Will farmers attend tonight’s meeting in Mangatangi?
Will trade unionists?
Will the Green Party?
Climate Change has the power to beggar us all.
As Helen Kelly writes: “We’re all beneficiaries now”
We all need to address this crisis collectively, Naomi Klein writes:
…..it’s time to come together, for real, and fight to preserve and extend what you care most about — which means engaging in the climate fight, really engaging, as if your life and your life’s work, even life itself, depended on it. Because they do.
Each has a tough-love message for their own constituency — McKibben for an insular environmental movement that’s been woefully ineffective on climate; Klein for a left, including many in the Occupy movement, that has failed to grapple with the seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis. Look, they’re saying, this is it: science tells us that time is running out, and everything you’ve ever fought for is on the line. Climate change has the ability to undo your historic victories and crush your present struggles. So it’s time to come together, for real, and fight to preserve and extend what you care most about — which means engaging in the climate fight, really engaging, as if your life and your life’s work, even life itself, depended on it. Because they do.
There are so many threads to this fight:
“The climate crisis,” Klein told me, “is the ultimate indictment of capitalism, certainly the model of capitalism that we have, and the solutions to the climate crisis are the same as the solutions to the economic crisis.” That means restoring democracy and reinvigorating the public sphere, reining in and re-regulating corporations, re-localizing our economies, taxing polluters and the wealthy to put a stiff price on carbon and bring basic fairness into the system, and building alternatives to limitless profit and unsustainable growth. The book’s argument, she said, is “an attempt to weave together disparate movements under the banner of rising to meet the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced.”
Absolutely there is one point we must face up to. The right instinctively understood absolutely from the outset that climate change was an existential issue for unrestrained capitalism; that any meaningful response from the left had to be quashed regardless of the science or the ultimate cost to humanity. The capitalists have absolutely, consciously chosen to eat the future.
Jenny … however irritating many people find her … is still absolutely correct. Yesterday I wrote a post about how this government is politically footling about quietly dismantling and neutering the mechanisms of environmental protection in this country. It’s a real and present issue. Yet the politics of this will all be rendered utterly moot and pointless if catastrophic climate change burns up our beloved and precious land anyhow.
“That means restoring democracy and reinvigorating the public sphere, reining in and re-regulating corporations, re-localizing our economies, taxing polluters and the wealthy to put a stiff price on carbon and bring basic fairness into the system, and building alternatives to limitless profit and unsustainable growth.
The only way to do that is revolution and even that is probably too late – they and us just will not change our habits or attitudes without personal contact with the effects of climate change and many of us are interwoven with capitalism overtly and covertly.
Sad in some ways but we are fucked because we are the capitalists and we have eaten the future – there is no them and us on this issue.
The question for me is what are we doing personally to adjust to the realities that are on the doorstep and creeping over the windowsills. Have we even begun to adjust our reality yet or do we need another superstorm to blow our house or community away and to make us realise that money is actually… nothing.
The capitalists have absolutely, consciously chosen to eat the future.
QFT
And that’s the message that the left needs to be talking about when it comes to climate change, the re-regulation of capitalism and protecting the environment.
I disagree. Capitalism is a gun, you can shoot yourself in the foot, or use it to see off danger.
The problem is the left does not hold capitalism up to the light, that National, Key, ACT, are
actually not capitalists any more than any union member is. Its how government distorts
capitalism that has created massive disparity, inequality, environmental instability, resource wastage. The left failed to hold the right to account, the right turned into a zombie plague, and now we have nobody on the right who actually reveres democracy or the rights of the individual, even property rights are pretty much destroyed if your beach home is flooded by rising sea levels, etc, etc.
Isn’t it obvious that the tired communist ranter was actively re-enforcing the status quo?
Why is Labour so inept, because it knows it doesn’t want to go hard left (correctly) but
is still incapable of holding up capitalism to the light. Capitalism isn’t the problem,
capitalism is part of the solution, the economic facet that allows citizens to consent,
question, control, society. The money supply, the printing press, is the sole responsibility
of the government, yet when National deride the Greens for wanting to use it, where are
the Greens and Labour deriding National anti democracy, neo-liberal mantra, that only
banks can print money. Silence in face of the corrupt practices endemic, the zombie plague
continues.
The last thirty years of western governments has been to
place the power into a private politburo (media-corporate without government oversight).
Its as if fascism and communism have been merged and destroyed both our very
livelihoods and our communities at the same time.
You also have a point. Crony corporate capitalism is the main poison. A normal sphere of capitalist creative destruction where the Government was naturally a major force in the markets on behalf of the people, would be a significant improvement.
You are very confused AB
The CC is not an aberration of capitalism, it is clear evidence that capitalism itself must destroy the planet as it goes into self-destruct.
Do you really think that capitalism can be reformed in the window of a decade or so before we hit the point of no return, if we havnt already?
We need revolutionary change, now.
That means a popular revolution by the vast majority who are workers, farmers, or unemployed as the result of capitalisms declining trajectory.
We are seeing instances of this in various struggles going on internationally from SA to Syria to right now Bulgaria and soon, bet on it, China.
We should turning our talents to mobilise this huge global majority as a democratic force to make this revolutionary change.
Let’s no fester over whether this will be called clean capitalism, 21st century socialism, occupy, or fuckemism.
The capitalists will not give up without a fight, already they jail, rend, murder, drive people to suicide, and otherwise try to wipe out serious opposition.
So an an organised armed majority of revolutionaries bent on survival is our starting point. You have to take your chances that you are on the right side and make the right decisions.
As Lenin said in as many words ‘suck it and see’.
And RR is not kidding about the suicides (being suicided?) either. The senior communications manager at a failing Italian Bank recently killed himself by jumping out of an office window.
I have taken the liberty of copying from a Forest & Bird Alert and Govt details of public meetings to be held next week, and following week, throughout NZ re proposals to change the RMA.
This follows on from Red Logix’ concerns yesterday about the govt “dismantling and neautering the mechanisms of environmental protection ….. It’s a real and present issue” ……
Forest & Bird E-Alert
Save the RMA!
Your right to have a say in what happens where you live is at risk with planned changes to the Resource Management Act.
This might seem a boring issue for lawyers and planners and Wellington bureaucrats. It’s not. It’s a real threat that will affect you.
As of this coming Monday, it’s time to stand up for the RMA law that has done so much to keep New Zealand the way New Zealanders like it.
You will probably know last week Environment Minister Amy Adams put out a discussion paper, in which she outlined her plans to change important parts of the Resource Management Act.
Overall, what she suggests would shift the balance away from the environment, towards economic efficiency and development.
It would also shift it very strongly towards Ministers and central government, away from communities.
Mrs Adams is rewriting the RMA as an economic development tool – not the framework for sustainable environmental management that it’s been for a quarter century.
Next week, the Government will begin a series of ‘consultation’ meetings on the changes – starting this coming Monday. It’s a rushed process, of which we’ve been given almost no notice, and we say that these meetings are a sham. It adds another to the long list of examples, such as with Christchurch, where this government has ignored our constitutional conventions, democratic processes, and people’s right to have their say.
But we can change that. A strong turnout from our branch members, all echoing the same message – that the RMA is fundamentally good law, and these changes are completely unacceptable – will show the decision-makers that New Zealanders, who love their environment, do have something to say that can’t be ignored. We’ve done it before, when we said ‘no’ to mining our national parks, and the RMA matters just as much.
(See below for) a list of meeting times.
……………
Next week, we’ll be updating our website with suggested questions and ‘the good, the bad and the really very ugly’ about the discussion paper, so keep checking back at this page.
And please forward this message to anyone else who might want to come along.
We hope to have a Forest & Bird Field Officer at each meeting, to answer media questions.
Public meetings and hui (extract from Govt website)
Public meetings and hui are being held throughout the country during March 2013. The details for the meetings are in the table below. If you would like to attend a meeting or hui you do not need to RSVP.
A number of venues are yet to be confirmed. This table will be updated as new information is available.
Mon 11 MARCH Public meeting Dunedin Kingsgate Hotel 10 Smith Street 12 – 2pm
Tues 12 Public meeting Greymouth Kingsgate Hotel 32 Mawhera Quay 12 – 2 pm
Public meeting Wellington Kingsgate Hotel 24 Hawkestone St, Thorndon 1 – 3 pm
Wed 13 Hui Gisborne Emerald Hotel 13 Gladstone Road 1 – 4 pm
Thurs 14 Public meeting Rotorua Copthorne Hotel 111 Fenton St 11 – 1 pm
Hui Distinction 39 Fenton St 6 – 8 pm
Fri 15 Public Meeting Invercargill Ascot Park Cnr Tay St and Racecourse Rd 12 – 2 pm
Public meeting Whangarei Kingsgate Hotel 9 Riverside Dr 12 – 2 pm Hui 3 – 5 pm
Mon 18 Public meeting Tauranga Classic Flyers NZ 9 Jean Batten Drive, Mount Maunganui 11 – 1 pm
Hui Maungatapu Marae 2 – 4 pm
Tues 19 Public meeting Hawke’s Bay Hawke’s Bay Opera House 101 Hastings Street South 2 – 4 pm
Hui 5- 8 pm
Wed 20 Public meeting Queenstown Copthorne Hotel & Resort Corner Frankton Rd & Adelaide St 1 – 2.30pm
Hui Taupo Great Lakes Centre 5 Story Pl 5.30 – 8.30
Thurs 21 Public meeting Palmerston North Kingsgate Hotel 110 Fitzherbert Ave 12 – 2 pm
Hui Whanganui Kingsgate Hotel 379 Victoria Ave 6 – 8 pm
Public meeting Hamilton Kingsgate Hotel 100 Garnett Ave, Te Rapa 11 – 1 pm
Hui 3 – 5 pm
Fri 22 Public meeting Christchurch The Atrium 455 Hagley Avenue 1 – 3 pm
Hui 4 – 6 pm
Mon 25 Hui New Plymouth Quality Plymouth Int’l Cnr. Courtenay & Leach St 2 – 4 pm
Public meeting 11 – 1 pm
Public meeting Auckland Copthorne Hotel, 196 Quay St 12 – 2 pm Hui TBC 3 – 5 pm
Tues 26 Public meeting Nelson Tahuna Function Centre 70 Beach Rd Tahunanui 3 – 5 pm
Hui 6 – 8 pm
Wed 27 Final Hui Wellington Kingsgate 24 Hawkestone St, Thorndon 12 – 2 pm
r0b: I have taken the liberty of removing the bold markup from this comment.
Good business for the Kingsgate chain. Now how did they get that. Mot of those are small venues.
Notice how many of the meeting times are when people can’t go or not for long as they are at work. Consultation – rubbish.
Yesterday Xtasy commented: “Out of mischief, I think that all beneficiaries in this country should simply have their interests registered, and in the final minute withdraw or cancel it, turning the whole exercise into a gigantic shambles!
Now what about that strategy???
Yes more than the 340 thousand beneficiaries could do so, it could be half the population, who opposed all this, thus upset the whole registration and sales process, creating immense costs and inconveniencing the government in their plans.”
What if beneficiaries registered their interest en mass meaning the share parcels were then limited to $2000 for each applicant? I noticed on the website when I registered that you have to agree not to assign your shares to an overseas party (or words to that effect).
Q. Could beneficiaries like me assign or presell their share parcel in the above situation slightly above par value without actually paying money??
“It’s not just a matter of walking in and saying I want to sell up today.”
New share investors have to get a Common Shareholder Number (CSN) and a valid Faster Identification Number (FIN) before they can sell any shares as well as providing documentation such as their bank account, tax number and proof of residency.
Such good thinking ! And this is deliciously provocative from Mai Chen in Herald today on the reality of not a green light for asset sales, but an amber light only .. oh, if only she might be a Prime Ministger or Attorney General one day .. such rare and lovely clarity of mind ..
Listening to RNZ this morning I heard that IRD are disappointed in the low number of tax cheats who are high income earners ( top tax bracket) coming forward to fess up they are cheating the system. IRD have allowed a grace period for these evaders/dodgers to come forward which ends on the 31st of March. Sounds like they are stepping up their efforts to catch these thieves.
How about sending them to a mandatory jail sentence to stop this rort?
I’ve alwasy thought that the tax payer should be accountable for the tx they avoided, and that all epanlty payments should be split 50/50 between the tax payer and their accountant.
Are accountants held accountable at all for the schemes they invent? There is an implicit assumption that an accountants job is to minimise tax for their client, when it should be to get it right.
“Are accountants held accountable at all for the schemes they invent?”
Nope, it’s all care and no responsibility. If they make a mistake in your tax return it’s you that has to pay & who gets hit with the penalties. There is the tort of negligence but that’s often a hard one to win and very costly to pursue unless the sums are small.
Now is the time to dob in all those ex brothers in law who don’t pay child support.
QOT if you are out there, as I feel you may have good contacts in this area, put the word out to all who have gone for an admin review to raise the point with the IRD tipline – that should net the first 10,000 dodgers.
And all the well off in your area whose kids are getting student allowances – show social responsibility towards these people.
The rail system is pretty much a fail for the disabled, watched a person in a wheelchair getting left at a station beacuse the conductor never came down with the ramp, so the driver just left.
Then there’s all those level crossings without pedestrian gates that should operate with the barrier arms, 2 in Mt eden spring to mind. Kingdon St in newmarket should be the template for them all.
It’s a poor system, and definitely a fail for those with disabilities. The ticketing machines are not self explanatory to first time users with good vision. First time I attempted to load money on my Hop card, I gave up as the train was due, and ended up buying a ticket on the train.
The last time I took a train from my local station, 2 or 3 others were struggling trying to work out how to pay for a ticket.
I’ll have to point out that I haven’t used them yet myself as i hardly ever use trains and I’ve still got the Snapper/Hop card and not the proper AT Hop card.
And so Nick Smith wants to “smash” Auckland’s metropolitan urban limit even though it is shortly to be replaced by the “rural urban boundary” which he seems ok with.
And the difference between the two?
The MUL is slightly stronger and permits less development outside it’s boundary whereas the RUB will be slightly more permissive.
But they are both designed to change Auckland into a compact urban form.
The repercussions of not having a MUL are clear through experience throughout the world, more sprawl, more need to rely on a car for transport, a less economically viable city and destruction of fertile land as the city expands. Development becomes more expensive and environmental damage increases.
Smith is using violent language to try and deflect criticism of the Government for not doing anything about housing affordability. Now they can blame Auckland Council.
It was good for Len Brown to stand up to Smith this morning. But stand by as National gets ready to undermine environmental protection and Auckland’s right to design a unitary plan so that Auckland grows the way that locals want it to.
Smith was brought back specifically to bully and shout his way through the hollowman script, Heatley was way too soft.
On a related matter I see Granny reporting a likely $28m windfall for the developers on housing corp land being flogged in sandringham so more affoprdable stock can be built.
Affordable and auckland in the same sentence…..mmmmm.
Actually, it’s more the $28m windfall and affordable in the same sentence that’s the problem. It’s another proof of the dead weight loss of profit and most won’t see it.
“On a related matter I see Granny reporting a likely $28m windfall for the developers on housing corp land being flogged in sandringham so more affoprdable stock can be built.”
I was just reading that article. Terrible reporting, writer doesn’t know the difference between nett & gross. The $28m is what they’d expect to sell all the houses for, not how much profit they’d make on them.
I’d have thought a site like that would be a good start on medium/high density housing, building town houses looks to be a waste of good land really.
Article here;
“Developers picked to net $28m from Crown land selloff”
Yes and all those 100,s of HousingNZ ‘new affordable houses’ will be built in ummm aaah ummm,
Just another CON by the Slippery lead National Government, it’s flog it off to the developers as far as the land goes with a promise of ‘more affordable houses’ that has yet to materialize and undoubtedly wont…
I wonder how far Smith would get if he stood up in Wellington and demanded housing development in their Green belt? Hopefully he would be run out out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered or both. I suspect a few of the NACT mates want to build in the Waitakeres, and so why not, the Kauri are dying and they are not going to spend any more money on that, once they have all died out, then they can build up there. They will run right over Len.
Would a Maori woman without the blue eyed and blond “cute” factor get this much cover for any of the extreme life crisis situations she goes through, arguably more than being the wife of someone suspected of murder but not found guilty.
Further to my comments on deficiencies in the census enquiries. The interview this morning with the head of NZ ambulance service at St Johns made the point that they rely heavily on volunteers in the smaller towns, rural etc. The fire fighter volunteers were referred to as essential but he voiced the worry that this didn’t get so taken for granted that they were further loaded with being pseudo-ambulance workers replacing some of the ambulance services now provided.
Where in the census did it ask about this type of volunteering? The wording seemed to be slanted towards those looking after elderly or disabled others. A true picture of the volunteer work put into the nation would amaze I believe. Those providing national service like firefighters should have a special place with their own numbered question.
But for all volunteers needed is more information over an average week’s activity, not four weeks (need to zoom in). Then with daily hours indicated, and particulars about the work involved and how often during the year this occurs would organise the data into usable information.
Hello ER hope you’re over you’re stomach bug. Oh wait, that’s the other one. You’re the one who never gets boring. I don’t think we’ll have time for boredom this year.
Rio Tinto – aussies biggest employer of indigenous people – no wonder walsh is smiling
The spin
“We are not doing it to point-score and I am not doing it because of the competition. I am doing it because it makes good business sense and it is the right and proper thing to do,
The truth
Walsh says there is nothing contradictory about the need to slash costs inflated by the rising price of materials while expanding indigenous involvement; great synergies exist between both objectives.
“The truth is we are changing the nature of jobs, they are becoming more sophisticated, but we still need people to carry out maintenance and repairs.”
Smile why you destroy the earth, make money for yourself and your mates and oh, while you create a supply of people to carry out maintenance and repairs.
There does not appear to have been any further reporting on the very secret two day High Court hearing which started on Tuesday relating to the search and seizure of evidence.
A secret hearing regarding evidence in the Kim Dotcom extradition case is underway at the High Court in Auckland, with lawyers likely to be locked inside for two days.
The material under discussion is so confidential that even Dotcom’s lawyers are not allowed in the courtroom, with an amicus, or “friend of the court”, instead acting as an intermediary.
Justice Helen Winkelmann will oversee the discussion, which is believed to centre on evidence regarding police actions on the day of the helicopter raid on Dotcom’s Coatesville mansion last January.
A person would not want to be the Attorney General as the out come was unfavourable. I bet the phone has been running red hot from the beehive to Mexico.
The copyright industry is corrupt to the core. Affiliates of media corporations like Warner Brothers distributed file sharing software which in turn drove the copyright infringement allegations used by the corporations to argue for legislation like SOPA.
On te radio this morning there was a farmer describing the ‘drought’ conditions and indicators. One of the indicators he said was that one of the river catchments was at its lowest in five years! Five whole years!
Bennett recently came out with the shocking news that a man had been on a benefit for 25 years, her entirely inappropriate apology for the failure of MSD to help this citizen to find gainful employment, seem to leave me with the impression that he should have been thrown off the benefit and starved to death by now as it was not her problem, her ministry’s problem. I would suggest that government should be fined when people have not been helped by WINZ, and where WINZ cannot help, government step in and help create jobs when the unemployed languish in perpetual dependency.
Oh, wait, that what Labour did do, and got many (not all obviously) people into work.
To simply concentrate on this one individuals length of time on ‘the dole’ is ludicrous, until such time as unemployment in the Gisborne region becomes a factor of 1 person then the individual is simply fulfilling a useful social function,
He is surviving upon the least amount possible over a long period thus allowing others to gain employment and a higher standard of living,(perhaps),
The real question here is: if this particular individual in Gisborne found employment in the economy would this lower the amount of unemployed in Gisborne or for that matter the New Zealand economy???,
The answer to that is a big NO,under the auspices of the Neo-liberal economic paradigm THERE WILL BE BETWEEN 2-6% OF THE WORKFORCE ABLE TO WORK UNEMPLOYED, full stop,
There are NO ifs or buts to that little equation and given such economics it is pointless to be chasing people around over the length of time that they are unemployed…
Yes and No. The state failed to address the employment problem, maybe there is a job for this individual. You are correct though, its pointless expecting government to say sorry, and then do the right thing, instead government gets out and dictates that the outlier is somehow a representative sample, and means they can roll out a program of onerous costly coercive intervention on all which will just move the problem on that insecurity for some is a necessary part of our culture (as long as its hidden and tax payers pay to hide it!).
Mai Chen’s article in the Herald online this morning on the Supreme Court decision on Maori water rights vis a vis the partial sale of Mighty River is well worth reading – “Amber light flashing over sales”
Mai discusses the possible implications of the Court decision further down the track
…The court has also left it open over what may happen should the Crown fail to honour the commitment it made during the hearing that the sale process would not be relied upon to argue against Maori rights in water, or if the current reforms are seen to be an empty exercise. It may be that in enabling the part sale of the company to proceed, the court has also created a leverage point for claimants further down the track. …
On a related note, FYI Penny Bright – yesterday I had a call from Genesis Energy with a good one year deal which meant that all things going to plan, I am about to become an ex-customer of Mercury Energy. Once the Supreme Court decision was out, I had decided to move from Mercury anyway, but being somewhat of a procrastinator had not yet done anything about it. I was one of the many thousands who left Contact a few years ago when they or rather their directors became too greedy.
Yes, I know, Genesis is also on the starting blocks to go to partial sale; but if this happens during the one year deal or is about to, I will just move to someone else at the end of the one year contract.
“Prime minister John Key has made a lasting impression on Colombia – donning a sombrero at a joint press conference with President Juan Manuel Santos.”
jesus wept andrea vance, ive seen some pathetic reporting in my time, but “prat puts on hat” is a new low
The Herald is no better. In an otherwise serious article, Claire Trevett chimes in with a question about how hot John Key thinks the Mexican President’s wife is:
However, Mr Key feigned ignorance when asked about the beauty of Mr Pena Nieto’s wife – a stunning actress.
“I didn’t notice,” he said, when asked before adding “Bronagh told me to say that.”
It’s about the directors of MRP getting some extra money to do the job that they signed up for, but this bit:
It came as a Treasury document revealed directors at the company expected their daily fees to increase and wanted the Government to do it so they didn’t have to at the first shareholders’ meeting.
That’s talking about their ‘expectation’ of fees increasing post float.
They want the government to do it now so they won’t have to get the approval of shareholders. That kind of implies that asking the shareholders would be awkward, or undignified, or something.
But hang on a second, the govt is retaining 51%.
So asking the government now, or asking the shareholders after listing is of no material difference. Except for the look of the thing, for all concerned.
I suspect Key just insulted the entire population of Colombia and showed them what a moron he is.
Claire Trevett would have insulted Mexico if anyone there knew who she was.
Bloody schoolkids, the lot of them. Emotionally stunted retards who know nothing except hero worship and allegiance to a bullshit neoliberal bankruptcy.
The privatisation of power is proving to be the catalyst for a popular uprising in Bulgaria.
Escalating power prices by privatised power corps have become the last straw.
The right wing regime has been forced to resign.
The question is: will the people be fooled into handing over there newly won power to a bunch of political crooks or not.
They are demanding that the people directly vote for MPs without party intermediaries.
This is halfway to forming their own socialist government based on local, regional and national democratic councils, as this revolutionary left article points out.
another stream here http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
regardless of your views of the man, what he is speaking on is essential, your right to live as a free person, that is what is at stake, that is what the future is about, not your bank balance
Look out for this tomorrow – copied from Hot Topic
Symptoms too serious to ignore: a call to face up to NZ’s critical risks
Gareth Renowden
This post is syndicated from Hot Topic » Gareth – Original Post
A loose affiliation of New Zealand’s great and good will launch an appeal to parliament next week, asking for a dispassionate and non-partisan risk assessment of the “unprecedented threats to our collective security” facing the country as a result of climate change, fossil fuel extraction and economic uncertainty. The Wise Response group features poets, writers, All Blacks, academics, surgeons and scientists amongst its first 100 supporters1, and will launch its appeal at a public meeting in Dunedin on March 8th.
In its appeal the group identifies critical risks in five areas:
1. Economic security: the risk of a sudden, deepening, or prolonged financial crisis. Such a crisis could adversely impact upon our society’s ability to provide for the essentials, including local access to resources, reliable supply chains, and a resilient infrastructure.
2. Energy and climate security: the risk of continuing our heavy dependence on fossil fuels. Progressively restricting their extraction, importation and use could promote a switch to genuine renewables and encourage smarter use of existing energy and energy systems while creating better public transportation. Such responses would simultaneously lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
3. Business continuity: the risk exposure of all New Zealand business, including farming, to a lower carbon economy. To mitigate this risk, all businesses could explore both market and job opportunities in reducing the human ecological footprint, finding substitutes for petroleum-based goods and services, increasing efficiencies and reducing waste in food and resources. This would position New Zealand as a market leader in low-carbon technologies and living arrangements.
4. Ecological security: the risks associated with failing to genuinely protect both land-based and marine ecosystems and their natural processes. We believe that such protection is essential for both the maintenance of indigenous biodiversity and ultimately, all human welfare.
5. Genuine well-being: the risk of persisting with a subsidised, debt-based economy, preoccupied with maximising consumption and GDP. An alternative is to measure progress by means of indicators of community sustainability, human well-being, more equitable wealth-sharing and environmental resilience, and to incorporate full-cost pricing of harmful environmental impacts.
The group is looking to build support both inside and outside parliament for a detailed risk assessment of how these issues might impact New Zealand, and is hoping this will lead to:
…robust cross-party strategies and policies to avert these risks and give future generations the very best chance of security, peace, social justice and opportunity for all.
There’s much to like in the group’s appeal statement, but what I find most encouraging is that a diverse group of prominent New Zealanders is looking to make our politicians face up to the harsh realities of the modern world. I don’t imagine that John Key and his government will pay much attention — they’re too wedded to the all growth, all the time dogma for that — but with luck and persistence, the group may be able to start building a consensus around the things that we really need to do as a nation. That’s something I’m only too happy to support.
The Otago Daily Times lists Brian Turner, Wayne Smith, Fiona Kidman, Glenn Turner, David Thom, Philip Temple, Anne Salmond, Julian Dean, Owen Marshall, Morgan Williams, Chris Trotter, Bruce Burns, Richard Langston and Anton Oliver amongst others.
Stephen Franks loses it when he hears the dread word: “democracy”
“The Panel”, Radio New Zealand National, Thursday 7 March 2013
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Ali Jones
A group of prominent southerners has called for a risk assessment for the whole of New Zealand. They are concerned about the environment, and the government’s attacks against local democracy. Of course, Stephen Franks, ACT lawyer, lawyer for the S.S. Trust and general far right whacko, is not impressed by all this outrageous talk about democracy….
JIM MORA: A group of prominent southerners has called for a risk assessment for the whole of New Zealand. They are concerned about the environment,
JIM MORA: Professor Sir Alan Mark joins us. Professor Mark, good afternoon.
PROFESSOR SIR ALAN MARK: Good afternoon.
MORA: Stephen Franks has compared this campaign to the ill-fated Citizens for Rowling in 1975.
PROF. ALAN MARK: It’s actually far more like the Save Manapouri campaign, and the anti-nuclear ships campaigns.
STEPHEN FRANKS:[spluttering] They were all ABSOLUTELY USELESS! Utterly useless! You couldn’t PAY me to go to this. I see it as Morning Report crystallized!
ALI JONES: I see it a real lack of democracy in Christchurch. It is a real problem. And I complained about the last government too, so it’s not narrowly political.
PROF. ALAN MARK: The Resource Management Act is being gutted.
STEPHEN FRANKS: That was a DEMOCRATIC DECISION! The government is responding to what the people want! I’m just concerned that there are these SLOGANS! Where are the new ideas?
ALI JONES: I think it’s really spurious for Stephen to suggest that democracy is an excuse.
FRANKS: Oh, it’s just a big MOAN. Whining without producing solutions!
[Franks continues to drool, spit, snarl, slobber and yelp for several minutes while his interlocutors maintain a horrified silence….]
I think Steve may have his knife into the RMA. Thre was a electoral meeting in Wellington a while back when he was standing as a candidate for something or other and most of his spiel consisted of telling the audience how the RMA consent from the Council for his driveway/garage? had cost $35000. Real man of the people stuff, a lot of people don’t even earn that much in a year.
Frankly, (sorry), Stephen Franks is one of your “came-to-it-later-in life-after-shades-of-parading-as-a-lefty”, right-wing nutbars. Douglas, Moore, Caygill et al. I was at VUW 33-37 years ago. Focused on the same “discipline” as said Stephen.
Kia Ora re the train trip through the Soviet Union Stevo. Authorities stopped the train for hours at western border ??? A mate of mine travelled with you.
a website for which I take full personal responsibility for content.
Also on this above-mentioned website are copies of my key legal submissions, as an Appellant in my own name, so people can read them for themselves.
The main reason I organised the setting up of this website, was to counter the defamatory lies about myself being spread by Suzette Maree Dawson, which she has published on her own private websitehttp://occupysavvy.com
Suzette Maree Dawson published on her above-mentioned private website a statement by Ben Cooney (‘Redstar’) during his livestream video coverage of the protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) protest on 8 December 2012:
“There’s Penny Bright – SIS informant”.
The FACTS are, that I was one of 12 people responsible for organising Auckland anti-Springbok Tour protests in 1981, I was named in Muldoon’s SIS list as a ‘subversive’, and have never been able to get a copy of my SIS file.
If people think I’m going to put up with these sorts of filthy defamatory lies, when I have had a proven track record going back over 40 years as an activist – think again.
I strongly recommend that those involved in the ‘protest’ / ‘activist’ movement, exercise commonsense and due diligence?
If people come from nowhere, with no proven track record in the ‘protest’ / ‘activist’ movement, and make a beeline for controlling the message, or means of getting the message out – act in ways which cause dissension or conflict within the group, spread misinformation / disinformation about people, without facts and evidence to back it up – BEWARE!!!
Being involved in ‘media’ gives such people the ability to mix and mingle and take photos from inside the ranks of the ‘protest’ movement.
Where exactly are those photos going?
BEWARE of those who act like the 1%, without openness, transparency or democratic accountability.
Why is it that as a (successful) Appellant in the Occupy Auckland Appeal, I cannot post this information up on the Occupy Auckland facebook page?
WHO are ‘Admin’ currently responsible for the Occupy Auckland facebook page, and why am I being blocked?
I note a Press Release up on Scoop – in the name of Occupy Auckland.
Who put out this Press Release?
On whose authority?
As a NAMED APPELLENT in this Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal – I for one was never contacted by this now mysterious, anonymous and apparently secretive ‘Occupy Auckland’ – who do NOT have permission or any authority to speak on my behalf.
WHO now are ‘Occupy Auckland’?
Without transparency – there is no accountability.
When / where was the Occupy Auckland General Assembly that discussed the Appeal, and authorised this Press Release?
I note that Suzette Maree Dawson and her private website ‘occupy savvy’ did NOT attend the hearing of the Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal, and did not publish any of my legal documents, which arguably played a role in helping achieve this significant victory for Occupy Auckland, both locally, nationally and internationally?
Remember Rob Gilchrist – the Police informant who infiltrated the animal rights movement?
I for one, am not interested in working with ‘idiots, sheep, amateurs, saboteurs or provocateurs’.
Decent people, with good hearts, brains, guts and a basic understanding of the principles of natural justice, are those with whom I will work, on an issue by issue basis, where we have common cause.
In New Zealand, we have the basic human right to ‘freedom of association’.
Those who choose to associate with Suzette Maree Dawson and/or Ben Cooney – that is your right and your choice.
But – please be advised that if you choose to associate with Suzette Maree Dawson and/or Ben Cooney, I will choose not to associate with you.
(The same applies to Linda Anne Wright – but that’s another story – update coming soon….)
FYI – here are ‘Minutes’ of Occupy Auckland General Assemblies – 1 February 2012 and 15 February 2012, which record agreed decisions on a number of matters:
MINUTES OF OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY
1 FEBRUARY 2012
RESOLVED BY CONSENSUS:
“That Occupy Auckland endorse/support the PRINCIPLE of a draft Action Plan to prevent ‘White Collar crime, corruption and corporate welfare.”
OCCUPY AUCKLAND (General Assembly 1/2/2012) SUPPORTS THE PRINCIPLE OF A DRAFT ACTION PLAN TO PREVENT CORRUPTION – ‘WHITE COLLAR’ CRIME & ‘CORPORATE WELFARE’ IN NEW ZEALAND [DRAFT DISCUSSION DOCUMENT ONLY]
1. Get our anti-corruption domestic legislative framework in place so NZ can ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption.
2. Set up an NZ independent anti-corruption body tasked with educating the public and PREVENTING corruption.
3. Change NZ laws to ensure genuine transparency in the funding of candidates for elected public office and political parties at central government level
4. Legislate for an enforceable ‘Code of Conduct’ for NZ Members of Parliament (who make the rules for everyone else).
5. Make it an offence under the Local Government Act 2002 for NZ Local Government elected representatives to breach their ‘Code of Conduct’.
6. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Government elected representatives.
7. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Central Government staff responsible for property and procurement, (including the Ministry of Health), in order to help prevent ‘conflicts of interest’.
8. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Government staff, and Directors and staff employed by ‘Council-Controlled Organisations (CCOs) responsible for property and procurement.
9. Make it a lawful requirement for details of ‘contracts issued’ – including the name of the contractor; scope, term and value of the contract to be published in NZ Central Government Public Sector, and Local Government (Council), and ‘Council-Controlled Organisation (CCO) Annual Reports so that they are available for public scrutiny.
10. Make it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Central Government, and Local Government public finances be undertaken to prove that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority. If not – then return public service provision to staff directly employed ‘in-house’ and cut out these private contractors who are effectively dependent on ‘corporate welfare’.
11. Legislate for a legally-enforcable ‘Code of Conduct’ for members of the NZ Judiciary, to ensure they are not ‘above the law’.
12. Ensure that ALL NZ Court proceedings are recorded, and audio records made available to parties who request them.
13. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ Judicial ‘Register of Interests’, to help prevent ‘conflicts of interest’.
14. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ ‘Register of Lobbyists’ at Central Government Ministerial level.
15. Make it a lawful requirement at NZ Central and Local Government level for a ‘post-separation employment quarantine’ period from the time officials leave the public service to take up a similar role in the private sector. (Help stop the ‘revolving door’).
16. Make it a lawful requirement that it is only a binding vote of the public majority that can determine whether public assets held at NZ Central or Local Government level are sold; or long-term leased via Public-Private –Partnerships (PPPs).
17. Make it unlawful for politicians to knowingly misrepresent their policies prior to election at central or local government level.
18. Make laws to protect individuals, NGOs and community-based organisations who are ‘whistleblowing’ against ‘conflicts of interest’ and corrupt practices at central and local government level and within the judiciary.
19. Legislate to help stop ‘State Capture’, a form of ‘grand corruption’ arguably endemic in NZ – where vested interests get their way at the ‘policy level’ before legislation is passed which serves their interests.
[Feedback to Occupy Auckland can be sent c/- Penny Bright waterpressure@gmail.com to assist further debate/discussion/workshopping ]
____________________________________________________________________________
MINUTES OF OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2012
Minute-taker: Penny Bright
MINUTES OF THE OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY HELD ON SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2012 WERE AGREED BY CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO WERE PRESENT AT THAT MEETING TO BE A TRUE AND ACCURATE ACCOUNT:
……
ANNOUNCEMENTS: 15 FEBRUARY 2012 NEW EVENTS:
1) ‘AOTEAROA IS NOT FOR SALE’ PUBLIC MEETING:
DATE: Friday, 17 February 2012TIME: 7pm VENUE: Trades Hall, 147 Great Nth Rd, Grey Lynn
GA (General Assembly) agreed that Penny, on behalf of Occupy Auckland to take the following proposal (passed by unanimous consensus at the Occupy Auckland GA, Sunday 12 February 2012), to the above-mentioned ‘AOTEAROA IS NOT FOR SALE’ PUBLIC MEETING:
1) That Occupy Auckland support the new group that was formed on Thursday 9 February 2012, at the Unite Office 6A Western Springs Rd, Kingsland – ‘Aotearoa is not for sale’, particularly focusing on opposing the proposed ‘partial privatisation’ of State-owned assets.
2) That Occupy Auckland help organize opposition to proposed State-Owned asset sales, by making available to the public, hard copy ‘submission’ forms which can be sent to Treasury, who are organizing the ‘consultation’, (‘submissions must be in by 5pm 22 February, 2012).
3) That Occupy Auckland concentrate on public ‘outreach’ activities, co-ordinating with as many other interested parties / groups as possible, preferably on a daily basis, including, but not limited to publicizing:
a. Opposition to State-Owned asset sales.
b. Opposition to the NZ Food Bill.
c. Support for the Ports of Auckland workers.
d. Support for the Tamaki Housing Group.
e. Collecting signatures for the petition for an inquiry into the Huljich Kiwisaver prosecutions.
f. Collecting submission forms opposing the sale of State-Owned assets.
That the suggested public ‘outreach’ point be opposite the Auckland Town Hall on Queen Street, but if there are other events on at that time we go there.
That the form of this public ‘outreach’ be, banners on fence, fold-up table and chairs, clip boards, and ‘protest ponchos’. Penny is prepared to help organise this activity. …..”
Just looking at the Chavez RIP column got me thinking: for the Left Chavez was a real hero, flaws and all. On the news tonight people in Caracas were crying, wailing for their “Hero”. Like our own Michael Joseph.
I see Keith Locke saying that Key should go to Chavez’ funeral. And that he’s screwed up not doing so (or at least that’s how it’s reported on Stuff where it’s highlighted as a snub).
Yeah, I see that. Possibility of impressing Latin America etc, and that’s Locke’s reported line.
Well actually, to be fair, if he did contrive to go, I’d lash him as a showboat prick.
John Key whose heart beats for Wall Street is not fit to attend the funeral of a man whose heart beat for his people.
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The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Fonterra cooks the climate, Auckland Coal Action calls on everybody including farmers to protest.
http://aucklandcoalaction.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/mangatawhiri-mine-leaflet.pdf
Will farmers attend tonight’s meeting in Mangatangi?
Will trade unionists?
Will the Green Party?
Climate Change has the power to beggar us all.
As Helen Kelly writes: “We’re all beneficiaries now”
We all need to address this crisis collectively, Naomi Klein writes:
Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/148879-id-rather-fight-like-hell-naomi-kleins-fierce/#ixzz2MraubGko
http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/148879-id-rather-fight-like-hell-naomi-kleins-fierce/
Worth quoting from that Naomi Klein interview:
There are so many threads to this fight:
Absolutely there is one point we must face up to. The right instinctively understood absolutely from the outset that climate change was an existential issue for unrestrained capitalism; that any meaningful response from the left had to be quashed regardless of the science or the ultimate cost to humanity. The capitalists have absolutely, consciously chosen to eat the future.
Jenny … however irritating many people find her … is still absolutely correct. Yesterday I wrote a post about how this government is politically footling about quietly dismantling and neutering the mechanisms of environmental protection in this country. It’s a real and present issue. Yet the politics of this will all be rendered utterly moot and pointless if catastrophic climate change burns up our beloved and precious land anyhow.
Good interview
The only way to do that is revolution and even that is probably too late – they and us just will not change our habits or attitudes without personal contact with the effects of climate change and many of us are interwoven with capitalism overtly and covertly.
Sad in some ways but we are fucked because we are the capitalists and we have eaten the future – there is no them and us on this issue.
The question for me is what are we doing personally to adjust to the realities that are on the doorstep and creeping over the windowsills. Have we even begun to adjust our reality yet or do we need another superstorm to blow our house or community away and to make us realise that money is actually… nothing.
QFT
And that’s the message that the left needs to be talking about when it comes to climate change, the re-regulation of capitalism and protecting the environment.
I disagree. Capitalism is a gun, you can shoot yourself in the foot, or use it to see off danger.
The problem is the left does not hold capitalism up to the light, that National, Key, ACT, are
actually not capitalists any more than any union member is. Its how government distorts
capitalism that has created massive disparity, inequality, environmental instability, resource wastage. The left failed to hold the right to account, the right turned into a zombie plague, and now we have nobody on the right who actually reveres democracy or the rights of the individual, even property rights are pretty much destroyed if your beach home is flooded by rising sea levels, etc, etc.
Isn’t it obvious that the tired communist ranter was actively re-enforcing the status quo?
Why is Labour so inept, because it knows it doesn’t want to go hard left (correctly) but
is still incapable of holding up capitalism to the light. Capitalism isn’t the problem,
capitalism is part of the solution, the economic facet that allows citizens to consent,
question, control, society. The money supply, the printing press, is the sole responsibility
of the government, yet when National deride the Greens for wanting to use it, where are
the Greens and Labour deriding National anti democracy, neo-liberal mantra, that only
banks can print money. Silence in face of the corrupt practices endemic, the zombie plague
continues.
The last thirty years of western governments has been to
place the power into a private politburo (media-corporate without government oversight).
Its as if fascism and communism have been merged and destroyed both our very
livelihoods and our communities at the same time.
You also have a point. Crony corporate capitalism is the main poison. A normal sphere of capitalist creative destruction where the Government was naturally a major force in the markets on behalf of the people, would be a significant improvement.
You are very confused AB
The CC is not an aberration of capitalism, it is clear evidence that capitalism itself must destroy the planet as it goes into self-destruct.
Do you really think that capitalism can be reformed in the window of a decade or so before we hit the point of no return, if we havnt already?
We need revolutionary change, now.
That means a popular revolution by the vast majority who are workers, farmers, or unemployed as the result of capitalisms declining trajectory.
We are seeing instances of this in various struggles going on internationally from SA to Syria to right now Bulgaria and soon, bet on it, China.
We should turning our talents to mobilise this huge global majority as a democratic force to make this revolutionary change.
Let’s no fester over whether this will be called clean capitalism, 21st century socialism, occupy, or fuckemism.
The capitalists will not give up without a fight, already they jail, rend, murder, drive people to suicide, and otherwise try to wipe out serious opposition.
So an an organised armed majority of revolutionaries bent on survival is our starting point. You have to take your chances that you are on the right side and make the right decisions.
As Lenin said in as many words ‘suck it and see’.
And RR is not kidding about the suicides (being suicided?) either. The senior communications manager at a failing Italian Bank recently killed himself by jumping out of an office window.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-06/head-communications-italys-scandal-ridden-banca-monte-paschi-has-committed-suicide
I have taken the liberty of copying from a Forest & Bird Alert and Govt details of public meetings to be held next week, and following week, throughout NZ re proposals to change the RMA.
This follows on from Red Logix’ concerns yesterday about the govt “dismantling and neautering the mechanisms of environmental protection ….. It’s a real and present issue” ……
Forest & Bird E-Alert
Save the RMA!
Your right to have a say in what happens where you live is at risk with planned changes to the Resource Management Act.
This might seem a boring issue for lawyers and planners and Wellington bureaucrats. It’s not. It’s a real threat that will affect you.
As of this coming Monday, it’s time to stand up for the RMA law that has done so much to keep New Zealand the way New Zealanders like it.
You will probably know last week Environment Minister Amy Adams put out a discussion paper, in which she outlined her plans to change important parts of the Resource Management Act.
Overall, what she suggests would shift the balance away from the environment, towards economic efficiency and development.
It would also shift it very strongly towards Ministers and central government, away from communities.
Mrs Adams is rewriting the RMA as an economic development tool – not the framework for sustainable environmental management that it’s been for a quarter century.
Next week, the Government will begin a series of ‘consultation’ meetings on the changes – starting this coming Monday. It’s a rushed process, of which we’ve been given almost no notice, and we say that these meetings are a sham. It adds another to the long list of examples, such as with Christchurch, where this government has ignored our constitutional conventions, democratic processes, and people’s right to have their say.
But we can change that. A strong turnout from our branch members, all echoing the same message – that the RMA is fundamentally good law, and these changes are completely unacceptable – will show the decision-makers that New Zealanders, who love their environment, do have something to say that can’t be ignored. We’ve done it before, when we said ‘no’ to mining our national parks, and the RMA matters just as much.
(See below for) a list of meeting times.
……………
Next week, we’ll be updating our website with suggested questions and ‘the good, the bad and the really very ugly’ about the discussion paper, so keep checking back at this page.
And please forward this message to anyone else who might want to come along.
We hope to have a Forest & Bird Field Officer at each meeting, to answer media questions.
Public meetings and hui (extract from Govt website)
Public meetings and hui are being held throughout the country during March 2013. The details for the meetings are in the table below. If you would like to attend a meeting or hui you do not need to RSVP.
A number of venues are yet to be confirmed. This table will be updated as new information is available.
Mon 11 MARCH Public meeting Dunedin Kingsgate Hotel 10 Smith Street 12 – 2pm
Tues 12 Public meeting Greymouth Kingsgate Hotel 32 Mawhera Quay 12 – 2 pm
Public meeting Wellington Kingsgate Hotel 24 Hawkestone St, Thorndon 1 – 3 pm
Wed 13 Hui Gisborne Emerald Hotel 13 Gladstone Road 1 – 4 pm
Thurs 14 Public meeting Rotorua Copthorne Hotel 111 Fenton St 11 – 1 pm
Hui Distinction 39 Fenton St 6 – 8 pm
Fri 15 Public Meeting Invercargill Ascot Park Cnr Tay St and Racecourse Rd 12 – 2 pm
Public meeting Whangarei Kingsgate Hotel 9 Riverside Dr 12 – 2 pm Hui 3 – 5 pm
Mon 18 Public meeting Tauranga Classic Flyers NZ 9 Jean Batten Drive, Mount Maunganui 11 – 1 pm
Hui Maungatapu Marae 2 – 4 pm
Tues 19 Public meeting Hawke’s Bay Hawke’s Bay Opera House 101 Hastings Street South 2 – 4 pm
Hui 5- 8 pm
Wed 20 Public meeting Queenstown Copthorne Hotel & Resort Corner Frankton Rd & Adelaide St 1 – 2.30pm
Hui Taupo Great Lakes Centre 5 Story Pl 5.30 – 8.30
Thurs 21 Public meeting Palmerston North Kingsgate Hotel 110 Fitzherbert Ave 12 – 2 pm
Hui Whanganui Kingsgate Hotel 379 Victoria Ave 6 – 8 pm
Public meeting Hamilton Kingsgate Hotel 100 Garnett Ave, Te Rapa 11 – 1 pm
Hui 3 – 5 pm
Fri 22 Public meeting Christchurch The Atrium 455 Hagley Avenue 1 – 3 pm
Hui 4 – 6 pm
Mon 25 Hui New Plymouth Quality Plymouth Int’l Cnr. Courtenay & Leach St 2 – 4 pm
Public meeting 11 – 1 pm
Public meeting Auckland Copthorne Hotel, 196 Quay St 12 – 2 pm Hui TBC 3 – 5 pm
Tues 26 Public meeting Nelson Tahuna Function Centre 70 Beach Rd Tahunanui 3 – 5 pm
Hui 6 – 8 pm
Wed 27 Final Hui Wellington Kingsgate 24 Hawkestone St, Thorndon 12 – 2 pm
r0b: I have taken the liberty of removing the bold markup from this comment.
rOb – that’s okay – I really only wanted the bold on the bit introducing it …. but somehow can’t make bold work on only one part of the message.
Hi Jenny – see if this helps….
http://thestandard.org.nz/faq/comment-formatting/
Death by committee.
Sounds like a great big fat diversion.
Way to go to kill a campaign. Suck the oxygen right out of the room.
And suck the life force out of committed activists. Meanwhile back in the real world…..
Coal miners gear up to expand their mining operations and local communities and their supporters gear up to stop them.
Good business for the Kingsgate chain. Now how did they get that. Mot of those are small venues.
Notice how many of the meeting times are when people can’t go or not for long as they are at work. Consultation – rubbish.
Yesterday Xtasy commented: “Out of mischief, I think that all beneficiaries in this country should simply have their interests registered, and in the final minute withdraw or cancel it, turning the whole exercise into a gigantic shambles!
Now what about that strategy???
Yes more than the 340 thousand beneficiaries could do so, it could be half the population, who opposed all this, thus upset the whole registration and sales process, creating immense costs and inconveniencing the government in their plans.”
What if beneficiaries registered their interest en mass meaning the share parcels were then limited to $2000 for each applicant? I noticed on the website when I registered that you have to agree not to assign your shares to an overseas party (or words to that effect).
Q. Could beneficiaries like me assign or presell their share parcel in the above situation slightly above par value without actually paying money??
“It’s not just a matter of walking in and saying I want to sell up today.”
New share investors have to get a Common Shareholder Number (CSN) and a valid Faster Identification Number (FIN) before they can sell any shares as well as providing documentation such as their bank account, tax number and proof of residency.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10869666
Such good thinking ! And this is deliciously provocative from Mai Chen in Herald today on the reality of not a green light for asset sales, but an amber light only .. oh, if only she might be a Prime Ministger or Attorney General one day .. such rare and lovely clarity of mind ..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10869635
Listening to RNZ this morning I heard that IRD are disappointed in the low number of tax cheats who are high income earners ( top tax bracket) coming forward to fess up they are cheating the system. IRD have allowed a grace period for these evaders/dodgers to come forward which ends on the 31st of March. Sounds like they are stepping up their efforts to catch these thieves.
How about sending them to a mandatory jail sentence to stop this rort?
I’ve alwasy thought that the tax payer should be accountable for the tx they avoided, and that all epanlty payments should be split 50/50 between the tax payer and their accountant.
Are accountants held accountable at all for the schemes they invent? There is an implicit assumption that an accountants job is to minimise tax for their client, when it should be to get it right.
“Are accountants held accountable at all for the schemes they invent?”
Nope, it’s all care and no responsibility. If they make a mistake in your tax return it’s you that has to pay & who gets hit with the penalties. There is the tort of negligence but that’s often a hard one to win and very costly to pursue unless the sums are small.
[citation needed]
Just check all those extra ‘front line’ service resources the NACT gave them at it.
Now is the time to dob in all those ex brothers in law who don’t pay child support.
QOT if you are out there, as I feel you may have good contacts in this area, put the word out to all who have gone for an admin review to raise the point with the IRD tipline – that should net the first 10,000 dodgers.
And all the well off in your area whose kids are getting student allowances – show social responsibility towards these people.
Good video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_r97c_Oc6c&feature=share
Yes repost (it was buried)
Another disability fail: Blind unable to use rail ticketing machines
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869641
The rail system is pretty much a fail for the disabled, watched a person in a wheelchair getting left at a station beacuse the conductor never came down with the ramp, so the driver just left.
Then there’s all those level crossings without pedestrian gates that should operate with the barrier arms, 2 in Mt eden spring to mind. Kingdon St in newmarket should be the template for them all.
It’s a poor system, and definitely a fail for those with disabilities. The ticketing machines are not self explanatory to first time users with good vision. First time I attempted to load money on my Hop card, I gave up as the train was due, and ended up buying a ticket on the train.
The last time I took a train from my local station, 2 or 3 others were struggling trying to work out how to pay for a ticket.
Not the same response as other people.
I’ll have to point out that I haven’t used them yet myself as i hardly ever use trains and I’ve still got the Snapper/Hop card and not the proper AT Hop card.
The Artist Taxi Driver comments on the death of Hugo Chavez.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mJCkHM7L9A&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=2
The U$ and U$K will be eyeing Venezuela’s oil wealth probably by supporting elites to take over the country.
And so Nick Smith wants to “smash” Auckland’s metropolitan urban limit even though it is shortly to be replaced by the “rural urban boundary” which he seems ok with.
And the difference between the two?
The MUL is slightly stronger and permits less development outside it’s boundary whereas the RUB will be slightly more permissive.
But they are both designed to change Auckland into a compact urban form.
The repercussions of not having a MUL are clear through experience throughout the world, more sprawl, more need to rely on a car for transport, a less economically viable city and destruction of fertile land as the city expands. Development becomes more expensive and environmental damage increases.
Smith is using violent language to try and deflect criticism of the Government for not doing anything about housing affordability. Now they can blame Auckland Council.
It was good for Len Brown to stand up to Smith this morning. But stand by as National gets ready to undermine environmental protection and Auckland’s right to design a unitary plan so that Auckland grows the way that locals want it to.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2548392/housing-minister's-focus-is-to-open-up-land-supply.asx
Smith was brought back specifically to bully and shout his way through the hollowman script, Heatley was way too soft.
On a related matter I see Granny reporting a likely $28m windfall for the developers on housing corp land being flogged in sandringham so more affoprdable stock can be built.
Affordable and auckland in the same sentence…..mmmmm.
Actually, it’s more the $28m windfall and affordable in the same sentence that’s the problem. It’s another proof of the dead weight loss of profit and most won’t see it.
“On a related matter I see Granny reporting a likely $28m windfall for the developers on housing corp land being flogged in sandringham so more affoprdable stock can be built.”
I was just reading that article. Terrible reporting, writer doesn’t know the difference between nett & gross. The $28m is what they’d expect to sell all the houses for, not how much profit they’d make on them.
I’d have thought a site like that would be a good start on medium/high density housing, building town houses looks to be a waste of good land really.
Article here;
“Developers picked to net $28m from Crown land selloff”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869717
Yes and all those 100,s of HousingNZ ‘new affordable houses’ will be built in ummm aaah ummm,
Just another CON by the Slippery lead National Government, it’s flog it off to the developers as far as the land goes with a promise of ‘more affordable houses’ that has yet to materialize and undoubtedly wont…
micky, I was thinking to post about this issue this morning. Do you mind if I copy and paste your comment in full?
With pleasure Karol.
Thanks
I wonder how far Smith would get if he stood up in Wellington and demanded housing development in their Green belt? Hopefully he would be run out out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered or both. I suspect a few of the NACT mates want to build in the Waitakeres, and so why not, the Kauri are dying and they are not going to spend any more money on that, once they have all died out, then they can build up there. They will run right over Len.
Re: Anna Guy.
Would a Maori woman without the blue eyed and blond “cute” factor get this much cover for any of the extreme life crisis situations she goes through, arguably more than being the wife of someone suspected of murder but not found guilty.
Like to see how she goes hosting a show like ” So you think you know your husband..’ or ‘ Guilty ? you be the judge.”
Her continued exposure in the mag’s etc I find just a bizzarre indicator of modern society.
Further to my comments on deficiencies in the census enquiries. The interview this morning with the head of NZ ambulance service at St Johns made the point that they rely heavily on volunteers in the smaller towns, rural etc. The fire fighter volunteers were referred to as essential but he voiced the worry that this didn’t get so taken for granted that they were further loaded with being pseudo-ambulance workers replacing some of the ambulance services now provided.
Where in the census did it ask about this type of volunteering? The wording seemed to be slanted towards those looking after elderly or disabled others. A true picture of the volunteer work put into the nation would amaze I believe. Those providing national service like firefighters should have a special place with their own numbered question.
But for all volunteers needed is more information over an average week’s activity, not four weeks (need to zoom in). Then with daily hours indicated, and particulars about the work involved and how often during the year this occurs would organise the data into usable information.
Hello Prism, nice to see you.
Hello ER hope you’re over you’re stomach bug. Oh wait, that’s the other one. You’re the one who never gets boring. I don’t think we’ll have time for boredom this year.
Rio Tinto – aussies biggest employer of indigenous people – no wonder walsh is smiling
The spin
The truth
Smile why you destroy the earth, make money for yourself and your mates and oh, while you create a supply of people to carry out maintenance and repairs.
woops http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/8394064/RIO-CEO-is-minings-smiling-face
Legal ruling: Dotcom can sue the government.
The Dotcom case just gets more and more interesting – the April court hearings certainly will be!
Here is the Herald article on today’s Court of Appeal hearing, although it is almost word for word the same as the Stuff one.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869764
There does not appear to have been any further reporting on the very secret two day High Court hearing which started on Tuesday relating to the search and seizure of evidence.
http://t.co/ZPyMlK4vVO
A secret hearing regarding evidence in the Kim Dotcom extradition case is underway at the High Court in Auckland, with lawyers likely to be locked inside for two days.
The material under discussion is so confidential that even Dotcom’s lawyers are not allowed in the courtroom, with an amicus, or “friend of the court”, instead acting as an intermediary.
Justice Helen Winkelmann will oversee the discussion, which is believed to centre on evidence regarding police actions on the day of the helicopter raid on Dotcom’s Coatesville mansion last January.
A person would not want to be the Attorney General as the out come was unfavourable. I bet the phone has been running red hot from the beehive to Mexico.
GCSB and Police can both be sued.
Wonder what Dotcom has tweeted on twitter!
The copyright industry is corrupt to the core. Affiliates of media corporations like Warner Brothers distributed file sharing software which in turn drove the copyright infringement allegations used by the corporations to argue for legislation like SOPA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc
What is wrong with this situation……..
On te radio this morning there was a farmer describing the ‘drought’ conditions and indicators. One of the indicators he said was that one of the river catchments was at its lowest in five years! Five whole years!
He’s probably doubled his watertake since 2008 so yes its a real crisis…
indeed, it’s such a shame that he can’t run twice as many cows as he used to…
Bennett recently came out with the shocking news that a man had been on a benefit for 25 years, her entirely inappropriate apology for the failure of MSD to help this citizen to find gainful employment, seem to leave me with the impression that he should have been thrown off the benefit and starved to death by now as it was not her problem, her ministry’s problem. I would suggest that government should be fined when people have not been helped by WINZ, and where WINZ cannot help, government step in and help create jobs when the unemployed languish in perpetual dependency.
Oh, wait, that what Labour did do, and got many (not all obviously) people into work.
Someone who’s been on the UB for 25 years has other issues. Getting a job may help but probably not.
To simply concentrate on this one individuals length of time on ‘the dole’ is ludicrous, until such time as unemployment in the Gisborne region becomes a factor of 1 person then the individual is simply fulfilling a useful social function,
He is surviving upon the least amount possible over a long period thus allowing others to gain employment and a higher standard of living,(perhaps),
The real question here is: if this particular individual in Gisborne found employment in the economy would this lower the amount of unemployed in Gisborne or for that matter the New Zealand economy???,
The answer to that is a big NO,under the auspices of the Neo-liberal economic paradigm THERE WILL BE BETWEEN 2-6% OF THE WORKFORCE ABLE TO WORK UNEMPLOYED, full stop,
There are NO ifs or buts to that little equation and given such economics it is pointless to be chasing people around over the length of time that they are unemployed…
Yes and No. The state failed to address the employment problem, maybe there is a job for this individual. You are correct though, its pointless expecting government to say sorry, and then do the right thing, instead government gets out and dictates that the outlier is somehow a representative sample, and means they can roll out a program of onerous costly coercive intervention on all which will just move the problem on that insecurity for some is a necessary part of our culture (as long as its hidden and tax payers pay to hide it!).
Mai Chen’s article in the Herald online this morning on the Supreme Court decision on Maori water rights vis a vis the partial sale of Mighty River is well worth reading – “Amber light flashing over sales”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10869635
Mai discusses the possible implications of the Court decision further down the track
…The court has also left it open over what may happen should the Crown fail to honour the commitment it made during the hearing that the sale process would not be relied upon to argue against Maori rights in water, or if the current reforms are seen to be an empty exercise. It may be that in enabling the part sale of the company to proceed, the court has also created a leverage point for claimants further down the track. …
On a related note, FYI Penny Bright – yesterday I had a call from Genesis Energy with a good one year deal which meant that all things going to plan, I am about to become an ex-customer of Mercury Energy. Once the Supreme Court decision was out, I had decided to move from Mercury anyway, but being somewhat of a procrastinator had not yet done anything about it. I was one of the many thousands who left Contact a few years ago when they or rather their directors became too greedy.
Yes, I know, Genesis is also on the starting blocks to go to partial sale; but if this happens during the one year deal or is about to, I will just move to someone else at the end of the one year contract.
“Prime minister John Key has made a lasting impression on Colombia – donning a sombrero at a joint press conference with President Juan Manuel Santos.”
jesus wept andrea vance, ive seen some pathetic reporting in my time, but “prat puts on hat” is a new low
The Herald is no better. In an otherwise serious article, Claire Trevett chimes in with a question about how hot John Key thinks the Mexican President’s wife is:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869703
Serious question here – does this sort of crap serve any legitimate purpose in political reporting?
At best it’s ‘entertainment’ for idiots, at worst it is promoting Key’s ‘great Kiwi bloke’ image for free.
Check out this cozy little deal:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10815746
It’s about the directors of MRP getting some extra money to do the job that they signed up for, but this bit:
That’s talking about their ‘expectation’ of fees increasing post float.
They want the government to do it now so they won’t have to get the approval of shareholders. That kind of implies that asking the shareholders would be awkward, or undignified, or something.
But hang on a second, the govt is retaining 51%.
So asking the government now, or asking the shareholders after listing is of no material difference. Except for the look of the thing, for all concerned.
snakes, the lot of them.
soz, didn’t mean to put that in a reply.
“The New Zealand media will love this. Can’t wait to watch this back home.”
that is not rain on your neck
I suspect Key just insulted the entire population of Colombia and showed them what a moron he is.
Claire Trevett would have insulted Mexico if anyone there knew who she was.
Bloody schoolkids, the lot of them. Emotionally stunted retards who know nothing except hero worship and allegiance to a bullshit neoliberal bankruptcy.
My goodness I didn’t think tuna could get that big – I wonder how old it was.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869767
We know very little about the oceans and seas – I wonder if we’ll ever learn…
The privatisation of power is proving to be the catalyst for a popular uprising in Bulgaria.
Escalating power prices by privatised power corps have become the last straw.
The right wing regime has been forced to resign.
The question is: will the people be fooled into handing over there newly won power to a bunch of political crooks or not.
They are demanding that the people directly vote for MPs without party intermediaries.
This is halfway to forming their own socialist government based on local, regional and national democratic councils, as this revolutionary left article points out.
http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/councils-in-bulgaria/
Rand Paul talking for 9 hours. Impressive, considering he’s never said anything that’s worth listening to. http://israndpaulstilltalking.com/
another stream here http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
regardless of your views of the man, what he is speaking on is essential, your right to live as a free person, that is what is at stake, that is what the future is about, not your bank balance
He’s gone Godwin too.
Rand Paul Invokes Hitler in Opposing Obama’s Nomination http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a8a_1362593448 … #tcot #tgdn #p2 #filibuster #RandPaul
http://t.co/Dm0Gw1l4wK
Look out for this tomorrow – copied from Hot Topic
Symptoms too serious to ignore: a call to face up to NZ’s critical risks
Gareth Renowden
This post is syndicated from Hot Topic » Gareth – Original Post
A loose affiliation of New Zealand’s great and good will launch an appeal to parliament next week, asking for a dispassionate and non-partisan risk assessment of the “unprecedented threats to our collective security” facing the country as a result of climate change, fossil fuel extraction and economic uncertainty. The Wise Response group features poets, writers, All Blacks, academics, surgeons and scientists amongst its first 100 supporters1, and will launch its appeal at a public meeting in Dunedin on March 8th.
In its appeal the group identifies critical risks in five areas:
1. Economic security: the risk of a sudden, deepening, or prolonged financial crisis. Such a crisis could adversely impact upon our society’s ability to provide for the essentials, including local access to resources, reliable supply chains, and a resilient infrastructure.
2. Energy and climate security: the risk of continuing our heavy dependence on fossil fuels. Progressively restricting their extraction, importation and use could promote a switch to genuine renewables and encourage smarter use of existing energy and energy systems while creating better public transportation. Such responses would simultaneously lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
3. Business continuity: the risk exposure of all New Zealand business, including farming, to a lower carbon economy. To mitigate this risk, all businesses could explore both market and job opportunities in reducing the human ecological footprint, finding substitutes for petroleum-based goods and services, increasing efficiencies and reducing waste in food and resources. This would position New Zealand as a market leader in low-carbon technologies and living arrangements.
4. Ecological security: the risks associated with failing to genuinely protect both land-based and marine ecosystems and their natural processes. We believe that such protection is essential for both the maintenance of indigenous biodiversity and ultimately, all human welfare.
5. Genuine well-being: the risk of persisting with a subsidised, debt-based economy, preoccupied with maximising consumption and GDP. An alternative is to measure progress by means of indicators of community sustainability, human well-being, more equitable wealth-sharing and environmental resilience, and to incorporate full-cost pricing of harmful environmental impacts.
The group is looking to build support both inside and outside parliament for a detailed risk assessment of how these issues might impact New Zealand, and is hoping this will lead to:
…robust cross-party strategies and policies to avert these risks and give future generations the very best chance of security, peace, social justice and opportunity for all.
There’s much to like in the group’s appeal statement, but what I find most encouraging is that a diverse group of prominent New Zealanders is looking to make our politicians face up to the harsh realities of the modern world. I don’t imagine that John Key and his government will pay much attention — they’re too wedded to the all growth, all the time dogma for that — but with luck and persistence, the group may be able to start building a consensus around the things that we really need to do as a nation. That’s something I’m only too happy to support.
The Otago Daily Times lists Brian Turner, Wayne Smith, Fiona Kidman, Glenn Turner, David Thom, Philip Temple, Anne Salmond, Julian Dean, Owen Marshall, Morgan Williams, Chris Trotter, Bruce Burns, Richard Langston and Anton Oliver amongst others.
Stephen Franks loses it when he hears the dread word: “democracy”
“The Panel”, Radio New Zealand National, Thursday 7 March 2013
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Ali Jones
A group of prominent southerners has called for a risk assessment for the whole of New Zealand. They are concerned about the environment, and the government’s attacks against local democracy. Of course, Stephen Franks, ACT lawyer, lawyer for the S.S. Trust and general far right whacko, is not impressed by all this outrageous talk about democracy….
JIM MORA: A group of prominent southerners has called for a risk assessment for the whole of New Zealand. They are concerned about the environment,
JIM MORA: Professor Sir Alan Mark joins us. Professor Mark, good afternoon.
PROFESSOR SIR ALAN MARK: Good afternoon.
MORA: Stephen Franks has compared this campaign to the ill-fated Citizens for Rowling in 1975.
PROF. ALAN MARK: It’s actually far more like the Save Manapouri campaign, and the anti-nuclear ships campaigns.
STEPHEN FRANKS: [spluttering] They were all ABSOLUTELY USELESS! Utterly useless! You couldn’t PAY me to go to this. I see it as Morning Report crystallized!
ALI JONES: I see it a real lack of democracy in Christchurch. It is a real problem. And I complained about the last government too, so it’s not narrowly political.
PROF. ALAN MARK: The Resource Management Act is being gutted.
STEPHEN FRANKS: That was a DEMOCRATIC DECISION! The government is responding to what the people want! I’m just concerned that there are these SLOGANS! Where are the new ideas?
ALI JONES: I think it’s really spurious for Stephen to suggest that democracy is an excuse.
FRANKS: Oh, it’s just a big MOAN. Whining without producing solutions!
[Franks continues to drool, spit, snarl, slobber and yelp for several minutes while his interlocutors maintain a horrified silence….]
Those who want to move past Franks’s ranting denunciations and see what Professor Mark’s group are on about might like to look at this….
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/247834/what-are-risks
I think Steve may have his knife into the RMA. Thre was a electoral meeting in Wellington a while back when he was standing as a candidate for something or other and most of his spiel consisted of telling the audience how the RMA consent from the Council for his driveway/garage? had cost $35000. Real man of the people stuff, a lot of people don’t even earn that much in a year.
Frankly, (sorry), Stephen Franks is one of your “came-to-it-later-in life-after-shades-of-parading-as-a-lefty”, right-wing nutbars. Douglas, Moore, Caygill et al. I was at VUW 33-37 years ago. Focused on the same “discipline” as said Stephen.
Kia Ora re the train trip through the Soviet Union Stevo. Authorities stopped the train for hours at western border ??? A mate of mine travelled with you.
I know.
I love this small, tight knit country.
I’m enjoying these reviews, Morrissey, keep em coming. It’s actually much better than listening to the show. Sorry if that sounds like faint praise.
John Key’s Bad Will Tour.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/07/go-to-hugo-chavezs-funeral-john/
I thought the main reason John Key was going to Latin America was to drum up support for our bid for the revolving seat on the UN security council.
Way to shoot yourself in the foot, John.
FYI folks!
This is a significant legal victory, locally, nationally and internationally>
Statement by one of the successful Appellants, Penny Bright.
OCCUPY AUCKLAND WINS HIGH COURT APPEAL!
Mainstream media coverage:
Occupy Auckland barrister Ron Mansfield explains the ruling of Judge Ellis:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2548345/court-ruling-paves-way-for-more-action-by-occupy-movement.asx
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869644
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/occupy-auckland-protesters-win-appeal-against-eviction-ruling-5361876
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/occupy-auckland-protesters-win-appeal-against-eviction-ruling-5361876/video
http://www.3news.co.nz/Occupy-eviction-went-too-far—ruling/tabid/423/articleID/289259/Default.aspx
http://www.3news.co.nz/Legal-victory-for-Occupy-Auckland/tabid/423/articleID/289280/Default.aspx
http://www.bizbilak.com/news/occupy-auckland-protesters-win-appeal-against-eviction-ruling-tvnz
Please be advised, that as an Appellant in my own name, at no time did I express an opinion as a ‘Spokesperson’ for Occupy Auckland.
A copy of the Appeal decision of High Court Justice Ellis is available on
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz
a website for which I take full personal responsibility for content.
Also on this above-mentioned website are copies of my key legal submissions, as an Appellant in my own name, so people can read them for themselves.
The main reason I organised the setting up of this website, was to counter the defamatory lies about myself being spread by Suzette Maree Dawson, which she has published on her own private websitehttp://occupysavvy.com
Suzette Maree Dawson published on her above-mentioned private website a statement by Ben Cooney (‘Redstar’) during his livestream video coverage of the protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) protest on 8 December 2012:
“There’s Penny Bright – SIS informant”.
The FACTS are, that I was one of 12 people responsible for organising Auckland anti-Springbok Tour protests in 1981, I was named in Muldoon’s SIS list as a ‘subversive’, and have never been able to get a copy of my SIS file.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0711/S00086.htm
If people think I’m going to put up with these sorts of filthy defamatory lies, when I have had a proven track record going back over 40 years as an activist – think again.
I strongly recommend that those involved in the ‘protest’ / ‘activist’ movement, exercise commonsense and due diligence?
If people come from nowhere, with no proven track record in the ‘protest’ / ‘activist’ movement, and make a beeline for controlling the message, or means of getting the message out – act in ways which cause dissension or conflict within the group, spread misinformation / disinformation about people, without facts and evidence to back it up – BEWARE!!!
Being involved in ‘media’ gives such people the ability to mix and mingle and take photos from inside the ranks of the ‘protest’ movement.
Where exactly are those photos going?
BEWARE of those who act like the 1%, without openness, transparency or democratic accountability.
Why is it that as a (successful) Appellant in the Occupy Auckland Appeal, I cannot post this information up on the Occupy Auckland facebook page?
WHO are ‘Admin’ currently responsible for the Occupy Auckland facebook page, and why am I being blocked?
I note a Press Release up on Scoop – in the name of Occupy Auckland.
Who put out this Press Release?
On whose authority?
As a NAMED APPELLENT in this Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal – I for one was never contacted by this now mysterious, anonymous and apparently secretive ‘Occupy Auckland’ – who do NOT have permission or any authority to speak on my behalf.
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2013/03/vindication-for-occupy-auckland/
WHO now are ‘Occupy Auckland’?
Without transparency – there is no accountability.
When / where was the Occupy Auckland General Assembly that discussed the Appeal, and authorised this Press Release?
I note that Suzette Maree Dawson and her private website ‘occupy savvy’ did NOT attend the hearing of the Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal, and did not publish any of my legal documents, which arguably played a role in helping achieve this significant victory for Occupy Auckland, both locally, nationally and internationally?
Remember Rob Gilchrist – the Police informant who infiltrated the animal rights movement?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/760466/The-activist-who-turned-police-informer
Learn the lessons folks!
I for one, am not interested in working with ‘idiots, sheep, amateurs, saboteurs or provocateurs’.
Decent people, with good hearts, brains, guts and a basic understanding of the principles of natural justice, are those with whom I will work, on an issue by issue basis, where we have common cause.
In New Zealand, we have the basic human right to ‘freedom of association’.
Those who choose to associate with Suzette Maree Dawson and/or Ben Cooney – that is your right and your choice.
But – please be advised that if you choose to associate with Suzette Maree Dawson and/or Ben Cooney, I will choose not to associate with you.
(The same applies to Linda Anne Wright – but that’s another story – update coming soon….)
FYI – here are ‘Minutes’ of Occupy Auckland General Assemblies – 1 February 2012 and 15 February 2012, which record agreed decisions on a number of matters:
MINUTES OF OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY
1 FEBRUARY 2012
RESOLVED BY CONSENSUS:
“That Occupy Auckland endorse/support the PRINCIPLE of a draft Action Plan to prevent ‘White Collar crime, corruption and corporate welfare.”
OCCUPY AUCKLAND (General Assembly 1/2/2012) SUPPORTS THE PRINCIPLE OF A DRAFT ACTION PLAN TO PREVENT CORRUPTION – ‘WHITE COLLAR’ CRIME & ‘CORPORATE WELFARE’ IN NEW ZEALAND [DRAFT DISCUSSION DOCUMENT ONLY]
1. Get our anti-corruption domestic legislative framework in place so NZ can ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption.
2. Set up an NZ independent anti-corruption body tasked with educating the public and PREVENTING corruption.
3. Change NZ laws to ensure genuine transparency in the funding of candidates for elected public office and political parties at central government level
4. Legislate for an enforceable ‘Code of Conduct’ for NZ Members of Parliament (who make the rules for everyone else).
5. Make it an offence under the Local Government Act 2002 for NZ Local Government elected representatives to breach their ‘Code of Conduct’.
6. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Government elected representatives.
7. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Central Government staff responsible for property and procurement, (including the Ministry of Health), in order to help prevent ‘conflicts of interest’.
8. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Government staff, and Directors and staff employed by ‘Council-Controlled Organisations (CCOs) responsible for property and procurement.
9. Make it a lawful requirement for details of ‘contracts issued’ – including the name of the contractor; scope, term and value of the contract to be published in NZ Central Government Public Sector, and Local Government (Council), and ‘Council-Controlled Organisation (CCO) Annual Reports so that they are available for public scrutiny.
10. Make it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Central Government, and Local Government public finances be undertaken to prove that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority. If not – then return public service provision to staff directly employed ‘in-house’ and cut out these private contractors who are effectively dependent on ‘corporate welfare’.
11. Legislate for a legally-enforcable ‘Code of Conduct’ for members of the NZ Judiciary, to ensure they are not ‘above the law’.
12. Ensure that ALL NZ Court proceedings are recorded, and audio records made available to parties who request them.
13. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ Judicial ‘Register of Interests’, to help prevent ‘conflicts of interest’.
14. Make it a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ ‘Register of Lobbyists’ at Central Government Ministerial level.
15. Make it a lawful requirement at NZ Central and Local Government level for a ‘post-separation employment quarantine’ period from the time officials leave the public service to take up a similar role in the private sector. (Help stop the ‘revolving door’).
16. Make it a lawful requirement that it is only a binding vote of the public majority that can determine whether public assets held at NZ Central or Local Government level are sold; or long-term leased via Public-Private –Partnerships (PPPs).
17. Make it unlawful for politicians to knowingly misrepresent their policies prior to election at central or local government level.
18. Make laws to protect individuals, NGOs and community-based organisations who are ‘whistleblowing’ against ‘conflicts of interest’ and corrupt practices at central and local government level and within the judiciary.
19. Legislate to help stop ‘State Capture’, a form of ‘grand corruption’ arguably endemic in NZ – where vested interests get their way at the ‘policy level’ before legislation is passed which serves their interests.
[Feedback to Occupy Auckland can be sent c/- Penny Bright waterpressure@gmail.com to assist further debate/discussion/workshopping ]
____________________________________________________________________________
MINUTES OF OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2012
Minute-taker: Penny Bright
MINUTES OF THE OCCUPY AUCKLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY HELD ON SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2012 WERE AGREED BY CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO WERE PRESENT AT THAT MEETING TO BE A TRUE AND ACCURATE ACCOUNT:
……
ANNOUNCEMENTS: 15 FEBRUARY 2012 NEW EVENTS:
1) ‘AOTEAROA IS NOT FOR SALE’ PUBLIC MEETING:
DATE: Friday, 17 February 2012TIME: 7pm VENUE: Trades Hall, 147 Great Nth Rd, Grey Lynn
GA (General Assembly) agreed that Penny, on behalf of Occupy Auckland to take the following proposal (passed by unanimous consensus at the Occupy Auckland GA, Sunday 12 February 2012), to the above-mentioned ‘AOTEAROA IS NOT FOR SALE’ PUBLIC MEETING:
1) That Occupy Auckland support the new group that was formed on Thursday 9 February 2012, at the Unite Office 6A Western Springs Rd, Kingsland – ‘Aotearoa is not for sale’, particularly focusing on opposing the proposed ‘partial privatisation’ of State-owned assets.
2) That Occupy Auckland help organize opposition to proposed State-Owned asset sales, by making available to the public, hard copy ‘submission’ forms which can be sent to Treasury, who are organizing the ‘consultation’, (‘submissions must be in by 5pm 22 February, 2012).
3) That Occupy Auckland concentrate on public ‘outreach’ activities, co-ordinating with as many other interested parties / groups as possible, preferably on a daily basis, including, but not limited to publicizing:
a. Opposition to State-Owned asset sales.
b. Opposition to the NZ Food Bill.
c. Support for the Ports of Auckland workers.
d. Support for the Tamaki Housing Group.
e. Collecting signatures for the petition for an inquiry into the Huljich Kiwisaver prosecutions.
f. Collecting submission forms opposing the sale of State-Owned assets.
That the suggested public ‘outreach’ point be opposite the Auckland Town Hall on Queen Street, but if there are other events on at that time we go there.
That the form of this public ‘outreach’ be, banners on fence, fold-up table and chairs, clip boards, and ‘protest ponchos’. Penny is prepared to help organise this activity. …..”
______________________________________________________
Penny Bright
Occupy Auckland Appellant (in my own name).
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
2013 Auckland Mayoral Candidate
[lprent: Good win. Too long.. ]
Just looking at the Chavez RIP column got me thinking: for the Left Chavez was a real hero, flaws and all. On the news tonight people in Caracas were crying, wailing for their “Hero”. Like our own Michael Joseph.
Shearer??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Not much chance that Shearer is going to be PM for 2 terms let alone 4.
Something to watch.
http://billmoyers.com/content/watch-the-lord-is-not-on-trial-here-today-for-a-limited-time/
I see Keith Locke saying that Key should go to Chavez’ funeral. And that he’s screwed up not doing so (or at least that’s how it’s reported on Stuff where it’s highlighted as a snub).
Yeah, I see that. Possibility of impressing Latin America etc, and that’s Locke’s reported line.
Well actually, to be fair, if he did contrive to go, I’d lash him as a showboat prick.
John Key whose heart beats for Wall Street is not fit to attend the funeral of a man whose heart beat for his people.