TOTALITARIANISM NEWS
The state-led persecution of Assange continues
From a Sydney Morning Herald article by Elizabeth Farrelly….
Assange notes that ”not even the most rabid or hawkish general in the Pentagon has produced evidence or even claimed that we have led to the death or harming of any person – and if we had, they most certainly would”.
As to ”facing the music”, everything hinges on the genuineness of the case and the probability of a fair trial.
Here, it’s critical how far the two simultaneous cases – of ”rape” in Sweden and of illegal publishing in the US – are in fact separate. If the ”rape” case is genuine, the Swedish government should have no problem (a) sending the prosecutor to interview Assange in London, as repeatedly invited, (b) if necessary, charging him here and (c) guaranteeing against his extradition to the United States.
The Australian government should be strenuously advocating to this end. In fact, both governments have not only refused such guarantees but have actively maligned Assange in a way that diminishes his chance of fair trial in either country. The Swedish prosecutor has said Assange will be seized and imprisoned – potentially in solitary, incommunicado and indefinitely – the minute he sets foot there.
The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has never retracted her public (mis)statement that Assange had committed ”an illegal act”. The Swedish Prime Minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, has never retracted his public mis-statement that Assange had been charged with rape. Why not?
Assange points out that Sweden’s is a culture of profound conformism; a population half the size of Australia’s with a language spoken (and a culture therefore scrutinised) by no one else on earth. A country that, unlike say Germany, ”never denazified” after World War II. Never pushed the reset button.
So when the Social Minister, Goran Hagglund, publicly describes Assange as ”sick … a coward … a lowlife … a pitiful wretch”, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs tweets ”you do not dictate the terms if you are a suspect. Get it?”, the press follow suit.
Sweden’s largest-circulation daily, Dagens Nyheter, calls Assange ”paranoid” and a ”querulant”. A prominent journalist for the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, Martin Aagard, calls him an ”Australian pig”, linking Assange with Rupert Murdoch. ”There are many good reasons to criticise Assange. One … is that he’s a repugnant swine.”
We all want a hero. After WikiLeaks released the infamous Collateral Murder video in 2010, showing US troops gunning down a dozen civilians in Iraq, I jokingly asked if Assange was the new Jason Bourne, on the run and persecuted by the state. It would be a tragedy if a man who has done so much good were to end up tolerating only disciples and unwavering devotion, more like an Australian L Ron Hubbard.
The placing of the building company Mainzeal into receivership seems to have at its heart the supposed non-payment of as little as 1.2 million dollars from the parent company Richina-Pacific,
Mainzeal construction is contrary to my initial belief currently fulfilling contract work in Christchurch and it appears that such work was guaranteed into the future,
It appears that the Bank(s) that are owed 20 million dollars by Mainzeal construction did not instigate the receivership of Mainzeal,
Into the picture comes ex-National Party Leader Jenni Shitly who as Chairman of Mainzeal’s board of directors approached the Bank(s) to have the company She sits at the head of placed into receivership,
Very interesting bad12. The same Shitly, as you so aptly call her, is I’m sure also on the Board of Fletcher’s AND she is of course on the Christchurch re-building Committee. Someone needs to take a good look at all of that old trougher’s activities and what vested interests she has.
I am still trying to get a complete view of the occurrences surrounding Shitly’s role in the receivership of Mainzeal Construction,
It appears that there has been an attempt to remove Her as a director of at least one board of Directors connected with the Mainzeal Group of companies,
It also appears that Shitly and at least 3 other’s resigned as Directors from Mainzeal Construction it’self a number of months ago,
Are we looking at a Boardroom power struggle here that as a consequence has the ability to collapse up to a third of the building industry in Auckland,
People connected with the industry talking on RadioNZ as i type this comment are talking 1200 employers and employees who are unsecured creditors who will get it in the neck if Mainzeal folds completely or ‘morphs’ into a different company altogether…
Makes it easy for Shitley & co so pick it up cheaply, And then run it into the ground, and make a killing on the backs of honest workers, who are the ones who pay the price for such avarice.
So let’s get this clear. The banks are quite happy with Mainzeal’s repayment plans for paying back their debt of $20 million.
But Shipely who is also a director for a competing company is winding Mainzeal up, and destroying the lives of many workers, over a debt of $1 million.
I am starting to form the belief that the 1.2 or 1.8 million dollars that the RichinaPacific group was supposed to pay to Mainzeal Construction might have been to cover fees specifically to pay those directors that apparently quit the Board of Mainzeal construction some weeks/months ago???,
I fail to understand how IF Shitly and a number of others quit as Board members of MainZeal Construction a number of weeks/months ago they can then approach the BNZ to have the company placed into receivership,
Were Shitly and the other directors who quit the MainZeal Board owed directors fees and so as creditors of ‘some sort’ in a fit of pique moved to wind that company up???,
Shiply’s Prime Minister ship under a National Government was at it’s best ‘Ugly’ and is this just another case of ‘uglyness’ from the former National Party Prime Minister not giving a toss how many get damaged or how severe that damage becomes both to the workers involved and the economy it’self…
Were Shitly and the other directors who quit the MainZeal Board owed directors fees and so as creditors of ‘some sort’ in a fit of pique moved to wind that company up???,
I certainly hope so, becaause it might be demonstrated that they acted against the best interests of the company and its shareholders, as directors.
But that is the question CV, were they directors when yesterday they approached the BNZ to place Mainzeal Construction into receivership,
My impression is that Shitly and at least 3 others resigned from the board of Mainzeal weeks or months ago,
The question that arises from this is did Shiply use Her profile as a former Prime Minister and Her present connections to the Slippery lead National Government to leverage the BNZ to call in the receivers,
If She was not a director of the company then the only right to demand the BNZ place Mainzeal into receivership would seem to come about by being a secured creditor or perhaps an unsecured creditor…
You call that piece of sanitized garbage ‘facts’, nice try but an absolute FAIL just like the Slippery lead National Government you support is,
Was Jenny Shitly lying to New Zealand when She appeared on my TV news last night stating that it was She that approached the BNZ to have the company put into receivership,
She appears to have major issues of conflicting interests where She is on the boards of various companies which will directly profit from the Christchurch rebuild and also a representative of the structure that is charged with allocating work and thus allocating Government funds,but, trust the Herald to not even mention such a tangled web of connections…
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2.3.1.1
I know you think that this is an insult, bad12, but you might want to reflect that it is a name I have given to myself. You may like to consider that, under these circumstances, the scope for wounding me with this name is rather diminished.
PLEASE COME AND HEAR UK DOCO-MAKER HARRY FEAR, & ROGER FOWLER REPORT BACK ON THEIR RECENT FACT-FINDING MISSION TO GAZA WHEN THE ISRAELI BOMBARDMENTS TOOK PLACE.
TONIGHT: 7pm at AUCK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Room B28.
FREE SOUTH AUCKLAND BUS leaves at 6pm from the Mangere East Community Learning Centre, 372 Massey Rd (behind the Library).
Lengendary reggae band ‘Unity Pacific’ will launch their stunning version of the Kia Ora Gaza solidarity anthem: “We Are All Palestinians”
Palestinian dancers will welcome everyone. Not-to-be-missed. Bring your friends & family.
No door charge, but donations welcome.
Hosted by Students For Justice in Palestine. Organised by Kia Ora Gaza [Website: kiaoragaza.net. Email: office@kiaoragaza.net]
> Subject: Auckland event: GAZA REPORT UK documentary maker & activist HARRY FEAR
Like to go but, thought i would stay at home and watch another town in Syria being destroyed. Bought some chips … Tonight a apartment block is again destroyed.All dead… chive dips tonight .Hope those silly UN people do not spoil my entertainment Who cares? 65000 dead and counting.
On TV One News last night they had a clip of John Key’s Waitangi Day speech whine about protesters. That was immediately followed by a clip of Titewhai Harawira’s reply that the potesters weren’t the problem but bad Govt policies were the the problem. Priceless.
+1 Yes, also the comment by Peter Sharples, saying that he thought protest was perfectly o.k if people weren’t happy with something (can’t remember the exact words). I put up a comment on the Waitangi day thread re this, how the talk over referred to Key’s as a “broadside speech”. Good stuff TV1.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 6
Heard Turei on the wireless yesterday praising Titewhai’s work as an anti violence campaigner. Guess she is willing to overlook the assault on the mental health patient under Harawira’s care.
Refer to the extended debate here on The Std about that. My position IRCC was that he probably should have been allowed into NZ, but plenty disagreed with me.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 6.1.1.1.1
I don’t care about Tyson. If Turei’s position is that Harawira’s assault of a highly vulnerable person under her care can be overlooked because she has been punished for it, doesn’t she have to hold the same position in relation to Tyson?
Does it need to be the same because you think the two crimes were the same, or because Turei is a computer programme which needs to generate the same result every time you press a button?
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
So tell me again why you think Turei needs to treat Tyson and Harawira the same? You know, before you move us on to some bullshit off track discussion.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
No. I accept I am wrong. It is just sensible for a person who assaults mentally ill people under her care to be praised for her anti-violence work on the basis that the crime can be forgotten once the sentence has been served. Contemporaneously, another person who has been convicted of a violent offence and served the penalty should be vilified.
Hi Ole, you can’t really say that until you have thought about it.
Is Harawira still going around in public laughing and making jokes about violent assaults of exactly the type she committed? Does she still maintain that there was nothing wrong with what she did?
Are those relevant factors in your program at all?
Does that help you imagine any other possible factors that might be computed?
You’re the only person here who can’t seem to get their head around the idea that many people make mistakes, and once they’ve repaid society, its time to let them move on. Nothing is forgotten. Maybe not even forgiven. So what’s illogical about it?
Just like a soldier who comes back from Afghanistan or Iraq and decides to become an anti-war campaigner because of what they’ve seen.
Or a drink driver who’s killed someone, coming out of jail and deciding to take a stance against drink driving because they’ve realised the harm it causes.
Or someone who has been convicted of family violence, standing up years later on TV speaking out against family violence because they’ve realised that other people need to hear their story too.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Because in the background of every conversation with Mrs Harawira – and she is as aware of it as anyone – are the ghouls of her past. Not least her 1989 conviction for assaulting a psychiatric patient.
She says, emphatically, that she regrets nothing in her past – “No. Nothing.” If other people can’t get over it, well “that’s fine. I can accept that.”
Many good anti-violence workers are good because they’ve had to deal with their own violence. You obviously know shit about this gormless, so give it up eh?
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
“Not sure what the difference you are referring to is, Felix.”
Well for a start I don’t see Harawira repeatedly and publicly cracking jokes about what she did. That’d put her in a different category of bastard I’d have thought, ymmv.
I’d also note that the quote you linked to – worrying as it may be – wasn’t actually an answer to a question about the issue you (and the herald writer) are linking it to. Not that that’s necessarily important but context is usually worth noting.
You just want people to see her for what she is – what a load of shit gormless – at least be honest ffs.
I have researched and written about Titewhai and I can fully understand her statement that she has nothing to regret in her past. I think she has a lot to be proud of – she was groomed for greatness by her grandfather and she has delivered on that, right from the time she started school. She has done more for the benefit of this country than 1000 john keys or any politician I can think of. That is what being a mana wahine means – not that you gormless would know the first thing about that.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Am probably way too late on this but No Right Turn’s take on Shearer’s “let’s all be nice” approach to Waitangi Day is spot on. Yet one more, but a pretty important, reminder about whether Shearer really is PM material.
Cheers Mary. Also last night on 3 News he was interviewed in regard to his view on the PM’s spazzo about “a few Maori extremists………protesters………..blah blah blah”. Shearer actually agreed that it was fine to say that…….”BUT, say it on the Marae and don’t say something like that and then go running of to your getaway plane”, or words to that effect.
Part of that rang true, that is if you’re going to say something challenging don’t drop it and then run, stay to back it up, however the worse bit was that he seemed to agree that it was ok or even right to say it in the first place. I really don’t know where this guy is coming from.
Apologies for repitition but if we are in any way going to make progress on the Left we really have to pull toegther and unify and most importantly educate and motivate those non voters. We already had a challenge but it has been made all the harder by the choice of leader for the Labour Party. Gawd, imagine what the leaders debates are going to be like next year:
“errr, just, ummm, you know John, you do have a good point there but errrr, well………….” JK will be laughing like a school boy at his luck.
What protests tho was Slippery the Prime Minister whining about, as Maanu Paul fromthe Maori Council put it such a simpering whine gave a great impression of a 4 year old having a wee wah wah wah over having lost His marbles, (in more than one way i would suggest Maanu),
There were 30,000 people at Waitangi this year, a good mixture of both Maori and Pakeha and the only disruption was at the point of the Prime Minister being lead onto the Marae, as Winston Peters pointed out Slippery the Prime Minister brought this situation about because Marae protocol would be that it would be the guest being Karanga-ed onto the Marae who chooses which Kuia will accompany Him,
It is more than obvious that Slippery expected a large hostile protest to be directed at Him at Waitangi and the fact that this failed to materialize has got our Prime Minister exhibiting,as He does when things don’t go His way, a childish snivel as if someone has snuck off with His marbles,
Having a prepared speech directed at denigrating protestors at Waitangi the empty suitcase of intellectual rigor which is Slippery the Prime Minister of New Zealand having left the speech writers in Wellington did not have anything but the ability to address the breakfast gathering at the Waitangi Marae in terms of what was essentially bull defecation,
Not having the stomach at the Marae to give that speech to those gathered on the paepae earlier in the proceedings as anyone with an ounce of ‘heart’ would have Slippery the Prime Minister then gave a grand display of yellow by scarpering out the back door for the safety of His waiting limo…
Hi bad12. Lol, you know shonkey doesn’t let the facts get the way of a good ol’ spin. My guess is that he saw Waitangi as a good opportunity to put some more wood on the fires of prejudice and ignorance. Its in his interests to keep the trad Pakeha Nat voters in an anti Maori frame of mind. He’s framing them as the bad guys challenging his asset sales mission and he needs to keep the division going in order to bring his trad voters to heel. They are making quiet nosies about not being happy about asset sales after all. What better way to stir the pot than to than to highjack an event that is bound in media sensation whose goal it is to paint those that need to air their legitimate grievances as “bad” as “separatists” or gasp, even “protesters” god forbid. etc. Suit his purposes does it not?
Which reminds me: If y’all are in Wellington on Wednesday, 13th Feb head down to Frank Kitts Park at 6pm to the anti asset sales rally. Speakers include Jane Kelsey, Maanu Paul and Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.
Shearer’s performance shows how Labour deserves to lose the Maori vote. Even Winston Peters on Morning Report this morning showed he understands how integral robust discussion and protest over the big issues, including how entrenched disadvantage ignores the Treaty, are to the annual celebration. With Shearer at the reigns heaven help us. The guy really is a plonker.
Poll in the Dom Post today shows 60% of people want a 4 year parliamentary term (28% 3 years). Labour/Greens might pick up a some votes by offering a 4-year term as a policy at the next election.
Not a good idea, in my view. In a country without an upper chamber or a written constitution the only safeguard against parliamentary excess is frequent elections. Limiting our democracy an the absence of checks and balances would be harmful to our country.
Why do people think that an upper chamber gives any safeguard against parliamentary excess? Just have to look at the US and the UK to see that that idea is a load of BS.
A written constitution might do it – if you can get everyone to agree on what the constitution actually means.
Four years would probably be best for effective policies to be seen to work or vice versa. But I would want to see leadership change be legislated for so that two terms would be all.
It appears to me that many of these skilled trapeze artists who get to the big top, just can’t be got down again and they use their precocious skills to maintain their position and to hell with the rest of the circus.
CV Hmmmm? How would the USA have gone then if they had not changed I wonder?
At least an egregious leader can be chucked in favour of one with more grasp, of the work and responsibility to all, than the money and esteem. Then if someone is very good it becomes hard to replace the favourite even when he dances naked in the street, and starts taking huge bribes. The 20 years thing would definitely be needed then.
CV
Have just had my reply wiped by the remote server. I mentioned daft pollies dancing na..k..d in the streets. I wonder if we are having good old USA morality dished out by machine?
Then of course there is the small print. The term limits in Russia, for example, were useless at getting rid of Putin. We’re already heading presidential-style as an MSM-friendly way of stabilising power to two main parties (another reason I’m happy for Labour to be in the thirties rather than well into the forties).
And technically the governments in NZ area different governments after each election – new parliament, new coalition.
Personally I favour things like campaign finance controls and advertising restrictions rather than term limits. Term limits are too fixated on a possible symptom (demagogue) rather than the problem (subversion of democracy).
I wrote and posted this last night, and I’ll choose to believe it’s not been seen yet because it’s lost at the bottom of yesterdays open mike 😀
Apologies to all guitarists, except one (joke), as I’m using software.
Actually, in the spirit of glasnost and perestroika, if DS wants to hit me up with some core Labour policy, he can strap on his axe and rock it with me on Campbell live and we’ll all live happy ever after.
You say it’s all right, sometime, we’ll get it done.
Well sometimes you just suck. 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 someone you couldn’t break.
What you gonna wash away? How you gonna wash me away?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fake.
If I got a reason I got the will and the way.
No help coming, no one 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 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 that you can’t steal from under my nose.
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 the meaning, I got the will and the way.
No hope running, no joke coming to play.
Firing reason, here with the freaks and the snakes.
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?
PreSonus Studio one v2 as my sequencer/recorder, and on this track, just two instances of Musiclab real LPC and a vocoder to pitch and colour my awful vocals.
Apart from that, I use an ancient but sadly discontinued vsti synth plugin and the brilliant U-he Diva. And that’s it.
The way I figure it, being minimally talented, if the songs ever get picked up they’ll all be re-done properly in a studio anyway, no matter what I do with them at home, so I rather focus on writing and saving the world and just hope the right person gets to hear the songs through the mess. 🙂
I don’t use Twitter, but I have started to get an email every so often saying ‘here’s what is happening on Twitter” I clicked on it today and was pleasantly surprised to be directed to: http://vital.org.nz/entry/2013/02/
It fits in with comments others have made about National deliberately trying to remove all discussion on political topics – and Holmes was (perhaps but perhaps not) an unwitting supporter of the removal of debate from our media. I do think it is a bit hard on Shearer – including honours to make it partly a celebration of achievement does not mean taking away discussion on issues where we do not agree.
Teh November post to that blog is also interesting. I have come to think that some posters to The Standard are deliberately trying to undermine informed discussion, and to represent their views as those of the majority or the Green Party , or of the Labour Party – collectively, I think both the Green and Labour Parties are much more tolerant, and also much kinder to each other than many posters would like to try to convince us.
I would be interested in how many different posters there are to The Standard. It is being followed more by media (or at least acknowledged more) – I suspect it has a wider number of posters than some otehr well known blogs. Could a count be made of the number of different posters for say each of the last few months?
Thanks Ed, that’s a good piece of writing by Judd. The problem I have with Shearer and Waitangi is that he thinks it’s cause for celebration. The whole ‘happy Waitangi Day’ thing grates, for precisely the reasons that Judd goes into. It reminds me of when Otago had its 150 anniversary as a province. The council and organisers of events called it a celebration, and then local iwi spoke up and said hang on, for some of the people that live in Otago, the arrival of settlers and setting up of the province was extremely painful and not something to celebrate (call it a commemoration instead). Until we accept that Maori have distinct and entirely valid experiences of NZ that are quite different than most Pakeha, we are at an impasse. Trying to make Waitangi Day a ‘happy’ day just doesn’t work.
“I have come to think that some posters to The Standard are deliberately trying to undermine informed discussion,”
I saw the point of Judds article as saying that it is possible for a discussion to allow for a range of different viewpoints. I read him as effectively saying that calling for some celebration on a public holiday does not mean that we cannot at the same time address other issues. That’s like saying that until we return to budget surpluses we cannot afford to increase the minimum wage . . .
A public holiday is usually an indication that the country felt, at least at one time, that we could celebrate some achievement, and in relation to the Treaty, I believe there are things to celebrate. If that can also include celebrating achievements of New Zealanders, let that not distract from understanding that we still have some matters to resolve; we can celebrate a Treaty that is still capable of assisting shape our actions . . .
I don’t wish to personalise my comment about the motives of some posters to The Standard, but a number of times a post about a problem caused by the current government seem to turn very quickly into an attack on Shearer, or to seek to cast doubt on whether Labour and Green can work together – they appear to me to be attempts to divert discussion from the effects of government action or inaction, towards perceived deficiencies in current opposition parties. Many seem amazed, disappointed, even furious that there clear determinations of the will of the people are not shared by the leadership of the Labour and Green parties – and imply that it would be better for those parties to remain in opposition than to accept ‘imperfect’ policies from their definition of true left ideals.
Judd said ( http://vital.org.nz/entry/2012/11/ )
“I’m discouraged by the conviction with which journalists report their opinions as fact, and I’m equally discouraged by the way political bloggers and commentators have done the same, building on the journalists’ reports. The Cunliffe vs Shearer story and the 40% vs simple majority story are intertwined, but they are not the same, yet we can’t be sure where and how they overlap. I know I’m going to give a lot more credit to analysis that acknowledges these uncertainties instead of glossing over them for the sake of a clear story.”
I am similarly discouraged by reporting of opinions as fact in many comments to The Standard – your mileage may wary.
Of course no one will be held to account, the Slippery lead National government seem delighted that the teaching profession will be traumatized by having their pay f**ked up for at least the next 2 years,
From what i heard this morning the ‘attack’ upon schools continue’s unabated with schools having their operating budgets destroyed by having to pay some teachers monies owed to them for wages out of the operating budget,
Any of these schools having had to destroy their budgets because of No-No Pay that have a smaller role this year are now being told to immediately refund part of that operating budget and it appears that the Education Department and the Minister couldn’t really give a toss whether the schools have had their operating budgets wrecked or not,
Yeah typical Tory attitude, how would you like it if you were told that for the next 2 years it will be a lottery if you are paid or not,
Schools are legally obliged to pay their employees and the only means of doing this under the present system is to pay out of the operating account when No-No Pay makes yet another ‘mistake’,
To then send out letters to schools demanding monies back from that operating budget for pupils that have left the school is to simply put even more pressure on those attempting to run those schools within such budgets,
The fact that you couldn’t really care is obvious…
If i bore you there’s an easy solution, when you come across the bad12’s as you scroll down the page keep on scrolling,
I spose you consider Hekia’s smiling face and karma comment on the fact that those at the Ministry of Education also had their pay round made a mess of the other week as a bit of light entertainment…
The latest household labourforce survey figures are out and no doubt the Government will jump on the reduction in the unemployment rate from 7.3% to 6.9% as something to celebrate.
However the figures are all screwy:
The number of people unemployed decreased by 10,000 people BUT the employment rate fell 0.8 percentage points, to 62.6 percent AND the number of people employed decreased by 23,000 (down 1.0 percent) AND the labour force participation rate fell 1.2 percentage points, to 67.2 percent AND the number of people in the labour force decreased by 33,000.
Obviously more people are dropping out or giving up but I cannot imagine that it is because of the ageing population.
Reminds me of the US where every new monthly jobs figure looks good, makes good press, but the next month is quietly and substantially revised for the worse. Cynicism.
The best that can be said about those figures is that Paula’s travel agency is working well and another positive contribution to the Australian economy has shown to have been made by NZ workers,
Wonder when the next set of unemployment benefit numbers are due out…
Econophysics might start being worth looking at if socialists start doing it. A lot of what I’ve seen so far treats the maths in a very naive way, and is basically designed to guide speculators. This work looks much more interesting.
No,
The $20bil superfund is now only just breaking even with the massive debt that National has gifted us and our children.
The solution is apparently to get rid of the asset and continue business as usual. The thought of addressing the systemic causes of our government debt is not apparently on the table. Mostly because that would involve taxing the job creators destroyers.
To Gormless. the NZ Super fund is not a crock. See its record from its December 2012 statement and
remember that any investment for the long term – which is what the NZ Super Fund is – has its ups and downs . On the whole the NZ Super Fund performs well – even during difficult economic downturns.
Also remember – the Labour Govt’s first super scheme was wiped by Muldoon, and it would have saved the country billions if it had been left in place. The comments by the researcher Michael Littlewood look to me like they’re just another attempt by Nats to do the same sort of thing ie destroy NZ’s super scheme!
“Fund Performance to 31 December 2012
Posted On: Tuesday, 22 January 2013
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund returned 19.17% for the 12 months ended 31 December 2012.
The Fund finished the year at a record high for the month-end of $20.92 billion, up from $17.73 billion at the end of 2011.
Since inception in September 2003 the Fund has returned 7.92%,exceeding the 90-day Treasury Bill rate by 2.84%. The Fund’s long-term performance expectation is that it will beat the Treasury Bill rate by at least 2.5%.”
Open Letter to the Mayor and Councillors who are members of the CEO Review Sub-Committee of Auckland Council:
Len Brown (Chairperson)
Christine Fletcher (Deputy Chairperson)
Ann Hartley
Penny Hulse
Richard Northey
Penny Webster
RE: THE MEETING OF THE AUCKLAND COUNCIL CEO REVIEW SUB-COMMITTEE MEETING TODAY – THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2013: (2pm)
Dear Mayor and Councillors,
Please confirm that the following Agenda Items C1 and C2 items pertaining to the performance of the CEO have been removed from ‘Confidential’ as they are a matter of considerable public interest, and there is a difference between protecting the ‘privacy’ of individuals and ensuring public transparency and accountability for those in public office, particularly the ‘Principal Administrative Officer’ of Auckland Council – the CEO.
C1 Report on the Chief Executive’s Performance Against the 2012/2013 Objectives
Reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter
Particular interest(s) protected (where applicable)
Ground(s) under section 48(1) for the passing of this resolution
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7. s7(2)(a) –
The withholding of the information is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons, including that of a deceased person.
In particular, to enable the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee to examine and discuss in detail, progress against agreed objectives to the Council’s executive team, including free and full discussion on sensitive issues including privacy and contract issues..
s48(1)(a)
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7.
C2 CEO Recruitment Process
Reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter
Particular interest(s) protected (where applicable)
Ground(s) under section 48(1) for the passing of this resolution
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7. s7(2)(h) – The withholding of the
information is necessary to enable the local authority to carry out, without prejudice or disadvantage,
commercial activities.
In particular to enable the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee to discuss the detail of the Chief
Executive recruitment before information is released to the market and potential candidates.. s48(1)(a)
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7.
“TERMS OF REFERENCE
The Chief Executive Review Committee is established to review the Chief Executive’s performance during the 2010/2012 term of the Council and to negotiate terms and conditions of the CE’s employment including any performance agreement measures and annual remuneration.
Relevant legislation includes but is not limited to:
The Local Government Act 2002; and
The Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2002. ”
Please be reminded of your following statutory duties as enshrined in the Local Government Act 2002:
(a)to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and
(b)to meet the current and future needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses.
(2)In this Act, good-quality, in relation to local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions, means infrastructure, services, and performance that are-
(a)efficient; and
(b)effective; and
(c)appropriate to present and anticipated future circumstances.
Section 10(1)(b): replaced, on 5 December 2012, by section 7(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 10(2): inserted, on 5 December 2012, by section 7(2) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
(1)In performing its role, a local authority must act in accordance with the following principles:
(a)a local authority should—
(i)conduct its business in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner; and
(ii)give effect to its identified priorities and desired outcomes in an efficient and effective manner:
(b)a local authority should make itself aware of, and should have regard to, the views of all of its communities; and
(c)when making a decision, a local authority should take account of—
(i)the diversity of the community, and the community’s interests, within its district or region; and
(ii)the interests of future as well as current communities; and
(iii)the likely impact of any decision on the interests referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii):
(d)a local authority should provide opportunities for Maori to contribute to its decision-making processes:
(e)a local authority should collaborate and co-operate with other local authorities and bodies as it considers appropriate to promote or achieve its priorities and desired outcomes, and make efficient use of resources; and
(f)a local authority should undertake any commercial transactions in accordance with sound business practices; and
(fa)a local authority should periodically—
(i)assess the expected returns to the authority from investing in, or undertaking, a commercial activity; and
(ii)satisfy itself that the expected returns are likely to outweigh the risks inherent in the investment or activity; and
(g)a local authority should ensure prudent stewardship and the efficient and effective use of its resources in the interests of its district or region; and
(h)in taking a sustainable development approach, a local authority should take into account—
(i)the social, economic, and cultural interests of people and communities; and
(ii)the need to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment; and
(iii)the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations.
(2)If any of these principles conflict in any particular case, the local authority should resolve the conflict in accordance with the principle in subsection (1)(a)(i).
Section 14(1)(c)(iii): replaced, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 14(1)(fa): inserted, on 27 November 2010, by section 6 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2010 (2010 No 124).
Section 14(1)(h)(i): amended, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(2) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 14(2): amended, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(3) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Please be advised that in order to defend the above-mentioned principles of ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government – I for one – give notice that I will refuse to be excluded from the meeting, and shall refuse to leave the room, if Items C1 and C2 are kept in ‘CONFIDENTIAL’.
It was Pak N Save, so, in fairness, three of those 21 items were plastic bags. But they should count, shouldn’t they?
When she was being served there were two people behind me, so three in all. No pick n mix and no fruit and vege. But still…
I think she was clearly over the line. My question though is, do I owe future shoppers a duty to make it clear to her it’s not on? Should I leave that to Pak N Save? Or, if it’s not troubling me, should I just leave it?
I’d head to the check out supervisor or service desk to complain. If they put a sign up and it is their policy, then their staff need to be enforcing it in a fair and reasonable manner.
Yes CV, having been in the industry and a supervisor,the best anyone can do
is to alert the supervisor and it is their job to ‘have a chat’ later with the operator,
to get her/him to enforce the policy.
Checkout operators should know the policy and adhere to it though, they only
need to politely say ‘Sorry, this is an express lane, you have too many items’
If WW3 breaks out,best just to get them done and outta there.
To be fair to the check-out operators it must be hard to cause a scene.
A couple of months ago I was behind a middle aged woman at the express check-out. She had at least 20 items – possibly more. She was well dressed and not a strand of hair out of place. She reeked financial comfort and confidence. The body language said don’t mess with me girl or I’ll cause trouble for you. The girl didn’t. I saw the woman out in the car-park a few minutes later and I wanted to have a little ‘tete a tete’ (can’t do the French stroke thing) with her, but I didn’t. Was angry with myself for being a coward. I despise those types.
My fav this month is having a couple in their 30’s push their way through security screening airport queues because they were carrying a baby.
I let them past (because everyone else was and the bloody peer pressure thing) but regretted it because I looked at their faces and they clearly knew they were taking the piss.
btw baby was out to it on her shoulder without a care in the world, ignorant that mum and dad were using her for personal advantage.
All things considered I’d have to agree, she was clearly taking the piss. But what to do? Most of us don’t like to make a fuss, and we’d hope the checkout operator would enforce the limit.
But by the time they don’t enforce it, it’s too late to do much about it. And then is making a fuss going to hold up the queue even more than letting it slide? And I’d feel a bit guilty causing strife for the checkout operator, it’s a fairly thankless job already without me putting my oar in.
I reckon programming the registers in those aisles so they can only physically scan x amount of items before totaling up might be a way to fix it. Kind of lets everyone off the hook without confrontation.
Not sure if I’d include plastic bags in the count or not. I suppose they do take time to process and that’s the whole point, so yeah you’re probably right on second thought.
Should have done what I did last xmas eve and asked the shoppers in front if they’d been good for santa, and when they said yes, wished them luck in receiving big boxes of less ignorance.
The checkout girl laughed.
Id suggest that you just get over it and temper you internal scorning. Queing is a very serious issue to the English, you know the old story .
Put three Welsh together and you a choir
Put three Irish together and you have a party
Put three scots together and you have a fight
Put three English together and you have a que.
I trust that your comment is not serious. It would be WISE of you not to say anything.
Proverbs 18,7 ” A fools mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul.”
Not really. Jesus was an advocate who was vocal on a number of issues. Jesus spent a large part of his life talking, he often voiced his concern. Jesus was wise because he did say things.
That proverb you have given us does not apply to every situation.
i never quite got the difference between left and right – but just had a look at KiwiBlog regarding an a blog on the PM and Waitangi day.
What a horrible site. It looked like the KKK logged in there>
And then I look at this site, and the difference is day and night 🙂
Thanks people, I feel better now.
Kiaora Ana, yeah we sweat laugh and scream here, but, buckle yourself in and join the fray, where you visited is known here as the Sewer it’s mostly inhabited by a primitive form of amoeba…
“He is described as a veteran newspaper and radio journalist and South Island editor of Challenge Weekly, a non-denominational and independent Christian newspaper.”
Permitting a girl as young as 11 to have an abortion without her parents’ knowledge is a form of child abuse, Maxim Institute told a select committee hearing today.
The provision is contained in Section 37 of the Care of Children Bill.
Maxim researcher John McNeil told the hearing into the Bill that there is growing evidence worldwide that abortion has significant health risks, at least as great as those which are now being recognised in the case of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
“We are asking a child to make a decision about a medical procedure which can have profoundly adverse effects, when she is not of sufficient maturity to do so, even if she is advised of the possible consequences.”
The situation is made even worse by the Privacy Act. Mr McNeil said Maxim was aware of a case where a young high school girl told the school counsellor of her pregnancy. The counsellor whipped her off for an abortion, and then allowed the girl to attend a gymnasium session in PE the same afternoon.
“The PE teacher was furious when she finally found out, but the counsellor said the girl’s right to privacy came first,” Mr McNeil said. “This is madness, when the girl could have suffered serious harm.
“If she had, the parents would have probably been kept in the dark, while still being held responsible for her care.
“Not only that, but men who are getting under-age girls pregnant are often getting off scot-free, because of the girl’s ‘right’ to privacy.”
A major construction company goes to the wall threatening the livelihoods of 1000,s of workers and subcontractors,
Quick start a distraction, hence Slippery the Prime Minister blathering on about a 4 year electoral cycle,
See nothing hear nothing do nothing that’s the Slippery lead National Government, 2014 cannot come quick enough to get rid of this Shyster and the incompetents that surround Him…
Can anyone put together a reciprocal video of Key’s shocking diction, mispronunciations, the idiot comments and stupid/nasty actions – the three way handshake and the cut-throat gesture towards Phil Goff spring to mind.
Suggested musical back-ground – Handel-Adagio Movement 4.
Rather astounded at just having seen an item on Positive Money on “Seven Sharp”. Just caught the end of it; I guess it will be viewable at 8pm on TV1 plus One. In case anyone is interested. They were explaining how money came out of nowhere. I thought that was sacrilege for mainstream. Seems I was wrong.
Would be interested to hear your opinion if you can catch it. I think it must have been the first item. One of the guys on it said something odd in the summary of the story, but only caught last part of it, so will watch it again myself!
Given that the Government debt left for the next Government to come to terms with by the Slippery lead National Government will be well over 60 billion dollars by the time they are given the kick in 2014 maybe TV1 is preparing those that are mostly asleep in charge of their own minds for the inevitable…
LOLZ, TV1 after 7 telling the truth about where money comes from has me thinking that that particular program will not be with us for very much longer,
Their Lordships of the banking world aint going to like having their little scam broadcast for all to see across the nation at a time when most of them are at least half awake,
They are of course correct, as many of us here at the Standard have been banging on about endlessly for months any Government is quite capable of creating money just as the banks do, type a set of numbers into the computer and hey presto you have MONEY,
After7 points out that any Government contribution to the Christchurch rebuild could,(and i say should) have been via money it had printed for it’s own use,
State Housing could be built by the 1000 by the 10,000 by the 100,000 by Government simply printing the monies needed to build such,
There’s a simple codicil to this and that is any monies spent into the economy by printing extra amounts of the stuff need be spent into that economy so as to give full regard to the Reserve Bank’s inflation targets band,
Of course i don’t expect the primitive band of chimps in control of the place at the moment to do any such thing even tho they were advised just after the 2008 election by no less than the IMF to do just that…
“..has me thinking that that particular program will not be with us for very much longer, ~bad12
Lol, had similar thoughts myself, or rather, that “the magazine style news show” appears to have become a case of the worm that turned….not what I would have expected anyway!
I was a bit stunned they made no mention of the bank having to have a certain amount of assets in order to loan that money. That is the point usually raised in discussions on whether a bank prints money out of thin air or not.
And the comment Greg Boyd made re confidence; banks’ll never collapse because we kiwis always want houses…that seemed odd. Is it my imagination or is that what did occur and continues to occur? i.e. Global Financial Crisis….& the only reason it hasn’t is ..well….because….someone, somewhere is “printing” lotsa money aswel as perhaps false confidence in US dollars due to the military&oil industry demanding these products get paid in US dollars?
Last count if my memory serves me correctly is that 184 billion dollars of private bank loans are on the books of New Zealand banks,
There is an expectation that Banks have a certain amount of cash on hand but that cash’s relationship to the amount of monies on loan to private interests isn’t as far as i can ascertain any relevant % of such monies and seems more an at the Government’s whim type regulation, there was talk a while ago of both increasing this and increasing the amount of cash Joe Lunchbox needed to put up as a deposit so as to get His/Her hands on the en-pixie-lated prize of the big loan,
the whole system of course is in fact one of insanity simply allowing the Banking System to f**k off with a large part of the production of New Zealand that’s been paid out as wages of the serfs enamored of the ownership model and willing to do anything, including rob their own mother’s, to get on the ladder…
There is an expectation that Banks have a certain amount of cash on hand but that cash’s relationship to the amount of monies on loan to private interests isn’t as far as i can ascertain any relevant % of such monies
The only actual “cash on hand” a bank might hold is in the form of “loan loss reserves” to cover bad loans. I don’t think this is a formal requirement in NZ anyway.
Usually banks are cheapskates and assume that they can cover all of their reserve requirements with short term funding from the money markets. (In NZ because of the CFR they can’t do that as much).
Which is why during the GFC, when banks didn’t trust each another enough to loan each other even overnight monies, the whole system of debts covering debts covering debts ground to a halt.
Remember the cardinal rule which few people understand in banking – banks will lend out money first, then look for any reserves that they need to cover those loans, later.
The wider public is cottoning onto the worlds largest ever ponzi scheme scam which is banking.
It’s slow though. It is surprising how many don’t know about this though – even multi-multi-millionaires I have regaled with this scam don’t know about it.
Time is up mr banker. And you know it. I am sure you will be making preparations right now, whilst at the same time telling your customers that everything is fine.
” It is surprising how many don’t know about this though”~vto
Yes, this is why I am rather amazed and impressed that “Seven Sharp” had that little item on. It was easy to understand and actually appeared to be informative without the need to have the little scathing comment at the end of it, which I’ve noticed often occurs when out of the ordinary or “less than mediocre information” is being imparted.
What was very interesting too, is that they had a Raf Manji on who was introduced as a “former London banker and former colleague of John Key”. Who was advocating that the Government “print” money for the Chch rebuild because then interest would not be required to be paid for the “loan”.
My opinion is that if the media imparted more information like this New Zealand would become a more informed people and circumstances would improve.
Don’t know if it was because Waitangi Day fell on a Wednesday, but from observation it appears to me that this was the least observed holiday, so many people I have come across at work today worked yesterday. be it a few hours ( like me) or a full day, as if it was just a normal Wednesday. And these people have no connection with the MOE, schools or nopay
I just looked at the link Outofbed provided. Lolz I see what you mean CV, perhaps they could simply go for a tiled wallpaper of Mr Shearer in the background too? 😀
I don’t know why they bother with their PR companies, um have they got one? …Well, if they have, which they don’t appear to, (or perhaps its one that specializes in promoting farm animals?) they should perhaps fire them and just read the Standard instead. Plenty of good advice here. heh.
I don’t know why they bother with their PR companies, um have they got one?
I doubt it. Their Head Office in Wellington is run on a shoe string. Partly their own fault. If the parliamentary wing stopped playing silly buggers with the membership, we might resume out donations.
if the plan is to repeat the feat in the future, the shots next time should be with a round-neck plain t-shirt so that the reverse picture will not look so jarring
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The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
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:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
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. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
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 ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
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. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
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 A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
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TOTALITARIANISM NEWS
The state-led persecution of Assange continues
From a Sydney Morning Herald article by Elizabeth Farrelly….
Assange notes that ”not even the most rabid or hawkish general in the Pentagon has produced evidence or even claimed that we have led to the death or harming of any person – and if we had, they most certainly would”.
As to ”facing the music”, everything hinges on the genuineness of the case and the probability of a fair trial.
Here, it’s critical how far the two simultaneous cases – of ”rape” in Sweden and of illegal publishing in the US – are in fact separate. If the ”rape” case is genuine, the Swedish government should have no problem (a) sending the prosecutor to interview Assange in London, as repeatedly invited, (b) if necessary, charging him here and (c) guaranteeing against his extradition to the United States.
The Australian government should be strenuously advocating to this end. In fact, both governments have not only refused such guarantees but have actively maligned Assange in a way that diminishes his chance of fair trial in either country. The Swedish prosecutor has said Assange will be seized and imprisoned – potentially in solitary, incommunicado and indefinitely – the minute he sets foot there.
The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has never retracted her public (mis)statement that Assange had committed ”an illegal act”. The Swedish Prime Minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, has never retracted his public mis-statement that Assange had been charged with rape. Why not?
Assange points out that Sweden’s is a culture of profound conformism; a population half the size of Australia’s with a language spoken (and a culture therefore scrutinised) by no one else on earth. A country that, unlike say Germany, ”never denazified” after World War II. Never pushed the reset button.
So when the Social Minister, Goran Hagglund, publicly describes Assange as ”sick … a coward … a lowlife … a pitiful wretch”, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs tweets ”you do not dictate the terms if you are a suspect. Get it?”, the press follow suit.
Sweden’s largest-circulation daily, Dagens Nyheter, calls Assange ”paranoid” and a ”querulant”. A prominent journalist for the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, Martin Aagard, calls him an ”Australian pig”, linking Assange with Rupert Murdoch. ”There are many good reasons to criticise Assange. One … is that he’s a repugnant swine.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/held-in-a-gilded-cage-optimism-still-reigns-supreme-for-assange-20130206-2dykj.html#ixzz2K8yacMEj
heh – thought it was a wee bit random that the Assange thing has been resurrected again, but then I see in Stuff that one of the celebs who paid his bail thinks he should go back to Sweden. Oh, and that his supporters are a bit cult-like.
Bit of pre-emptive spinning, from the collective, eh?
Damn, I thought that dog was sleeping.
The article.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/02/jemima-khan-inside-story-how-julian-assange-alienated-his-allies
We all want a hero. After WikiLeaks released the infamous Collateral Murder video in 2010, showing US troops gunning down a dozen civilians in Iraq, I jokingly asked if Assange was the new Jason Bourne, on the run and persecuted by the state. It would be a tragedy if a man who has done so much good were to end up tolerating only disciples and unwavering devotion, more like an Australian L Ron Hubbard.
edit: Yoko gets in on the act.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/yoko-ono-gives-julian-assange-a-special-award-for-bravery/
The placing of the building company Mainzeal into receivership seems to have at its heart the supposed non-payment of as little as 1.2 million dollars from the parent company Richina-Pacific,
Mainzeal construction is contrary to my initial belief currently fulfilling contract work in Christchurch and it appears that such work was guaranteed into the future,
It appears that the Bank(s) that are owed 20 million dollars by Mainzeal construction did not instigate the receivership of Mainzeal,
Into the picture comes ex-National Party Leader Jenni Shitly who as Chairman of Mainzeal’s board of directors approached the Bank(s) to have the company She sits at the head of placed into receivership,
Who would have thunk it…
Very interesting bad12. The same Shitly, as you so aptly call her, is I’m sure also on the Board of Fletcher’s AND she is of course on the Christchurch re-building Committee. Someone needs to take a good look at all of that old trougher’s activities and what vested interests she has.
I am still trying to get a complete view of the occurrences surrounding Shitly’s role in the receivership of Mainzeal Construction,
It appears that there has been an attempt to remove Her as a director of at least one board of Directors connected with the Mainzeal Group of companies,
It also appears that Shitly and at least 3 other’s resigned as Directors from Mainzeal Construction it’self a number of months ago,
Are we looking at a Boardroom power struggle here that as a consequence has the ability to collapse up to a third of the building industry in Auckland,
People connected with the industry talking on RadioNZ as i type this comment are talking 1200 employers and employees who are unsecured creditors who will get it in the neck if Mainzeal folds completely or ‘morphs’ into a different company altogether…
Makes it easy for Shitley & co so pick it up cheaply, And then run it into the ground, and make a killing on the backs of honest workers, who are the ones who pay the price for such avarice.
That should be looked into very closely. She is known to do the underhand under the table deals for exchanges.
So let’s get this clear. The banks are quite happy with Mainzeal’s repayment plans for paying back their debt of $20 million.
But Shipely who is also a director for a competing company is winding Mainzeal up, and destroying the lives of many workers, over a debt of $1 million.
My question is: Why isn’t this woman in prison?
The Christchurch rebuild is a huge money trough.
Not really surprised it’s surrounded by a greedy pig or six dozen waiting to chomp on, are we?
I am starting to form the belief that the 1.2 or 1.8 million dollars that the RichinaPacific group was supposed to pay to Mainzeal Construction might have been to cover fees specifically to pay those directors that apparently quit the Board of Mainzeal construction some weeks/months ago???,
I fail to understand how IF Shitly and a number of others quit as Board members of MainZeal Construction a number of weeks/months ago they can then approach the BNZ to have the company placed into receivership,
Were Shitly and the other directors who quit the MainZeal Board owed directors fees and so as creditors of ‘some sort’ in a fit of pique moved to wind that company up???,
Shiply’s Prime Minister ship under a National Government was at it’s best ‘Ugly’ and is this just another case of ‘uglyness’ from the former National Party Prime Minister not giving a toss how many get damaged or how severe that damage becomes both to the workers involved and the economy it’self…
I certainly hope so, becaause it might be demonstrated that they acted against the best interests of the company and its shareholders, as directors.
But that is the question CV, were they directors when yesterday they approached the BNZ to place Mainzeal Construction into receivership,
My impression is that Shitly and at least 3 others resigned from the board of Mainzeal weeks or months ago,
The question that arises from this is did Shiply use Her profile as a former Prime Minister and Her present connections to the Slippery lead National Government to leverage the BNZ to call in the receivers,
If She was not a director of the company then the only right to demand the BNZ place Mainzeal into receivership would seem to come about by being a secured creditor or perhaps an unsecured creditor…
A link with some facts would be nice.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863857
You call that piece of sanitized garbage ‘facts’, nice try but an absolute FAIL just like the Slippery lead National Government you support is,
Was Jenny Shitly lying to New Zealand when She appeared on my TV news last night stating that it was She that approached the BNZ to have the company put into receivership,
She appears to have major issues of conflicting interests where She is on the boards of various companies which will directly profit from the Christchurch rebuild and also a representative of the structure that is charged with allocating work and thus allocating Government funds,but, trust the Herald to not even mention such a tangled web of connections…
Is Jenny Shipley now divine?
NO, but you are still the gormless fool around here…
I know you think that this is an insult, bad12, but you might want to reflect that it is a name I have given to myself. You may like to consider that, under these circumstances, the scope for wounding me with this name is rather diminished.
Nope, it was a name that Lprent gave you and which you then took for yourself as you thought it was amusing.
You got me there. I am crushed.
How divine of you to say so, nonetheless a gormless fool you are…
Dear friends:
PLEASE COME AND HEAR UK DOCO-MAKER HARRY FEAR, & ROGER FOWLER REPORT BACK ON THEIR RECENT FACT-FINDING MISSION TO GAZA WHEN THE ISRAELI BOMBARDMENTS TOOK PLACE.
TONIGHT: 7pm at AUCK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Room B28.
FREE SOUTH AUCKLAND BUS leaves at 6pm from the Mangere East Community Learning Centre, 372 Massey Rd (behind the Library).
Lengendary reggae band ‘Unity Pacific’ will launch their stunning version of the Kia Ora Gaza solidarity anthem: “We Are All Palestinians”
Palestinian dancers will welcome everyone. Not-to-be-missed. Bring your friends & family.
No door charge, but donations welcome.
Hosted by Students For Justice in Palestine. Organised by Kia Ora Gaza [Website: kiaoragaza.net. Email: office@kiaoragaza.net]
> Subject: Auckland event: GAZA REPORT UK documentary maker & activist HARRY FEAR
Like to go but, thought i would stay at home and watch another town in Syria being destroyed. Bought some chips … Tonight a apartment block is again destroyed.All dead… chive dips tonight .Hope those silly UN people do not spoil my entertainment Who cares? 65000 dead and counting.
New unemployment numbers out this morning, I wonder how bad they will be, and how the Nats will spin them.
true…hope Slippery has been practicing his Gangnam
On TV One News last night they had a clip of John Key’s Waitangi Day speech whine about protesters. That was immediately followed by a clip of Titewhai Harawira’s reply that the potesters weren’t the problem but bad Govt policies were the the problem. Priceless.
+1 Yes, also the comment by Peter Sharples, saying that he thought protest was perfectly o.k if people weren’t happy with something (can’t remember the exact words). I put up a comment on the Waitangi day thread re this, how the talk over referred to Key’s as a “broadside speech”. Good stuff TV1.
Heard Turei on the wireless yesterday praising Titewhai’s work as an anti violence campaigner. Guess she is willing to overlook the assault on the mental health patient under Harawira’s care.
yeah mate, its called paying your debt to society and moving on.
You, you need to keep paying, you’re not there yet.
Yet Turei is opposed to Mike Tyson coming to New Zealand on the basis of his violent past. Has he not paid his debt to society?
Refer to the extended debate here on The Std about that. My position IRCC was that he probably should have been allowed into NZ, but plenty disagreed with me.
I don’t care about Tyson. If Turei’s position is that Harawira’s assault of a highly vulnerable person under her care can be overlooked because she has been punished for it, doesn’t she have to hold the same position in relation to Tyson?
Does it need to be the same because you think the two crimes were the same, or because Turei is a computer programme which needs to generate the same result every time you press a button?
So, there are two classes of crime. One where we “move on” once the perpetrator pays his or her debt to society and one where we do not.
Interesting.
How do we decide which crimes fall into each class?
So tell me again why you think Turei needs to treat Tyson and Harawira the same? You know, before you move us on to some bullshit off track discussion.
No. I accept I am wrong. It is just sensible for a person who assaults mentally ill people under her care to be praised for her anti-violence work on the basis that the crime can be forgotten once the sentence has been served. Contemporaneously, another person who has been convicted of a violent offence and served the penalty should be vilified.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Hi Ole, you can’t really say that until you have thought about it.
Is Harawira still going around in public laughing and making jokes about violent assaults of exactly the type she committed? Does she still maintain that there was nothing wrong with what she did?
Are those relevant factors in your program at all?
Does that help you imagine any other possible factors that might be computed?
You’re the only person here who can’t seem to get their head around the idea that many people make mistakes, and once they’ve repaid society, its time to let them move on. Nothing is forgotten. Maybe not even forgiven. So what’s illogical about it?
Just like a soldier who comes back from Afghanistan or Iraq and decides to become an anti-war campaigner because of what they’ve seen.
Or a drink driver who’s killed someone, coming out of jail and deciding to take a stance against drink driving because they’ve realised the harm it causes.
Or someone who has been convicted of family violence, standing up years later on TV speaking out against family violence because they’ve realised that other people need to hear their story too.
Oh, she’s repentant? That changes everything, Felix.
Oh, got a link?
Meantime:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=889385
Because in the background of every conversation with Mrs Harawira – and she is as aware of it as anyone – are the ghouls of her past. Not least her 1989 conviction for assaulting a psychiatric patient.
She says, emphatically, that she regrets nothing in her past – “No. Nothing.” If other people can’t get over it, well “that’s fine. I can accept that.”
Very good Ole, now you’re thinking. Any other differences you can think of?
Many good anti-violence workers are good because they’ve had to deal with their own violence. You obviously know shit about this gormless, so give it up eh?
Not sure what the difference you are referring to is, Felix.
I have given up. Harawira beats up the most vulnerable members of society and is unrepentant about it. I accept that there is nothing wrong with this.
I get it now Ole. You’d like Harawira to do a tearful mea culpa on Oprah. Because that would make all the difference to you.
Nope. I just want people to see her for what she is.
“Not sure what the difference you are referring to is, Felix.”
Well for a start I don’t see Harawira repeatedly and publicly cracking jokes about what she did. That’d put her in a different category of bastard I’d have thought, ymmv.
I’d also note that the quote you linked to – worrying as it may be – wasn’t actually an answer to a question about the issue you (and the herald writer) are linking it to. Not that that’s necessarily important but context is usually worth noting.
You just want people to see her for what she is – what a load of shit gormless – at least be honest ffs.
I have researched and written about Titewhai and I can fully understand her statement that she has nothing to regret in her past. I think she has a lot to be proud of – she was groomed for greatness by her grandfather and she has delivered on that, right from the time she started school. She has done more for the benefit of this country than 1000 john keys or any politician I can think of. That is what being a mana wahine means – not that you gormless would know the first thing about that.
Marty, you are going to have to explain to me what is admirable about assaulting the mentally unwell.
ah no I’m not – mainly because I am not buying into your bullshit – believe what you want – I just wanted other readers to hear a contrary view.
It is bullshit that she was convicted of assaulting a mentally ill person who she was supposed to be looking after?
Or is the bullshit something else?
Marty, is any of your writing about Titewhai online? I’d be interested to read it. I had a look on your blog but couldn’t find it.
No my writing on Titewhai is not online but was for a paper I did last year. However the interview below is illuminating even though it is from 2005.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/collections/treatyofwaitangi/audio/2533140/titewhai-harawira,-m-ori-activist
I’d ask that you notice how she handles the very, very nasty personal attacks.
Kiaora marty, that was a real treat. That degree of fearlessness is awesome. And yes I did note her handling of some pretty offensive questions.
Am probably way too late on this but No Right Turn’s take on Shearer’s “let’s all be nice” approach to Waitangi Day is spot on. Yet one more, but a pretty important, reminder about whether Shearer really is PM material.
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/shearer-on-waitangi-day.html
Cheers Mary. Also last night on 3 News he was interviewed in regard to his view on the PM’s spazzo about “a few Maori extremists………protesters………..blah blah blah”. Shearer actually agreed that it was fine to say that…….”BUT, say it on the Marae and don’t say something like that and then go running of to your getaway plane”, or words to that effect.
Part of that rang true, that is if you’re going to say something challenging don’t drop it and then run, stay to back it up, however the worse bit was that he seemed to agree that it was ok or even right to say it in the first place. I really don’t know where this guy is coming from.
Apologies for repitition but if we are in any way going to make progress on the Left we really have to pull toegther and unify and most importantly educate and motivate those non voters. We already had a challenge but it has been made all the harder by the choice of leader for the Labour Party. Gawd, imagine what the leaders debates are going to be like next year:
“errr, just, ummm, you know John, you do have a good point there but errrr, well………….” JK will be laughing like a school boy at his luck.
What protests tho was Slippery the Prime Minister whining about, as Maanu Paul fromthe Maori Council put it such a simpering whine gave a great impression of a 4 year old having a wee wah wah wah over having lost His marbles, (in more than one way i would suggest Maanu),
There were 30,000 people at Waitangi this year, a good mixture of both Maori and Pakeha and the only disruption was at the point of the Prime Minister being lead onto the Marae, as Winston Peters pointed out Slippery the Prime Minister brought this situation about because Marae protocol would be that it would be the guest being Karanga-ed onto the Marae who chooses which Kuia will accompany Him,
It is more than obvious that Slippery expected a large hostile protest to be directed at Him at Waitangi and the fact that this failed to materialize has got our Prime Minister exhibiting,as He does when things don’t go His way, a childish snivel as if someone has snuck off with His marbles,
Having a prepared speech directed at denigrating protestors at Waitangi the empty suitcase of intellectual rigor which is Slippery the Prime Minister of New Zealand having left the speech writers in Wellington did not have anything but the ability to address the breakfast gathering at the Waitangi Marae in terms of what was essentially bull defecation,
Not having the stomach at the Marae to give that speech to those gathered on the paepae earlier in the proceedings as anyone with an ounce of ‘heart’ would have Slippery the Prime Minister then gave a grand display of yellow by scarpering out the back door for the safety of His waiting limo…
Hi bad12. Lol, you know shonkey doesn’t let the facts get the way of a good ol’ spin. My guess is that he saw Waitangi as a good opportunity to put some more wood on the fires of prejudice and ignorance. Its in his interests to keep the trad Pakeha Nat voters in an anti Maori frame of mind. He’s framing them as the bad guys challenging his asset sales mission and he needs to keep the division going in order to bring his trad voters to heel. They are making quiet nosies about not being happy about asset sales after all. What better way to stir the pot than to than to highjack an event that is bound in media sensation whose goal it is to paint those that need to air their legitimate grievances as “bad” as “separatists” or gasp, even “protesters” god forbid. etc. Suit his purposes does it not?
Which reminds me: If y’all are in Wellington on Wednesday, 13th Feb head down to Frank Kitts Park at 6pm to the anti asset sales rally. Speakers include Jane Kelsey, Maanu Paul and Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.
Very soon he will be calling them “terrorists” or “insurgents” or any other of these fiendish labels.
Shearer’s performance shows how Labour deserves to lose the Maori vote. Even Winston Peters on Morning Report this morning showed he understands how integral robust discussion and protest over the big issues, including how entrenched disadvantage ignores the Treaty, are to the annual celebration. With Shearer at the reigns heaven help us. The guy really is a plonker.
Perhaps it is because David Shearer is actually just a bit shit?
I dare you to watch the video without cringing. Goodluck Labour 2014!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FNpGC2YcRo&feature=youtu.be
http://www.facebook.com/abitshit
Poll in the Dom Post today shows 60% of people want a 4 year parliamentary term (28% 3 years). Labour/Greens might pick up a some votes by offering a 4-year term as a policy at the next election.
I wondered about this. Shonkey and Shearer have another area of apparent agreement – they both want a 4 year term.
Not a good idea, in my view. In a country without an upper chamber or a written constitution the only safeguard against parliamentary excess is frequent elections. Limiting our democracy an the absence of checks and balances would be harmful to our country.
Why do people think that an upper chamber gives any safeguard against parliamentary excess? Just have to look at the US and the UK to see that that idea is a load of BS.
A written constitution might do it – if you can get everyone to agree on what the constitution actually means.
Four years would probably be best for effective policies to be seen to work or vice versa. But I would want to see leadership change be legislated for so that two terms would be all.
It appears to me that many of these skilled trapeze artists who get to the big top, just can’t be got down again and they use their precocious skills to maintain their position and to hell with the rest of the circus.
Better be careful with term limits for leaders. The USA never used to have term limits and who said they have done better with them.
However something like a maximum of 5 consecutive terms (20 years) in Parliament might be an interesting thing to look at.
CV Hmmmm? How would the USA have gone then if they had not changed I wonder?
At least an egregious leader can be chucked in favour of one with more grasp, of the work and responsibility to all, than the money and esteem. Then if someone is very good it becomes hard to replace the favourite even when he dances naked in the street, and starts taking huge bribes. The 20 years thing would definitely be needed then.
CV
Have just had my reply wiped by the remote server. I mentioned daft pollies dancing na..k..d in the streets. I wonder if we are having good old USA morality dished out by machine?
PS But lo, it has arisen from the dead. wtf
AFAIK the Republicans instituted the term limit rule so that the USA could never see another FDR again.
It took a constitutional amendment. You don’t get one of those passed in the US without extremely broad support.
Then of course there is the small print. The term limits in Russia, for example, were useless at getting rid of Putin. We’re already heading presidential-style as an MSM-friendly way of stabilising power to two main parties (another reason I’m happy for Labour to be in the thirties rather than well into the forties).
And technically the governments in NZ area different governments after each election – new parliament, new coalition.
Personally I favour things like campaign finance controls and advertising restrictions rather than term limits. Term limits are too fixated on a possible symptom (demagogue) rather than the problem (subversion of democracy).
I wrote and posted this last night, and I’ll choose to believe it’s not been seen yet because it’s lost at the bottom of yesterdays open mike 😀
Apologies to all guitarists, except one (joke), as I’m using software.
Actually, in the spirit of glasnost and perestroika, if DS wants to hit me up with some core Labour policy, he can strap on his axe and rock it with me on Campbell live and we’ll all live happy ever after.
https://soundcloud.com/theal1en/getting-it-done
You say it’s all right, sometime, we’ll get it done.
Well sometimes you just suck. 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 someone you couldn’t break.
What you gonna wash away? How you gonna wash me away?
For no better reason than I’ve got no reason to fake.
If I got a reason I got the will and the way.
No help coming, no one 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 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 that you can’t steal from under my nose.
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 the meaning, I got the will and the way.
No hope running, no joke coming to play.
Firing reason, here with the freaks and the snakes.
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?
What software are you using?
PreSonus Studio one v2 as my sequencer/recorder, and on this track, just two instances of Musiclab real LPC and a vocoder to pitch and colour my awful vocals.
Apart from that, I use an ancient but sadly discontinued vsti synth plugin and the brilliant U-he Diva. And that’s it.
The way I figure it, being minimally talented, if the songs ever get picked up they’ll all be re-done properly in a studio anyway, no matter what I do with them at home, so I rather focus on writing and saving the world and just hope the right person gets to hear the songs through the mess. 🙂
I don’t use Twitter, but I have started to get an email every so often saying ‘here’s what is happening on Twitter” I clicked on it today and was pleasantly surprised to be directed to:
http://vital.org.nz/entry/2013/02/
It fits in with comments others have made about National deliberately trying to remove all discussion on political topics – and Holmes was (perhaps but perhaps not) an unwitting supporter of the removal of debate from our media. I do think it is a bit hard on Shearer – including honours to make it partly a celebration of achievement does not mean taking away discussion on issues where we do not agree.
Teh November post to that blog is also interesting. I have come to think that some posters to The Standard are deliberately trying to undermine informed discussion, and to represent their views as those of the majority or the Green Party , or of the Labour Party – collectively, I think both the Green and Labour Parties are much more tolerant, and also much kinder to each other than many posters would like to try to convince us.
I would be interested in how many different posters there are to The Standard. It is being followed more by media (or at least acknowledged more) – I suspect it has a wider number of posters than some otehr well known blogs. Could a count be made of the number of different posters for say each of the last few months?
Thanks Ed, that’s a good piece of writing by Judd. The problem I have with Shearer and Waitangi is that he thinks it’s cause for celebration. The whole ‘happy Waitangi Day’ thing grates, for precisely the reasons that Judd goes into. It reminds me of when Otago had its 150 anniversary as a province. The council and organisers of events called it a celebration, and then local iwi spoke up and said hang on, for some of the people that live in Otago, the arrival of settlers and setting up of the province was extremely painful and not something to celebrate (call it a commemoration instead). Until we accept that Maori have distinct and entirely valid experiences of NZ that are quite different than most Pakeha, we are at an impasse. Trying to make Waitangi Day a ‘happy’ day just doesn’t work.
“I have come to think that some posters to The Standard are deliberately trying to undermine informed discussion,”
Can you give an example or two?
I saw the point of Judds article as saying that it is possible for a discussion to allow for a range of different viewpoints. I read him as effectively saying that calling for some celebration on a public holiday does not mean that we cannot at the same time address other issues. That’s like saying that until we return to budget surpluses we cannot afford to increase the minimum wage . . .
A public holiday is usually an indication that the country felt, at least at one time, that we could celebrate some achievement, and in relation to the Treaty, I believe there are things to celebrate. If that can also include celebrating achievements of New Zealanders, let that not distract from understanding that we still have some matters to resolve; we can celebrate a Treaty that is still capable of assisting shape our actions . . .
I don’t wish to personalise my comment about the motives of some posters to The Standard, but a number of times a post about a problem caused by the current government seem to turn very quickly into an attack on Shearer, or to seek to cast doubt on whether Labour and Green can work together – they appear to me to be attempts to divert discussion from the effects of government action or inaction, towards perceived deficiencies in current opposition parties. Many seem amazed, disappointed, even furious that there clear determinations of the will of the people are not shared by the leadership of the Labour and Green parties – and imply that it would be better for those parties to remain in opposition than to accept ‘imperfect’ policies from their definition of true left ideals.
Judd said ( http://vital.org.nz/entry/2012/11/ )
“I’m discouraged by the conviction with which journalists report their opinions as fact, and I’m equally discouraged by the way political bloggers and commentators have done the same, building on the journalists’ reports. The Cunliffe vs Shearer story and the 40% vs simple majority story are intertwined, but they are not the same, yet we can’t be sure where and how they overlap. I know I’m going to give a lot more credit to analysis that acknowledges these uncertainties instead of glossing over them for the sake of a clear story.”
I am similarly discouraged by reporting of opinions as fact in many comments to The Standard – your mileage may wary.
Good article re Waitangi day thanks Ed.
And the debacle continues.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8271027/Novopay-round-labelled-a-shocker
Will anyone do a mea culpa or be held to account ?
Of course no one will be held to account, the Slippery lead National government seem delighted that the teaching profession will be traumatized by having their pay f**ked up for at least the next 2 years,
From what i heard this morning the ‘attack’ upon schools continue’s unabated with schools having their operating budgets destroyed by having to pay some teachers monies owed to them for wages out of the operating budget,
Any of these schools having had to destroy their budgets because of No-No Pay that have a smaller role this year are now being told to immediately refund part of that operating budget and it appears that the Education Department and the Minister couldn’t really give a toss whether the schools have had their operating budgets wrecked or not,
Hekia’s revenge perhaps…
Yes, yes it’s all a plan by the reverse vampires to take over the world……. first the school payrolls, next who knows ?
Its pretty serious stuff HS. A lot of kids educations and a lot of families lives are being disrupted by this debacle.
It is entirely amusing that the new zealand government is incapable of ensuring teachers are paid.
The most basic of tasks and it is entirely incapable.
what a joke.
Do you think that the Nats “might” do something about if they weren’t getting payed and the Opposition Parties were?
Sorry, that was a dream.
Yeah typical Tory attitude, how would you like it if you were told that for the next 2 years it will be a lottery if you are paid or not,
Schools are legally obliged to pay their employees and the only means of doing this under the present system is to pay out of the operating account when No-No Pay makes yet another ‘mistake’,
To then send out letters to schools demanding monies back from that operating budget for pupils that have left the school is to simply put even more pressure on those attempting to run those schools within such budgets,
The fact that you couldn’t really care is obvious…
I do care, I just get bored with your comments regarding Novopay being a dastardly plot by the current government.
I don’t think it is a dastardly plot HS, but on the other had I think that privately they are more than slightly amused by the situation.
If i bore you there’s an easy solution, when you come across the bad12’s as you scroll down the page keep on scrolling,
I spose you consider Hekia’s smiling face and karma comment on the fact that those at the Ministry of Education also had their pay round made a mess of the other week as a bit of light entertainment…
The latest household labourforce survey figures are out and no doubt the Government will jump on the reduction in the unemployment rate from 7.3% to 6.9% as something to celebrate.
However the figures are all screwy:
The number of people unemployed decreased by 10,000 people BUT the employment rate fell 0.8 percentage points, to 62.6 percent AND the number of people employed decreased by 23,000 (down 1.0 percent) AND the labour force participation rate fell 1.2 percentage points, to 67.2 percent AND the number of people in the labour force decreased by 33,000.
Obviously more people are dropping out or giving up but I cannot imagine that it is because of the ageing population.
The report is at http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/employment_and_unemployment/HouseholdLabourForceSurvey_HOTPDec12qtr.aspx
LOLZ, it will be interesting to try and hunt out exactly who and where those who have left the workforce are,
Will definitely get back to this later…
Reminds me of the US where every new monthly jobs figure looks good, makes good press, but the next month is quietly and substantially revised for the worse. Cynicism.
Interesting!
The best that can be said about those figures is that Paula’s travel agency is working well and another positive contribution to the Australian economy has shown to have been made by NZ workers,
Wonder when the next set of unemployment benefit numbers are due out…
Here’s some econophysics on laws of motion of capitalism.
Note falling profits in China and financial tsunami spreading across Pacific.
http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/rowan-duffy/2013/02/06/interview-paul-cockshott-on-econophysics-and-socialism#more-1180
Econophysics might start being worth looking at if socialists start doing it. A lot of what I’ve seen so far treats the maths in a very naive way, and is basically designed to guide speculators. This work looks much more interesting.
Stuff Poll: Four year Parliamentary term? Y/N
The Yes is winning 3 to 1 at the moment out of 1000 votes…..so the right wingnut network is engaged.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8270952/Key-wants-four-year-term-for-Parliament
“One hundred and 73 years after the “…
Editors at my workplace would go spare at that mashing of formats.
Stuff, keeping New Zealand’s sub-editing capabilities on par with it’s journalistic expertise since nineteen 9(…
Lol,the RWNJ network is engaged EVERYDAY on the stuff.co.nz comment forums and polls, – them and the just plain vacuous.
Turns out the Super Fund is a crock:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8270688/NZ-Super-Fund-returns-fail-to-justify-debt-cost
No,
The $20bil superfund is now only just breaking even with the massive debt that National has gifted us and our children.
The solution is apparently to get rid of the asset and continue business as usual. The thought of addressing the systemic causes of our government debt is not apparently on the table. Mostly because that would involve taxing the job
creatorsdestroyers.To Gormless. the NZ Super fund is not a crock. See its record from its December 2012 statement and
remember that any investment for the long term – which is what the NZ Super Fund is – has its ups and downs . On the whole the NZ Super Fund performs well – even during difficult economic downturns.
Also remember – the Labour Govt’s first super scheme was wiped by Muldoon, and it would have saved the country billions if it had been left in place. The comments by the researcher Michael Littlewood look to me like they’re just another attempt by Nats to do the same sort of thing ie destroy NZ’s super scheme!
“Fund Performance to 31 December 2012
Posted On: Tuesday, 22 January 2013
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund returned 19.17% for the 12 months ended 31 December 2012.
The Fund finished the year at a record high for the month-end of $20.92 billion, up from $17.73 billion at the end of 2011.
Since inception in September 2003 the Fund has returned 7.92%,exceeding the 90-day Treasury Bill rate by 2.84%. The Fund’s long-term performance expectation is that it will beat the Treasury Bill rate by at least 2.5%.”
Published in full – FYI.
7 February 2013
Open Letter to the Mayor and Councillors who are members of the CEO Review Sub-Committee of Auckland Council:
Len Brown (Chairperson)
Christine Fletcher (Deputy Chairperson)
Ann Hartley
Penny Hulse
Richard Northey
Penny Webster
RE: THE MEETING OF THE AUCKLAND COUNCIL CEO REVIEW SUB-COMMITTEE MEETING TODAY – THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2013: (2pm)
Dear Mayor and Councillors,
Please confirm that the following Agenda Items C1 and C2 items pertaining to the performance of the CEO have been removed from ‘Confidential’ as they are a matter of considerable public interest, and there is a difference between protecting the ‘privacy’ of individuals and ensuring public transparency and accountability for those in public office, particularly the ‘Principal Administrative Officer’ of Auckland Council – the CEO.
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/AboutCouncil/meetings_agendas/committees/Pages/ceoreviewsub-committee.aspx
C1 Report on the Chief Executive’s Performance Against the 2012/2013 Objectives
Reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter
Particular interest(s) protected (where applicable)
Ground(s) under section 48(1) for the passing of this resolution
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7. s7(2)(a) –
The withholding of the information is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons, including that of a deceased person.
In particular, to enable the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee to examine and discuss in detail, progress against agreed objectives to the Council’s executive team, including free and full discussion on sensitive issues including privacy and contract issues..
s48(1)(a)
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7.
C2 CEO Recruitment Process
Reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter
Particular interest(s) protected (where applicable)
Ground(s) under section 48(1) for the passing of this resolution
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7. s7(2)(h) – The withholding of the
information is necessary to enable the local authority to carry out, without prejudice or disadvantage,
commercial activities.
In particular to enable the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee to discuss the detail of the Chief
Executive recruitment before information is released to the market and potential candidates.. s48(1)(a)
The public conduct of the part of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for
which good reason for withholding exists under section 7.
“TERMS OF REFERENCE
The Chief Executive Review Committee is established to review the Chief Executive’s performance during the 2010/2012 term of the Council and to negotiate terms and conditions of the CE’s employment including any performance agreement measures and annual remuneration.
Relevant legislation includes but is not limited to:
The Local Government Act 2002; and
The Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2002. ”
Please be reminded of your following statutory duties as enshrined in the Local Government Act 2002:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/latest/whole.html#DLM171803
10Purpose of local government
(1)The purpose of local government is—
(a)to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and
(b)to meet the current and future needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses.
(2)In this Act, good-quality, in relation to local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions, means infrastructure, services, and performance that are-
(a)efficient; and
(b)effective; and
(c)appropriate to present and anticipated future circumstances.
Section 10(1)(b): replaced, on 5 December 2012, by section 7(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 10(2): inserted, on 5 December 2012, by section 7(2) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
___________________________________________________________________________
14Principles relating to local authorities
(1)In performing its role, a local authority must act in accordance with the following principles:
(a)a local authority should—
(i)conduct its business in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner; and
(ii)give effect to its identified priorities and desired outcomes in an efficient and effective manner:
(b)a local authority should make itself aware of, and should have regard to, the views of all of its communities; and
(c)when making a decision, a local authority should take account of—
(i)the diversity of the community, and the community’s interests, within its district or region; and
(ii)the interests of future as well as current communities; and
(iii)the likely impact of any decision on the interests referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii):
(d)a local authority should provide opportunities for Maori to contribute to its decision-making processes:
(e)a local authority should collaborate and co-operate with other local authorities and bodies as it considers appropriate to promote or achieve its priorities and desired outcomes, and make efficient use of resources; and
(f)a local authority should undertake any commercial transactions in accordance with sound business practices; and
(fa)a local authority should periodically—
(i)assess the expected returns to the authority from investing in, or undertaking, a commercial activity; and
(ii)satisfy itself that the expected returns are likely to outweigh the risks inherent in the investment or activity; and
(g)a local authority should ensure prudent stewardship and the efficient and effective use of its resources in the interests of its district or region; and
(h)in taking a sustainable development approach, a local authority should take into account—
(i)the social, economic, and cultural interests of people and communities; and
(ii)the need to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment; and
(iii)the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations.
(2)If any of these principles conflict in any particular case, the local authority should resolve the conflict in accordance with the principle in subsection (1)(a)(i).
Section 14(1)(c)(iii): replaced, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 14(1)(fa): inserted, on 27 November 2010, by section 6 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2010 (2010 No 124).
Section 14(1)(h)(i): amended, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(2) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
Section 14(2): amended, on 5 December 2012, by section 8(3) of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 93).
(My underlining).
__________________________________________________________________________
Please be advised that in order to defend the above-mentioned principles of ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government – I for one – give notice that I will refuse to be excluded from the meeting, and shall refuse to leave the room, if Items C1 and C2 are kept in ‘CONFIDENTIAL’.
Yours sincerely,
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
Auckland Mayoral Candidate 2013
I just went to the supermarket.
The woman in front of me in the express queue had 21 items.
Was it weak of me to not say anything?
12 item queue or 20 item queue?
12 item queue.
Hmmm, that’s pushing it alright.
Was it busy? Like, was it just her and you in the queue or were there already other people to wait for before her?
And was it 21 quick items? Or 21 different pieces of fruit to weigh and bags of pick n mix with missing numbers to look up?
Good questions.
It was Pak N Save, so, in fairness, three of those 21 items were plastic bags. But they should count, shouldn’t they?
When she was being served there were two people behind me, so three in all. No pick n mix and no fruit and vege. But still…
I think she was clearly over the line. My question though is, do I owe future shoppers a duty to make it clear to her it’s not on? Should I leave that to Pak N Save? Or, if it’s not troubling me, should I just leave it?
Tricky.
I’d head to the check out supervisor or service desk to complain. If they put a sign up and it is their policy, then their staff need to be enforcing it in a fair and reasonable manner.
Yes CV, having been in the industry and a supervisor,the best anyone can do
is to alert the supervisor and it is their job to ‘have a chat’ later with the operator,
to get her/him to enforce the policy.
Checkout operators should know the policy and adhere to it though, they only
need to politely say ‘Sorry, this is an express lane, you have too many items’
If WW3 breaks out,best just to get them done and outta there.
If WW3 breaks out, best just to get them done and outta there.
That’s what the cheats rely on VV. Best to get the supervisor to talk to them.
To be fair to the check-out operators it must be hard to cause a scene.
A couple of months ago I was behind a middle aged woman at the express check-out. She had at least 20 items – possibly more. She was well dressed and not a strand of hair out of place. She reeked financial comfort and confidence. The body language said don’t mess with me girl or I’ll cause trouble for you. The girl didn’t. I saw the woman out in the car-park a few minutes later and I wanted to have a little ‘tete a tete’ (can’t do the French stroke thing) with her, but I didn’t. Was angry with myself for being a coward. I despise those types.
Future reference – the best way to start a discussion like that is rudely and sharply 😉
If they apologise or look sheepish you can cool down and say that you over-reacted and everybody does it
If they go bloody minded you already got a full head of steam to work with 🙂
My fav this month is having a couple in their 30’s push their way through security screening airport queues because they were carrying a baby.
I let them past (because everyone else was and the bloody peer pressure thing) but regretted it because I looked at their faces and they clearly knew they were taking the piss.
btw baby was out to it on her shoulder without a care in the world, ignorant that mum and dad were using her for personal advantage.
It’s an ethical minefield alright.
All things considered I’d have to agree, she was clearly taking the piss. But what to do? Most of us don’t like to make a fuss, and we’d hope the checkout operator would enforce the limit.
But by the time they don’t enforce it, it’s too late to do much about it. And then is making a fuss going to hold up the queue even more than letting it slide? And I’d feel a bit guilty causing strife for the checkout operator, it’s a fairly thankless job already without me putting my oar in.
I reckon programming the registers in those aisles so they can only physically scan x amount of items before totaling up might be a way to fix it. Kind of lets everyone off the hook without confrontation.
Not sure if I’d include plastic bags in the count or not. I suppose they do take time to process and that’s the whole point, so yeah you’re probably right on second thought.
Seems to me she may have suffered from Dyslexia.
Dyscalculia.
Oh! Sorry I’m not that good at English.
But isn’t that the same thing that Slippery JK suffers from.
Should have done what I did last xmas eve and asked the shoppers in front if they’d been good for santa, and when they said yes, wished them luck in receiving big boxes of less ignorance.
The checkout girl laughed.
All class.
When Tony Blair went on about a classless society, I always thought he meant me.
Id suggest that you just get over it and temper you internal scorning. Queing is a very serious issue to the English, you know the old story .
Put three Welsh together and you a choir
Put three Irish together and you have a party
Put three scots together and you have a fight
Put three English together and you have a que.
“Id suggest that you just get over it and temper you internal scorning.”
It’s us v the ignorant. Zero tolerance to nuggets.
“Put three English together and you have a que.”
But only on the costa del sol.
After living in England I’d say something. Got used to that English way of having full blown screaming matches with strangers in public places.
That’d be my mum, sorry for that 😆
I trust that your comment is not serious. It would be WISE of you not to say anything.
Proverbs 18,7 ” A fools mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul.”
Not really. Jesus was an advocate who was vocal on a number of issues. Jesus spent a large part of his life talking, he often voiced his concern. Jesus was wise because he did say things.
That proverb you have given us does not apply to every situation.
Don’t know if that reply is to me, but if so, it’s your religion and your soul to save.
Nothing to do with me, John, or wise for that matter.
i never quite got the difference between left and right – but just had a look at KiwiBlog regarding an a blog on the PM and Waitangi day.
What a horrible site. It looked like the KKK logged in there>
And then I look at this site, and the difference is day and night 🙂
Thanks people, I feel better now.
Best not to go near Whale Oil then. That sites looks as if the KKK were chased away for being reasonable and inclusive.
Kiaora Ana, yeah we sweat laugh and scream here, but, buckle yourself in and join the fray, where you visited is known here as the Sewer it’s mostly inhabited by a primitive form of amoeba…
There’s not that many right supporters.
Just a few – and they stand out like a – John Key moment.
OK so much for my theory that we live in a wonderful society. And I thought the Ansell site was disgusting
I don’t normally recommend a full decontamination shower but in this case…
“He is described as a veteran newspaper and radio journalist and South Island editor of Challenge Weekly, a non-denominational and independent Christian newspaper.”
Surprise!
http://t.co/ZXNRF0Rb
In my experience, anyone who wears tone-on-tone is a paedophile.
Via Paul Litterick: at fundypost:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0311/S00171.htm
http://fundypost.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/whatever-happened-to.html?spref=tw
A major construction company goes to the wall threatening the livelihoods of 1000,s of workers and subcontractors,
Quick start a distraction, hence Slippery the Prime Minister blathering on about a 4 year electoral cycle,
See nothing hear nothing do nothing that’s the Slippery lead National Government, 2014 cannot come quick enough to get rid of this Shyster and the incompetents that surround Him…
More to ignore.
/
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/50924/iditarod+dogsled+race+preparations+hampered+by+lack+of+snow/
http://grist.org/news/a-tropical-disease-takes-hold-in-a-warming-alaska/
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/
Can anyone put together a reciprocal video of Key’s shocking diction, mispronunciations, the idiot comments and stupid/nasty actions – the three way handshake and the cut-throat gesture towards Phil Goff spring to mind.
Suggested musical back-ground – Handel-Adagio Movement 4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A2nYLu6JZQ
Rather astounded at just having seen an item on Positive Money on “Seven Sharp”. Just caught the end of it; I guess it will be viewable at 8pm on TV1 plus One. In case anyone is interested. They were explaining how money came out of nowhere. I thought that was sacrilege for mainstream. Seems I was wrong.
Interesting.
Would be interested to hear your opinion if you can catch it. I think it must have been the first item. One of the guys on it said something odd in the summary of the story, but only caught last part of it, so will watch it again myself!
Given that the Government debt left for the next Government to come to terms with by the Slippery lead National Government will be well over 60 billion dollars by the time they are given the kick in 2014 maybe TV1 is preparing those that are mostly asleep in charge of their own minds for the inevitable…
LOLZ, TV1 after 7 telling the truth about where money comes from has me thinking that that particular program will not be with us for very much longer,
Their Lordships of the banking world aint going to like having their little scam broadcast for all to see across the nation at a time when most of them are at least half awake,
They are of course correct, as many of us here at the Standard have been banging on about endlessly for months any Government is quite capable of creating money just as the banks do, type a set of numbers into the computer and hey presto you have MONEY,
After7 points out that any Government contribution to the Christchurch rebuild could,(and i say should) have been via money it had printed for it’s own use,
State Housing could be built by the 1000 by the 10,000 by the 100,000 by Government simply printing the monies needed to build such,
There’s a simple codicil to this and that is any monies spent into the economy by printing extra amounts of the stuff need be spent into that economy so as to give full regard to the Reserve Bank’s inflation targets band,
Of course i don’t expect the primitive band of chimps in control of the place at the moment to do any such thing even tho they were advised just after the 2008 election by no less than the IMF to do just that…
“..has me thinking that that particular program will not be with us for very much longer, ~bad12
Lol, had similar thoughts myself, or rather, that “the magazine style news show” appears to have become a case of the worm that turned….not what I would have expected anyway!
I was a bit stunned they made no mention of the bank having to have a certain amount of assets in order to loan that money. That is the point usually raised in discussions on whether a bank prints money out of thin air or not.
And the comment Greg Boyd made re confidence; banks’ll never collapse because we kiwis always want houses…that seemed odd. Is it my imagination or is that what did occur and continues to occur? i.e. Global Financial Crisis….& the only reason it hasn’t is ..well….because….someone, somewhere is “printing” lotsa money aswel as perhaps false confidence in US dollars due to the military&oil industry demanding these products get paid in US dollars?
Last count if my memory serves me correctly is that 184 billion dollars of private bank loans are on the books of New Zealand banks,
There is an expectation that Banks have a certain amount of cash on hand but that cash’s relationship to the amount of monies on loan to private interests isn’t as far as i can ascertain any relevant % of such monies and seems more an at the Government’s whim type regulation, there was talk a while ago of both increasing this and increasing the amount of cash Joe Lunchbox needed to put up as a deposit so as to get His/Her hands on the en-pixie-lated prize of the big loan,
the whole system of course is in fact one of insanity simply allowing the Banking System to f**k off with a large part of the production of New Zealand that’s been paid out as wages of the serfs enamored of the ownership model and willing to do anything, including rob their own mother’s, to get on the ladder…
Core funding ratio set by the reserve bank
http://www.economist.com/node/14363244
The only actual “cash on hand” a bank might hold is in the form of “loan loss reserves” to cover bad loans. I don’t think this is a formal requirement in NZ anyway.
Usually banks are cheapskates and assume that they can cover all of their reserve requirements with short term funding from the money markets. (In NZ because of the CFR they can’t do that as much).
Which is why during the GFC, when banks didn’t trust each another enough to loan each other even overnight monies, the whole system of debts covering debts covering debts ground to a halt.
Remember the cardinal rule which few people understand in banking – banks will lend out money first, then look for any reserves that they need to cover those loans, later.
And to think that banks have the nerve to castigate others about being highly leveraged – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Yes to all of the above.
The wider public is cottoning onto the worlds largest ever ponzi scheme scam which is banking.
It’s slow though. It is surprising how many don’t know about this though – even multi-multi-millionaires I have regaled with this scam don’t know about it.
Time is up mr banker. And you know it. I am sure you will be making preparations right now, whilst at the same time telling your customers that everything is fine.
Time is up Mr Banker .
Speaking of Mr Banker…Mr Simon Power just got a nice promotion at Westpac
http://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/63020/westpac-nz-says-its-mortgage-growth-remains-below-overall-market-levels-continuing-cross
With Power getting his advanced bankster experience in now, he’ll be a shoe in for PM down the track.
@vto,
” It is surprising how many don’t know about this though”~vto
Yes, this is why I am rather amazed and impressed that “Seven Sharp” had that little item on. It was easy to understand and actually appeared to be informative without the need to have the little scathing comment at the end of it, which I’ve noticed often occurs when out of the ordinary or “less than mediocre information” is being imparted.
What was very interesting too, is that they had a Raf Manji on who was introduced as a “former London banker and former colleague of John Key”. Who was advocating that the Government “print” money for the Chch rebuild because then interest would not be required to be paid for the “loan”.
My opinion is that if the media imparted more information like this New Zealand would become a more informed people and circumstances would improve.
Don’t know if it was because Waitangi Day fell on a Wednesday, but from observation it appears to me that this was the least observed holiday, so many people I have come across at work today worked yesterday. be it a few hours ( like me) or a full day, as if it was just a normal Wednesday. And these people have no connection with the MOE, schools or nopay
I don’t want to be critical but the Labour Party web site is so bad its an embarrassment
I can’t for the life of me figue out what Labour is pushing at the moment. Wait. I just counted 10 different David Shearer photos on their home page.
I just looked at the link Outofbed provided. Lolz I see what you mean CV, perhaps they could simply go for a tiled wallpaper of Mr Shearer in the background too? 😀
i think three of them are the same (one just reversed)
yes, one would think they could take more photos, instead of reversing the same one 😐
Reversing photos is a huge no-no in most professional PR circles as it completely distorts the face of your principal.
I don’t know why they bother with their PR companies, um have they got one? …Well, if they have, which they don’t appear to, (or perhaps its one that specializes in promoting farm animals?) they should perhaps fire them and just read the Standard instead. Plenty of good advice here. heh.
That’d be Claire Curran (snigger) I guess
I don’t know why they bother with their PR companies, um have they got one?
I doubt it. Their Head Office in Wellington is run on a shoe string. Partly their own fault. If the parliamentary wing stopped playing silly buggers with the membership, we might resume out donations.
~ ~ ~ g r o a n ~ ~ ~
the reverse is so obvious
if the plan is to repeat the feat in the future, the shots next time should be with a round-neck plain t-shirt so that the reverse picture will not look so jarring
Ha Just noticed It says “Labour a new direction.”.. obviously talking about the pics
lolz!