“British lawmakers on have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage championed by Prime Minister David Cameron,………..lawmakers voted 400 to 175” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10863748
Wonder if this will happen so conclusively here or are we more conservative than UK?
Oh fuck. Is that really an email from David Shearer ‘personally’ – ie, they’ve gone to the bother of inserting christian names in the subject linen – wishing me a ‘Happy Waitangi Day’?
A sure footed Key sensing the nation’s mood over Waitangi, wipes the floor with Shearer.
Mr Key said previous Governments and others had tried to create a sense of “national participation” on the day.
“It would be good to see, but I’m not sure that we can or should try to force it. We are not by nature a nation of flag-wavers.”
Labour leader David Shearer has used the past two Waitangi Days to call for the day to be celebrated in a more positive way, using Australia Day as an example.
However, Mr Key said there was no other day on which the weight of history was felt quite so heavily.
“It is marked across an emotional spectrum that ranges from great passion among some of those gathered here, to indifference from those Kiwis whose sole interest in the day is encompassed by the weather forecast.”
No. But I imagine that on David Shearer’s woeful performance to date, a lot of people might. And a lot who would vote Labour will stay at home on the day.
Leadership is important, and Labour’s best leader is on the back bench replaced by some sort of politically inexperienced back room international conservative bureaucrat, who has been parachuted in, despite being completely lacking in charisma and with no obvious aptitude for the job.
Yes they will be voting Slippery for what he might,depending of course upon the NZ Supreme Court, put into their back pockets, Labour having failed to move them with a prior bid on providing cheap home ownership,
Oh well to sidestep such defeatism as you express you can always console yourself that the other Dave will get His chance after November 2014 if your scenario turns out to be correct, and score the odd ‘i told you’ so brownie point in the process,
How’s the formation of the Alternative Green die in the ditch Party going???…
How’s the formation of the Alternative Green die in the ditch Party going???…
bad12
Such a party only exists in your hopeful imagination. Unlike the real life Green Party, which with its “pragmatic” approach, of down playing climate change, will condemn many to die in a ditch – literally.
CW: fossil fuels allows us to greatly multiply out the carrying capacity of the Earth – temporarily. You cannot harvest and process as many tonnes of wheat in a day from a hectare by hand or with horses, as you can with diesel.
And if Slippery gets back into power, then there will be NO power companies (all sold off) , The conservation areas will be strip mined for coal, and our coastlines blighted with oil rigs. and they will keep on borrowing until we are like Ireland was, and then the vultures will come in and strip out anything of value IE: Kiwi Fund and the Cullen fund, and then there will be nothing left and the greedies will be happy and look on a job well done. Thats what we have to look forward to.
Now some mitigation and a lot of adaptation is what we need to get on with.
Colonial Viper
Oh really?
Though you didn’t answer the question it sounds to me what you are really advocating is that we die surrendering. Even though in my opinion we are only at somewhere between stage 2/ and stage 3/.
Over many threads you have always argued for doing nothing to fight climate change. And you are still at it.
And since I don’t see any indication of the this mitigation work starting now. I presume you mean to leave this up to future generations as well.
And do you think these 3 or 4 billion human beings you dismiss so casually, will just go off and die quietly. Leaving us here in lifeboat New Zealand to go about building dykes and storm shelters?
Advocate surrendering if you like. Personally I am with Naomi Klein.
A great idea from Aussie union leader Dave Oliver; transferable work benefits. The ACTU want workers to take leave and other entitlements with them when they change jobs. Nice reminder of what a plonker Tony Abbott is, too.
I no longer receive notifications of replies to posts I have commented on despite the fact that I tick the “please notify me” box. I rather liked this function. This started [not] happening over the last month or so.
I am on Safari 5.1.7 and wondering if there is something from my side that is causing this; a setting I can change? My email is gmail and same question goes for that; is there a setting I can change?
We run Firefox on a PC running Windows 7, I have a gmail address and have not been getting threads for quite sometime. I assumed it was because the service was no longer offered.
Yeah i am running Firefox on the same and i am HAPPY that the flood of emails hitting my inbox has stopped, i like to take the time to scroll down the whole posts to have a good look at where the conversations in any particular thread are heading,
“Opposition parties were split on whether scrutiny of Parliament should increase.
The Green Party supported the proposal to extend the OIA to parliamentary business, but the Labour Party did not.
Labour’s open government spokeswoman, Clare Curran, said her party instead supported proactive release of documents to a dedicated website.”
As far as I’m concerned, that’s another point for the Greens. I’ve always been of the opinion that our views on politics should start from the assumption that politicians are NOT to be trusted and so it only seems logical to me that the more transparent a government is, the better it is for the people.
The level of accountability a government is “burdened” with only becomes indeed a burden if transparency is extreme. People (and by “people”, I mean politicians) always say that too much transparency means a government can’t function properly but I’m yet to see a government that’s failed because of the public knowing “too much”. Correct me if I’m wrong bu isn’t it usually the opposite that applies?
When issues like that are raised, I always remember mom asking, at a parent-teacher reunion years ago, for details on what one of my teacher’s plan for the year was. Her reply was “trust me”. Yep, the Brazilian educational system is great.
Yep another point to the Green Party, as a well entrenched Party in the Parliament the Green Party has nothing it want’s hidden while it is an Opposition Party and even less it want’s hidden at any point that the Green Party is part of a Government,
Labour can only recoup the lost point IF the statement by Clare Curran means that ALL Government documentation is released within a reasonable time-frame to a dedicated web-site,
If the proposed release is to include ALL Government documents within a reasonable time-frame then that is one of the better ideas that have come out of Labour for quite some time,
I would expect such releases to include Cabinet notes from the pen of the Cabinet Secretary as well…
You will cause the previous Labour Prime Minister extreme palpitations if your proposal was actioned.
I understand that her papers were handed over to the National Archives with the provision that they were not to be released for 100 years. I’m not sure that that would be classed as a “reasonable time frame”.
Lolz, yeah the comment is from the school of wishful thinking, but, we would expect that such a web-site would have revelations only from the time of it’s start date and other stuff prior to that would still be the subject of official information act requests,
The problem of course being who would police such a web-site to ensure it actually contained all the information required of it…
“Labour’s open government spokeswoman, Clare Curran, said her party instead supported proactive release of documents to a dedicated website.””
Something that I support as well. I have found out a lot of interesting stuff from the OIA requests I have been placing over the past couple of months…
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the State of California is set to sue Standard and Poor’s for 4 billion dollars.
“California has filed suit against Wall Street’s biggest credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, charging the firm with violating the state’s False Claims Act by using “magic numbers” and “guesses” to inflate ratings that ultimately cost California public pension funds an estimated $1 billion.
The action was filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court and came a day after federal prosecutors filed suit against the bond-rating agency, alleging that S&P gave top marks to troubled mortgage-backed securities that later failed, helping to trigger the financial crisis.”
The New York Times reports that the suit was filed because settlement negotiations fell apart:
“Settlement talks between S.& P. and the Justice Department broke down in the last two weeks after prosecutors sought a penalty in excess of $1 billion and insisted that the company admit wrongdoing, several people with knowledge of the talks said. That amount would wipe out the profits of McGraw-Hill for an entire year. S.& P. had proposed a settlement of around $100 million, the people said.
S.& P. also sought a deal that would allow it to neither admit nor deny guilt; the government pressed for an admission of guilt to at least one count of fraud, said the people. S.& P. told prosecutors it could not admit guilt without exposing itself to liability in a multitude of civil cases.”
Incredibly, earlier attempts to sue ratings agencies for garbage ratings – supplied to purveyors of garbage for breath-taking fees and then trumpeted by said garbage-purveyors as ‘confirmation of rock-solid security’ – failed when the agencies claimed the protection of the First Amendment: ie freedom of speech! However it appears to be different this time, as the DoJ is claiming that S&P falsely represented to investors that its ratings were objective, independent and uninfluenced by any conflicts of interest; ie it seems to believe it can prove S&P didn’t believe what it was saying:
Among the flies in the ointment, though, is the fact that this really deflects attention away from the real guilty parties – the banks who knowing issued the garbage – and even offers them a defence as if anyone would really believe they were also taken in by S&P et al’s green-lighting their own products.
Moreover S&P and the other Agencies are already badly tainted so even if this goes against them, just watch them quietly fold, to rise again in six-months under a new name and, er, ‘business model’ washed shiny new.
Also, the Administration and the Fed hold a serious grudge against S&P for downgrading US debt.
Edit. Also note that it’s been years since these crimes were committed – 2007 and before. Further why aren’t S&P’s paying clients, the big banks who asked for these securities to be rated, also being prosecuted.
“Further why aren’t S&P’s paying clients, the big banks who asked for these securities to be rated, also being prosecuted.” – Colonial Viper
Ahem. A cynic might respond that the banks knew perfectly well these securities were garbage, and that they were knowingly ‘bribing’ the agencies for false favourable ratings. If the banks took action against the ratings agencies it would be thief against thief, and all likely come out in the wash. Hence their silence.
What is more puzzling is why none of the very big trust and pension funds etc. in the US who lost out badly in the crash haven’t brought this action. As I wrote, previous attempts have been made but were lost because, essentially, the ratings agencies were able to claim that all they were promulgating was their opinion which is, of course, no better than anybody else’s and they couldn’t be held responsible for it.
What’s really interesting in this case is that the prosecution is going for the fact that the agency actually knew the rating was false – ie a deliberate fraud – rather than just a lazy and/or incompetent opinion.
There was far more deliberate fraud than this going on in the ratings agencies. Of course in a prosecution like this, the DoJ may simply choose to prosecute the best representative instances.
However, in this talk, Bill Black makes it very clear that executives all through these ratings agencies knew what was going on, but given that their jobs and their bonuses depended on keeping their clients happy…
Lol, yep, don’t think I would hold my breath over anything to do with big money interests re-addressing their iniquities entirely! Yet, surely the more they do this type of litigation (and its being reported in newspapers), the more chance there is of more people realizing what cons are going on…perhaps….perhaps?…and only then, when public awareness is sufficient, is there a chance that the cons will be put a stop to?
The US Government , as you mention, is bringing fraud charges against S & P.
This suit looks awfully like political payback for S & P dropping the US credit rating from its AAA value. Two other credit rating companies also gave the same ratings to the mortgage backed securities. They were Fitch and Moodys. The US Justice Department is NOT claiming fraud by them. It is interesting that they did not lower the US rating from its AAA level.
Just coincidence you think? Political revenge seems much more likely. It’s rather like the way that, under most Presidents, the IRS selectively audits the President’s political opponents.
As I was typing this CV has also published this view. Oh well I’ll leave mine here and not waste the typing
You’re on to it mate. Check this out. Multi-millionaire hedge fund owner Michael Burry, formerly of Scion Capital, makes similar points about how he was targeted by the Feds.
Burry is right. We have been through the first crash. Everyone seems to have forgotten what happened only 5 years ago. It was followed by a struggling rally which is not a rally at all when you discount it for inflation. The next crash is imminent, a financial perfect storm. It will make 2007-2009 look like a summer shower. There will be massive political upheavals. The question is whether NZ becomes more democratic or more dictatorial. That will be our real challenge.
Yes. The action in this case is based on a very few actual securities only S&P rated, so only S&P can be sued. Moreover the Feds are only involved because the institution that lost money was federally insured, so the State lost money.
According to the NYT:
“The government is taking a novel approach by accusing S.& P. of defrauding a federally insured institution and therefore injuring the taxpayer.
Among others, the compliant includes the demise of Wescorp, a federally insured credit union in Los Angeles that went bankrupt after investing in mortgage securities rated by S.& P. Wescorp is included as one example of the contended fraud, and as a way to bring the case in California. The suit was filed in Federal District Court for the Central District of California.”
However if this approach is successful watch the floodgates open.
Yes. The action in this case is based on a very few actual securities only S&P rated, so only S&P can be sued. Moreover the Feds are only involved because the institution that lost money was federally insured, so the State lost money.
I believe your reasoning falls down as the Federal Govt also lost a shedload of money in Freddie/Fannie and AIG due to securities fraudulently rated by many different ratings agencies.
Perhaps these may be other cases in the pipeline or some cases which may have already been settled out of court.
The GFC is notable for the very small number of top financial executives who have been jailed. Compare this to the S&L scandal in the 90’s where hundreds of executives were sent to jail.
“I believe your reasoning falls down as the Federal Govt also lost a shedload of money in Freddie/Fannie and AIG due to securities fraudulently rated by many different ratings agencies.” – Colonial Viper.
I was claim otherwise. As regards Fannie and Freddie these were Goverment Sponsored Enterprises before the Government had to to take them over in part because of their losses on these garbage securities, so leading with them might raise awkward questions about (the lack of) Government supervision when these things were purchased. (And the aforementioned cynic might also suggest that perhaps certain individuals at the Fed. knew more about what was going on with Government-backed bodies buying top-price garbage from the banks than they would want coming to light now.)
As regards AIG its HQ is in New York, and I think the DoJ has very good reason for wanting to try this out in California rather than NY Courts.
Taking the action they have is nice and ‘safe’, in that it’s nice and far from Washington involving low-level players who aren’t likey to have any dirty Washington laundry to hang out.
My pet cynic might also pipe up that the most likely outcome of this action is to force S&P back to the negotiating table to agree a nice quiet settlement in which no-one who matters gets hurt.
How did you even come up with the idea of making a film about economics? I ask the director Jacob Kornbluth. “I know! People would roll their eyes when I told them. They’d say it’s a terrible idea for a film.” On paper it is, indeed, a terrible idea. A 90-minute documentary on income inequality: or why the rich have got richer and the rest of us haven’t (I say “us” because although it’s focused on America, we’re snapping at their heels) and which traces a line back to the 1970s, when things stopped getting better for the vast majority of ordinary working people and started getting worse.
“It always sounded so dry,” says Kornbluth. “But then I’d tell people it’s An Inconvenient Truth for the economy and they’d go, Ah!”
The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management (MCDEM) has issued a Tsunami Potential Threat to New Zealand advisory for North Cape, Auckland West, East Cape, Gisborne, Auckland East, New Plymouth, Wellington.
The Potential Threat advisory will remain in effect until:
It is upgraded to a Tsunami Warning, or
A cancellation message is issued by MCDEM.
MCDEM and scientific advisors are in the process of assessing the situation to determine the severity of the threat to New Zealand. Updates will be issued at least hourly.
On an associated note, we’ve got to significantly build up NZ’s military and humanitarian capabilities to respond to these regional emergencies rapidly and thoroughly.
It is with sadness that i hear the news of the death of the construction company Mainzeal a player in the construction industry here in NZ for 40 years,
Placed into receivership today it is likely that this will result in the direct loss of another 400 jobs in the economy,
Also effected will be another 400 (at least), jobs as those contractors and sub-contractors who relied upon Mainzeal for work will now have none and are likely to be severely effected financially by the receivership of the company,
My second job as a youngster was as a labourer for Mainzeal putting the roof on the Waitangirua shopping mall…
Exactery! One thing that’s always amused me about the Nats and their ideology: They profess to be supporters of a free-market and champions of campetition, YET all the while shitting on small businesses, allowing take-overs and mergers and everything that results in the tendency towards monopolistic/duopolistic behaviour.
Thankfully now even the small business owner and the corner dairy are beginning to realise they’re full of shit.
I’m of the belief that monopolies (natural or otherwise – such as a rail network, or power grid, or telecommunications backbone, or water and gas reticuation) either need to be heavily regulated, OR better still – publicly owned.
I’m of the belief that monopolies (natural or otherwise – such as a rail network, or power grid, or telecommunications backbone, or water and gas reticuation) either need to be heavily regulated, OR better still – publicly owned.
Public ownership is the best option. The heavy regulation and the needed regulators makes the faux competition we end up with far more expensive.
Fletcher Building has been selected as the main contractor for the Christchurch rebuild, i don’t know if any of this main contractor stuff was put out to competitive tender,
Having such a rebuild and having Ozzy as a default option provides some hope of work for the employees of Mainzeal and even some of the subbie’s involved,
There is tho a world of dislocation involved in packing up and moving to Christchurch and many looking at the cost of doing this along with the cost of accommodation and wage structures will probably just leg it to Australia,
I worked for Mainzeal on a number of construction jobs round Wellington or for Mainzeal subbie’s, the Todd Motors build of the assembly plant was a eye opener for me as there must have been some form of labour agreement where X amount of labourers would be on the job, the boss would show up in the morning and direct me to bolt 16 bolts onto the hanging bases for the spray equipment and then disappear for the day,
That was my whole days work which was over in like half an hour,we labourers would amuse ourselves with little pastimes such as capturing any labourers from other subbies that happened to stray into our turf and if they had steel capped boots with the cap on the outside we would hold them down and weld their boots together,
Working for the steel subbie on Wellington’s St pats college taught me to never turn your back on a mobile crane as the boss had me hook up way too much steel on the chains and i just about wore the mobile crane jib on my nut as it tipped over,
Lolz, Haere Ra Mainzeal Construction it was nice knowing you…
I imagine they sleep quite easily – they’re not critical thinkers and with fuck all life experience – they’ve learned their ideology just as a parrot does. Polly wanna cracker…?
several I suspect. If I was so inclined to give the silly little munter an nano-eon of my time, no doubt it could be determined. I avoid even clicking on anything that has “kiwiblog’ because I wouldn’t want to provide him with the statistics he uses to justify himself
And people like Farrar try to spin the line “Is the manufacturing crisis manufactured?”
It is another example of Farrar,using incoherent statistics to a problem.Which is good reason for not listening or following the statistical analysis’s of any of the sockpuppets.
That’s allright! According to national party there are plenty more jobs out there!If there aren’t it must be Labours fault, or the Christchurch Earthquake,or the recession,or,or,or, oh anything that comes to mind.It certainly isn’t the fault of or courageous leader who apparently will “go down in history”(his words) for going to Waitangi year after year for some obscure reason.Escorted by how many DPS at big cost to the country!!!!!(I’m so brave) Anything to gazump David Shearers overnight stay at the Ratana Pa. Anyhow, if he is so courageous,how come he is the first to scuttle out of Parliament when he is caught out with many of his LIES!! Bart S Key. The man is tedious. AND he has a bad hairpiece.In the sunlight it is the same colour as maggie berrys dyed hair.
More job losses FFS.
Guess when the mining magnates arrive all “the people” will be ripe and ready to condemn any protests because they want jobs (which they won’t get anyway).
Nice and pliable. That’s how they want us. That’s how they are going to get us.
Cheers National, you really are the pits and thanks to all the people who voted for them for being so intensely gullible too.
Probably the effects of the last few years catching up with them, There was some crazy pricing going on when work was scarce. One project I know of was signed up completely tag free with no a ability to come back for time extensions due to weather. Basically madness when there are 1000’s of cubic meters of topsoil to be spread and hundreds of m2’s of concreting with a completion date in august. Coupled with a specification which forebode topsoil work in inclement weather.
I don’t know what was worked out in the end around penalties but I do know the project finished at least 2 months late and they were very late paying sub contractors. From what I was told they were holding the final payment from the principal as long as possible to claw back lost funds through interest. Made life bloody tough for a subs and suppliers of said subs…
At least there will be work to go into for most, although it will put downward pressure on wages with a bunch of skilled guys entering the job market and Fletchers are sharks…
Only problem is that there will be plenty of pain for sunnies as they will be the o es who suffer by being paid only a % of what is owed if at all, and any payment will be years away. Pity that I imagine that t he coy had been trading whilst insolvent that there will be little recourse form coy representatives, how often are managers/directors help accountable ? but may creditors suffer.
Just as we’ll the banks are well protected !!!
That activists should be careful because although Maori have legitimate grievances if marrys get too uppity white folk will lose the good will so watch out, shut up and don’t be so uppity.
Key with a very calculated blow of the dog whistle almost said stuff that was really rascist and demeaning. It is as if he turned his IQ down and then said some stuff that would appeal to inhabitants of swinging vote suburbia.
It is hard to put Shearer’s response in context or detail what he was replying to but he did say “if you are going to say these sorts of things fair enough and we all feel that way. But do it down on the Marae, not as you are going to get on a plane and fly out of here”.
Shearer needs to do way better than that. When Key does some racist dog whistling Shearer should never, ever say that “we all feel that way”.
That’s unbelievable, Shearer, what a thing to say, you’re not speaking for me,i
think Key’s yapade was disgraceful and showed a lack of respect,the
same for the clown waiting to be our PM.
Smart politics from Key. Gower was right on TV3, having a go at Titewhai doesn’t cost National votes.
Plus, Key knows his opponent all too well. National will spend the next two years dog-whistling like that, confident that Shearer will say “Er, yes, but, I mean …:”, winning no votes from the right and pissing off plenty of his supporters.
(but remember, if we all agree not to say this is happening, it won’t happen, and Shearer will be great … /heavy sarc)
“Do you agree with Key that Maori activists make waitangi day difficult for everyone to enjoy it as a celebration like you said yesterday?” is different from “Do you agree with Key that maori should stop seeing themeslves as disadvantaged and making a fuss?” but both questions can summarise Key’s speech.
But, you know, it’s not like Gower would do Shearer over because he’s such a nice, honourable man, so let’s get our pitchforks etc.
Rob, if David Shearer relies on Gower playing nice, then he cannot possibly lead Labour in an election campaign.
It’s late and I can’t be bothered to teach Shearer Media 101 for the umpteenth time, but the essence of it is – be smart, be prepared. That means before the questions (knowing what to expect) and after (making sure the message gets out).
If Shearer didn’t like Gower’s unfair question then I would expect his team to have rebutted within minutes, in all available outlets, and if he didn’t know what Gower was going to ask him, and didn’t have a line ready, then he should not be anywhere near the leader’s job.
In 2014, if polls are to be believed, Labour could be the front runners for the first time since 2005, or even 2002. So the media are going to “do Shearer over” every day. Labour can either put their faith in Gower’s fairness (ha!) or their leader’s ability to cope with unfairness.
FFS, it’s not “pitchforks”. It’s asking for a bare minimum competence, a basic grasp of modern campaigning.
PS … and for the record (feel free to check), Shearer’s comments were queried by many on Twitter within seconds, because that’s what happens – people watch the news, and respond.
Reckoning here that part of Shearer’s problem is that he is a mediator. he instinctively phrases things in a way that expresses that he undertsands both points of view, which is an admirable trait in a human being, but it’s not one that a political party leader should indulge in. His job isn’t to mediate between political differences. He’s supposed to represent and fight; convince that his party’s way is right and the govts’ wrong.
It was Shearer-speak. Trying to cover all bases, and in the process, undermining his own soundbite (which was a fair one – telling Key to front up, not take potshots and scarper).
If he still can’t grasp that TV news only ever allows you to make one point, not to add parentheses and qualifiers and “other hands”, then his media training is wasted.
It reveals how local authorities are being bullied into serving up schools for forced academisation, just to keep the Minister sweet.
How they were made to sound like raving Communists.
How they were inspected and found to have good teachers and governance and be improving – then at the behest of Gove they were suddenly re-inspected and found to be failing in all areas.
It shows who is set to profit from the privitisation of schools.
The documentary is based upon the English experience but it should (yes, I haven’t watched it yet) have lessons for NZ in it as well.
That was pretty laughable, Slippery the Prime Minister whining about protestors stealing His lime-light, dunno what the Slippery one was venting His spleen over as there was little protest at all this year at Waitangi,
Probably got an ear-full in the private meeting with Iwi Leaders that is still resonating around His empty suitcase of intellectual rigor with the Maori Council also attending i can well imagine the discussion about water rights would have positively sizzled…
There is an article in stuff business section titled ‘ Ministry stone-walling on SkyCity-Labour.
Sorry can’t link.
National up to their old tricks,by the look of it.
Hi LPrent,
I hope you are having a really good relaxing break in good company somewhere beautiful.
When you are ready to return to the fray – there is something odd going on with the edit function. Tonight I managed to create two comments by editing one. I am dead tired, and am (more) prone to mess up when I am, but when I edited a post it created a duplicate. I definitely didn’t hit send twice.
Colonial Viper
You have done a lot of thinking on climate change and the way forward. What books, blogs do you find most effective to summarise the situation in a practical manner and advise on ways we can move to reduce our wastefulness of whatever and what we should be aiming for?
Now I have to admit that my focus is not so much on climate change per se, but on the massive energy and resource depletion facing our civilisation. That depletion is going to make how we deal with climate change much more difficult.
Also, reading up about this stuff can sometimes feel a little bit of a ‘downer’, but in actual fact there’s a pretty exciting world of innovation and community building coming up.
🙂 yep definitely. Max and Stacy, the dynamic duo. Have you discovered Zero Hedge? Also check out Richard D Wolff on youtube and his blog site for a good dose of democratic socialism.
I don’t get this, wtf is going on here – how can a company like mainzeal go down with all of the supposed building going or about to get going in chch. Although I spoke to a friend down there who said the pay is shit and he’s off to oz.
Mainzeal director Richard Yan said the company could no longer continue trading due to a “series of events that had adversely affected the company’s financial position”, combined with a general decline in commercial construction activity and lack of shareholder support.
You say it’s all right, sometime, we’ll get it done.
Well sometimes you just suck and I’ve got the fight to say.
You should never grab at something you couldn’t take.
You say you’re all right, sometime, you’ll get it done.
And sometimes you just say I’ve got to learn to wait.
Well you should never hit on something you can’t break.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fake.
I got a reason I got the will and the way.
No helps coming, no one’s running away.
Firing treason, ‘here with the freaks and the snakes.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
You say he’s all right, sometime, he’ll get it done.
Well sometime is just words far too easy to say.
You should never try on something if you can’t even fake.
You say it’s all right, sometime, you’ll get it done.
And sometimes you just say I’ve got to learn to heal.
Well you should never count on something you can’t steal.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fade.
I got a meaning, I got the will and the way.
New hope running, no one’s staking stakes.
Firing reason, ‘here with the freaks and the snakes.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
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 ...
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Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Only one of these provides good advice
For the uninitiated and those looking for good advice see: reddit
“British lawmakers on have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage championed by Prime Minister David Cameron,………..lawmakers voted 400 to 175”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10863748
Wonder if this will happen so conclusively here or are we more conservative than UK?
Oh fuck. Is that really an email from David Shearer ‘personally’ – ie, they’ve gone to the bother of inserting christian names in the subject linen – wishing me a ‘Happy Waitangi Day’?
Yes it is.
Got one too, and one for my beloved as well.
General mailout.
Well Bill, you got to be glad to see the improvement in IT capability, right? Yeah I got the email(s) from Shearer as well.
Didn’t this “Happy Waitangi Day” idea pop up last year with Shearer as well?
Does it have a ‘reply to’ function?
😈
CW, to pass on your congratulations for winning the confidence of caucus I’m sure.
A sure footed Key sensing the nation’s mood over Waitangi, wipes the floor with Shearer.
Yeah Key and his PR team still do their job well. Of that there is no doubt.
I dread the day there is ever a head to head leaders debate. Unfortunately, going on current performance it most likely will result in a Key walkover.
Jenny, are you planning on voting for Slippery at the next election then???…
No. But I imagine that on David Shearer’s woeful performance to date, a lot of people might. And a lot who would vote Labour will stay at home on the day.
Leadership is important, and Labour’s best leader is on the back bench replaced by some sort of politically inexperienced back room international conservative bureaucrat, who has been parachuted in, despite being completely lacking in charisma and with no obvious aptitude for the job.
Yes they will be voting Slippery for what he might,depending of course upon the NZ Supreme Court, put into their back pockets, Labour having failed to move them with a prior bid on providing cheap home ownership,
Oh well to sidestep such defeatism as you express you can always console yourself that the other Dave will get His chance after November 2014 if your scenario turns out to be correct, and score the odd ‘i told you’ so brownie point in the process,
How’s the formation of the Alternative Green die in the ditch Party going???…
Such a party only exists in your hopeful imagination. Unlike the real life Green Party, which with its “pragmatic” approach, of down playing climate change, will condemn many to die in a ditch – literally.
The long term sustainable population of this planet is under 2B, at a rough estimate. We’ve overshot that by 5B already, and climbing.
Regardless of what the pollies do – which I am betting is closer to nothing than something – we are going to lose a lot of people eventually.
I have a question for you CV.
At which stage of the struggle against climate change do you think we are at now?
Where does the 2B figure come from CV?
CW: fossil fuels allows us to greatly multiply out the carrying capacity of the Earth – temporarily. You cannot harvest and process as many tonnes of wheat in a day from a hectare by hand or with horses, as you can with diesel.
Check out these links
http://www.holon.se/folke/kurs/logexp/carrying.shtml
http://canada.theoildrum.com/node/2516
In 100 hundred years I’m fairly confident that the world’s population will be closer to 2B than 10B.
The human race lost this one 5-10 years ago. Now some mitigation and a lot of adaptation is what we need to get on with.
And if Slippery gets back into power, then there will be NO power companies (all sold off) , The conservation areas will be strip mined for coal, and our coastlines blighted with oil rigs. and they will keep on borrowing until we are like Ireland was, and then the vultures will come in and strip out anything of value IE: Kiwi Fund and the Cullen fund, and then there will be nothing left and the greedies will be happy and look on a job well done. Thats what we have to look forward to.
Oh really?
Though you didn’t answer the question it sounds to me what you are really advocating is that we die surrendering. Even though in my opinion we are only at somewhere between stage 2/ and stage 3/.
Over many threads you have always argued for doing nothing to fight climate change. And you are still at it.
And since I don’t see any indication of the this mitigation work starting now. I presume you mean to leave this up to future generations as well.
And do you think these 3 or 4 billion human beings you dismiss so casually, will just go off and die quietly. Leaving us here in lifeboat New Zealand to go about building dykes and storm shelters?
Advocate surrendering if you like. Personally I am with Naomi Klein.
“I’d Rather Fight Like Hell”
Arguing against your suggestions of bailing out the Titanic with a tin cup is actually very easy to do.
Good on ya. Hope that works out well for you. I read she’s great company.
Good ole Claire!!!
A great idea from Aussie union leader Dave Oliver; transferable work benefits. The ACTU want workers to take leave and other entitlements with them when they change jobs. Nice reminder of what a plonker Tony Abbott is, too.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/union-fight-on-work-rights-20130205-2dwn7.html
bad day for KP
Socially corrosive…wah wah wah
@ lprent
I no longer receive notifications of replies to posts I have commented on despite the fact that I tick the “please notify me” box. I rather liked this function. This started [not] happening over the last month or so.
I am on Safari 5.1.7 and wondering if there is something from my side that is causing this; a setting I can change? My email is gmail and same question goes for that; is there a setting I can change?
I run Firefox on a Mac and the same thing has happened.
We run Firefox on a PC running Windows 7, I have a gmail address and have not been getting threads for quite sometime. I assumed it was because the service was no longer offered.
Yeah i am running Firefox on the same and i am HAPPY that the flood of emails hitting my inbox has stopped, i like to take the time to scroll down the whole posts to have a good look at where the conversations in any particular thread are heading,
lol, I sometimes found it annoying too! Yet overall I ended up reading more comments when they arrived via email!
“Self-interest drives OIA review”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10863710
“Opposition parties were split on whether scrutiny of Parliament should increase.
The Green Party supported the proposal to extend the OIA to parliamentary business, but the Labour Party did not.
Labour’s open government spokeswoman, Clare Curran, said her party instead supported proactive release of documents to a dedicated website.”
As far as I’m concerned, that’s another point for the Greens. I’ve always been of the opinion that our views on politics should start from the assumption that politicians are NOT to be trusted and so it only seems logical to me that the more transparent a government is, the better it is for the people.
The level of accountability a government is “burdened” with only becomes indeed a burden if transparency is extreme. People (and by “people”, I mean politicians) always say that too much transparency means a government can’t function properly but I’m yet to see a government that’s failed because of the public knowing “too much”. Correct me if I’m wrong bu isn’t it usually the opposite that applies?
When issues like that are raised, I always remember mom asking, at a parent-teacher reunion years ago, for details on what one of my teacher’s plan for the year was. Her reply was “trust me”. Yep, the Brazilian educational system is great.
Yep another point to the Green Party, as a well entrenched Party in the Parliament the Green Party has nothing it want’s hidden while it is an Opposition Party and even less it want’s hidden at any point that the Green Party is part of a Government,
Labour can only recoup the lost point IF the statement by Clare Curran means that ALL Government documentation is released within a reasonable time-frame to a dedicated web-site,
If the proposed release is to include ALL Government documents within a reasonable time-frame then that is one of the better ideas that have come out of Labour for quite some time,
I would expect such releases to include Cabinet notes from the pen of the Cabinet Secretary as well…
You will cause the previous Labour Prime Minister extreme palpitations if your proposal was actioned.
I understand that her papers were handed over to the National Archives with the provision that they were not to be released for 100 years. I’m not sure that that would be classed as a “reasonable time frame”.
Lolz, yeah the comment is from the school of wishful thinking, but, we would expect that such a web-site would have revelations only from the time of it’s start date and other stuff prior to that would still be the subject of official information act requests,
The problem of course being who would police such a web-site to ensure it actually contained all the information required of it…
I’d settle for the release of the names of those “high ranking Labour MPs” who did the character assassination on Cunliffe when he was in Europe.
Or maybe Claire Curren could “officially inform” us who inspired her to try to drive Colonial Viper out of the LP.
Keep truckin’ Greens. You are only 14 MPs but you’re the only real opposition party we’ve got.
Can i ask you,are you a member, of the Labour Party that is…
Well said AmaKiwi
+1
“Labour’s open government spokeswoman, Clare Curran, said her party instead supported proactive release of documents to a dedicated website.””
Something that I support as well. I have found out a lot of interesting stuff from the OIA requests I have been placing over the past couple of months…
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the State of California is set to sue Standard and Poor’s for 4 billion dollars.
“California has filed suit against Wall Street’s biggest credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, charging the firm with violating the state’s False Claims Act by using “magic numbers” and “guesses” to inflate ratings that ultimately cost California public pension funds an estimated $1 billion.
The action was filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court and came a day after federal prosecutors filed suit against the bond-rating agency, alleging that S&P gave top marks to troubled mortgage-backed securities that later failed, helping to trigger the financial crisis.”
@ScottGN
That sounds like a promising move. Cheers for the info.
Don’t hold your breath.
The New York Times reports that the suit was filed because settlement negotiations fell apart:
“Settlement talks between S.& P. and the Justice Department broke down in the last two weeks after prosecutors sought a penalty in excess of $1 billion and insisted that the company admit wrongdoing, several people with knowledge of the talks said. That amount would wipe out the profits of McGraw-Hill for an entire year. S.& P. had proposed a settlement of around $100 million, the people said.
S.& P. also sought a deal that would allow it to neither admit nor deny guilt; the government pressed for an admission of guilt to at least one count of fraud, said the people. S.& P. told prosecutors it could not admit guilt without exposing itself to liability in a multitude of civil cases.”
Incredibly, earlier attempts to sue ratings agencies for garbage ratings – supplied to purveyors of garbage for breath-taking fees and then trumpeted by said garbage-purveyors as ‘confirmation of rock-solid security’ – failed when the agencies claimed the protection of the First Amendment: ie freedom of speech! However it appears to be different this time, as the DoJ is claiming that S&P falsely represented to investors that its ratings were objective, independent and uninfluenced by any conflicts of interest; ie it seems to believe it can prove S&P didn’t believe what it was saying:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-02-05/s-and-p-won-t-employ-first-amendment-defense-in-u-dot-s-dot-ratings-lawsuit
Among the flies in the ointment, though, is the fact that this really deflects attention away from the real guilty parties – the banks who knowing issued the garbage – and even offers them a defence as if anyone would really believe they were also taken in by S&P et al’s green-lighting their own products.
Moreover S&P and the other Agencies are already badly tainted so even if this goes against them, just watch them quietly fold, to rise again in six-months under a new name and, er, ‘business model’ washed shiny new.
Also, the Administration and the Fed hold a serious grudge against S&P for downgrading US debt.
Edit. Also note that it’s been years since these crimes were committed – 2007 and before. Further why aren’t S&P’s paying clients, the big banks who asked for these securities to be rated, also being prosecuted.
“Further why aren’t S&P’s paying clients, the big banks who asked for these securities to be rated, also being prosecuted.” – Colonial Viper
Ahem. A cynic might respond that the banks knew perfectly well these securities were garbage, and that they were knowingly ‘bribing’ the agencies for false favourable ratings. If the banks took action against the ratings agencies it would be thief against thief, and all likely come out in the wash. Hence their silence.
What is more puzzling is why none of the very big trust and pension funds etc. in the US who lost out badly in the crash haven’t brought this action. As I wrote, previous attempts have been made but were lost because, essentially, the ratings agencies were able to claim that all they were promulgating was their opinion which is, of course, no better than anybody else’s and they couldn’t be held responsible for it.
What’s really interesting in this case is that the prosecution is going for the fact that the agency actually knew the rating was false – ie a deliberate fraud – rather than just a lazy and/or incompetent opinion.
There was far more deliberate fraud than this going on in the ratings agencies. Of course in a prosecution like this, the DoJ may simply choose to prosecute the best representative instances.
However, in this talk, Bill Black makes it very clear that executives all through these ratings agencies knew what was going on, but given that their jobs and their bonuses depended on keeping their clients happy…
http://vimeo.com/10239575
Lol, yep, don’t think I would hold my breath over anything to do with big money interests re-addressing their iniquities entirely! Yet, surely the more they do this type of litigation (and its being reported in newspapers), the more chance there is of more people realizing what cons are going on…perhaps….perhaps?…and only then, when public awareness is sufficient, is there a chance that the cons will be put a stop to?
The US Government , as you mention, is bringing fraud charges against S & P.
This suit looks awfully like political payback for S & P dropping the US credit rating from its AAA value. Two other credit rating companies also gave the same ratings to the mortgage backed securities. They were Fitch and Moodys. The US Justice Department is NOT claiming fraud by them. It is interesting that they did not lower the US rating from its AAA level.
Just coincidence you think? Political revenge seems much more likely. It’s rather like the way that, under most Presidents, the IRS selectively audits the President’s political opponents.
As I was typing this CV has also published this view. Oh well I’ll leave mine here and not waste the typing
You’re on to it mate. Check this out. Multi-millionaire hedge fund owner Michael Burry, formerly of Scion Capital, makes similar points about how he was targeted by the Feds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE
Colonial Viper, excellent link.
Burry is right. We have been through the first crash. Everyone seems to have forgotten what happened only 5 years ago. It was followed by a struggling rally which is not a rally at all when you discount it for inflation. The next crash is imminent, a financial perfect storm. It will make 2007-2009 look like a summer shower. There will be massive political upheavals. The question is whether NZ becomes more democratic or more dictatorial. That will be our real challenge.
“Just coincidence you think?” – alwyn.
Yes. The action in this case is based on a very few actual securities only S&P rated, so only S&P can be sued. Moreover the Feds are only involved because the institution that lost money was federally insured, so the State lost money.
According to the NYT:
“The government is taking a novel approach by accusing S.& P. of defrauding a federally insured institution and therefore injuring the taxpayer.
Among others, the compliant includes the demise of Wescorp, a federally insured credit union in Los Angeles that went bankrupt after investing in mortgage securities rated by S.& P. Wescorp is included as one example of the contended fraud, and as a way to bring the case in California. The suit was filed in Federal District Court for the Central District of California.”
However if this approach is successful watch the floodgates open.
I believe your reasoning falls down as the Federal Govt also lost a shedload of money in Freddie/Fannie and AIG due to securities fraudulently rated by many different ratings agencies.
Perhaps these may be other cases in the pipeline or some cases which may have already been settled out of court.
The GFC is notable for the very small number of top financial executives who have been jailed. Compare this to the S&L scandal in the 90’s where hundreds of executives were sent to jail.
“I believe your reasoning falls down as the Federal Govt also lost a shedload of money in Freddie/Fannie and AIG due to securities fraudulently rated by many different ratings agencies.” – Colonial Viper.
I was claim otherwise. As regards Fannie and Freddie these were Goverment Sponsored Enterprises before the Government had to to take them over in part because of their losses on these garbage securities, so leading with them might raise awkward questions about (the lack of) Government supervision when these things were purchased. (And the aforementioned cynic might also suggest that perhaps certain individuals at the Fed. knew more about what was going on with Government-backed bodies buying top-price garbage from the banks than they would want coming to light now.)
As regards AIG its HQ is in New York, and I think the DoJ has very good reason for wanting to try this out in California rather than NY Courts.
Taking the action they have is nice and ‘safe’, in that it’s nice and far from Washington involving low-level players who aren’t likey to have any dirty Washington laundry to hang out.
My pet cynic might also pipe up that the most likely outcome of this action is to force S&P back to the negotiating table to agree a nice quiet settlement in which no-one who matters gets hurt.
Inequality for All – another Inconvenient Truth?
Sounds like a documentary to watch out for.
Tsunami Waring
That earthquake was damn shallow as well – a mere 5km and 8 magnitude.
The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management (MCDEM) has issued a Tsunami Potential Threat to New Zealand advisory for North Cape, Auckland West, East Cape, Gisborne, Auckland East, New Plymouth, Wellington.
The Potential Threat advisory will remain in effect until:
It is upgraded to a Tsunami Warning, or
A cancellation message is issued by MCDEM.
MCDEM and scientific advisors are in the process of assessing the situation to determine the severity of the threat to New Zealand. Updates will be issued at least hourly.
MCDEM
Hopefully we can get help to the Pacific in fairly short order.
On an associated note, we’ve got to significantly build up NZ’s military and humanitarian capabilities to respond to these regional emergencies rapidly and thoroughly.
It is with sadness that i hear the news of the death of the construction company Mainzeal a player in the construction industry here in NZ for 40 years,
Placed into receivership today it is likely that this will result in the direct loss of another 400 jobs in the economy,
Also effected will be another 400 (at least), jobs as those contractors and sub-contractors who relied upon Mainzeal for work will now have none and are likely to be severely effected financially by the receivership of the company,
My second job as a youngster was as a labourer for Mainzeal putting the roof on the Waitangirua shopping mall…
With an entire city to rebuild, how the hell can a construction company go into receivership?
This is an economy of winners and losers. In this case, a very few big winners, and also some big losers.
Exactery! One thing that’s always amused me about the Nats and their ideology: They profess to be supporters of a free-market and champions of campetition, YET all the while shitting on small businesses, allowing take-overs and mergers and everything that results in the tendency towards monopolistic/duopolistic behaviour.
Thankfully now even the small business owner and the corner dairy are beginning to realise they’re full of shit.
I’m of the belief that monopolies (natural or otherwise – such as a rail network, or power grid, or telecommunications backbone, or water and gas reticuation) either need to be heavily regulated, OR better still – publicly owned.
BTW (as they say in the connected world) Hopefully at the moment, people realise Fletchers and Fulton Hogan are those currently in favour.
Public ownership is the best option. The heavy regulation and the needed regulators makes the faux competition we end up with far more expensive.
I know, it’s almost as if they’re…..lying!
Fletcher Building has been selected as the main contractor for the Christchurch rebuild, i don’t know if any of this main contractor stuff was put out to competitive tender,
Having such a rebuild and having Ozzy as a default option provides some hope of work for the employees of Mainzeal and even some of the subbie’s involved,
There is tho a world of dislocation involved in packing up and moving to Christchurch and many looking at the cost of doing this along with the cost of accommodation and wage structures will probably just leg it to Australia,
I worked for Mainzeal on a number of construction jobs round Wellington or for Mainzeal subbie’s, the Todd Motors build of the assembly plant was a eye opener for me as there must have been some form of labour agreement where X amount of labourers would be on the job, the boss would show up in the morning and direct me to bolt 16 bolts onto the hanging bases for the spray equipment and then disappear for the day,
That was my whole days work which was over in like half an hour,we labourers would amuse ourselves with little pastimes such as capturing any labourers from other subbies that happened to stray into our turf and if they had steel capped boots with the cap on the outside we would hold them down and weld their boots together,
Working for the steel subbie on Wellington’s St pats college taught me to never turn your back on a mobile crane as the boss had me hook up way too much steel on the chains and i just about wore the mobile crane jib on my nut as it tipped over,
Lolz, Haere Ra Mainzeal Construction it was nice knowing you…
@Tiresias 11.1
+1
And those contractors and sub-contractors are unsecured creditors so they won’t be getting the money for the work that they’ve done.
And people like Farrar try to spin the line “Is the manufacturing crisis manufactured?”
How do people like him sleep at night?
Unbelievable.
I imagine they sleep quite easily – they’re not critical thinkers and with fuck all life experience – they’ve learned their ideology just as a parrot does. Polly wanna cracker…?
Who is Farrar’s paymaster?
several I suspect. If I was so inclined to give the silly little munter an nano-eon of my time, no doubt it could be determined. I avoid even clicking on anything that has “kiwiblog’ because I wouldn’t want to provide him with the statistics he uses to justify himself
And people like Farrar try to spin the line “Is the manufacturing crisis manufactured?”
It is another example of Farrar,using incoherent statistics to a problem.Which is good reason for not listening or following the statistical analysis’s of any of the sockpuppets.
That’s allright! According to national party there are plenty more jobs out there!If there aren’t it must be Labours fault, or the Christchurch Earthquake,or the recession,or,or,or, oh anything that comes to mind.It certainly isn’t the fault of or courageous leader who apparently will “go down in history”(his words) for going to Waitangi year after year for some obscure reason.Escorted by how many DPS at big cost to the country!!!!!(I’m so brave) Anything to gazump David Shearers overnight stay at the Ratana Pa. Anyhow, if he is so courageous,how come he is the first to scuttle out of Parliament when he is caught out with many of his LIES!! Bart S Key. The man is tedious. AND he has a bad hairpiece.In the sunlight it is the same colour as maggie berrys dyed hair.
More job losses FFS.
Guess when the mining magnates arrive all “the people” will be ripe and ready to condemn any protests because they want jobs (which they won’t get anyway).
Nice and pliable. That’s how they want us. That’s how they are going to get us.
Cheers National, you really are the pits and thanks to all the people who voted for them for being so intensely gullible too.
Probably the effects of the last few years catching up with them, There was some crazy pricing going on when work was scarce. One project I know of was signed up completely tag free with no a ability to come back for time extensions due to weather. Basically madness when there are 1000’s of cubic meters of topsoil to be spread and hundreds of m2’s of concreting with a completion date in august. Coupled with a specification which forebode topsoil work in inclement weather.
I don’t know what was worked out in the end around penalties but I do know the project finished at least 2 months late and they were very late paying sub contractors. From what I was told they were holding the final payment from the principal as long as possible to claw back lost funds through interest. Made life bloody tough for a subs and suppliers of said subs…
At least there will be work to go into for most, although it will put downward pressure on wages with a bunch of skilled guys entering the job market and Fletchers are sharks…
Only problem is that there will be plenty of pain for sunnies as they will be the o es who suffer by being paid only a % of what is owed if at all, and any payment will be years away. Pity that I imagine that t he coy had been trading whilst insolvent that there will be little recourse form coy representatives, how often are managers/directors help accountable ? but may creditors suffer.
Just as we’ll the banks are well protected !!!
Did I hear Shearer on 3 News saying “we all agree……” re Key’s Waitangi comments about activists ?
Would that surprise you?
After all, people like Key. If Shearer just agrees with what Key says then obviously people will like him too.
That’s how popularity works, right?
In the walnut sized minds of a few MPs and staffers yes. But to the rest of us no …
What exactly did Shearer agree with Key about?
That activists should be careful because although Maori have legitimate grievances if marrys get too uppity white folk will lose the good will so watch out, shut up and don’t be so uppity.
Please, please say that is not a verbatim quote …
Not verbatim.
Oh, thank God for that. 😯
I just saw it. The video is at http://www.3news.co.nz/John-Key-says-Waitangi-protesters-short-sighted/tabid/370/articleID/285785/Default.aspx
Key with a very calculated blow of the dog whistle almost said stuff that was really rascist and demeaning. It is as if he turned his IQ down and then said some stuff that would appeal to inhabitants of swinging vote suburbia.
It is hard to put Shearer’s response in context or detail what he was replying to but he did say “if you are going to say these sorts of things fair enough and we all feel that way. But do it down on the Marae, not as you are going to get on a plane and fly out of here”.
Shearer needs to do way better than that. When Key does some racist dog whistling Shearer should never, ever say that “we all feel that way”.
That’s unbelievable, Shearer, what a thing to say, you’re not speaking for me,i
think Key’s yapade was disgraceful and showed a lack of respect,the
same for the clown waiting to be our PM.
I’m not even going to bother at this stage MS. Talk about gifting the Maori seats to Mana on a plate.
Smart politics from Key. Gower was right on TV3, having a go at Titewhai doesn’t cost National votes.
Plus, Key knows his opponent all too well. National will spend the next two years dog-whistling like that, confident that Shearer will say “Er, yes, but, I mean …:”, winning no votes from the right and pissing off plenty of his supporters.
(but remember, if we all agree not to say this is happening, it won’t happen, and Shearer will be great … /heavy sarc)
a kick from the right, a kick from the left – nah same team just different legs.
Does anyone know what Gower actually asked him?
“Do you agree with Key that Maori activists make waitangi day difficult for everyone to enjoy it as a celebration like you said yesterday?” is different from “Do you agree with Key that maori should stop seeing themeslves as disadvantaged and making a fuss?” but both questions can summarise Key’s speech.
But, you know, it’s not like Gower would do Shearer over because he’s such a nice, honourable man, so let’s get our pitchforks etc.
Rob, if David Shearer relies on Gower playing nice, then he cannot possibly lead Labour in an election campaign.
It’s late and I can’t be bothered to teach Shearer Media 101 for the umpteenth time, but the essence of it is – be smart, be prepared. That means before the questions (knowing what to expect) and after (making sure the message gets out).
If Shearer didn’t like Gower’s unfair question then I would expect his team to have rebutted within minutes, in all available outlets, and if he didn’t know what Gower was going to ask him, and didn’t have a line ready, then he should not be anywhere near the leader’s job.
In 2014, if polls are to be believed, Labour could be the front runners for the first time since 2005, or even 2002. So the media are going to “do Shearer over” every day. Labour can either put their faith in Gower’s fairness (ha!) or their leader’s ability to cope with unfairness.
FFS, it’s not “pitchforks”. It’s asking for a bare minimum competence, a basic grasp of modern campaigning.
PS … and for the record (feel free to check), Shearer’s comments were queried by many on Twitter within seconds, because that’s what happens – people watch the news, and respond.
Whereas Labour respond late, or not at all.
Exactly Gobsmacked.
Reckoning here that part of Shearer’s problem is that he is a mediator. he instinctively phrases things in a way that expresses that he undertsands both points of view, which is an admirable trait in a human being, but it’s not one that a political party leader should indulge in. His job isn’t to mediate between political differences. He’s supposed to represent and fight; convince that his party’s way is right and the govts’ wrong.
That dog whistle never leaves his lips! He’s not David Shearer, he’s David Shepherd.
You did North, and so did I. Ye gods, what is he going to say next.
It was Shearer-speak. Trying to cover all bases, and in the process, undermining his own soundbite (which was a fair one – telling Key to front up, not take potshots and scarper).
If he still can’t grasp that TV news only ever allows you to make one point, not to add parentheses and qualifiers and “other hands”, then his media training is wasted.
Aye, if he did not say “fair enough and we all feel that way” the statement would have been fine.
Sadly I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that he isn’t just saying what he really thinks.
If you’ve got a spare hour you may find this worth watching:
The Parents, The Politician and The Moneymakers – A warning for NZ schools
The documentary is based upon the English experience but it should (yes, I haven’t watched it yet) have lessons for NZ in it as well.
it’s rather jaw-dropping isn’t it, the way the school is bullied. I was shocked, and I’m not easily shocked.
That was pretty laughable, Slippery the Prime Minister whining about protestors stealing His lime-light, dunno what the Slippery one was venting His spleen over as there was little protest at all this year at Waitangi,
Probably got an ear-full in the private meeting with Iwi Leaders that is still resonating around His empty suitcase of intellectual rigor with the Maori Council also attending i can well imagine the discussion about water rights would have positively sizzled…
@ bad12
Key WANTED protests. Protests would have given him real headlines: “PM to protestors: Fuck off you lazy sods . . . “
There is an article in stuff business section titled ‘ Ministry stone-walling on SkyCity-Labour.
Sorry can’t link.
National up to their old tricks,by the look of it.
You can do an ordinary cut and paste job VV.
Open article in normal way.
Right click on stuff address/article heading… at top left of screen.
Left click on ‘copy’.
Arrow back and re-open The Standard…
Right click in your comment box.
Left click on ‘paste’.
And this is what you should get:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8265860/Ministry-stone-walling-on-SkyCity-Labour
Note: it doesn’t go blue until you submit comment.
\Small pdf.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf
Hi, thanks Anne, I’m still working on it,it manages to vanish on me,when i arrow
to the standard box, sigh,i’ll keep working at it. 🙂
Hi LPrent,
I hope you are having a really good relaxing break in good company somewhere beautiful.
When you are ready to return to the fray – there is something odd going on with the edit function. Tonight I managed to create two comments by editing one. I am dead tired, and am (more) prone to mess up when I am, but when I edited a post it created a duplicate. I definitely didn’t hit send twice.
Ta
Colonial Viper
You have done a lot of thinking on climate change and the way forward. What books, blogs do you find most effective to summarise the situation in a practical manner and advise on ways we can move to reduce our wastefulness of whatever and what we should be aiming for?
Hey mate, despite these links being a little US-centric:
Try a couple of the books by John Michael Greer. The Long Descent and the Eco-technic Future are good to start with. You can order his books here
http://redroom.com/member/john-michael-greer
And for free, check out his blog here
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/
What he writes is fascinating but what his commentators leave is equally astonishing at times.
Dmitry Orlov is excellent for helping breakdown particular cultural outlooks on the trouble we find ourselves in:
http://fora.tv/2009/02/13/Dmitry_Orlov_Social_Collapse_Best_Practices
Now I have to admit that my focus is not so much on climate change per se, but on the massive energy and resource depletion facing our civilisation. That depletion is going to make how we deal with climate change much more difficult.
Also, reading up about this stuff can sometimes feel a little bit of a ‘downer’, but in actual fact there’s a pretty exciting world of innovation and community building coming up.
Re: the archdruid blog – if you find it interesting enough, start reading his posts from a few years back right through to the current day.
Do you watch The Keiser Report, CV? If not, have a gander, it’s hilarious and informative but possibly panders to the gold bug angle a bit.
🙂 yep definitely. Max and Stacy, the dynamic duo. Have you discovered Zero Hedge? Also check out Richard D Wolff on youtube and his blog site for a good dose of democratic socialism.
Cheers, I’ve had a wee look at Zero Hedge but I must look into it further. Haven’t heard of Wolff though, Ill check it out. Here’s a nice link I found the other day (which I haven’t explored yet):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-m-brown/best-financial-journalists_b_1605584.html
I feel a bit safer talking about this weirdo banking stuff now that TFC is on a weeks ban 😉
I don’t get this, wtf is going on here – how can a company like mainzeal go down with all of the supposed building going or about to get going in chch. Although I spoke to a friend down there who said the pay is shit and he’s off to oz.
Contracts and buying power concentrate in Fletchers; then probably some management mistakes and wrong assumptions at Mainzeal.
We’ve created an economy of winners and losers, and money becoming more and more concentrated.
International problems. Christchurch operation will be worth a relatives fortune.
Purges, I shit them.
Just wrote this tonight. Here with the freaks and the snakes. “lol:
https://soundcloud.com/theal1en/getting-it-done
You say it’s all right, sometime, we’ll get it done.
Well sometimes you just suck and I’ve got the fight to say.
You should never grab at something you couldn’t take.
You say you’re all right, sometime, you’ll get it done.
And sometimes you just say I’ve got to learn to wait.
Well you should never hit on something you can’t break.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fake.
I got a reason I got the will and the way.
No helps coming, no one’s running away.
Firing treason, ‘here with the freaks and the snakes.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
You say he’s all right, sometime, he’ll get it done.
Well sometime is just words far too easy to say.
You should never try on something if you can’t even fake.
You say it’s all right, sometime, you’ll get it done.
And sometimes you just say I’ve got to learn to heal.
Well you should never count on something you can’t steal.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fade.
I got a meaning, I got the will and the way.
New hope running, no one’s staking stakes.
Firing reason, ‘here with the freaks and the snakes.
What you gonna wash away?
How you gonna wash me way?