. When you grow up in that matrix it’s like the dwelling you take for granted due to never knowing another.
Your point about differentiating strong & weak forms of identity politics seems valid but I’m not seeing it clearly. Would be good to develop that. Incidentally Fukuyama’s “Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition” was published yesterday. He may prove capable of producing a general theory.
Heartening to read in a mainstream outlet that the relevant target of liberalism is being brought into focus. And yes, I know it’s only an opinion piece, and so afforded much less authority within the publication than its editorial line and the general thrust of its news pieces. But still…
And to all those people (plenty hereabouts) who protest that liberalism’s a good thing and somehow possibly connected to leftist ideas, ideals or thought, and/or who insist on viewing it favourably as akin to large (liberal) servings of ice cream being given out at deli or some such, please, for fucks sake educate yourself on what liberalism is and the political philosophy/schools of thought its built on.
So…..believe nothing we read, and only half you hear?
We needed the promised ‘free to air public access TV channel with investigative journalism as we had with ‘TVNZ 7’ under the last Labour Government from March 25th 2008.
“TVNZ 7 was a commercial-free New Zealand 24-hour news and information channel on Freeview digital television platform and on Sky Television from 1 July 2009. It was produced by Television New Zealand, which received Government funding to launch two additional channels.[2] The channel went to air just after 10 am on 25 March 2008 with a looped preview reel. The channel was officially launched at noon on 30 March 2008 with a special “kingmaker” political debate held within the Parliament building and featuring most of the elected minor party leaders. The channel went off air at midnight on 30 June 2012 to the Goodnight Kiwi.
It featured TVNZ News Now updates every hour from 6 am to 11 pm, with a specialised rolling 10-minute bulletin ‘zone’ between 8 am and 9 am, throughout which six bulletins were aired. TVNZ 7 also featured an hour-long bulletin, TVNZ News at 8, at 8 pm each night. It was hosted on weeknights by Greg Boyed and on weekends by Miriama Kamo.”
I don’t watch much TV and only “discovered” TVNZ 7 in what turned out to be its final days. We found it had a lot of interesting stuff on it and began to watch it a bit. Not as good as SBS (which some parts of NZ used to get because of the spillover from the satellite feed into Tasmania before they fed the signal by cable) but it was coming along nicely.
Such a shame that it was killed off by Key and his lackeys.
But now under Jacinda with ‘her transformative’ Government; – she must restore her government’s pledge to restore the public free to air channel for the peoples voice to be heard now as we have a highly compromised media that has tainted the truth.
Now there is virtually no honest investigative journalism as national has deliberately sabotaged our free speech media that has been canned since 2009.
‘Let’s do this Jacinda’ – before your first year has ended.
Oh! What delicacy of conscience! Oh! What altruistic moral rectitude! From what super-ideal realm do you RWNJs deign to deliver upon us the condemnation we so richly deserve?
Stinking hypocrites.
Muttonbird may have a point..
In China there is no protection against the arbitrary exercise of state power by an absolutist regime run by a dictator who invokes a form devine providence to operate above the rule of law or the constraints of any court or parliament. There isn’t even a star chamber, just an Oriental absolutism inimical to Western ideas of freedom.
In China there is no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights. You have no protections whatsoever.
China is the enemy of freedom as we understand it, and this is a country that actively and vigorously seeks to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries if they are displeased.
In short, I fear we must soon begin to prepare for the coming confrontation with China.
Helen Clark’s FTA with China was the one big thing she did that I really felt uncomfortable with. And you’ve outlined exactly the reasons why.
As always I feel the need to bookend this with a disavowal. My oldest and best friend is part-Chinese, I have an adopted son who is a pilot in China, we are living the past 9 months with a Chinese family and the man right next to me as I work today is Chinese. Part of me still laments the absence of our most active author and Chinese contributor CV. I know far more than I should about traditional Chinese medicine. There is much that intrigues and fascinates me about the culture and it’s prodigious history, yet in most respects I still know far too little
Yet in all this another part of me has long been perturbed and uncomfortable with the direction modern China has taken. China there is no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights. Even the most basic exercise of the rule of law, always remains at the pleasure and whim of some faceless, inaccessible party official who can never be held to account.
Australia gets it. There is considerable media and political discussion around China, yet little old NZ remains both obdurately naive and too frightened of the ‘r-word’ to day anything out loud. There is also the simple possibility that at 15% of the electorate local Chinese voters are already too powerful to challenge openly.
+ 1 – “Part of me still laments the absence of our most active author and Chinese contributor CV”
… yep he was critical of Labour’s neoliberals as well as the Natz and ardent to the death of trade agreements that screw the locals (no matter what ethnicity) ..
Trouble with CV it was hard to discuss anything with him. He was short and to the point and didn’t help in discussion much to advance a change of thinking from other commenters. He seemed to become more extreme as time went on.
China has been a great power, and a scholarly one for so many centuries. It seems that much appreciation of that was lost in the turmoils they have gone through.
Joseph Needham felt that they had lost sight of their achievements and gathered them into an extensive series of books to present to them their past. He was interested firstly in science but also in inter-relationships. Looking at Chinese culture and why they did not develop the codes similar to the west as no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights posed in Red Logix 4.1, might have been answered in a conversational comment quoted here:
Dr. Needham argued that while the West was preoccupied with natural law, set forth in the scientific principles developed by Galileo and others, the Chinese Taoist and Confucian tradition was more concerned with social ethics and the direct implications of science. “A wise ancient counselor advised against gunpowder,” Dr. Needham liked to say, “for it singed beards, burned houses and brought Taoism into discredit.”
*https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/27/obituaries/joseph-needham-china-scholar-from-britain-dies-at-94.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obituaryjoseph-needham-1612984.html
This is an interesting paragraph from the above obituary.
(Most great mountain peaks are found close-packed in ranges. Needham matured at Cambridge in the presence of J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Arthur Eddington, Edgar Adrian and Charles Sherrington, not to mention some 10 other Nobel laureates from Blackett and Bragg to C.T.R. Wilson. )
There are similar arguments about why Islam did not modernize after the golden era of Baghdad.
For China the Confucian model, which was designed for stability, was part of the obstacle to change. Confucius was a clever guy but not really as self critical as Socrates.
For Islam the blame tends to be placed on the lack of an Augustine writing City of God – a major rethink for millenarian theists who until then thought deus vult would cover most of their problems. Although Al-Ghazali was a decent thinker, he wasn’t obliged to deal with a problem like the fall of Rome – so his work is more of a triumph of his own faith than a redirection and rededication like Augustine’s.
I think the FTA with China could have been better if they had put in provisions to protect NZ and had more thoughts about the eventual balance of power that the agreements failed to protect.
To have provisions where Kiwis can’t buy Chinese land but Chinese can buy NZ land and assets… no real thinking about the long term problems with that.
Sounds lovely (sarcasm) on paper but then there are 1.5 billion Chinese people desperate to buy property around the world and they have a cash culture and need ways to get rid of that money, and only 4 million Kiwis on low wages – it’s not a fair deal to allow the worlds middle classes to come to NZ, get residency or citizenship buy assets, leave and but still have access to our generous welfare provisions, while those still here are paying all the taxes like petrol taxes, infrastructure taxes etc…]
I feel the same way about other countries that get screwed over by big powers and they become tenants in their own country – of course the way things are going, a growing amount of Kiwis will not even be able to afford to be tenants in their country. Tents in 5 years, maybe? Or our taxes pay big business to house our poor, neoliberal style.
Looking at NZ business that try to do partnership with China, well does not end well for the Kiwi business aka Fonterra having it’s only loss in it’s history, but clearly great to Chinese business.
This government is in love with being popular overseas, very Obama, very John Key, but we are in a new era where increasingly people are getting wise to the eventual effects of globalism on their lives and culture.. that’s how Trump won and why Key stepped down before he got busted, because the Labour/democrat/Green strategists of the Intellectual Yet Idiot class making it easy for the right because they can’t see another way but a sort of kinder neoliberalism with more taxes, will it work? I doubt it.
The more people in a country the tougher the leadership needs to be . Humans are to stupid to be free . As long as the iron fist isn’t running death camps i’m good .
Terry Pratchett s patrician from his disc world is a good guide
saveNZ
I don’t think he is being sarcastic or facetious. Looking around at what has been achieved by us with democracy and freedom I don’t like what I see We introduced MMP to enable minority groups to bring their ideas into the mix but still haven’t been able to break the stupidity barrier.
I read Terry Pratchett and The Patrician is a dictator cunning and pragmatic, with understanding of human nature, who tries to control excesses and keep the peace to a manageable level of drunk and disorderly. He has introduced a police force, and set about bringing diversity into it, and most sentient beings may get employment of sorts.
At present I am reading Thud and he has the City Watch trying to resolve a severe division coming from dwarfs with beliefs thousands of years old and whose leader is undermining the self-respect of modernised dwarfs. They have a long-held dislike of trolls, and the Watch’s police force is under stress with both dwarfs and trolls resigning as their group develops old antipathy to the other ‘side’. Dwarfs and trolls could be involved in an internecine battle in which the humans may be brought down too. The Patrician will have some plan to deal with this, having a cool overview and the ability to move in everyone’s (particularly his) best interests. He spies a lot so that he can keep alert to subversion. He is a relatively benign dictator, but is a graduate from the Guild of Assassins and is someone to take notice of.
Certain similarities with our real world will be noticed I am sure.
Vetinari is essentially the Platonic “philosopher-king”.
In real life people are rarely that smart, and when they are they rarely maintain it for more than a decade. but kings and patricians don’t lose elections.
There’s also a certain amount of the “freedom:order” dichotomy at play.
But China is heading to a full 1984 scenario. This is much worse than attempts at democracy.
That 1984 thing does seem to be the case which is very scary. Reading about the people being surveilled all the time at 4.3+, thanks for the info, is bad as it is something that i had thought might occur in future. I didn’t think it already was.
And did the Chinese leader gain another term that can be rolled-over, or am I mis-remembering?
I googled something about China by the way and found that suddenly results were much slowed down. Perhaps something to do with Chinese internet controls?
China has sort of an hierarchical system of representatives, if I recall correctly. So not quite democratic, but with a certain amount of factional inputs.
What they did recently was get rid of the term limits for the president. This enables thirty year rule by one person, but also slows down the adaptability of the system by entrenching existing factions at the top. I suspect that this will significantly shorten China’s period of dominance (although probably not in my lifetime).
I think that overpopulation is a big issue… as soon as people become commodities then governments or society creates organisational way to control. India has the caste system and apparently Indian women have 40% of the highest suicide of women in the world… So it might be government or it might be a societal way of organising people but much more control is needed for larger volumes of people and India and China have the largest populations.
Neoliberalism loves it, because then if you control food, housing, power, water, banking etc etc, you have more profits and consumers and then you redistribute the people around the world after destroying their countries environment and you can get your costs lower and lower for wages and higher for consumer goods…
I don’t think that western societies are perfect, but it’s better than some sort of dictator or caste system to organise people. And what people have to be aware of is that democracy is something that needs fighting for constantly, because there are ALWAYS systems in there to try and take it away.
Look at our own councils in NZ. Effectively democracy has been destroyed by COO structures and SOE in government.
Bear in mind that the caste system predates the population explosion by centuries (although the British, as always, exploited it).
And the population in India in 1951 was roughly the same as the current US population. China wasn’t much farther off.
So a lot of India’s problems are Auckland-style strain on social infrastructure, which will resolve when the population stabilises (mostly when the birth rate decrease catches up with lifespan increases).
As for NZ democracy being destroyed, in my opinion that’s a hyperbolic statement to an absurd level.
NZ democracy being destroyed – so no dirty politics then in your opinion? No interference in the Brexit and US elections?
Normal that in Auckland the ratepayers who are forced to pay their rates then have 1/2 their money given to Auckland Transport whose board now does not even have an elected representative from the council whereas previously they had 2?
Aucklanders were forced into the Supercity against their will.
Oh and wait, in spite of wasting a billion on IT, and against IT advice, Auckland council are thinking of investigating on line elections, that in the US even an 11 year old has hacked…
I agree, I’m getting fed up with the cries of how dire things are in NZ.
There are 195 counties in the world. Some of the comments in here would lead anyone to believe that we’re in the bottom 5% of life-worthy countries in the world.
Where would these people rather live? Where is better?
Swapping emails with pals in the modern socialist utopia of Sweden, things ain’t all roses over there. Imagine walking through an Auckland suburb and being showered in saliva from the apartments above for wearing a skirt. A male in a skirt, begging to be stabbed.
If NZ is so crap, go to where I’m sure you’ll find things perfect.
Yeah, like all families we have our differences but Sheesh, instead of bitching on a blog, make like Penny, turn off your computer and have a genuine go.
I could move anywhere, I choose NZ. if it ain’t for you I’m happy to drive you to the airport.
I think that comment is naive; the kind that you hear from someone who has served in a war-torn country and comes home saying that we are so lucky but ungrateful for our good conditions, compared to the previous location.
We notice the gradual degradation of our society which is ongoing. If we don’t stand up and protest, then we are complicit. People who find the place suits them, care nothing for those who are disadvantaged by the political and economic system, and then turn round and interfere with efforts to hold standards or restore ones, are beneath contempt.
“Gradual degradation” is probably fair enough, especially under the last lot. ECANZ, the Anadarko and Hobbit law changes at the behest of overseas corporates, the Auckland supercity, sure. All whittling away against public power over public interests.
But our democracy is far from “destroyed”, which was your opening position. And histrionic overstatements actually enable the tories to undermine valid concerns relating to those issues.
The older we get, the more we pine for the good old days. They weren’t. A working life of sewing the cuffs on business shirts is not something to aspire to. A hand poised on the Stop button of a bottle labeling machine for 40 hours a week for 40 years is as unfulfilling as work can be. How much insulation was in the house you grew up in? How many of your school pals went on to a tertiary education?
Starting your waking hour with a public moan and ending it with a heartfelt gripe is not a quality life Grey. I’m sure you don’t want to be a perpetually cantankerous grumpy old man, they’re awful to spend any time with.
It doesn’t need to be war-torn location Grey, start a utube search with the name of any city you like and add the word homeless.
By all means fight to make a difference for those you perceive to be political or economic victims but be sure, moaning from sun up to sundown on a blog achieves nothing beyond making yourself feel helpless and miserable.
David Mac
I see your point. But you will never see mine because you can’t see far enough and don’t find it surprising that we are saying the same things that probably have been said since the 1800s.
We have lifted people out of ignorance, we haven’t lifted them out of poverty. You can quote statistics all you like and ignore thought about who, what, and how they are gathered. They don’t change the reality of life for people in general, and the hopeless future for all if we go on as we are. The sort of thing i am talking about is probably very similar to what was said by people who could see WW2 coming up and tried to instil some understanding of its terrible possibilities.
It is true what you say. moaning from sun up to sundown on a blog achieves nothing beyond making yourself feel helpless and miserable.The wilfully ignorant ensure that it does not reach any receptive part of their brain and indeed I am helpless to achieve anything with such as you. But this is a blog where people who are trying to understand what is happening and talk about it come, and unfortunately it is not all happy stuff, and does make one miserable. Personally I like to put up happy stuff and positive items and a few jokes, because I think we should smile and need some joy in life. So sorry that you have missed those comments and are upset that it’s all not ‘She’ll be right’ as you prefer.
Perhaps you have come to the wrong blog, and should go to one where they think all can be fixed by sliding in the right statistics, carefully gathered, and with a few nuts tightened and the machine greased, all will be well. The common-sense practical man rides over all.
Haven’t been able to liknk it put a quick Google told me that since 1990 China has lifted 730 million out of poverty compared to India’s 130 mill .
And that honour killing is still a thing in India it seems to have died out in China back in one of the dynasties .
I guess we could play my picks more fucked than you pick all day . But I concede as harvesting organs is fucked up . Unless they were from the likes of breivik or Clayton weathrston in which case I’d be fine with it.
Well, I’d have to be reminding myself why it’s wrong, at any rate.
The basic contradiction is that authoritarian leadership gets shit done, but eventually destroys society with shit ideas. I reckon this applies regardless of the size of the society.
The major problem with large societies is that they tend to build bureaucratic structures that ossify. This means that even if the leader tries to change course, the inflexible structures resist. Not because the society wants to resist (the leader’s desire for change might even be a reflection of the people’s desire for change), but because the pathways it uses to implement decisions are the things that need to change.
The Ottoman Empire, Qing Dynasty, and Catholic Church are all good examples of this. India is having scaling problems as well, in its justice system in particular. Procedurally-heavy with long waits for trial, IIRC.
I share your aversion to China’s current policies, but doubt that framing them as “our natural enemy” is good foreign policy. Rewi Alley provided us with an excellent role model, and Sir Ed replicated that in Tibet, so I’d rather we pursued a policy of constructive critical engagement with China.
In respect of the actress, the real target would be her business advisors, agents and managers. The context is the ongoing anti-corruption campaign being waged by the regime against the most flagrant rule-breakers who have become spectacularly successful via capitalism. Basically it’s a replication of Putin’s campaign against the oligarchs. So she’s just one domino amongst many to fall and I suspect her house arrest is a temporary holding-pattern to send the appropriate signal throughout China that the regime is serious.
If I were Ardern I’d do a state trip to China to launch a new activist foreign policy. I’d use the example of Rewi & Sir Ed as historical precedents. I’d explain that we have a common interest in re-inventing socialism as alternative to neoliberalism. Both countries now have a long tradition of being socialist/capitalist hybrids, so the common ground is how to develop that via sustainable practice and reducing inequality.
In principle I can’t fault your reasoning. Yet the core problem lies deeper; over-populated, intensely competitive societies like China have historically struggled with the notion of individual sovereignty and rights.
In addition there is a fundamental lack of trust in the public domain; the concept of ‘inner circle/outer circle’ is a very real and potent aspect of all life in China; a phenomenon that places a subtle constraint on their development. The CCCP actually understand this; hence their rollout of their extraordinary and deeply intrusive ‘social score’ system that rates every citizen by their behaviour and daily real-time choices in an attempt to impose ‘trust’ top down.
Maybe we think this all too remote from us; but the expressed intention is to roll this system out to all their trading partners. NZ would be an ideal starting point, smallish and not in much of a position to say no.
Thanks for that. I wasn’t aware of it. This extract from Wikipedia explains their policy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System]
“The plan shows the government wants the basic structures of the Social Credit System to be in place by 2020. The goal being “raising the awareness for integrities and the level of credibility within society.” It is presented as a means to perfect the “socialist market economy” as well as strengthening and innovating societal governance.This indicates that the Chinese government views it both as a means to regulate the economy at a business level and as a tool of governance to steer the behavior of citizens. The outline focuses on four areas: “honesty in government affairs”, “commercial integrity”, “societal integrity”, and “judicial credibility”.
Those four principles seem sensible. Universal applicability, eh? Societal integrity would be what NZF is fumbling its way towards via their bill for imposing our values on immigrants. As for judicial credibility, wouldn’t that be nice? Too high a bar for our judiciary with its entrenched unaccountability to the public.
Russian-speaking journalist managed to enter the autonomous Uyghur region and observe the Orwellian world of total surveillance, segregation, and discrimination.
The cameras register not only a car’s license plate number but also the face of its driver. At night, lights are projected over the camera lenses, blinding drivers more than oncoming headlights ever could. As we drove past another checkpoint, I tried to shield my eyes with my hand in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the road. The gesture did not go unnoticed: all four cameras immediately flashed a series of strobe lights.
[…]
The city is split into square regions, and in order to cross from one quarter into another, every Uyghur must display a plastic ID, hand over any bags or purses to be searched, undergo a pupil scan, and, in some cases, surrender a mobile phone for inspection.
[…]
“All textbooks published before 2009 were confiscated more than a year ago,” Ekhmet clarified. “They just went from house to house and took everything that we hadn’t managed to burn ourselves.” He managed to hide a couple of the textbooks he had used at university, but he had to destroy the truly old ones — the punishment for keeping them was up to seven years in a prison camp.
[…]
In Xinjiang, where every resident is almost constantly under surveillance, this futuristic nightmare quickly took on the qualities of a bloody dystopia. The artificial intelligence system that analyzes personal data about people divides society into “safe,” “average,” and “dangerous” citizens. Age, religion, previous convictions, and contact with foreigners are all taken into account. It is very likely that samples of DNA might affect residents’ scores in the near future, as well, if they are not part of the system already.
I doubt if Sir Ed ever set foot in Tibet, except perhaps if he strayed to the Tibetan side of the peak of Mt Everest.
Furthermore, I doubt if Sir Ed would have been allowed in the border region of Tibet and Nepal – on the Tibetan side.
Rewi fell out of favour with the Communist Chinese authorities and was only rehabilitated after years of being virtually ostracised, in the final years of his life.
Right, my mistake! Getting old, memory fading nowadays. Interesting that about Rewi. When Shadbolt went there to visit him in the seventies he called Tim a young whippersnapper (Shadbolt writes in his second autobiography). I picked up an old biography of Rewi for five bucks last year at that ramshackle place in Wellington where piles of old books almost reach the ceiling, but haven’t got around to reading it yet.
Tony V
What you refer to in your comment is an actual example of how politics change and why it is worthwhile for our PM to keep options open and do some hand-shaking.
Nothing political is set in concrete, and just quoting the past changes is a bit of an oxymoron or something. Diplomacy is to try and get the other to change in a way that improves relationships to the advantage of each country involved. So mentioning Sir Ed and Nepal and how we have built a mutual relationship is very good thinking.
As for Rewi Alley you say he was rehabilitated in the final years of his life after his standing had earlier been rubbished. The change to communism was a cataclysmic event and the violent measures it led to subsided as you state. So even after all that there is an opportunity for change and hearing differing views of people and systems.
Don’t rubbish diplomacy. We have in the past broken through crusty old walls that have been drenched with blood in conflicts. If we can stay out of great power conflicts, and try to keep going as a unified country, with some concessions, perhaps keeping Switzerland and Sweden as possible guides for survival, we might preserve some of what we achieved in the last century.
for what’s happening to the Uyghur and Tibetan people in China. They (the Han Chinese) seem to be actively trying to eradicate any culture not Han in China.
Well, having written similar emphatic sentiments myself here in the past I won’t argue the point! Comes a time, however, when we ought to learn how such polarisation eventually got transformed in history. Being resolute in opposing Chinese imperialism is essential, as is civil rights for non-Han Chinese. I just think our foreign policy can combine being tough with identifying common ground.
Totally agree, Frank. The trouble is, I don’t see us sticking up for the rights of the persecuted people in China at all.
If we had a truly ‘moral’ foreign and trade policy, we probably would only exchange goods with a handful of countries in the entire world.
And, as someone else mentioned above, maybe the Blue Dragons already exercise too much control over one political party, and maybe their ‘red’ off shoot in another?
Fair enough, maybe I overstated that from something I read.
Given the CCCP’s determination to restore China’s national prestige and global influence (and there are multiple dimensions to this effort, from the Spratley Is forts, through to their debt-diplomacy through-out Africa and Asia, and the ‘Silk Road’ initiative) in which there the is clear determination to dominate a vastly expanded sphere of influence … it’s not a big step to imagine them requiring such a system (or at least some watered down version of it) on their client states.
Dog humping is a sign of rape culture and other fraudulent research papers (deliberate) inlcuding taking a some of Mein Kampf, changing some of the terms and submitting it…and being accepted
‘To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia.’
I read Mein Kampf ,… but after I got about three quarters the way through I’d had enough. I threw the book into the rubbish bin . Literally. All I had to envision was all those little kids and their mothers being led to the gas chambers… all those young men’s lives wasted fighting that regime, and all those elderly and sick who were killed, injured and died prematurely… sickening.
But one must admire the English constitution and humour in producing a brilliant comedic musical satire like this :
Lambeth Walk: Nazi Style – by Charles A. Ridley (1941) – YouTube
I showed it to my 90 year old father and it had him in fits of laughter.
Will you did better than me, I only as far as pg 109 and it away back in my Blook case. Every now and again I’ll have a crack at reading it, but I fall asleep in the chair while reading pg 109.
I’ve got Marx two volumes on Capital anyway it’s bigger than war and peace, which both was an interesting read and the manifesto which I used to carry around with me and pull it out during before briefings with work for shits and giggles.
I’ve come across a 2nd vol of Herr Hitlers book and I have been rather tempted to buy it for shits and giggles on Foreign Policy.
While we are the subject of Nazism and Herr Hitler, I’ve started to read this book by Julia Boyd. “Travellers in the Third Reich, The rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People. So far it’s been an interesting read how some got caught up it and suck into it and those who escaped from the claws of Nazi Fascism barely with their clothes on.
But it’s an oft-neglected aspect of history. Perspectives tend to be top-down, party membership mysteriously grows while the plots of the named leaders are described in great detail. Actual ground-level perspectives are few and far between, and often merely incidental anecdotes to liven up the main history.
A bit like how writers like Keegan moved military histories into recognising the ordinary soldier’s perspective, rather than just being all descriptions of generals’ orders and monochrome maps with rectangles and arrows.
What I find amazing just about everyone from the big end of town to down to the working class both in German and International travellers to German got suck into National Socialism/ Nazi Fascism.
I’ve a few books on some of major and lesser players within the Military got caught up in it especially when Herr Hitler change the Military oath. The German Military had very high standards and ethics at the time. One those standards was to remain aloof from Politics and Political Parties which was their major undoing until it was to late for intervene and this was to cause them grief once Herr Hitler change the Military Oath. Hitler knew if he could change the Military oath and get away from then he knew he had the Military in his palm as the Military would never in a mth of Monday’s they would break that oath no matter what happens.
Yes some Officers and NCO’s did turn a blind eye at some of the Herr Hitler orders and others didn’t until towards the end when were trying to save themselves along with rest of the population in 45 especially those fighting on the Eastern Front.
SEPTEMBER 17TH 18__KRISTIN HOUSER__FILED UNDER: EARTH & ENERGY
ALL ABOARD
Hydrogen fuel cells are a greener way to power vehicles. But they have also been cost-prohibitive.
Today, though, that’s starting to change — on Monday, German passengers boarded the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains.
“Sure, buying a hydrogen train is somewhat more expensive than a diesel train,” said Stefan Schrank, a project manager at locomotive company Alstom, which built the trains, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, “but it is cheaper to run.”
The new trains transport passengers along 100 kilometers (62 miles) of track and can travel up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) on a single tank of hydrogen, reaching top speeds of 140 kmh (87 mph).
Chemistry recap: Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and their only byproduct is water. That makes the cells a promising energy source that produces zero emissions and very little noise.
Though they remain pricey, hydrogen fuel cells have advantages over batteries. Instead of recharging, for instance, you can just refuel them like you would a gas or diesel engine. And because train schedules are highly predictable, it’s easier to build refueling infrastructure.
TRAIN-ING DAY
New research is helping cut the cost of hydrogen, and the fuel source is already in use elsewhere in the world to power buses and cars. Trains are much heavier, though, so powering them with hydrogen instead of diesel could do much more to cut carbon emissions.
If all goes well with these first two trains, Alstom hopes to add another 12 to its Lower Saxony fleet. So while they might be the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains, they’re unlikely to be the last.
‘World’s First’ Hydrogen-Powered Train Enters Into Service [CNBC]
Edited;
Our view is that NZ also may be easily able to develop our own ‘manufacturing Hydrogen plant’ here to supply the transport of rail freight and passenger services as South Australia is doing currently.
“The Dutch defence minister, Ank Bijleveld, said Russian diplomats had been summoned to the foreign ministry. She told reporters the decision to publicise the failed attack was a “far-reaching and unusual measure” designed to “send a very strong signal” to the Kremlin that such behaviour would not be tolerated.”
…
“On Thursday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The evidence is clearly against Russia on both the Salisbury attack and of course on the latest cyber-attacks so there has to be a confrontation, a diplomatic confrontation, with Russia on this.” ”
And we need to stop more security flaws in cell phone use now as the latest exposure just occurred to “100 Million users” – now last August.
These flaws may affect our services too, as the flaws are built into phones by manufacturers, and include a loophole that could exploit data, emails and text messages.
Fifth Domain reports that DHS-funded researchers from mobile security firm Kryptowire have found vulnerabilities in phones used by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
The flaws are built into phones by manufacturers, and include a loophole that could exploit data, emails and text messages.
Latest chop in the continuing RW and National Party’s woodchoppers axeing contest against NZ business, NZ competence, NZ resilience, NZ as a place of busy, thriving workers, and for a defeated country selling bits of its once proud heritage to enable it to exist from day to day.
No but we are still feeling the effects of their destructive anti worker, corrupt and odious legacy. It will take a long time to rectify the damage they caused.
This is part of the ongoing damage to our economy that the neo-liberal ideology that was brought in by the 4th Labour government and continued by all other governments since including the new one.
Exactly. There has been no significant change by any govt since 1984 . Not even during the Clarke years , – and if anything, all she ever did was manage the status quo. Shes no hero of mine.
National have not been in power for a year now. How have they (national) in the last 12 months cost these jobs?
Perhaps increased labour costs have caused this to happen. Currently we don’t know the reasons. But a base assumption would be they can do it cheaper offshore and made a commercial decision – nothing to do with National if it was anything political it would have to do with the current Govt and its policies driving cost up for this business.
Do you believe Huhtamaki is a NZ business, is that due to the name?
It was founded in Finland and it is now a massive multinational.
Personally, I would prefer to see it go as they do a considerable amount of single use plastic products (bags, cups, takeaway containers etc) and a existing or local start up move into the field and produce bio degradable or reusable products then be supported by local business and govt.
@Monty
There have been many events happen in the past before you became conscious of political matters. 12 months is just a blip in time for the policies that have been harming NZ.
+1, greywarkshark.
To put it in biblical terms, the sins of the previous government are visited upon the present govt for up to seven generations. A mere year is almost certain proof of the guilt of the previous govt.
How long did Key’s govt harp on about Helen Clark’s? 3 or 4 or 5 years, I think.
We are going towards righteous anger time. The failure of government to ensure that the laws put in place did not allow shoddy behaviour by those contemptuous of good quality and fair practice whether they were in business or as supposedly experienced and trained advisors.
Who should be targeted and drained of their every penny, and forbidden to associate with good people in their industry ever more? Let’s treat these people with the disdain and suspicion that we mete out to child fiddlers? These people have fiddled with the people that have employed them, they have had supposedly superior wisdom which we trusted, and we have been let down like vulnerable children.
Who should be turned into a shamed leper in the society for being a cunning artificer with cunning plans to rip people off, expecting to get away with it? Are we going to end up so angry that we become biblical in the end – and punish unto the third and fourth generation? There is a deep well of resentment growing in NZ against certain families who live high on ill-gotten gains while others are reduced to penury.
The 285 owners are taking a claim against the Auckland Council and 15 other defendants.
When RNZ first met Bill Bennett in 2016 the estimated cost of repairs was around $60 million.
Defects include cracks in concrete panels, and areas failing to comply with structural or fire safety requirements.
The bill has now jumped to more than $80 million and could grow as they prepare for court.
“There are now far more leaks starting to appear, far more obvious leaks should I say,” Mr Bennett said.
“There are ranch sliders where moisture is coming in, there are actual walls where water is coming in, both through the cracks and from the upper level from the decks of the apartments up the top.
Bus services, desperately needed reliable public transport cannot be supplied under the neo liberal, laissez faire model.
Wellington has had trouble with a new system because it is being run for a private business with profit as more important than providing the needed service in the practical places, at a reasonable cost. Instead they apparently have worked out on a computer which routes can be maximised on each bus for passenger numbers.
Now Auckland’s hapless passengers have suffered being in a two kilometre gridlock. With no toilets in those buses! That could be embarrassing and distressing apart from all the havoc that would have happened in the passengers lives as they don’t arrive at the appointed time and place to carry out their personal responsibilities.
AT says it is still ironing out problems with the new bus network, which came into effect on Sunday.
A transport hub was jammed with buses during peak-hour traffic yesterday afternoon, and angry passengers got stuck in a two kilometre jam on Constellation Drive in Rosedale.
Auckland Transport spokesperson Mark Hannan said 91 buses arrived within half an hour.
He said 37 buses will be pulled out of service this afternoon in order to free up Constellation Drive.
Mr Hannan said there was a settling-in period with major transport changes such as these.
Expect more of this peeps, as the business world is into a new word that demonstrates a meme: ‘disruption’. This apparently means revising things all the time so that we are faced with constant change and stress, and cannot rely on anything valuable to us continuing for more than a couple of years. Brave New World suckers! – say those wealthy leaders and corporates who have us in their grasp.
They have a good overview. part of the trouble was the station doesnt have a separate north and south platforms so the buses have to ‘loop around’ and then loop back again.
Of course, the mainstream media have focused on the one area that was badly conceived in the new northern bus network.
But there also seem to be some positive improvements in other areas.
I read of people in Glenfield liking the new services in their area. The rationalisation of the East Coast Bays services, via the busway, plus more buses terminating at Takapuna and Milford, seems sensible to me.
The NX2 starting and ending with the City Universities via Wellesley Street – to and from Albany seems pretty popular. Yesterday I saw a double decker NX2 that was heading north and pretty full by the time it reached the Civic.
But the change I’m most stoked with is the new service to Warkworth – and I have not seen any media mention it.
I have been saying for some time Warkworth needs a decent public transport system. I was up there for work this week and was told about the new service. Basically it’s about every half hour to and from Warkworth to Silverdale in peak times, and about every hour in the middle of the day.
A Warkworth resident was very positive about how “cheap” the service is. It costs about $3.50 one way between Silverdale and Warkworth on a HOP card. The pre-existing Auckland-Warkworth intercity bus is way more expensive – about $30.00 one way.
There are also now 2 loop services a few times a day: 1 Warkworth to Omaha, and one to Snells Beach.
The main down side is that the extension of the bus stop in Baxter Street has not been properly marked. They just put cones out by the car parking bays telling people not to park there – but people just removed the cones and parked there anyway.
It’ll be interesting to see how it develops there.
But parking in the town centre is pretty difficult these days, as well as continual congestion. So I hope enough of the locals see sense and start using the buses more. If they do, I think the service will expand.
And this, on the situation in Wellington. Simon Louisson […] finds the US expert who advised the change considers passenger outrage a welcome part of the process.’
You could also commit the acronym PTOM to the well of everlasting memory:
‘But it’s not just the redesign that is behind the debacle. At Parliament’s Transport Select Committee hearing on Thursday, it became clear that the genesis of the fiasco is the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) imposed on local authorities by the former National Government.’
[…]
‘Campbell claimed the planning and the process had “worked exceptionally well’ although “some really unexpected issues emerged.”
Imposed by the former government, the PTOM has two overarching objectives:
• to grow the commerciality of public transport services and to increase incentives for services to become fully commercial; and
• to grow confidence that services are priced efficiently and there is access to public transport markets for competition.
What this top-down, neo-liberal model has done is force councils to divvy up their public transport services through a tender process, with cost considerations outranking quality, service or protection of employees’ working conditions.’
Can’t have the public being transported can we, they might be so ecstatic that we’d never hear the end of their jubilation – productivity growth would plunge and Business would Suffer!
I think the current Auckland and Wellington situations are a bit different.
AT is far from perfect. But, with the latest reorganisations AT have been attending to usage patterns, and it looks like they have listened to some of the things bus users say. They’ve been slow to the mass transit cause, but gradually seem to be realising that improved mass transit is absolutely necessary to ease Auckland’s congestion.
The profit motive in Auckland is seen more with low wages for drivers and probably poor conditions, too. And in the cost of fares, which could be decreased – especially for low income people.
Why I am against shared walkways with cyclists. I feel sorry for cyclists, but safe footpaths should stay as FOOTPATHS. And there will have been other injuries and grazes and rights and stress because of children and adults on footpaths.
It is a loss of the commons,
a loss of the right to walk on public paths freely and safely,
a loss of the space to move around our towns and get the exercise we are told daily we need,
a loss of places for old people to walk safely to keep healthy and strong and who can’t afford to have falls that may precipitate debilitation and death,
and a loss of the uncontested free right to our most elemental form of locomotion!
“On 19-20 October we will launch own national debate on what an alternative and progressive trade and investment strategy for Aotearoa should look like at a hui at the Fale Pasifika at Auckland University. The sponsors include the NZCTU and many affiliate unions, NGOs Oxfam and Greenpeace, Ora Taiao: New Zealand Climate and Health Council, among others.
The hui is deliberately timed to coincide with a round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations at Sky City, a deal involving China, India, Japan, ASEAN and others that follows the same flawed TPPA model.”
Tenancy reform begins. I wish this was part of one big social policy and announcement but Twyford obviously wants to get things moving.
One less fear for tenants who are forced to move from schools and communities, amidst a rising tide of fears in other areas.
It’s a start, and I hope The government doesn’t fall victim to powerful landlord and property investor lobby groups. They need to keep thinking long term and keep their eyes on those who are suffering.
“Official version of Meka Whaitiri report finally released” As bad as it sounded???
This bit was of interest to me:
“…having regard to the information provided to me by Employee A, I find that the Minister did not pull and/or drag Employee A from the foyer. She did take Employee A outside the building where the meeting was taking place.”
and:
“Whaitiri’s lawyer was also concerned that the bruise on the staff member was small and had been described as “tiny” by Patten in his interview with Whaitiri.
The bruise was not the shape that would have been expected from a grab that was alleged, the staff member was unsure where it came from because she didn’t notice until she was prompted three days later, and the photos of it were not taken in a timely way.
“Given the bruise was not ‘discovered’ until four days after the alleged events it is possible the bruise could have been as a result of an entirely unrelated manner. There is no contemporaneous evidence … to indicate the bruise was present on the Monday of the alleged incident and to conclude the bruise was as a result of Ms Whaitiri’s actions in those circumstances is not sustainable.”
and:
“I wouldn’t say yelled but she did raise her voice to me and asked me if I knew what I was doing in my job …”
and:
“Employee A, did not initiate the complaint herself,……” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12137532
The letter goes on to say that the staff member, a press secretary referred to as Employee A, did not initiate the complaint herself, and the there was potentially a political element to the matter given the PM’s chief of staff was involved.
I’m not sure what the inference is supposed to be. Of course the PM’s chief of staff became involved. It’s their job to look into issues that arise on behalf of the PM.
I took that to mean A did not initiate the complaint. A friend did, so the PM’s Chief of Staff became involved. Wonder about the motive of the “friend.” Acting out of real concern or was she trying to create a political problem for Labour?
Oh I see. The ‘friend’ could have been male or female of course. Chances are it was a mix of both. You often find in such situations that motivations can be plural.
A lot of feminism is detrimental to gender equality. Nature does not need to be ‘fixed’ dues to it’s power imbalances between the genders according to feministas.
Gender equality has nothing to do with that. It is for creating a strong sense of dynamism within the community in order to create a fullsome or wide spectrum to the value system so that shared freedom and efficiency may thrive in the functioning of the local demand and supply system. And all demand and supply is firstly local just as all experience is firstly individual. The better these are the starting points, the better are the wider integrations the ending points.
Thus to corporatism built on neo-liberal rigid marketism, gender equality to board decision making trees is a value system correction to problematic structural dynamism and lazy rigidness. Non disastrous administration of the technological age requires the objective dynamism that is the spirit of it’s ingenuity.
Beyond the law of the land, not judging that ‘personal/private’ arrangements and roles should be, or are better for the individuals, one way or another between consenting adults.
Half an hour ago this brief notice was put on the Herald politics page: ” Massey University Chancellor Michael Ahie said the Council of Massey University was undertaking an independent review into the process surrounding the cancellation of the former National Leader’s appearance on Massey University’s Manawatū campus.
“The Council has already expressed its support and confidence in the Vice Chancellor and it is now seeking a review of the processes involved in the issue so that it can fully understand the lessons learned and have clarity over future events,” Ahie said.
“The review will be undertaken by Douglas Martin, a former Deputy State Services Commissioner… scheduled to report his findings and make recommendations to the University Council by the end of November… terms of reference for the review will focus on the performance of the University in arriving at and managing the consequences of the decision. “As such, it will encompass all aspects of organisational performance and a summary of the findings will be released in the public interest,” Ahie said.”
Interesting that the Council has decided to declare confidence in the VC in advance. Implies they are determined not to hold her accountable for any error of judgment the review may find – but maybe the Council is not her employer!
It’s a truism that everyone (brain surgeons, rocket scientists, politicians, generals, economists, vice-chancellors etc.) makes mistakes, yet many seem unable to admit openly to even the smallest error of judgement (I know I am!)
Massey University council’s current expression of confidence isn’t incompatible with the VC being held to account at a later date if the review’s findings warrant this. The council could simply cop to an error of judgement (but don’t hold your breath) due to not being in full possession of the facts.
VC Thomas is still finding her feet. The council members could (and maybe should) have held their peace, but the silence in Massey University circles would have been deafening, and this is university politics after all.
“University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.“
“The NZ First MP behind a “values” bill which could expel migrants was once judged unfit to run pubs because of his criminal record.
…
” “As far as judging other peoples values I am pretty confident I am on the right side of the NZ public on this issue, and the voters I have talked to have been really encouraging of remit “
Folks will see this as an own-goal by NZF. In his favour, we must concede that the principle of rehabilitation applies equally to him, and he seems reformed. Bottom line though is that someone with multiple criminal convictions is the wrong choice to promote a bill based on values in parliament! How could Winston be so dumb??
Bit of an understatement about his past there, but in itself it doesn’t rule him out of being an MP.
It’s just a bit tone-deaf having him front the idea of “values” tests, when his own values ruled him out of running a pub and his assessment of other people’s character was so bad the person who spoke in favour of him turned out to be a rapist.
I don’t think so, all the other things are bit and bobs, life happens.
The most serious incident has what i proposed as it’s main context, which while less than ideal is what alot of people would recognise as being the lay of the land in how life can go sometimes.
It’s actually a pretty good AUTHENTIC NZ slice of life story, with bumps in the road but overall a good showing.
The problem is that values are nebulous and subjective – I think most of us would fail some ‘value’ test from someone at some point. Are we bad people, should we be barred? Of course not.
Indeed. Failure by NZF to even suggest the primary kiwi values gives credence to Bernard Hickey’s theory that the NZF bill is intended merely to distract everyone from the actual immigration numbers this past year! https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@politics/2018/10/03/263430/when-deflection-a…
Yeah there’s been plenty of law officers in times past that were less then sterling in character… but they were kept on because they were the only ones with the nerve, cool heads and willingness to use lethal force if needs be to keep the peace. Look at so many famous lawmen of the American west in the 19th century…or our own colonial past.
Kia ora Nation I say farmer’s need to be included in our plan’s to cut carbon uses.
% 091 of te tangata of Aotearoa support meeting OUR Paris Climate Change commitments that give Eco A sore face.
Yes Jamie one need’s to be flexible with our goal’s on reducing green house gases like Obama he did not try and force his goals down the Papatuanuku neck .
Obama and our other left leaders did a GREAT job getting the Paris agreement signed .
The Green Party has been getting some good win’s while in Power.
The ETS COST are there they have always been there. Its is the unborn and the mokopunas that will ultimately be paying the cost of Climate Change if we do nothing.
80 million view’s Voices of hope yes our mental health system is so under funded its because some people can not see it so they think its not a Huge problem for Aotearoa.
The Crown has never been fair on the treaty process
$ 00.1 cent in $100.00compensation is that fair well not in my book.
Ka kite and .
tricky rick the republican Florida senator for the last 8 years has slashed water monitoring station and funding by $700.00 million scraped all the environment protection targets .
The fake it till you make it crew is making a mess of America so primitive they don’t have the intelligence to see that they are ruining the children’s future this $$$$$$$$$$$$$ is what distorts there reality on the facts of Human Caused Climate Change.
When one see dead fish & birds washing up on Miami beaches one can not hide that the voters are going to vote blue Bill Nelson I see a BLUE TSUNAMI hitting America in the near future Kia kaha ka kite ano P.S how do idiots get so much power ????????????
Kia ora Newshub it’s cool that Our defense force went to Indonesia Parlu to fly the poor people to a safe place trapped on that Island after the earth quake and tsunami
That organization predicting doom and glom of our exchange rate is non other than anz bank as for imports they make big mark ups on there prouducts so they will absorb some of the rise in price.
Tangaroa research boat and the crew doing research on the Hikurangi seduction zone are doing good research if it is all ready slipping I say it won’t go with a bang ????????
Many thank’s to the people in Christchurch for using there humane initiative and getting the local cafes in Christchurch to donate they leftovers and gifting the food to the needy .
Kate Rocket Man look like quite a good movie
Ka kite ano
trump is going to ram through Kavanaugh vote on the supreme court judge trump & his followers will be using a lot of tissues come november . trump and the republicans are CHEAT’s just lining there pockets ka kite and
The sandflys are still playing there stupid games everytime I go out I take there game away from them by ignoring them they sent 2 actor’s in yesterday Eco just check’s them. What a bunch of fools . I got another brush off from this system The Ombudsmen ask for me to proudce evedince for my OIA request when they know that is what they should make the organization give me what a SHAM.
I told you common people the systems are rigged all around the World to serve and protect the RICH Ana to kai P.S there sirens went off just after I posted Ecos Music they are trump lovers
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There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
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 ...
Photo by Jari Hytönen on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
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. ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Sacks, Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock In recent years, there’s been increasinghype about the potential health risks associated with so-called “ultra-processed” foods. But new evidence published this week found not all “ultra-processed” foods are linked ...
Fears that New Zealand is relying too heavily on low-cost forests to absorb its carbon dioxide emissions have been reignited by a report from the OECD. ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the total dollar savings target from public sector cuts has been met, but the reductions have not been felt evenly across public agencies. Government departments were told to make savings set at 6.5 percent or 7.5 percent where headcount had grown by more than ...
She doesn’t have a single kind word for me and it’s getting under my skin.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,I have two amazing friends that I absolutely adore. Grace (all names have been changed) and I lived together across 2023 and Olivia moved in with us this ...
Can Western science and Māori science work together to support our well-being? The Te Ohu Mō Papatūānuku (TOMP) Trials Project was a landmark case for healing the land and people with the guidance of Māori science and leadership. This is what happened when Papatūānuku (Earth) was contaminated by toxic discharge, ...
The District Plan is a blueprint for a bigger, better Wellington, through tens of thousands of new apartments and townhouses and a new approach to urban growth. Joel MacManus lays out the vision. The process of putting together Wellington’s new District Plan has been long and excruciating. As a city, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Williams Veazey, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, University of Sydney DavideAngelini/Shutterstock In the 2007 film The Bucket List Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two main characters who respond to their terminal cancer diagnoses by rejecting experimental treatment. Instead, they go ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohan Singh, Professor of Agri-Food Biotechnology, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences at the University of Melbourne., The University of Melbourne Tanja Esser/Shutterstock Australia’s vital agriculture sector will be hit hard by steadily rising global temperatures. Our climate is already ...
The Acumen Edelman Trust barometer reported that New Zealand’s political trust score now sits below the global average, a topic explored in a recent discussion paper by Maxim Institute. ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman says, "The Fast-Track Bill is the most damaging piece of environmental legislation any Government has introduced in living memory. People are angry, and it’s time to march." ...
The school lunches programme has been retained – and will be extended to some preschoolers. So how is it going to cost $107 million less? To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. The minister with many hats David Seymour wears a number of hats, but this week ...
“Show us the bird,” I found myself muttering at times while reading Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker, a deeply thoughtful, often hilarious, at times rambling – but somehow delightfully so – search for the story of a big bird. But not just any bird: the bird. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition DPVUE .images/Shutterstock Your home was probably designed for a climate that no longer exists. As long as humanity continues to burn fossil fuel, padding the heat-trapping blanket of gases in Earth’s atmosphere, the ...
A senior lawyer has filed a complaint about tikanga becoming a required law school module. Law lecturer Carwyn Jones explains what he’s getting wrong. “…the first law of Aotearoa, a law that served the needs of tangata whenua for a thousand years before the arrival of tauiwi.”– Ani Mikaere ...
In 2019, an Auckland woman woke up from surgery to find that she had undergone a treatment she didn’t consent to. She tells Alex Casey about her experience. From her very first period at the age of 14, Laura experienced “debilitating” levels of pain that forced her to withdraw from ...
Comment: Concerns about the state of the economy are creeping up to the top of firms’ list of challenges. That’s evident in both surveys and the tone of our recent client discussions. Skimming the past few weeks of eco-news, it’s not hard to see why. – Retail card spending fell ...
Opinion: Could former co-leader James Shaw still make a difference to working with National? The post How the Greens could be contenders appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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There’s an interesting UK political analysis here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/04/insecurity-britain-labour-tories-economic-justice-cultural-security
“People are crying out for economic justice and cultural security. Whoever grasps this will control the immediate political future”. Security is an eternal primary political motivator in nation states, and Brexit makes it the key to the future, but it seems significant that this analyst identifies post-neoliberalism as equally determinant.
Phillip Blond is the director of the ResPublica thinktank, and the author of Red Tory: How the Left and Right Have Broken the System and How We Can Fix It. Here’s his main point: “it is clear we are in the middle of a significant reframing of our political reality. The shift is probably equal to, if not greater than, the 1945 moment that founded welfare states across Europe or the Thatcher revolution in 1979, which began the dismantling of them in the name of free-market economics. The tectonic shift taking place now is away from liberalism in both its social and economic forms.”
His balanced view is that Labour is ahead in regard to economic security, while the Conservatives are ahead on cultural security – but both have yet to orient themselves to the new reality with a comprehensive political program.
The Guardian is a bourgeois publication that has a vested interest in doing anything and promoting everything that pretends that class politics are no longer relevant.
I’m inclined to agree, inasmuch as it has yet to apologise to readers for getting itself on the wrong side of history (supporting Blairites, etc). But the author is a guest there: “ResPublica’s ideas are founded on the principles of a post-liberal vision of the future which moves beyond the traditional political dichotomies of left and right, and which prioritise the need to recover the language and practice of the common good.[Wikipedia]
I personally think class politics have become potentially relevant again in recent years, due to widening inequality in all western countries. However there is a noticeable lack of any intellectual advocacy to make it actually relevant. Until we get contenders filling that vacuum class consciousness will remain suppressed, and identity politics will divide everyone as usual.
Identity politics actually brings us together not divides us imo. It depends whether you fit the dominant societal category membership or not.
Yes, it’s the ones bleating “identity politics” who divide us. They tell others that their subjectivity is not as valid or worthy of acceptance, or important enough for politics.
I know and it really bugs me. Those that don’t understand because they don’t experience it belittling others who do. Irritating.
I intended no implication of either/or. I’m well aware that identity politics is a naturally-emergent phenomenon. My first such was via the teenage rebel wave in the sixties and there’s been others since.
Seems that humans initially identify with social groups via differentiation. Although natural, when we do differentiate between groups and identify with one or more, the divisions between the groups often outweigh the common ground between folks. It’s in that sense that I meant identity politics usually divides us.
You notice that in this forum too; respondents tend to disagree more than agree because we clarify our comprehension of stuff via differentiating. Political psychology motivates political behaviour. Consensus happens when participants integrate instead. Funny how we got taught in college maths the various uses of integration & differentiation – would have been better for us to have been taught the psychological benefits too.
Thanks Dennis.
I find that people talking and activating around their experience helps me to understand a little of their experience. For instance I am able bodied (in general). If someone says I’m in a wheelchair and i can’t access this service or resource and we need to fix this. I think ‘wow I didn’t realise that’ and it helps me connect to them and work with them to make it better for them. I don’t use the difference to create MORE difference instead it creates LESS difference.
I have just read this profound article – it has connected me to experiences that aren’t mine and thus is valuable I believe.
http://pantograph-punch.com/post/hidden-women
Identity politics is being diverted into a type of elite globalism against pluralism.
It is pluralism that celebrates individuals differences and cultures not globalism which puts everyone into one lump…
the globalists want every nation to be free of ‘nationality’ and just have blind competition for all resources… so greedy beats needy… unless you can harness the growing needy into some sort of greedy way to make more money of course and the rise of corporate “charitable trusts” and PPP’s “helping” with prisons and social housing…
Growing commodification of natural resources…
Fresh air from New Zealand goes on sale at a duty free shop for $100
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12137412
http://www.kiwiana.co/Home/
“Identity politics will divide everyone as usual”.
Let’s wind back a bit.
Why is class important? Because it’s an affront to natural justice that some people lead better lives and wield power over other people due to their greater access to, and control of, economic resources. Doubly so when that access and control is not even tenuously attributable to merit or effort.
When is identity important? When people of one identity wield power over people of a different identity for no reason whatsoever other than that difference in identity.
So there is a big overlap in the underlying principles for both class and identity politics, i.e. who has power, who doesn’t and the lack of any justification for that difference. So it should be possible for class and identity politics to work harmoniously together.
However there is a weak form of identity politics which implicitly believes that class differences ARE actually merit or effort based. Identity politics then becomes merely making sure that everyone has the same chance (or equality of opportunity) to get rich and assume power over others. The cry for “more women on Boards” is a classic example of this weak identity politics.
If criticising “identity politics” it would pay not to throw the baby out with the bathwater by making sweeping statements.
Yes, a good explanation. For most people both class & identity seem to be more tacit than consciously referenced. Kind of like niche in an ecosystem. When you grow up in that matrix it’s like the dwelling you take for granted due to never knowing another.
Your point about differentiating strong & weak forms of identity politics seems valid but I’m not seeing it clearly. Would be good to develop that. Incidentally Fukuyama’s “Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition” was published yesterday. He may prove capable of producing a general theory.
Heartening to read in a mainstream outlet that the relevant target of liberalism is being brought into focus. And yes, I know it’s only an opinion piece, and so afforded much less authority within the publication than its editorial line and the general thrust of its news pieces. But still…
And to all those people (plenty hereabouts) who protest that liberalism’s a good thing and somehow possibly connected to leftist ideas, ideals or thought, and/or who insist on viewing it favourably as akin to large (liberal) servings of ice cream being given out at deli or some such, please, for fucks sake educate yourself on what liberalism is and the political philosophy/schools of thought its built on.
(Not holding my breath)
So…..believe nothing we read, and only half you hear?
We needed the promised ‘free to air public access TV channel with investigative journalism as we had with ‘TVNZ 7’ under the last Labour Government from March 25th 2008.
Quote; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVNZ_7
“TVNZ 7 was a commercial-free New Zealand 24-hour news and information channel on Freeview digital television platform and on Sky Television from 1 July 2009. It was produced by Television New Zealand, which received Government funding to launch two additional channels.[2] The channel went to air just after 10 am on 25 March 2008 with a looped preview reel. The channel was officially launched at noon on 30 March 2008 with a special “kingmaker” political debate held within the Parliament building and featuring most of the elected minor party leaders. The channel went off air at midnight on 30 June 2012 to the Goodnight Kiwi.
It featured TVNZ News Now updates every hour from 6 am to 11 pm, with a specialised rolling 10-minute bulletin ‘zone’ between 8 am and 9 am, throughout which six bulletins were aired. TVNZ 7 also featured an hour-long bulletin, TVNZ News at 8, at 8 pm each night. It was hosted on weeknights by Greg Boyed and on weekends by Miriama Kamo.”
I don’t watch much TV and only “discovered” TVNZ 7 in what turned out to be its final days. We found it had a lot of interesting stuff on it and began to watch it a bit. Not as good as SBS (which some parts of NZ used to get because of the spillover from the satellite feed into Tasmania before they fed the signal by cable) but it was coming along nicely.
Such a shame that it was killed off by Key and his lackeys.
Thanks Grey Area.
Key killed off any truth to power in NZ!!!!!
But now under Jacinda with ‘her transformative’ Government; – she must restore her government’s pledge to restore the public free to air channel for the peoples voice to be heard now as we have a highly compromised media that has tainted the truth.
Now there is virtually no honest investigative journalism as national has deliberately sabotaged our free speech media that has been canned since 2009.
‘Let’s do this Jacinda’ – before your first year has ended.
Removing Curran’s a step towards that IMO. JA’s no fool, she gave em enough rope and now can go and assemble a crew to get that done if she wants to.
It’ll need to be toughened players to succeed as the msm will scream nanny state socialist sky is falling memes till the cows come home.
I wonder if Key’s axing of this last true public broadcasting platform contributed to Greg Boyed’s condition.
I wonder if you are dumb or dumber – you cover the left in glory most days mb, well done that man!!
Do you think readers really want you speculating on a recent suicide?
Using a long bow on a persons suicide as a political point score is a low point even for you.
Oh! What delicacy of conscience! Oh! What altruistic moral rectitude! From what super-ideal realm do you RWNJs deign to deliver upon us the condemnation we so richly deserve?
Stinking hypocrites.
Muttonbird may have a point..
Someone needs to call your pratings.
Typical ex school teacher, no fucking class.
No comment needed:
One set of the toughest regulations that we need is those governing recycling to ensure that it happens and that it happens safely.
Why China is our natural enemy.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/after-3-month-silence-chinese-authorities-confirm-status-of-disappeared-actress-fan-bingbing_2655205.html
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/04/fan-bingbing-mysterious-disappearance-chinese-film-star-elite
In China there is no protection against the arbitrary exercise of state power by an absolutist regime run by a dictator who invokes a form devine providence to operate above the rule of law or the constraints of any court or parliament. There isn’t even a star chamber, just an Oriental absolutism inimical to Western ideas of freedom.
In China there is no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights. You have no protections whatsoever.
China is the enemy of freedom as we understand it, and this is a country that actively and vigorously seeks to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries if they are displeased.
In short, I fear we must soon begin to prepare for the coming confrontation with China.
Helen Clark’s FTA with China was the one big thing she did that I really felt uncomfortable with. And you’ve outlined exactly the reasons why.
As always I feel the need to bookend this with a disavowal. My oldest and best friend is part-Chinese, I have an adopted son who is a pilot in China, we are living the past 9 months with a Chinese family and the man right next to me as I work today is Chinese. Part of me still laments the absence of our most active author and Chinese contributor CV. I know far more than I should about traditional Chinese medicine. There is much that intrigues and fascinates me about the culture and it’s prodigious history, yet in most respects I still know far too little
Yet in all this another part of me has long been perturbed and uncomfortable with the direction modern China has taken. China there is no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights. Even the most basic exercise of the rule of law, always remains at the pleasure and whim of some faceless, inaccessible party official who can never be held to account.
Australia gets it. There is considerable media and political discussion around China, yet little old NZ remains both obdurately naive and too frightened of the ‘r-word’ to day anything out loud. There is also the simple possibility that at 15% of the electorate local Chinese voters are already too powerful to challenge openly.
Interesting times ahead.
+ 1 – “Part of me still laments the absence of our most active author and Chinese contributor CV”
… yep he was critical of Labour’s neoliberals as well as the Natz and ardent to the death of trade agreements that screw the locals (no matter what ethnicity) ..
Trouble with CV it was hard to discuss anything with him. He was short and to the point and didn’t help in discussion much to advance a change of thinking from other commenters. He seemed to become more extreme as time went on.
China has been a great power, and a scholarly one for so many centuries. It seems that much appreciation of that was lost in the turmoils they have gone through.
Joseph Needham felt that they had lost sight of their achievements and gathered them into an extensive series of books to present to them their past. He was interested firstly in science but also in inter-relationships. Looking at Chinese culture and why they did not develop the codes similar to the west as no Magna Carta, no Habeus Corpus, no bill of rights, no elections, and no human rights posed in Red Logix 4.1, might have been answered in a conversational comment quoted here:
Dr. Needham argued that while the West was preoccupied with natural law, set forth in the scientific principles developed by Galileo and others, the Chinese Taoist and Confucian tradition was more concerned with social ethics and the direct implications of science. “A wise ancient counselor advised against gunpowder,” Dr. Needham liked to say, “for it singed beards, burned houses and brought Taoism into discredit.”
*https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/27/obituaries/joseph-needham-china-scholar-from-britain-dies-at-94.html
His massive series, in which many other academics participated, and which is ‘ongoing at the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge’.*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obituaryjoseph-needham-1612984.html
This is an interesting paragraph from the above obituary.
(Most great mountain peaks are found close-packed in ranges. Needham matured at Cambridge in the presence of J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Arthur Eddington, Edgar Adrian and Charles Sherrington, not to mention some 10 other Nobel laureates from Blackett and Bragg to C.T.R. Wilson. )
This addresses why science did not continue to rise in China to the modern era.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/11/06/why-didnt-science-rise-in-china/
(Incidentally, it seems to take an inordinate amount of time for google to produce something with China as one of the keywords!)
There are similar arguments about why Islam did not modernize after the golden era of Baghdad.
For China the Confucian model, which was designed for stability, was part of the obstacle to change. Confucius was a clever guy but not really as self critical as Socrates.
For Islam the blame tends to be placed on the lack of an Augustine writing City of God – a major rethink for millenarian theists who until then thought deus vult would cover most of their problems. Although Al-Ghazali was a decent thinker, he wasn’t obliged to deal with a problem like the fall of Rome – so his work is more of a triumph of his own faith than a redirection and rededication like Augustine’s.
I think the FTA with China could have been better if they had put in provisions to protect NZ and had more thoughts about the eventual balance of power that the agreements failed to protect.
To have provisions where Kiwis can’t buy Chinese land but Chinese can buy NZ land and assets… no real thinking about the long term problems with that.
Sounds lovely (sarcasm) on paper but then there are 1.5 billion Chinese people desperate to buy property around the world and they have a cash culture and need ways to get rid of that money, and only 4 million Kiwis on low wages – it’s not a fair deal to allow the worlds middle classes to come to NZ, get residency or citizenship buy assets, leave and but still have access to our generous welfare provisions, while those still here are paying all the taxes like petrol taxes, infrastructure taxes etc…]
I feel the same way about other countries that get screwed over by big powers and they become tenants in their own country – of course the way things are going, a growing amount of Kiwis will not even be able to afford to be tenants in their country. Tents in 5 years, maybe? Or our taxes pay big business to house our poor, neoliberal style.
Looking at NZ business that try to do partnership with China, well does not end well for the Kiwi business aka Fonterra having it’s only loss in it’s history, but clearly great to Chinese business.
This government is in love with being popular overseas, very Obama, very John Key, but we are in a new era where increasingly people are getting wise to the eventual effects of globalism on their lives and culture.. that’s how Trump won and why Key stepped down before he got busted, because the Labour/democrat/Green strategists of the Intellectual Yet Idiot class making it easy for the right because they can’t see another way but a sort of kinder neoliberalism with more taxes, will it work? I doubt it.
But he was defensive of Chinese actions that went against human rights and international law.
The more people in a country the tougher the leadership needs to be . Humans are to stupid to be free . As long as the iron fist isn’t running death camps i’m good .
Terry Pratchett s patrician from his disc world is a good guide
I hope you are being sarcastic there, bwaghorn..
saveNZ
I don’t think he is being sarcastic or facetious. Looking around at what has been achieved by us with democracy and freedom I don’t like what I see We introduced MMP to enable minority groups to bring their ideas into the mix but still haven’t been able to break the stupidity barrier.
I read Terry Pratchett and The Patrician is a dictator cunning and pragmatic, with understanding of human nature, who tries to control excesses and keep the peace to a manageable level of drunk and disorderly. He has introduced a police force, and set about bringing diversity into it, and most sentient beings may get employment of sorts.
At present I am reading Thud and he has the City Watch trying to resolve a severe division coming from dwarfs with beliefs thousands of years old and whose leader is undermining the self-respect of modernised dwarfs. They have a long-held dislike of trolls, and the Watch’s police force is under stress with both dwarfs and trolls resigning as their group develops old antipathy to the other ‘side’. Dwarfs and trolls could be involved in an internecine battle in which the humans may be brought down too. The Patrician will have some plan to deal with this, having a cool overview and the ability to move in everyone’s (particularly his) best interests. He spies a lot so that he can keep alert to subversion. He is a relatively benign dictator, but is a graduate from the Guild of Assassins and is someone to take notice of.
Certain similarities with our real world will be noticed I am sure.
Vetinari is essentially the Platonic “philosopher-king”.
In real life people are rarely that smart, and when they are they rarely maintain it for more than a decade. but kings and patricians don’t lose elections.
There’s also a certain amount of the “freedom:order” dichotomy at play.
But China is heading to a full 1984 scenario. This is much worse than attempts at democracy.
That 1984 thing does seem to be the case which is very scary. Reading about the people being surveilled all the time at 4.3+, thanks for the info, is bad as it is something that i had thought might occur in future. I didn’t think it already was.
And did the Chinese leader gain another term that can be rolled-over, or am I mis-remembering?
I googled something about China by the way and found that suddenly results were much slowed down. Perhaps something to do with Chinese internet controls?
China has sort of an hierarchical system of representatives, if I recall correctly. So not quite democratic, but with a certain amount of factional inputs.
What they did recently was get rid of the term limits for the president. This enables thirty year rule by one person, but also slows down the adaptability of the system by entrenching existing factions at the top. I suspect that this will significantly shorten China’s period of dominance (although probably not in my lifetime).
His predecessors Snapcase and Winder providing the counterargument.
I’m not sure India is so much worse off than China, and they don’t have such an authoritarian government.
I think that overpopulation is a big issue… as soon as people become commodities then governments or society creates organisational way to control. India has the caste system and apparently Indian women have 40% of the highest suicide of women in the world… So it might be government or it might be a societal way of organising people but much more control is needed for larger volumes of people and India and China have the largest populations.
Neoliberalism loves it, because then if you control food, housing, power, water, banking etc etc, you have more profits and consumers and then you redistribute the people around the world after destroying their countries environment and you can get your costs lower and lower for wages and higher for consumer goods…
I don’t think that western societies are perfect, but it’s better than some sort of dictator or caste system to organise people. And what people have to be aware of is that democracy is something that needs fighting for constantly, because there are ALWAYS systems in there to try and take it away.
Look at our own councils in NZ. Effectively democracy has been destroyed by COO structures and SOE in government.
Bear in mind that the caste system predates the population explosion by centuries (although the British, as always, exploited it).
And the population in India in 1951 was roughly the same as the current US population. China wasn’t much farther off.
So a lot of India’s problems are Auckland-style strain on social infrastructure, which will resolve when the population stabilises (mostly when the birth rate decrease catches up with lifespan increases).
As for NZ democracy being destroyed, in my opinion that’s a hyperbolic statement to an absurd level.
NZ democracy being destroyed – so no dirty politics then in your opinion? No interference in the Brexit and US elections?
Normal that in Auckland the ratepayers who are forced to pay their rates then have 1/2 their money given to Auckland Transport whose board now does not even have an elected representative from the council whereas previously they had 2?
Aucklanders were forced into the Supercity against their will.
Oh and wait, in spite of wasting a billion on IT, and against IT advice, Auckland council are thinking of investigating on line elections, that in the US even an 11 year old has hacked…
We’re still well shy of, say, China or Russia or the USA. So yeah, “destroyed” is hyperbole.
I agree, I’m getting fed up with the cries of how dire things are in NZ.
There are 195 counties in the world. Some of the comments in here would lead anyone to believe that we’re in the bottom 5% of life-worthy countries in the world.
Where would these people rather live? Where is better?
Swapping emails with pals in the modern socialist utopia of Sweden, things ain’t all roses over there. Imagine walking through an Auckland suburb and being showered in saliva from the apartments above for wearing a skirt. A male in a skirt, begging to be stabbed.
If NZ is so crap, go to where I’m sure you’ll find things perfect.
Yeah, like all families we have our differences but Sheesh, instead of bitching on a blog, make like Penny, turn off your computer and have a genuine go.
I could move anywhere, I choose NZ. if it ain’t for you I’m happy to drive you to the airport.
I think that comment is naive; the kind that you hear from someone who has served in a war-torn country and comes home saying that we are so lucky but ungrateful for our good conditions, compared to the previous location.
We notice the gradual degradation of our society which is ongoing. If we don’t stand up and protest, then we are complicit. People who find the place suits them, care nothing for those who are disadvantaged by the political and economic system, and then turn round and interfere with efforts to hold standards or restore ones, are beneath contempt.
“Gradual degradation” is probably fair enough, especially under the last lot. ECANZ, the Anadarko and Hobbit law changes at the behest of overseas corporates, the Auckland supercity, sure. All whittling away against public power over public interests.
But our democracy is far from “destroyed”, which was your opening position. And histrionic overstatements actually enable the tories to undermine valid concerns relating to those issues.
The older we get, the more we pine for the good old days. They weren’t. A working life of sewing the cuffs on business shirts is not something to aspire to. A hand poised on the Stop button of a bottle labeling machine for 40 hours a week for 40 years is as unfulfilling as work can be. How much insulation was in the house you grew up in? How many of your school pals went on to a tertiary education?
Starting your waking hour with a public moan and ending it with a heartfelt gripe is not a quality life Grey. I’m sure you don’t want to be a perpetually cantankerous grumpy old man, they’re awful to spend any time with.
It doesn’t need to be war-torn location Grey, start a utube search with the name of any city you like and add the word homeless.
By all means fight to make a difference for those you perceive to be political or economic victims but be sure, moaning from sun up to sundown on a blog achieves nothing beyond making yourself feel helpless and miserable.
David Mac
I see your point. But you will never see mine because you can’t see far enough and don’t find it surprising that we are saying the same things that probably have been said since the 1800s.
We have lifted people out of ignorance, we haven’t lifted them out of poverty. You can quote statistics all you like and ignore thought about who, what, and how they are gathered. They don’t change the reality of life for people in general, and the hopeless future for all if we go on as we are. The sort of thing i am talking about is probably very similar to what was said by people who could see WW2 coming up and tried to instil some understanding of its terrible possibilities.
It is true what you say. moaning from sun up to sundown on a blog achieves nothing beyond making yourself feel helpless and miserable.The wilfully ignorant ensure that it does not reach any receptive part of their brain and indeed I am helpless to achieve anything with such as you. But this is a blog where people who are trying to understand what is happening and talk about it come, and unfortunately it is not all happy stuff, and does make one miserable. Personally I like to put up happy stuff and positive items and a few jokes, because I think we should smile and need some joy in life. So sorry that you have missed those comments and are upset that it’s all not ‘She’ll be right’ as you prefer.
Perhaps you have come to the wrong blog, and should go to one where they think all can be fixed by sliding in the right statistics, carefully gathered, and with a few nuts tightened and the machine greased, all will be well. The common-sense practical man rides over all.
Haven’t been able to liknk it put a quick Google told me that since 1990 China has lifted 730 million out of poverty compared to India’s 130 mill .
And that honour killing is still a thing in India it seems to have died out in China back in one of the dynasties .
And how many prisoners have had their organs harvested or their bodies plasticised?
I guess we could play my picks more fucked than you pick all day . But I concede as harvesting organs is fucked up . Unless they were from the likes of breivik or Clayton weathrston in which case I’d be fine with it.
Well, I’d have to be reminding myself why it’s wrong, at any rate.
The basic contradiction is that authoritarian leadership gets shit done, but eventually destroys society with shit ideas. I reckon this applies regardless of the size of the society.
The major problem with large societies is that they tend to build bureaucratic structures that ossify. This means that even if the leader tries to change course, the inflexible structures resist. Not because the society wants to resist (the leader’s desire for change might even be a reflection of the people’s desire for change), but because the pathways it uses to implement decisions are the things that need to change.
The Ottoman Empire, Qing Dynasty, and Catholic Church are all good examples of this. India is having scaling problems as well, in its justice system in particular. Procedurally-heavy with long waits for trial, IIRC.
Smaller societies are more adaptable.
I share your aversion to China’s current policies, but doubt that framing them as “our natural enemy” is good foreign policy. Rewi Alley provided us with an excellent role model, and Sir Ed replicated that in Tibet, so I’d rather we pursued a policy of constructive critical engagement with China.
In respect of the actress, the real target would be her business advisors, agents and managers. The context is the ongoing anti-corruption campaign being waged by the regime against the most flagrant rule-breakers who have become spectacularly successful via capitalism. Basically it’s a replication of Putin’s campaign against the oligarchs. So she’s just one domino amongst many to fall and I suspect her house arrest is a temporary holding-pattern to send the appropriate signal throughout China that the regime is serious.
If I were Ardern I’d do a state trip to China to launch a new activist foreign policy. I’d use the example of Rewi & Sir Ed as historical precedents. I’d explain that we have a common interest in re-inventing socialism as alternative to neoliberalism. Both countries now have a long tradition of being socialist/capitalist hybrids, so the common ground is how to develop that via sustainable practice and reducing inequality.
In principle I can’t fault your reasoning. Yet the core problem lies deeper; over-populated, intensely competitive societies like China have historically struggled with the notion of individual sovereignty and rights.
In addition there is a fundamental lack of trust in the public domain; the concept of ‘inner circle/outer circle’ is a very real and potent aspect of all life in China; a phenomenon that places a subtle constraint on their development. The CCCP actually understand this; hence their rollout of their extraordinary and deeply intrusive ‘social score’ system that rates every citizen by their behaviour and daily real-time choices in an attempt to impose ‘trust’ top down.
Maybe we think this all too remote from us; but the expressed intention is to roll this system out to all their trading partners. NZ would be an ideal starting point, smallish and not in much of a position to say no.
Thanks for that. I wasn’t aware of it. This extract from Wikipedia explains their policy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System]
“The plan shows the government wants the basic structures of the Social Credit System to be in place by 2020. The goal being “raising the awareness for integrities and the level of credibility within society.” It is presented as a means to perfect the “socialist market economy” as well as strengthening and innovating societal governance.This indicates that the Chinese government views it both as a means to regulate the economy at a business level and as a tool of governance to steer the behavior of citizens. The outline focuses on four areas: “honesty in government affairs”, “commercial integrity”, “societal integrity”, and “judicial credibility”.
Those four principles seem sensible. Universal applicability, eh? Societal integrity would be what NZF is fumbling its way towards via their bill for imposing our values on immigrants. As for judicial credibility, wouldn’t that be nice? Too high a bar for our judiciary with its entrenched unaccountability to the public.
I discussed it a few weeks back in response to this excellent ABC investigation:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278
Russian-speaking journalist managed to enter the autonomous Uyghur region and observe the Orwellian world of total surveillance, segregation, and discrimination.
The cameras register not only a car’s license plate number but also the face of its driver. At night, lights are projected over the camera lenses, blinding drivers more than oncoming headlights ever could. As we drove past another checkpoint, I tried to shield my eyes with my hand in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the road. The gesture did not go unnoticed: all four cameras immediately flashed a series of strobe lights.
[…]
The city is split into square regions, and in order to cross from one quarter into another, every Uyghur must display a plastic ID, hand over any bags or purses to be searched, undergo a pupil scan, and, in some cases, surrender a mobile phone for inspection.
[…]
“All textbooks published before 2009 were confiscated more than a year ago,” Ekhmet clarified. “They just went from house to house and took everything that we hadn’t managed to burn ourselves.” He managed to hide a couple of the textbooks he had used at university, but he had to destroy the truly old ones — the punishment for keeping them was up to seven years in a prison camp.
[…]
In Xinjiang, where every resident is almost constantly under surveillance, this futuristic nightmare quickly took on the qualities of a bloody dystopia. The artificial intelligence system that analyzes personal data about people divides society into “safe,” “average,” and “dangerous” citizens. Age, religion, previous convictions, and contact with foreigners are all taken into account. It is very likely that samples of DNA might affect residents’ scores in the near future, as well, if they are not part of the system already.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/10/01/an-internment-camp-for-10-million-uyghurs
I doubt if Sir Ed ever set foot in Tibet, except perhaps if he strayed to the Tibetan side of the peak of Mt Everest.
Furthermore, I doubt if Sir Ed would have been allowed in the border region of Tibet and Nepal – on the Tibetan side.
Rewi fell out of favour with the Communist Chinese authorities and was only rehabilitated after years of being virtually ostracised, in the final years of his life.
Right, my mistake! Getting old, memory fading nowadays. Interesting that about Rewi. When Shadbolt went there to visit him in the seventies he called Tim a young whippersnapper (Shadbolt writes in his second autobiography). I picked up an old biography of Rewi for five bucks last year at that ramshackle place in Wellington where piles of old books almost reach the ceiling, but haven’t got around to reading it yet.
Tony V
What you refer to in your comment is an actual example of how politics change and why it is worthwhile for our PM to keep options open and do some hand-shaking.
Nothing political is set in concrete, and just quoting the past changes is a bit of an oxymoron or something. Diplomacy is to try and get the other to change in a way that improves relationships to the advantage of each country involved. So mentioning Sir Ed and Nepal and how we have built a mutual relationship is very good thinking.
As for Rewi Alley you say he was rehabilitated in the final years of his life after his standing had earlier been rubbished. The change to communism was a cataclysmic event and the violent measures it led to subsided as you state. So even after all that there is an opportunity for change and hearing differing views of people and systems.
Don’t rubbish diplomacy. We have in the past broken through crusty old walls that have been drenched with blood in conflicts. If we can stay out of great power conflicts, and try to keep going as a unified country, with some concessions, perhaps keeping Switzerland and Sweden as possible guides for survival, we might preserve some of what we achieved in the last century.
Check out the RFA (Radio Free Asia) website
https://www.rfa.org/english/
for what’s happening to the Uyghur and Tibetan people in China. They (the Han Chinese) seem to be actively trying to eradicate any culture not Han in China.
They are our ‘natural enemy.’
Well, having written similar emphatic sentiments myself here in the past I won’t argue the point! Comes a time, however, when we ought to learn how such polarisation eventually got transformed in history. Being resolute in opposing Chinese imperialism is essential, as is civil rights for non-Han Chinese. I just think our foreign policy can combine being tough with identifying common ground.
Totally agree, Frank. The trouble is, I don’t see us sticking up for the rights of the persecuted people in China at all.
If we had a truly ‘moral’ foreign and trade policy, we probably would only exchange goods with a handful of countries in the entire world.
And, as someone else mentioned above, maybe the Blue Dragons already exercise too much control over one political party, and maybe their ‘red’ off shoot in another?
If we set standards that other countries needed to meet before we traded with them China would be one country that we’d never trade with.
the expressed intention is to roll this system out to all their trading partners
citation needed.
not in much of a position to say no
why?
Fair enough, maybe I overstated that from something I read.
Given the CCCP’s determination to restore China’s national prestige and global influence (and there are multiple dimensions to this effort, from the Spratley Is forts, through to their debt-diplomacy through-out Africa and Asia, and the ‘Silk Road’ initiative) in which there the is clear determination to dominate a vastly expanded sphere of influence … it’s not a big step to imagine them requiring such a system (or at least some watered down version of it) on their client states.
Dog humping is a sign of rape culture and other fraudulent research papers (deliberate) inlcuding taking a some of Mein Kampf, changing some of the terms and submitting it…and being accepted
Its right up there with Dihydrogen Monoxide 🙂
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwFmrI5QQFI
For those that don’t like Ben Shapiro (can’t imagine why not 🙂 ):
https://quillette.com/2018/10/01/the-grievance-studies-scandal-five-academics-respond/
‘To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia.’
and in their own words:
https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
WTF at No.6
How is this important to the discussion?
Its open mike and it shows just how easy it is to manipulate these sorts of things plus its quite amusing
I read Mein Kampf ,… but after I got about three quarters the way through I’d had enough. I threw the book into the rubbish bin . Literally. All I had to envision was all those little kids and their mothers being led to the gas chambers… all those young men’s lives wasted fighting that regime, and all those elderly and sick who were killed, injured and died prematurely… sickening.
But one must admire the English constitution and humour in producing a brilliant comedic musical satire like this :
Lambeth Walk: Nazi Style – by Charles A. Ridley (1941) – YouTube
I showed it to my 90 year old father and it had him in fits of laughter.
Gestapo hep cats 🙂
Will you did better than me, I only as far as pg 109 and it away back in my Blook case. Every now and again I’ll have a crack at reading it, but I fall asleep in the chair while reading pg 109.
Apparently merely being able to finish the bloody thing is a sign of a deranged mind 🙂
I’ve got Marx two volumes on Capital anyway it’s bigger than war and peace, which both was an interesting read and the manifesto which I used to carry around with me and pull it out during before briefings with work for shits and giggles.
I’ve come across a 2nd vol of Herr Hitlers book and I have been rather tempted to buy it for shits and giggles on Foreign Policy.
🙂
While we are the subject of Nazism and Herr Hitler, I’ve started to read this book by Julia Boyd. “Travellers in the Third Reich, The rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People. So far it’s been an interesting read how some got caught up it and suck into it and those who escaped from the claws of Nazi Fascism barely with their clothes on.
Not exactly bed-time reading, I suspect.
But it’s an oft-neglected aspect of history. Perspectives tend to be top-down, party membership mysteriously grows while the plots of the named leaders are described in great detail. Actual ground-level perspectives are few and far between, and often merely incidental anecdotes to liven up the main history.
A bit like how writers like Keegan moved military histories into recognising the ordinary soldier’s perspective, rather than just being all descriptions of generals’ orders and monochrome maps with rectangles and arrows.
What I find amazing just about everyone from the big end of town to down to the working class both in German and International travellers to German got suck into National Socialism/ Nazi Fascism.
I’ve a few books on some of major and lesser players within the Military got caught up in it especially when Herr Hitler change the Military oath. The German Military had very high standards and ethics at the time. One those standards was to remain aloof from Politics and Political Parties which was their major undoing until it was to late for intervene and this was to cause them grief once Herr Hitler change the Military Oath. Hitler knew if he could change the Military oath and get away from then he knew he had the Military in his palm as the Military would never in a mth of Monday’s they would break that oath no matter what happens.
Yes some Officers and NCO’s did turn a blind eye at some of the Herr Hitler orders and others didn’t until towards the end when were trying to save themselves along with rest of the population in 45 especially those fighting on the Eastern Front.
Superb science here as Germany excels again; – as a world leader we need to follow now.
“New evidenced based ‘zero emissions train’ developed in Germany that scientists claim are the best transport option.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/hydrogen-powered-trains
SEPTEMBER 17TH 18__KRISTIN HOUSER__FILED UNDER: EARTH & ENERGY
ALL ABOARD
Hydrogen fuel cells are a greener way to power vehicles. But they have also been cost-prohibitive.
Today, though, that’s starting to change — on Monday, German passengers boarded the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains.
“Sure, buying a hydrogen train is somewhat more expensive than a diesel train,” said Stefan Schrank, a project manager at locomotive company Alstom, which built the trains, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, “but it is cheaper to run.”
The new trains transport passengers along 100 kilometers (62 miles) of track and can travel up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) on a single tank of hydrogen, reaching top speeds of 140 kmh (87 mph).
Chemistry recap: Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and their only byproduct is water. That makes the cells a promising energy source that produces zero emissions and very little noise.
Though they remain pricey, hydrogen fuel cells have advantages over batteries. Instead of recharging, for instance, you can just refuel them like you would a gas or diesel engine. And because train schedules are highly predictable, it’s easier to build refueling infrastructure.
TRAIN-ING DAY
New research is helping cut the cost of hydrogen, and the fuel source is already in use elsewhere in the world to power buses and cars. Trains are much heavier, though, so powering them with hydrogen instead of diesel could do much more to cut carbon emissions.
If all goes well with these first two trains, Alstom hopes to add another 12 to its Lower Saxony fleet. So while they might be the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains, they’re unlikely to be the last.
‘World’s First’ Hydrogen-Powered Train Enters Into Service [CNBC]
Edited;
Our view is that NZ also may be easily able to develop our own ‘manufacturing Hydrogen plant’ here to supply the transport of rail freight and passenger services as South Australia is doing currently.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/s-a-to-host-australias-first-green-hydrogen-power-plant-89447/
More unravelling – putinbots won’t be happy
“The Dutch defence minister, Ank Bijleveld, said Russian diplomats had been summoned to the foreign ministry. She told reporters the decision to publicise the failed attack was a “far-reaching and unusual measure” designed to “send a very strong signal” to the Kremlin that such behaviour would not be tolerated.”
…
“On Thursday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The evidence is clearly against Russia on both the Salisbury attack and of course on the latest cyber-attacks so there has to be a confrontation, a diplomatic confrontation, with Russia on this.” ”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/netherlands-halted-russian-cyber-attack-on-chemical-weapons-body
And we need to stop more security flaws in cell phone use now as the latest exposure just occurred to “100 Million users” – now last August.
These flaws may affect our services too, as the flaws are built into phones by manufacturers, and include a loophole that could exploit data, emails and text messages.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/08/phones-us-carriers-security-flaw-Verizon-ATT-Sprint-TMobile/
“Customers using devices from four major cell phone carriers could unknowingly be exposing sensitive data to hackers, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Fifth Domain reports that DHS-funded researchers from mobile security firm Kryptowire have found vulnerabilities in phones used by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
The flaws are built into phones by manufacturers, and include a loophole that could exploit data, emails and text messages.
Yes the putinbots are clearly noticeable by their absence..
Probably waiting on instructions from RT et al.
I thought they would be all over this like a rash. /sarc
Latest chop in the continuing RW and National Party’s woodchoppers axeing contest against NZ business, NZ competence, NZ resilience, NZ as a place of busy, thriving workers, and for a defeated country selling bits of its once proud heritage to enable it to exist from day to day.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/367945/auckland-packaging-plant-to-cut-almost-130-jobs
6:38 pm on 4 October 2018
Nearly 130 jobs could be axed at a packaging plant in Henderson, as part of the business is moved to Asia.
How do you see this as the National Party’s fault?? In case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t in Government.
A.
No but we are still feeling the effects of their destructive anti worker, corrupt and odious legacy. It will take a long time to rectify the damage they caused.
This is part of the ongoing damage to our economy that the neo-liberal ideology that was brought in by the 4th Labour government and continued by all other governments since including the new one.
Exactly. There has been no significant change by any govt since 1984 . Not even during the Clarke years , – and if anything, all she ever did was manage the status quo. Shes no hero of mine.
National have not been in power for a year now. How have they (national) in the last 12 months cost these jobs?
Perhaps increased labour costs have caused this to happen. Currently we don’t know the reasons. But a base assumption would be they can do it cheaper offshore and made a commercial decision – nothing to do with National if it was anything political it would have to do with the current Govt and its policies driving cost up for this business.
Do you believe Huhtamaki is a NZ business, is that due to the name?
It was founded in Finland and it is now a massive multinational.
https://www.huhtamaki.com/en/about/our-history/
Personally, I would prefer to see it go as they do a considerable amount of single use plastic products (bags, cups, takeaway containers etc) and a existing or local start up move into the field and produce bio degradable or reusable products then be supported by local business and govt.
@Monty
There have been many events happen in the past before you became conscious of political matters. 12 months is just a blip in time for the policies that have been harming NZ.
+1, greywarkshark.
To put it in biblical terms, the sins of the previous government are visited upon the present govt for up to seven generations. A mere year is almost certain proof of the guilt of the previous govt.
How long did Key’s govt harp on about Helen Clark’s? 3 or 4 or 5 years, I think.
We are going towards righteous anger time. The failure of government to ensure that the laws put in place did not allow shoddy behaviour by those contemptuous of good quality and fair practice whether they were in business or as supposedly experienced and trained advisors.
Who should be targeted and drained of their every penny, and forbidden to associate with good people in their industry ever more? Let’s treat these people with the disdain and suspicion that we mete out to child fiddlers? These people have fiddled with the people that have employed them, they have had supposedly superior wisdom which we trusted, and we have been let down like vulnerable children.
Who should be turned into a shamed leper in the society for being a cunning artificer with cunning plans to rip people off, expecting to get away with it? Are we going to end up so angry that we become biblical in the end – and punish unto the third and fourth generation? There is a deep well of resentment growing in NZ against certain families who live high on ill-gotten gains while others are reduced to penury.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367881/owners-of-leaky-apartments-in-auckland-anxious-as-expenses-skyrocket
St Lukes Garden Apartment complex was built between 2003 and 2011 and its defects and leaks have become a serious problem.
The 285 owners are taking a claim against the Auckland Council and 15 other defendants.
When RNZ first met Bill Bennett in 2016 the estimated cost of repairs was around $60 million.
Defects include cracks in concrete panels, and areas failing to comply with structural or fire safety requirements.
The bill has now jumped to more than $80 million and could grow as they prepare for court.
“There are now far more leaks starting to appear, far more obvious leaks should I say,” Mr Bennett said.
“There are ranch sliders where moisture is coming in, there are actual walls where water is coming in, both through the cracks and from the upper level from the decks of the apartments up the top.
Bus services, desperately needed reliable public transport cannot be supplied under the neo liberal, laissez faire model.
Wellington has had trouble with a new system because it is being run for a private business with profit as more important than providing the needed service in the practical places, at a reasonable cost. Instead they apparently have worked out on a computer which routes can be maximised on each bus for passenger numbers.
Now Auckland’s hapless passengers have suffered being in a two kilometre gridlock. With no toilets in those buses! That could be embarrassing and distressing apart from all the havoc that would have happened in the passengers lives as they don’t arrive at the appointed time and place to carry out their personal responsibilities.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367740/auckland-bus-gridlock-37-buses-to-be-pulled-from-service
Constellation Drive? On which planet is that??
Auckland Transport will pull dozens of buses from a new North Shore network after passengers got stuck in a two kilometre jam yesterday.
AT says it is still ironing out problems with the new bus network, which came into effect on Sunday.
A transport hub was jammed with buses during peak-hour traffic yesterday afternoon, and angry passengers got stuck in a two kilometre jam on Constellation Drive in Rosedale.
Auckland Transport spokesperson Mark Hannan said 91 buses arrived within half an hour.
He said 37 buses will be pulled out of service this afternoon in order to free up Constellation Drive.
Mr Hannan said there was a settling-in period with major transport changes such as these.
Expect more of this peeps, as the business world is into a new word that demonstrates a meme: ‘disruption’. This apparently means revising things all the time so that we are faced with constant change and stress, and cannot rely on anything valuable to us continuing for more than a couple of years. Brave New World suckers! – say those wealthy leaders and corporates who have us in their grasp.
disruption – specialized business changing the traditional way that an industry operates, especially in a new and effective way: disruptive technologies. Upsetting and destabilizing.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disruptive
You wonder the brain power of the officials that sent out 91 buses to be operating within the same location within 30 minutes…
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2018/10/02/constellation-station-falls-over/
They have a good overview. part of the trouble was the station doesnt have a separate north and south platforms so the buses have to ‘loop around’ and then loop back again.
Of course, the mainstream media have focused on the one area that was badly conceived in the new northern bus network.
But there also seem to be some positive improvements in other areas.
I read of people in Glenfield liking the new services in their area. The rationalisation of the East Coast Bays services, via the busway, plus more buses terminating at Takapuna and Milford, seems sensible to me.
The NX2 starting and ending with the City Universities via Wellesley Street – to and from Albany seems pretty popular. Yesterday I saw a double decker NX2 that was heading north and pretty full by the time it reached the Civic.
But the change I’m most stoked with is the new service to Warkworth – and I have not seen any media mention it.
I have been saying for some time Warkworth needs a decent public transport system. I was up there for work this week and was told about the new service. Basically it’s about every half hour to and from Warkworth to Silverdale in peak times, and about every hour in the middle of the day.
A Warkworth resident was very positive about how “cheap” the service is. It costs about $3.50 one way between Silverdale and Warkworth on a HOP card. The pre-existing Auckland-Warkworth intercity bus is way more expensive – about $30.00 one way.
There are also now 2 loop services a few times a day: 1 Warkworth to Omaha, and one to Snells Beach.
The main down side is that the extension of the bus stop in Baxter Street has not been properly marked. They just put cones out by the car parking bays telling people not to park there – but people just removed the cones and parked there anyway.
“but people just removed the cones and parked there anyway” – hope they towed the feckers.
🙂
It’ll be interesting to see how it develops there.
But parking in the town centre is pretty difficult these days, as well as continual congestion. So I hope enough of the locals see sense and start using the buses more. If they do, I think the service will expand.
And this, on the situation in Wellington. Simon Louisson […] finds the US expert who advised the change considers passenger outrage a welcome part of the process.’
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/10/01/259842/the-american-consultants-behind-wellingtons-bus-nightmar?preview=1
You could also commit the acronym PTOM to the well of everlasting memory:
‘But it’s not just the redesign that is behind the debacle. At Parliament’s Transport Select Committee hearing on Thursday, it became clear that the genesis of the fiasco is the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) imposed on local authorities by the former National Government.’
[…]
‘Campbell claimed the planning and the process had “worked exceptionally well’ although “some really unexpected issues emerged.”
Imposed by the former government, the PTOM has two overarching objectives:
• to grow the commerciality of public transport services and to increase incentives for services to become fully commercial; and
• to grow confidence that services are priced efficiently and there is access to public transport markets for competition.
What this top-down, neo-liberal model has done is force councils to divvy up their public transport services through a tender process, with cost considerations outranking quality, service or protection of employees’ working conditions.’
Can’t have the public being transported can we, they might be so ecstatic that we’d never hear the end of their jubilation – productivity growth would plunge and Business would Suffer!
I think the current Auckland and Wellington situations are a bit different.
AT is far from perfect. But, with the latest reorganisations AT have been attending to usage patterns, and it looks like they have listened to some of the things bus users say. They’ve been slow to the mass transit cause, but gradually seem to be realising that improved mass transit is absolutely necessary to ease Auckland’s congestion.
The profit motive in Auckland is seen more with low wages for drivers and probably poor conditions, too. And in the cost of fares, which could be decreased – especially for low income people.
Why I am against shared walkways with cyclists. I feel sorry for cyclists, but safe footpaths should stay as FOOTPATHS. And there will have been other injuries and grazes and rights and stress because of children and adults on footpaths.
It is a loss of the commons,
a loss of the right to walk on public paths freely and safely,
a loss of the space to move around our towns and get the exercise we are told daily we need,
a loss of places for old people to walk safely to keep healthy and strong and who can’t afford to have falls that may precipitate debilitation and death,
and a loss of the uncontested free right to our most elemental form of locomotion!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367983/hit-and-run-cyclist-told-to-turn-himself-in
Great to see a strategy for change
“On 19-20 October we will launch own national debate on what an alternative and progressive trade and investment strategy for Aotearoa should look like at a hui at the Fale Pasifika at Auckland University. The sponsors include the NZCTU and many affiliate unions, NGOs Oxfam and Greenpeace, Ora Taiao: New Zealand Climate and Health Council, among others.
The hui is deliberately timed to coincide with a round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations at Sky City, a deal involving China, India, Japan, ASEAN and others that follows the same flawed TPPA model.”
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/03/converting-resistance-to-tppa-into-a-new-agenda-for-change/
Tenancy reform begins. I wish this was part of one big social policy and announcement but Twyford obviously wants to get things moving.
One less fear for tenants who are forced to move from schools and communities, amidst a rising tide of fears in other areas.
It’s a start, and I hope The government doesn’t fall victim to powerful landlord and property investor lobby groups. They need to keep thinking long term and keep their eyes on those who are suffering.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/10/government-to-abolish-letting-fees-by-christmas.html
I salute the government for consulting and then acting in addressing an issue, pity it was not addressed 6+ years ago. Especially using its 10% market in leverage to be considered for govt tenders 🙂
It will place a halt on the lazy solution of just importing the workforce to meet current demand and no consideration towards the future
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/107592034/Government-announces-action-plan-to-target-construction-worker-shortage
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12136784
“Official version of Meka Whaitiri report finally released” As bad as it sounded???
This bit was of interest to me:
“…having regard to the information provided to me by Employee A, I find that the Minister did not pull and/or drag Employee A from the foyer. She did take Employee A outside the building where the meeting was taking place.”
and:
“Whaitiri’s lawyer was also concerned that the bruise on the staff member was small and had been described as “tiny” by Patten in his interview with Whaitiri.
The bruise was not the shape that would have been expected from a grab that was alleged, the staff member was unsure where it came from because she didn’t notice until she was prompted three days later, and the photos of it were not taken in a timely way.
“Given the bruise was not ‘discovered’ until four days after the alleged events it is possible the bruise could have been as a result of an entirely unrelated manner. There is no contemporaneous evidence … to indicate the bruise was present on the Monday of the alleged incident and to conclude the bruise was as a result of Ms Whaitiri’s actions in those circumstances is not sustainable.”
and:
“I wouldn’t say yelled but she did raise her voice to me and asked me if I knew what I was doing in my job …”
and:
“Employee A, did not initiate the complaint herself,……”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12137532
To expand on the last portion:
I’m not sure what the inference is supposed to be. Of course the PM’s chief of staff became involved. It’s their job to look into issues that arise on behalf of the PM.
I took that to mean A did not initiate the complaint. A friend did, so the PM’s Chief of Staff became involved. Wonder about the motive of the “friend.” Acting out of real concern or was she trying to create a political problem for Labour?
Oh I see. The ‘friend’ could have been male or female of course. Chances are it was a mix of both. You often find in such situations that motivations can be plural.
The friend didnt create a political problem for labour.
The MP who assaulted the staff member did.
Mountains out of molehills James?
Depends whether you consider assaulting your workers a big deal
Do you?
Ok so way back when celebrities didn’t attack politicians but simply encouraged people to vote
Also my god those voices…shivers down my spine
(Yeah its basically an excuse to play the vid)
Nope, you’d have to go way further than that
This is more of what we need to hear eh Chris; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWd6XgBVIcg
Globalists!!!!1!!
I didn’t say they were the first but really I just wanted an excuse to put the clip up
Like Brando’s non attendance at the 1973 Oscars accept his award, in protest at the poor treatment of Native Americans by the film industry.
He sent Sacheen Littlefeather in his place.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/winston-peters-would-have-let-far-right-commentators-talk-venue-basis-free-speech
Yep
A lot of feminism is detrimental to gender equality. Nature does not need to be ‘fixed’ dues to it’s power imbalances between the genders according to feministas.
Gender equality has nothing to do with that. It is for creating a strong sense of dynamism within the community in order to create a fullsome or wide spectrum to the value system so that shared freedom and efficiency may thrive in the functioning of the local demand and supply system. And all demand and supply is firstly local just as all experience is firstly individual. The better these are the starting points, the better are the wider integrations the ending points.
Thus to corporatism built on neo-liberal rigid marketism, gender equality to board decision making trees is a value system correction to problematic structural dynamism and lazy rigidness. Non disastrous administration of the technological age requires the objective dynamism that is the spirit of it’s ingenuity.
A lot of feminism gets in the way of this.
How chcoffoffy?
Beyond the law of the land, not judging that ‘personal/private’ arrangements and roles should be, or are better for the individuals, one way or another between consenting adults.
Half an hour ago this brief notice was put on the Herald politics page: ” Massey University Chancellor Michael Ahie said the Council of Massey University was undertaking an independent review into the process surrounding the cancellation of the former National Leader’s appearance on Massey University’s Manawatū campus.
“The Council has already expressed its support and confidence in the Vice Chancellor and it is now seeking a review of the processes involved in the issue so that it can fully understand the lessons learned and have clarity over future events,” Ahie said.
“The review will be undertaken by Douglas Martin, a former Deputy State Services Commissioner… scheduled to report his findings and make recommendations to the University Council by the end of November… terms of reference for the review will focus on the performance of the University in arriving at and managing the consequences of the decision. “As such, it will encompass all aspects of organisational performance and a summary of the findings will be released in the public interest,” Ahie said.”
Interesting that the Council has decided to declare confidence in the VC in advance. Implies they are determined not to hold her accountable for any error of judgment the review may find – but maybe the Council is not her employer!
It’s a truism that everyone (brain surgeons, rocket scientists, politicians, generals, economists, vice-chancellors etc.) makes mistakes, yet many seem unable to admit openly to even the smallest error of judgement (I know I am!)
Massey University council’s current expression of confidence isn’t incompatible with the VC being held to account at a later date if the review’s findings warrant this. The council could simply cop to an error of judgement (but don’t hold your breath) due to not being in full possession of the facts.
VC Thomas is still finding her feet. The council members could (and maybe should) have held their peace, but the silence in Massey University circles would have been deafening, and this is university politics after all.
“University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.“
Bloody hell – bit of a shocking read.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/107627761/nz-first-mp-campaigning-for-kiwi-values-was-ruled-unfit-to-run-a-pub
Using Shipton as a character witness proved to be ironic.
Folks will see this as an own-goal by NZF. In his favour, we must concede that the principle of rehabilitation applies equally to him, and he seems reformed. Bottom line though is that someone with multiple criminal convictions is the wrong choice to promote a bill based on values in parliament! How could Winston be so dumb??
I don’t see getting into a scrap to keep things in check in his pub is much of a vote loser for NZ1st.
Bit of an understatement about his past there, but in itself it doesn’t rule him out of being an MP.
It’s just a bit tone-deaf having him front the idea of “values” tests, when his own values ruled him out of running a pub and his assessment of other people’s character was so bad the person who spoke in favour of him turned out to be a rapist.
I don’t think so, all the other things are bit and bobs, life happens.
The most serious incident has what i proposed as it’s main context, which while less than ideal is what alot of people would recognise as being the lay of the land in how life can go sometimes.
It’s actually a pretty good AUTHENTIC NZ slice of life story, with bumps in the road but overall a good showing.
The problem is that values are nebulous and subjective – I think most of us would fail some ‘value’ test from someone at some point. Are we bad people, should we be barred? Of course not.
Indeed. Failure by NZF to even suggest the primary kiwi values gives credence to Bernard Hickey’s theory that the NZF bill is intended merely to distract everyone from the actual immigration numbers this past year! https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@politics/2018/10/03/263430/when-deflection-a…
Yeah there’s been plenty of law officers in times past that were less then sterling in character… but they were kept on because they were the only ones with the nerve, cool heads and willingness to use lethal force if needs be to keep the peace. Look at so many famous lawmen of the American west in the 19th century…or our own colonial past.
Kia ora Nation I say farmer’s need to be included in our plan’s to cut carbon uses.
% 091 of te tangata of Aotearoa support meeting OUR Paris Climate Change commitments that give Eco A sore face.
Yes Jamie one need’s to be flexible with our goal’s on reducing green house gases like Obama he did not try and force his goals down the Papatuanuku neck .
Obama and our other left leaders did a GREAT job getting the Paris agreement signed .
The Green Party has been getting some good win’s while in Power.
The ETS COST are there they have always been there. Its is the unborn and the mokopunas that will ultimately be paying the cost of Climate Change if we do nothing.
80 million view’s Voices of hope yes our mental health system is so under funded its because some people can not see it so they think its not a Huge problem for Aotearoa.
The Crown has never been fair on the treaty process
$ 00.1 cent in $100.00compensation is that fair well not in my book.
Ka kite and .
tricky rick the republican Florida senator for the last 8 years has slashed water monitoring station and funding by $700.00 million scraped all the environment protection targets .
The fake it till you make it crew is making a mess of America so primitive they don’t have the intelligence to see that they are ruining the children’s future this $$$$$$$$$$$$$ is what distorts there reality on the facts of Human Caused Climate Change.
When one see dead fish & birds washing up on Miami beaches one can not hide that the voters are going to vote blue Bill Nelson I see a BLUE TSUNAMI hitting America in the near future Kia kaha ka kite ano P.S how do idiots get so much power ????????????
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/05/florida-red-tide-republican-rick-scotts-senate-midterms
Kia ora Newshub it’s cool that Our defense force went to Indonesia Parlu to fly the poor people to a safe place trapped on that Island after the earth quake and tsunami
That organization predicting doom and glom of our exchange rate is non other than anz bank as for imports they make big mark ups on there prouducts so they will absorb some of the rise in price.
Tangaroa research boat and the crew doing research on the Hikurangi seduction zone are doing good research if it is all ready slipping I say it won’t go with a bang ????????
Many thank’s to the people in Christchurch for using there humane initiative and getting the local cafes in Christchurch to donate they leftovers and gifting the food to the needy .
Kate Rocket Man look like quite a good movie
Ka kite ano
trump is going to ram through Kavanaugh vote on the supreme court judge trump & his followers will be using a lot of tissues come november . trump and the republicans are CHEAT’s just lining there pockets ka kite and
Ka pai Mike
The sandflys are still playing there stupid games everytime I go out I take there game away from them by ignoring them they sent 2 actor’s in yesterday Eco just check’s them. What a bunch of fools . I got another brush off from this system The Ombudsmen ask for me to proudce evedince for my OIA request when they know that is what they should make the organization give me what a SHAM.
I told you common people the systems are rigged all around the World to serve and protect the RICH Ana to kai P.S there sirens went off just after I posted Ecos Music they are trump lovers