Among the many thousands of documents, is Bad Science: A Resource Book – described in Merchants of Doubt as a “how-to handbook for fact fighters”.
Produced by the tobacco industry to help any industry fight any legislation that responded to scientific findings, this was a representation of big tobacco’s playbook in written form.
The book provided soundbites and ready-made talking points to arm any industry fighting regulation. Among the talking points the book suggested should be pushed home were:
Too often, science is manipulated to fulfil a political agenda.
Government agencies, too often, betray the public trust by violating principles of good science in a desire to achieve a political goal.
Public policy decisions that are based on bad science impose enormous economic costs on all aspects of society.
Get that denialists? All the climate change denial in the media and other formats is a concerted litany of lies from industry seeking to protect its profits at the expense of everyone and life itself.
Well, moron, you failed to understand what I quoted and that means that you failed to ask anything of any relevance. As you always do this it becomes fairly obvious that you’re nothing but a troll. Now fuck off.
Having read the article and your comment before I responded my questions are relevant the second one especially
The link quote and your comment indicate a belief that government is the problem however it is my contention that corporations who control influence and capture governments are the problem
In reality the two work together hand in glove
Completely agree about profit industry of all types using fraudulent and corrupt practices “at the expense of everyone and life itself“
That’s as close to personal as you will read from a comment of mine
Really?
Because your laziness in refusing to do your own (incredibly easy) research and insisting we do it for you, your constant passive-aggressive questions, and your overwhelming arrogance are individually and collectively pretty fucking insulting.
Just because you don’t use rude words, it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a prick than the rest of us.
Funny, because the fact you couldn’t resist the wee quip about acceptance makes you an honorary member. If you were a tenth of the person you thought you were then you’d have resisted it.
That’s what really gets under my skin – there are lots of morons I ignore, both here and in real life. But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else. You couldn’t even manage a simple google search, for fucks sake.
What any normal person with a barrow to push would have done is looked up all the vaccines on the NZ schedule and then on to other vaccines, looking for one or two cases of research fraud / undisclosed conflicts of interest. But no, you had no idea what you were talking about from the very start. Hell, you probably just plagiarised the “gold standard” talking point from some antivax site.
As it is, the only confirmed case of research fraud relating to vaccines is wakefield. I’m moderately surprised that you couldn’t find even one from the other side.
Funny, because the fact you couldn’t resist the wee quip about acceptance makes you an honorary member. If you were a tenth of the person you thought you were then you’d have resisted it
Actually it was a genuine query I would be interested to learn who is in the ‘us club’
Q. Do you believe you can understand what I think of myself through the comments I post on an anonymous blog site ?
Q. Are you regarded as the ‘funny one’ amongst your friends ?
That’s what really gets under my skin
Q. You let discussions on this site get under your skin ?
there are lots of morons I ignore, both here and in real life. But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else.
Q. You’re labeling other people as morons while projecting accusations of superiority in my direction ?
You couldn’t even manage a simple google search, for fucks sake.
Be it deliberate or otherwise you still can’t grasp the basic grounds why I do not have provide a single shred more than I already have to support the position of ‘no compulsory’
What any normal person with a barrow to push would have done
Do you understand your words are making a case for my inferiority which runs counter to the core premise of your comment which is that I believe I am superior
Do you understand you’re words are making a case for my inferiority which runs counter to the core premise of your comment which is that I believe I am superior
You failed to understand the comment. Notably the bit “But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else” (my italics).
Exhibit A: calling me “confused” based on your own failure to understand basic English.
Exhibit B: forgetting the contents of a sentence that you’d cut&pasted just a few lines previously.
Whether you want to provide evidence for your nutty claims or not is no skin off my nose. Demanding that I do your work for you, on the other hand, is what I found to be fascinating. A bit like a borer grub, in many ways.
You failed to understand the comment. Notably the bit “But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else” (my italics).
I understood it perfectly but am not surprised to see your attempt to explain it away
@ OAB – The vaccination rates are dropping regardless
If you had understood it, you wouldn’t have gotten my “core premise” wrong.
Your idiocy supports my core position that you are a moron who has an undeserved sense of superiority. You focussed too much on your sense of superiority and missed the other component of my position, which is that you are a moron.
I’ll try to use more simplistic terminology for you:
Go and learn about the relationship between banks and the insurance companies specifically around conflict of interest between a number of primary business functions and operational strategy
See if you can identify where the conflict may encounter barriers preventing your fantasy of insurance industry driven prevention of environmental destruction
If you still don’t understand that relationship then read the section marked – The financiers of the war and military industrial complex and who are the primary beneficiaries
Q, Why do you refer a request for information from someone as an “offer for you to provide explanation”?
Q. Is it because you view other people giving you information as you giving them a gift of your attention, rather than them giving you the actual gift of knowledge?
TM: you’re not going to convert the faithful unfortunately, but your addressing to others and particularly various info and insights provided have indeed been useful.
This from Macskasy over on TDB (not yet up on his Frankly Speaking blog) is a good summary of the Northland byelection. The TV3 poll and strategy have already been well examined on posts on TS. However this instance of implausible deniability is important and thus far unaddressed:
In the TV3 video with Gower’s voice-over, note Osborne’s response (at 2:16) to an off-video question regarding the curious circumstances surrounding Mike Sabin’s sudden resignation from Parliament on 30 January;
“Ah, I’m not aware of the situation or the circumstances behind it.”
Then note Peters’ response (at 2:20) to Osborne’s comment;
“They all knew. And at the top. Including my opponent, who was a Treasurer of the organisation.”
If Peters is correct and Osborne was (is?) the Treasurer of the Northland Branch of the National Party – then it is inconceivable that he was unaware of Sabin’s situation and the police investigation.
The whole lot of them knew Osbourne was Treasurer at the time and Chair at another
time. One of the Northland Executive’s gave it up publicly it was too late to select another candidate. That’s why Osbourne is covering his arse.
See Gower is still turning the taps on and now off on Peters.
I recall some commenters here saying that it was easier to let Sandra Lee take the Auckland Central seat in 1993 than dislodge Prebble from it. Perhaps it is a similar situation of a single faction having the NP Northland selection process all sewn up.
They have got it all sewn up, the popular farmer gets done over by a Carters patsy bean counter. This is a move to ‘super city’ Northland and Carter is lining up his ducks.
Osbourne adds about Sabin “I still have no idea what he has done”oh give us a break.
Poor Mr Osborne, he will trip and stumble and land very flat on his face if this keeps up … he has received a hospital pass woefully disguised as a safe seat.
It is always great for me to read or hear dr marilyn waring. she spoke with kim hill this morning. well worth the listen for all kiwis.
i have learned alot from the fact that my favourite NZer of all time was a National Party MP.
She was and remains a revolutionary. If she were a man she would have been knighted a long time ago. perhaps the damehood was offered and she turned it down.
kudos Marilyn for working so hard to speak truth to power and changing our world for the better.
I wouldn’t call her a “revolutionary”, but she’s an interesting character. She was possibly the most progressive MP in parliament during the Muldoon era. She was also the first more-or-less open gay MP.
It was quite interesting at the time watching how Labour and National handled homosexuality. When Muldoon gay-baited Labour MP (and former agriculture minister) Colin Moyle, Rowling dumped him like a hot brick and he had to resign his seat. Lange walked into parliament over Moyle’s corpse, something I thought at the time absolutely stank but which people seem to have forgotten.
By contrast, when the Truth newspaper ‘outed’ Waring, Muldoon just shrugged it off.
It was easier to be a gay MP in the National Party, even in a rural/conservative seat (she was MP for Raglan and they stuck by her when she was ‘outed’) than in the Labour Party at the time – and, of course, it was a National MP (Venn Young) who was the first MP to try to get the anti-gay laws reformed and among the staunchest anti-gay bigots were Labour MPs like Mick Connolly, Dr Wall (who also tried to tighten the abortion laws and force the Auckland clinic to close and get its most prominent doctor prosecuted) and others. Several Labour MPs wanted it to be a criminal offence to ‘promote’ homosexuality by any sort of suggestion that it was a part of the ‘normal’ spectrum of sexuality.
People forget, or choose not to remember, just how socially reactionary the Labour Party was in the 1970s.
All good points but the reaction to Marilyn Waring v Colin Moyle, may also have to do with some sort of bias (we can turn a blind eye to gay women, but NOT gay men). Likely part of the legacy of Queen Victoria. But also men who have the power (especially back in the 1970’s) are less threatened by a gay woman, whereas a gay man could be hugely threatening for them (especially if they were unsure of their own sexuality).
I take your point about Labour in the 70’s. They were socially conservative as was the great (but not perfect) Norman Kirk.
you must be very experienced @ Tracey. That’s my experience also. But ask any drag queen or gay guy on the game (or indeed city taxi driver) and you’ll find that the actual incidence of male-to-male is probably about the same as female-to-female.
(boy! or rather ‘boi’, have I come across one or two total “on the down low” fuckups – not necessarily personally, but once or twice as well)
EDIT: I think there might need to be a ‘ :p ‘ after “you must be very experienced @ Tracey – just so you know I’m not having a go.
I’m constantly amazed tho’ by the stereotypical ‘blokehood’, just as I am by various attitudes in the ‘gay community; – such as all that “what plays in Vegas, Stays in Vegas bullshit” whilst all the while those PLAYERS keep shitting on their conquests.
Not sure why in the 21st C this shud still be an issue – but it is
Side note – the “Not sure why in the 21st C this shud still be an issue” thing is just a figure of speech, but it does buy into a liberal concept of continuous progress in civilisation and society. Looking back at the scope of the last 5,000 years, of course it just ain’t so.
Except he wasn’t gay ankerawshark. He was the victim of a dirty set-up.
When Muldoon gay-baited Labour MP (and former agriculture minister) Colin Moyle, Rowling dumped him like a hot brick and he had to resign his seat. Lange walked into parliament over Moyle’s corpse, something I thought at the time absolutely stank but which people seem to have forgotten.
@ Philip Ferguson:
That’s nothing like what happened. I was there (no, not in parliament) and through a set of circumstances found myself in the thick of it. It was “Dirty Politics” 1970s style, and Moyle/Labour were the innocent targets. A lot of people were badly hurt (one way or another) in the fallout from that affair, so it behoves people to get the facts correct.
her revolutionary-ness in my mind relates to her creating and advocating an alternative economic model which accounted for unpaid work and ecological factors. elements of which have been adopted widely outside nz.
standing before the ramparts of male structures and saying and acting to break them. i recall hwrald headlines when she cried while speaking in parliament and yet she was not silenced… which was the objective of the headline and mockery.
Yep, her work on economics is still far too radical for NZ. Imagine what NZ economic policy debate would be like now if she’d stayed in politics. Although it’s hard to see what party she could have belonged to given what happening post 1984.
Real change is going to have to be driven by organisations outside our formal political parties I think. Most of our political “leaders” are actually followers. Just look at Labour slowly coming around to the idea that maybe they need a different strategy in Northland. Followers, not leaders.
Indeed and it took the Canadians to do a Documentary on her and for TVNZ to play it at 2pm on a Saturday in the summer.
Who’s Counting?
Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics
some reviews
“Meeting Marilyn Waring on film will forever change your perception of justice, economics, and the worth of your own works. Watch this film.”
Gloria Steinem
“I give this film (and Ms. Waring, of course) every superlative…riveting, revealing, inspiring etc. It penetrates to the heart of the global, ecological, and social crisis that afflicts the world.”
Dr. David Suzuki
“A devastating critique of monetized economics, portrayed with compelling beauty and humor by Oscar-winning director Terre Nash. The film contrasts the vast, uncounted productivity of nature and women worldwide with United Nations-mandated national accounting systems rooted in military economics.”
Tranet
” Waring is one of the liveliest speakers I’ve ever heard…She also has an uncanny ability to put complex information into easily opened packages…If knowledge is power, WHO’S COUNTING is an empowering gift.”
Communities
“By contrast, when the Truth newspaper ‘outed’ Waring, Muldoon just shrugged it off.”
Not how I recall it .. it was darker than that. Marilyn’s partner was the former wife of an All Black .. a dramatic and complete heresy if ever there was one.
My recollection is that Muldoon refused to deal with Truth to intervene prior to publication, as was common with potential libel issues in those days. He believed the story would damage and weaken Marilyn and let it run. It did not harm her, and consequently he wrought utu upon his own head as it evolved.
Also worth remembering how Muldoon used the SIS ( or whatever it was called back then, I forget) in the shadowing and despicable attacks upon Colin Moyle. Maybe this is the part of Muldoon that Key truly models himself upon.
See here for the malice of Muldoon.
“Robert Muldoon (National, Tamaki, leader of the Opposition) got wind of the incident but bided his time, saying during the 1975 election campaign that he “had something” if the campaign turned sour.” (Top drawer, Mr Key ??)
As I wrote recently, the three politicians in NZ that I admire a lot for their courage of conviction and admirable guts, against tremendous odds are
* Marilyn Waring
* Jim Anderton
* Winston Peters
~Waring had come especially to disagree with the National Party policy over the issue of a nuclear-free New Zealand and, on 14 June 1984, she informed the leadership that she would vote independently on nuclear issues, disarmament issues, and rape but would continue to support the Government on confidence.
That evening Muldoon decided to call a snap election to be held on 14 July
~ Although many ordinary members of the Labour Party (who were unhappy at the way the party’s parliamentary wing was behaving) backed Anderton, he became increasingly isolated in parliament. When Anderton disobeyed party instructions to vote in favour of selling the Bank of New Zealand (which Labour had explicitly promised not to do), he was suspended from caucus. In April 1989, believing that Labour was beyond change, Anderton resigned from the party. He later said, “I did not leave the Labour Party; the Labour Party left me.”
On 1 May, Anderton announced the creation of the NewLabour Party, intended to represent the “real” spirit of the original Labour Party. Its primary goals were state intervention in the economy, retention of public assets, and full employment.
~Peters disagreed with the party leadership on a number of matters, and frequently spoke out against his party regarding them. In October 1991, Bolger sacked Peters from Cabinet. Peters remained as a National backbencher, continuing to criticise the party. In early 1993, he chose to resign from the party and from Parliament. This prompted a by-election in Tauranga some months before the scheduled general election. He stood as an independent and won easily. Shortly before the 1993 election, Peters established New Zealand First and retained his Tauranga seat. Another New Zealand First candidate, Tau Henare, unseated the Labour incumbent in Northern Maori, helping to convince people that New Zealand First was not simply Peters’ personal vehicle.
In the 1996 elections, the MMP electoral system the party won 17 seats and swept all of the Māori electorates. More importantly, it held the balance of power in Parliament.
This National Party government expands again its socialist credentials and communist leanings ………
Like farmers unable to attract free market financial support for their irrigation….
Like Chch CBD landowners scared of lowering property values….
Like Rio Tinto being unable to operator without welfare….
So too are Queenstown employers scared of the free market….. crying like babies to the gummint….. “wah wah wah we cant get anybody to do the cleaning on the minimum wage wah wah wah”…….
….. so instead of following the base rules of the free market and meeting the supply and demand dynamics by offering more money… they ask the gummint to allow in cheaper foreign labour….
Bludgers
Losers
Hypocrites
Slave-owners
They have no backbone. They cannot stand in the storm of the free market. They are weak. They are liars. They do not live by their words. They are poor specimens.
Yes, while he wrought misery on countless thousands here, he is earning – well being paid or troughing would be a better term! – shitloads of money advising governments in places like Mongolia how to inflict the failed experiment on their populaces.
What an utterly, utterly despicable creature. Someone without a single, redeeming feature.
Prebbo and Douglas completely f8cked up the Labour Party, along with 50% of Kiwis who fell by the wayside of their mad ideology. LP and NZ still hasn’t fully recovered 30 years later
I listened to some of this on the radio , no mention of training schemes for locals or paying them a wage that they can live on down there. Just wanting to expand the cheap labour supply.
Wondered if Queenstown will soon be filled with businesses owned off shore, staffed with people on work permits and patronised by tourists. Can’t see a lot of benefits there locally
You obviously don’t know Queenstown very well RedBaron.
The fact is that due to the very specific development path it has taken over the last 50 years or so, there simply are no Queenstown ‘locals’ to train for the vast majority of jobs available there.
Any Kiwi from outside Central Otago that turns up looking for a job is guaranteed one.
And yes there are quite a few off shore owned businesses, but there are far more kiwi owned ones, and they are doing a great job of liberating very significant funds from off shore visitors to the great benefit of not just Qtown, but the whole of the NZ economy.
You’d be laughed out of town if you came down and suggested the situation was otherwise!
I’ll ignore your comments about how well I know Q’town as they are wide of the mark.
When I say locals I am looking at a slightly wider definition than you appear to be.
To be more specific where are the training and employment courses followed by job offers in say Dunedin & Christchurch – where there is unemployment?
Where is the affordable employee housing that they can go to even if it is only a stepping stone to moving on to something of their own?
Do people even have the money to get to Q’town?
Interesting that immigration has a work permits office up at the junction but the government can’t be bothered funding the rounding up employers to sort out a training scheme.
And yes there are local businesses but most of the hotels and the like are foreign owned and would account for a significant portion of the wage earning force.
If you know Qtown well RedBaron, you know that QTown employers spread their net far and wide throughout the Southern regions and have very close contacts with all available points of contact for job seekers.
You would know that most Qtown employers are only too happy to provide training to suitable applicants, and that it is extremely common to assist suitable employees to get to and live in Qtown. You would even know that there are strategies in place and being developed to tackle the affordability of housing.
If you are unemployed in the South Island, or anywhere, you only need to type ‘Queenstown employment’ into google and you will find any number of jobs available for all kinds of occupations, including for unskilled workers.
If you do need training to get the kind of job you want, as above, it is highly likely a Qtown employer wil train you, but there are also any number of options available for that in any significant South Island City. (Why do you think there is not RB?).
Despite all that, if you know any Qtown business owner, they will tell you that for a long time now it has been absolutely impossible to attract and retain anything remotely like the required numbers of NZ workers to Qtown…
On the other hand there is a continuous stream of bright, enthusiastic and available workers from all round the World who are only too happy to take the opportunity to stay a while in Qtown.
It’s a practical world. Letting Qtown grind to a halt because of a lack of local employees would do far more harm to NZ than the current solution.
In the meantime, if you are a Kiwi and you want a job in Qtown, I guarantee you will be met with open arms.
Fuck are you an idiot lost sheep? Don’t you get the point here?
Free market rules.
Pay more.
That is what this National government is about. And it is entirely what Queenstown is about (we have a business operating from there so know first hand). Queenstown business owners are hard core right wing national party supporters, yet they cannot abide their own cry of free market.
It is a fail lost sheep. A big fucking fail. And it is a birdshit right on the top of their heads – what a bunch of wankers, calling for cheap foreign labour instead of paying market rates within NZ.
I’m guessing that Queenstown has a higher proportion of illegal jobs than the rest of the country. By illegal I mean jobs with no employment contracts and that ignore employment law. Under those conditions it’s pretty easy to employ transitory people from overseas than Kiwis who need stability and job security. My comment comes from talking to workers not employers.
But but but exploiting migrant workers proves that the market would give them all the labour they wanted if it weren’t for pesky minium wage and workplace safety regulations.
Just to insert a few facts into sheepie’s assertations.
I went onto Trade me and looked at the current QT jobs. Over a third of the ads where labeled part time or temp and many of these were for only a few hours a week or some dodgy commission base. So no adequate permanent income.
Of the supposedly full time jobs around about a third of these where similar to the above- lucky to receive 40 hrs at the minimum wage.
So over 50% of the jobs didn’t pay for 40 hours at minimum rates.
Of the remaing ads the bulk paid close to the minumum wage.
The few that made it to over $50k a year were for skilled tradesmen and a couple of professional jobs.
Actually even living in QT at 40 hrs minimum wage would be difficult. Rents are not low.
I didn’t calculate to the last %, as usual with Trade Me there are the double ups. And of course the temp staff places were there in force taking the usual $5-$10 an hour off people’s wages before they hand them over. Frankly, there needs to be a lot more pressure put onto employers to up their game rather than just issuing work permits if the country is ever going to get the unemployment stats down.
Who was that little Natzi that changed the face of Queenstown a couple of decades back?. (Again, genuine question). I think he became a Mayor after a Natzi term or two. Was it Warren Freer? – I may be confused. He’d have to be a Shipley disciple tho’ dontcha think?
Btw … is there anywhere else nearby that’d be worth damming – either for irrigaton of hydro ‘tuneties;? I haven’t been down that way for a while, tho’ I imagine there’d be a converted barn with a Mother Earth with a cooking programme on TV I could probably crash at. Maybe not now I’ve said that.
Ex Nat MP Queenstown mayor was Warren Cooper. Warren Freer was one of the old LP socialists. He wanted to intervene in the economy to keep prices down for consumers, with his Maximum Retail Price scheme. Was rubbished for it of course by media and Muldoon’s Nat Party.
Does anyone remember the delightful little exchange between Warren Cooper (who had been a house painter before politics) and Sam Neill back about 2000 when there was a lot of debate about pristine landscapes being invaded by rampant development? Cooper told Neill to butt out and stick to acting. Neill replied that he’d be delighted to do so if Cooper would stick to house painting..
The capitalists support it when it suits them and then favour different laws for different people when it doesn’t fit in with their interests.
Then they complain about the spread of relativism!
I still recall with amusement Village Idiot Gerry Brownlee banging on and on and on about “one law for all” when doing a bit of Maori-bashing in the early 2000s. Then the issue of civil unions came up and, hey ho big surprise, Gerry wasn’t at all in favour of one law for all but thought there should be different laws for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Because we have such a kiss-ass media, politicians often get away with this sort of hypocrisy.
They particularly say they do whenever workers want anything. Then, we are told, ‘the market’ says ‘no’ – rather like the computer in the travel agency in that skit in ‘Little Britain’.
At some point I want to write an article on how all these human powers are attributed to ‘the market’ like our primitive ancestors attributed power to fetish objects, and indeed all kinds of inanimate objects.
‘The market’ determines CEO pay. No, it doesn’t. A bunch of pals sitting round in an office determine it.
‘The market’ determines the pay of the low-waged. No, it doesn’t. The well-heeled bosses, who give each other pay rises, determine the wages of the low-paid.
‘The market’ is a thing, not a rational, thinking being. ‘The market’ is just a set of human economic interactions. And we can opt for a different set of human economic interactions.
How odd and irrational to believe that ‘the market’, a blind set of human economic interactions, delivers better results than conscious human economic planning based on meeting human need.
And, of course, all firms plan. They are all totally in favour of planning when it comes to themselves. And against planning when it comes to the level of society.
Capitalism and capitalist ideology really is irrational.
“Capitalism and capitalist ideology really is irrational”
Just like human beings. That is why, for all it’s imperfections, Capitalism works.
It is a system that allows all the various aspects of human nature to find a satisfactory expression to some degree, and as a result Capitalist societies have been capable of immense levels of successfully co-ordinated achievement.
In turn, that is why capitalist ideology is utterly dominant at this stage of human history.
Any theoretical system that fails to account for and accommodate the realities of human nature is doomed to fail. Real people will subvert it.
That is why Socialism has failed in the past and always will. It is predicated on the assumption that a majority of individuals within a society are willing to subvert their personal nature to Socialist ideology. They aren’t, and so the society doesn’t work.
You are incapable of taking on a point directly OAB.
Throw up a Red herring as a flimsy excuse for a post, back it up with some ad hominem abuse, and then cut and run…..
You are a true bigot. I mean that in the nicest possible way, and I’m sure you will take it as a compliment.
Nonsense. as DtB says, your assertion that Capitalism “works” is false, and so you have to throw in a strawman about Socialism, when you know perfectly well that people here support a Parliamentary Social Democracy, such as the ones that made many countries great, including this one.
Right Wing false beliefs screwed it up. Own it. Take some personal responsibility you pathetic loser.
and so you have to throw in a strawman about Socialism, when you know perfectly well that people here support a Parliamentary Social Democracy, such as the ones that made many countries great, including this one.
Made them great on the basis of a Capitalist economic system, with Social Democracy being one of the many threads of political influence that Capitalism happily accommodates.
But what do you mean by Social Democracy? Do you see it as a gradual movement to a purely Socialist system?
If so, my contention is that a purely Socialist system will not succeed, for the reasons I give above.
If you can provide examples of Socialist societies that disprove my contention, please do so?
Right Wing false beliefs screwed it up. Own it. Take some personal responsibility you pathetic loser.
And that demonstrates yet again that you are a bigot. And also hints at the nasty side that underlines so many ideologues. What happens when people with your political intolerance get to power? Stalin.
“Capitalism does a great job when it’s constrained by the requirement to do right by others: ie: Socialism.
As usual OAB your answer is so derivative it’s difficult to understand how it relates to the original point, but I will take that one as indicating that you agree Capitalism is the only workable economic system given the current state of human nature.
I agree completely there is a modifying influence of Socialist thought within Capitalist societies, but I would also include all the other strands of thought / morality / philosophy / culture that Capitalism can accommodate and be influenced by.
As I said above, the ability to embrace human nature in all it’s variation, complexity, and imperfection is Capitalism’s key attribute.
Rigid ideologies cannot encompass such a variation, and so inevitably they become oppressive.
“You no answer to Piketty because he’s right.”
Your entire counter argument is this and your previous statement that my assertion was ‘false’?
I will take that as a concession that you cannot offer any argument of substance, such as an example of a more successful system.
“Loser / coward”
Honestly OAB, save your childish and pointless abuse for people it might actually bother.
Lost sheep, in a thread about how free market capitalist employers are failing and so ask nanny state to hold their poor wee hands with some welfare, claims “Capitalism works”
ha ha ha – the best own goal ever
…
and back to the original point. Meet the market. Pay more money.
You seem to be under the impression that Capitalism works to a rigid set of rules VTO?
As i’ve been pointing out, adaptability is actually one of it’s great strengths.
In Qtown there are jobs available and people wanting to work in those jobs.
Rather than leave those jobs empty, or to keep in place a restraint that would cause a massive increase in the expense of visiting Qtown, a variation in rules has been made that allows those jobs to be filled, and for Qtown to stay viable and to keep pumping benefit into the economy.
That is successful adaptation, not failure.
“Rather than leave those jobs empty, or to keep in place a restraint that would cause a massive increase in the expense of visiting Qtown, a variation in rules has been made that allows those jobs to be filled, and for Qtown to stay viable and to keep pumping benefit into the economy.
That is successful adaptation, not failure.”
Queenstown can only “stay viable” if cleaners and the low-paid continue to be paid less than market rates and less than it costs to live there.
No point going to Qtown next weekend then VTO.?
Town will have ground to a halt because no one is willing or able to live there on cleaners and wait staff wages?
Because it is a practical and sensible solution to a difficult problem.
And this does not violate any law of Capitalism, because Capitalism in general does NOT have a rigid insistence that there should be no interference in the market, and in fact NO specific Capitalist economy operates that way. It would be stupid to do so obviously!
But while you are back here, why don’t you have a genuine shot at actually answering something directly?
Here’s a representative example from the thread above. It’s a clearly expressed, easily understandable and fair question directly related both to the thread topic and the post you made in which you stated “Social democracy is not a theory; it’s a fact.”
It can be answered as simply as yes or no, or it could be answered with any degree of complexity.
But my challenge to you is that you answer the point directly OAB. No red herrings, no abuse, no diversions, no ad hominem.
Just a straight forward clarification of the the question arising from your post.
Heck, if we can ease our way past this hurdle we might even be able to work our way up to conducting a genuinely rational debate!
so here goes….
“What do you mean by Social Democracy? Do you see it as a gradual movement to a purely Socialist system?”
I’ve sat through many fascinating (and quite a few more boring) discussions where highly intelligent people discussed the nuanced distinctions between social democracy and democratic socialism, and whether one is an incremental transition to the other.
I suspect they were significantly more enlightening than anything TLS will provide, but I’ll get the popcorn ready in case someone wants to play.
No, TLS, you are the ideologue, not me. Your witless slurs on Socialism, and wide-eyed sycophancy for Capitalism betray you.
You failed to back up your rash remarks and were then forced to admit that implementing pure Capitalism would be stupid.
I’ve made my position perfectly clear. As for transitions to some form of ideal, they’d better be gradual and make an improvement before they’ll get much support from me.
There are plenty of right wing policies to drag around the back of the barn and kill with an axe first.
Perhaps you could set up a lead McFlock? Where do you sit on the matter?
If someone else were to venture a wee flag in the sand OAB might not feel quite so shy about committing himself to a definite position?
(edit) I’ve been involved in many an entertaining skirmish on the topic myself, and just an observation, but I find it there is always one sticky point that comes up with Social Democracy theory.
It is that point where you either retain elements of Capitalism, or you cross over into pure Socialism.
It is a very narrow and hazardous bridge to cross in my experience.
I’m sure OAB wouldn’t have introduced the topic if he thought it was too problematic for TS McFlock. That would be like suggesting Capitalism was a topic we could not prod.
So I await OAB’s discussion.
The topic was only introduced as a counterpoint to your false narrative. You remember, where you started inventing labels for the things you don’t understand.
“were then forced to admit that implementing pure Capitalism would be stupid.”
I wasn’t forced to admit that OAB, because at no stage did I say that i supported ‘pure Capitalism’. In fact, if you bothered to actually read my posts, you would have picked up that my core argument was that it was the ability of Capitalism to encompass and adapt to a wide variety of influences that was it’s core strength. Sigh. Perhaps that is too subtle a worldview for you.
I ran the rest of your replies through a solid materials detector, and among the smoke and mirrors, the total actual substance detected was as follows….
“As for transitions to some form of ideal, they’d better be gradual and make an improvement before they’ll get much support from me.”
I think this is as close to a definitive statement as I’ve seen you yet make. Fuck all concrete and sincere in other words.
But it’s a start, and something to work on.
So what is your ‘form of ideal’? Does that encompass elements of capitalism? If not, how is your ideal structured? See if you can nudge closer to something personal and genuine this time….
And I agree completely that for anything to be considered a ‘success’ or ‘working’, an improvement over what conditions were before the measures were taken is as good a definition as any.
This surely is where it becomes very difficult to deny that Capitalism has been successful?
For all the imperfections we can identify, the evidence that Capitalism works and has been successful is substantiated by even the briefest review of world history since 1650?
Capitalist economies have been the engine driving a period of advancement that utterly dwarfs the achievements of any other period in history under any other system. Consider the range of indicators you would use to say whether a society has improved or not over a period of time…
And then give me a rational argument that capitalism has not been successful?
And tell me what system has proved more successful, or in your opinion would be more successful?
the ability of Capitalism to encompass and adapt to a wide variety of influences
What a load of shite. Capitalists, when they can’t threaten capital flight at the slightest sign of pro-human policy, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to regulation.
As soon as they get a chance, they buy a National Party and destroy anything they can get their hands on: like you destroying collective bargaining, for example.
Pretending that Social Democracy is the same as Capitalism is the only argument you’ve got, and it’s utter bollocks.
“Pretending that Social Democracy is the same as Capitalism is the only argument you’ve got, and it’s utter bollocks.”
Even for you that is taking avoidance to a seriously whacky level OAB!
You are piss your pants running scared of ever being caught holding a definite position that could be challenged. An intellectual coward in fact. But then Bully’s usually are cowards at heart.
Stooped? You’ve never attained OAB’s altitude.
Nor did you explain where, ‘in your experience’, you saw a transition from semi-capitalist social democracy into pure socialism.
I must be gutter scum indeed then McFlock, if a pathological obsession with bullying political opponents on an anonymous on line blog is your standard of excellence. sarc.
“Nor did you explain where, ‘in your experience’, you saw a transition from semi-capitalist social democracy into pure socialism.”
Well, no, because what I actually posted was that this is indeed an inevitably sticky, narrow and hazardous bridge to cross.
That is why I asked OAB, twice, (who introduced the subject), to define what exactly he meant by the notoriously variable term ‘Social Democracy’.
But as OAB has declined to clarify his beliefs with any more detail than ‘making an improvement’ I am happy to stick my neck out and stake a further concrete opinion.
At the point you cross into ‘Pure Socialism’, your system cannot be ‘Social Democracy’.
Unless you are accepting that the terms are synonymous? In which case there is a bit of apparent semantic contradiction to explain?
But if your vision of ‘Social Democracy’ is different from ‘ Pure Socialism’, then it should be a simple matter to explain what that difference is?
And whether that difference incorporates any elements of Capitalism?
In my experience the more ideologically rigid people who claim to believe in some form of ‘Social Democracy’ find it extraordinarily difficult to make concrete statements about those two points.
I believe the difficulty is in conceding that there is anything at all that is beneficial in Capitalism, while at the same time being unable to reference highly successful examples of non Capitalist systems?
But I’m happy to be proven wrong by those willing to venture a genuine rational argument?
That is why, for all it’s imperfections, Capitalism works.
Except for the fact that it doesn’t as shown by all the poverty that it creates, all the recessions that increase that poverty even more while the rich get richer and the collapsed societies throughout history.
No.
The evidence that Capitalism works is substantiated by even the briefest review of world history since 1650.
Capitalist economies have been the engine driving a period of advancement that utterly dwarfs the achievements of any other period in history under any other system. (Unless you can cite proof that is not true?)
And it rolls on. Just take a look at the reality of the current world.
Imperfect yes, but thankfully highly open to further modification.
Great look at what captalism has done for us since 1650. Right now the planet is burning up because of excessive pollution from our wonderful improvements and machinations. For every step forward there has been a sideways step, then a half step back but we never can go back to the point we were at earlier. We just don’t notice it because we are so drunk with our own cleverness.
Then we use our devices to record the destruction we have caused because it is important that some things should be measured and retained for statistics and information and that other things should be glossed over or ignored. Nothing is done in the full light of day. That’s why the GCSB is so anxious. They want to know more, but for us to know less.
And you harp on that ‘We don’t know how lucky we are boys.’
Sheep shagger Enron,Hubbard,Merrill Lynch etc etc etc.
Money printing trillions of dollars.
Because of communism western countries brought in free healthcare free education,pensions welfare unions
Were aloud free and balanced press now communism has declined .
So has all the egalitarianism declined.
The Murdocracy is reigning supreme.
But its not Capitalism its Cronyism
Corruption is its heart.
Welfare for the super rich bailouts galore.
Arms dealers
Drugs dealers
Oil dealers
Money dealers
Propaganda dealers
Allowed to undermine any opposition that gets in their way.
Cronyism sheep shagger!
Lost sheep, in a thread about how free market capitalist employers are failing and so ask nanny state to hold their poor wee hands with some welfare, claims “Capitalism works”
Living according to tikanga isn’t trying to behave as our tūpuna behaved, it is being inspired by our ancestors to be the best we can. My goal is not only equality, acceptance, or even celebration of all sexualities or genders. I want us to do more than put aside our homophobia, I want us to re-think all our relationships. Decolonisation requires eradicating heteropatriarchy in all its forms from our communities.
I have just got home from the Tauranga march, well organised and not a bad turnout for old conservative Tauranga.
Have just donated, thanks for the link, we must stop this bullshit.
Sunday Star-Times @SundayStarTimes 2 hours ago
Tomorrow in @SundayStarTimes, Nicky Hager and @rj_gallagher exclusively reveal the high-tech tools with which NZ spies on NZers in Pacific.
Matthew Hooton @MatthewHootonNZ 1 hour ago
@SundayStarTimes @rj_gallagher That is treason.
how can that even apply in a globalised, USA’d, TPPA’d world where everything is one? It cant. Treason is no longer applicable. We are all our own individuals with no responsibility or obligation to any particular state. Fuck the state.
Part 5
Crimes against public order
Treason and other crimes against the Sovereign and the State
73 Treason
Every one owing allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
(a) kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to the Sovereign, or imprisons or restrains her or him; or
(b) levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.
Nah, see, the forces of socialism are “levying war” against New Zealand and we’re at war with “freedom of public information”, and criticising the present government is preeeeeeeetty much the same thing as “using force” to “overthrow” the government.
Opening the burglar’s tool bag and showing the tools to the home owner is nothing like treason. Treason would be breaking Kiwi law in the service of a foreign power, like, you know, what FJK does.
Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which was once classified with the family Tiliaceae, more recently with Malvaceae, and has now been reclassified as belonging to the family Sparrmanniaceae. “Jute” is the name of the plant or fiber that is used to make burlap, Hessian or gunny cloth.
Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibers and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses of vegetable fibers. Jute fibers are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose and lignin. It falls into the bast fiber category (fiber collected from bast or skin of the plant) along with kenaf, industrial hemp, flax (linen), ramie, etc. The industrial term for jute fiber is raw jute. The fibers are off-white to brown, and 1–4 metres (3–13 feet) long. Jute is also called “the golden fiber” for its color and high cash value.
THIS January Jim Murphy, Labour’s leader in Scotland, made John McTernan into his chief of staff.
Here is a video of McTernan, last September at the Tory conference, offering advice to the Conservatives and praise to Margaret Thatcher.
McTernan was speaking at a breakfast meeting at a Tory-leaning think tank.
The video is here: chilling stuff from a Blairite, who recently worked for Labour in Australia. http://wingsoverscotland.com. The article is called the Cuckoo in the nest.
This is the reason that Labour will be wiped out in Scotland at the May election.
Labor in Oz eh, no surprises there as Shorten has stood aside and let Abbott slam through the same shit NACT has here and raise their risk profile.
All he had to do was give the senate enough doubt to turf the measures out as neither major party has the numbers with independents and cliveo self destructo party senators all over the place.
McTernan worked on the 2007 Australian general election that brought the former Australian Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to power.
In February 2011 he was appointed ‘Thinker in Residence’ for the Government of South Australia, working on health and education reform. He gave up this role when he became Julia Gillard’s communications chief. [5] He resigned from this position after Gillard was ousted as PM and replaced by Kevin Rudd. http://powerbase.info/index.php/John_McTernan#Australian_.27Thinker_in_Residence.27
Labor in oz is a pale imitation of the golden era of hawke and keating who laid down the reforms to tax, introduced compulsory super etc that created savings with a solid tax base to fund health, education and infrastructure.
The puppets in charge now wouldn’t know reform if it bit them in the arse, all captives of the system doffing the cap to Murdoch since keating lost with the hobbled mining tax being an epic fail to claw back some of the resource pillage that’s been going on for decades.
I worry that some of our NZ leadership think it is terribly clever to listen to the like of McTernan. I do not believe Andree Little would. There are some MPs who would.
And the way to deal with the importation of cheap labour is to organise them and ensure they know their rights. In any case, the ‘cheap labour’ often comes from countries where workers have a rather greater history of militancy than in NZ.
Almost 70 Filipino workers have laid, or are laying, complaints claiming they were charged exorbitant fees to come and work in New Zealand.
All workers have similar complaints – primarily that they were charged fees of up to $15,000 for a job in New Zealand through Business Immigration and its overseas agents. Many took out loans in the Philippines to cover the fees, and were paying between 40 per cent and 50 per cent annual interest.
That is really bad.
<blockquote> Business Immigration owner Lyn Sparks would not comment on the workers' complaints but said all the agency's processes and fees were legitimate. "We get licensed every year don't we," he said.
Saturday afternoon entertainment. Guess the strategy behind Hooton’s latest crazy tweets. SST will publish a report tomorrow from Hager and an Intercept journo on the tech used to spy on NZers/the Pacific. According to Hooton, “this is actual treason”. He then goes on to say that Snowden should be executed.
If he reads the Crimes Act, where treason is set out, he would find
“Part 5
Crimes against public order
Treason and other crimes against the Sovereign and the State
73 Treason
Every one owing allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
(a) kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to the Sovereign, or imprisons or restrains her or him; or
(b) levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.”
Holding the government to account for its lies = treason )to the Right – except when they are in Opposition).
After suffering ‘intense mental agony’, Hamiora Pere was hanged at the Terrace Gaol, Wellington, and buried in an unmarked grave. He is the only New Zealander to have been executed after being convicted of treason.
Hamiora Pere had been tried for treason in the Supreme Court in Wellington on 28 September. He was one of the first men charged under the Disturbed Districts Act, a temporary measure containing special provisions (such as smaller juries) for trying Māori who were deemed to be ‘in open rebellion’ and had committed ‘outrages and atrocities’. These trials were a legal landmark: the colonial government was asserting its ‘absolute sovereignty’ over all Māori.
The attorney-general told the court that Pere had joined Te Kooti’s force at Puketapu, on the eastern fringe of the Urewera Range, in August 1868. He had taken part in the bloody raids on Matawhero and Oweta in November, and in the subsequent battles at Mākaretū and Ngātapa. There was no direct evidence that he had killed anybody and a murder charge against him was withdrawn. The jury took less than 15 minutes to find him guilty of treason, for which the death penalty was mandatory but could be commuted.
Hamiora Pere was one of five Māori men captured after the siege of Ngātapa (many more had been summarily executed) to be convicted of murder and/or treason. The government seems to have decided to execute one of them, ‘by way of example and caution’ to any Māori who were still tempted to take up arms. There was compelling evidence against Wi Tamararo, who was convicted of murder on 27 September but avoided execution by hanging himself two days later. There were extenuating circumstances for the other three, who had been convicted of treason. That left Pere.
The fate of Hamiora Pere cast a long shadow. It was fictionalised in two novels published in 1986. Part of the back-story in Witi Ihimaera’s The matriarch, the trial and execution is the climax of Maurice Shadbolt’s Season of the Jew, in which a youthful Pere appears repeatedly as an informant of the central character, a colonial officer. In its 2004 report on the Turanganui a Kiwa claims, the Waitangi Tribunal recommended that the attorney-general ‘reassess the record … with a view to considering whether the decision to hang Pere was safe’.
“2. From and after the passing of this Act the [Imperial Act 54 George III c146] shall be deemed not to extend to or be applicable in the administration of justice within the Colony of New Zealand.”
The Imperial Act referred to required the sentence in all cases of high treason to be “that such person should be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and be there hanged by the neck until such person should be dead and that afterwards the head should be severed from the body of such person and the body divided into four quarters” to be disposed of as the monarch sees fit.
The 1814 English statute was definitely the law in New Zealand by virtue of our English Laws Act 1858. The sentence has actually been imposed in this country, provoking the 1870 legislation. On 23 September 1869, after a jury had found Te Kooti associates Hetariki Te Oikau, Rewi Tamanui Totitoti and Matene Te Karo guilty of high treason, Justice Johnston unwillingly sentenced each to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
“The law which I am bound to administer leaves me no alternative, and it is my duty to pass upon you the highest sentence which that law allows. The sentence that I am about to pass on you is not my word, but the word of the law. I must now proceed to pass upon you, and each of you, that awful sentence which the law has prescribed for the offence of which you have been found guilty,” the Wellington Independent reported the Judge as saying. After passing sentence he then added: “I again say that I am sure nothing will be done but the hanging.”
None of the three was executed and their sentences were commuted to imprisonment. One person has been executed for treason in New Zealand. Although it was accepted that he had killed no-one, Hamiora Pera was also charged with high treason for actions in Te Kooti’s war and tried after the other three. He was found guilty and Justice Johnston reluctantly passed sentence, again assuring him that “nothing but death” would be carried into effect. While there has been extensive debate about his guilt, he was hanged in Wellington on 16 November 1869.
On 30 June 1870 New Zealand’s Parliament changed the punishment for high treason from hanging, drawing and quartering to hanging. This remained the law until the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1989 came into force on 26 December 1989.”
It would reduce unemployment, and most importantly allow for better recovery from recessions, adding more economic stability. Recoveries from recessions would be faster and more robust.
I think it’d help us get closer to full employment.
Also we need to mandate that the Reserve Bank should pursue maximum employment and most favourable terms of trade.
Monetary policy cannot deliver increased employment. Only fiscal policy can do that. Also, despite central banks printing immense amounts of money into the financial economy, the world is collapsing into debt deflation. Many central banks around the world have interest rates set at 0% or even negatively, reflecting this reality.
I agree, and argued something similar on FB at the last election.
Bob Jones makes the point that we shouldn’t bother at all – free market prices should fluctuate, and legislating to prevent that using the Reserve Bank is basically equivalent to price controls.
Central bank interest rate policy is a macroeconomic policy question. Bob Jones thinks that in the absence of central bank targeting interest rates would result in market fluctuations round a ‘natural rate of interest’, but the result is likely to be that the rate of interest falls to zero instead.
Petrobras – wasn’t that the company that Bridges and Key were recently snuggling upto to drill for oil in our waters – Bridges? The one that got angry on Campbell Live defending his decisions.
Petrobras is a technically advanced and shockingly corrupt company. Rich Brazilians and most politicians see the state as a mechanism by which to enrich themselves. Petrobras helps with this process and has paid heaps of bribes to construction companies and politicians. Possibly a little bit like Fletchers in Christchurch, but on a much bigger scale.
Although all parties are involved (except maybe the far left), the politicised Brazilian Federal Police and Congressional investigators are focussing on the President’s party, the PT. In reality, Petrobras has been illicitly enriching politicians since it was founded. However, many of the legal officials are linked to the opposition PSDB (social democratic party) which is like a more corrupt National. Therefore they are trying to limit investigations to the years that the PT (Workers’ Party) has held the presidency. I hope they are not successful.
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Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has been re-elected in the East Choiseul constituency. It is the opening move in the political chess match to form the country’s next government. Returning officer Christopher Makoni made the declaration late last night after ...
Headline: The moment of friction. – 36th Parallel Assessments In strategic studies “friction” is a term that it is used to describe the moment when military action encounters adversary resistance. “Friction” is one of four (along with an unofficial fifth) “F’s” in military strategy, which includes force (kinetic mass), ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
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Doubt over climate science is a product with an industry behind it
Get that denialists? All the climate change denial in the media and other formats is a concerted litany of lies from industry seeking to protect its profits at the expense of everyone and life itself.
“ Too often, science is manipulated to fulfill a political agenda.
Government agencies, too often, betray the public trust by violating principles of good science in a desire to achieve a political goal.
Public policy decisions that are based on bad science impose enormous economic costs on all aspects of society.”
Q. Why do you use derogatory terms when attempting to convince yourself ?
Q. Do profit driven corporations manipulate governments and government policy ?
A. DNFTT
Thank you for clearly illustrating the point that myself and others here have been making
I would suggest the same I have to OAB and that is to stay away from subject matter which you lack the emotional intelligence to discuss appropriately
The failing in your logic appears to exist at the most fundamental level as I expressed to you a few days ago
The reaction you manage is DNFTT – Oh Dear
Q. On the anti abortion issue – Are you pro choice ?
in your case I might have been in favour. Too late now, though.
😆 😈
Well, moron, you failed to understand what I quoted and that means that you failed to ask anything of any relevance. As you always do this it becomes fairly obvious that you’re nothing but a troll. Now fuck off.
Leaving the insults and profanity aside
Having read the article and your comment before I responded my questions are relevant the second one especially
The link quote and your comment indicate a belief that government is the problem however it is my contention that corporations who control influence and capture governments are the problem
In reality the two work together hand in glove
Completely agree about profit industry of all types using fraudulent and corrupt practices “at the expense of everyone and life itself“
Can’t see where you got that bollocks from. It seems that you also need remedial reading comprehension.
Q. Is it the ‘interference of ‘money’ in the righteousness of ‘the science’ which causes you anxiety ?
When will you stop fucking your pig?
Q. How many years ago did you self proclaim to be this sites attack poodle ?
You do come across as being somewhat unhinged and self important
That’s as close to personal as you will read from a comment of mine
Really?
Because your laziness in refusing to do your own (incredibly easy) research and insisting we do it for you, your constant passive-aggressive questions, and your overwhelming arrogance are individually and collectively pretty fucking insulting.
Just because you don’t use rude words, it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a prick than the rest of us.
Q. Couldn’t wait to see if I addressed a similar one to you eh McFlock ?
You like banging the same drum too eh – the snare (sneer) is blatantly the percussion instrument of choice inside the ‘us club’
Q. In addition to yourself and OAB who else is in the ‘us club’ ?
Just because you don’t use rude words, it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a prick than the rest of us.
Congratulations acceptance is an important first step
And no I am not part of your ‘us club’
Funny, because the fact you couldn’t resist the wee quip about acceptance makes you an honorary member. If you were a tenth of the person you thought you were then you’d have resisted it.
That’s what really gets under my skin – there are lots of morons I ignore, both here and in real life. But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else. You couldn’t even manage a simple google search, for fucks sake.
What any normal person with a barrow to push would have done is looked up all the vaccines on the NZ schedule and then on to other vaccines, looking for one or two cases of research fraud / undisclosed conflicts of interest. But no, you had no idea what you were talking about from the very start. Hell, you probably just plagiarised the “gold standard” talking point from some antivax site.
As it is, the only confirmed case of research fraud relating to vaccines is wakefield. I’m moderately surprised that you couldn’t find even one from the other side.
Funny, because the fact you couldn’t resist the wee quip about acceptance makes you an honorary member. If you were a tenth of the person you thought you were then you’d have resisted it
Actually it was a genuine query I would be interested to learn who is in the ‘us club’
Q. Do you believe you can understand what I think of myself through the comments I post on an anonymous blog site ?
Q. Are you regarded as the ‘funny one’ amongst your friends ?
That’s what really gets under my skin
Q. You let discussions on this site get under your skin ?
there are lots of morons I ignore, both here and in real life. But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else.
Q. You’re labeling other people as morons while projecting accusations of superiority in my direction ?
You couldn’t even manage a simple google search, for fucks sake.
Be it deliberate or otherwise you still can’t grasp the basic grounds why I do not have provide a single shred more than I already have to support the position of ‘no compulsory’
What any normal person with a barrow to push would have done
Do you understand your words are making a case for my inferiority which runs counter to the core premise of your comment which is that I believe I am superior
You are a confused individual
In short, nothing The Muffrey says has the slightest bearing on the case against compulsory vaccination, which is:
It would reduce the vaccination rate and therefore herd immunity.
🙄
You failed to understand the comment. Notably the bit “But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else” (my italics).
Exhibit A: calling me “confused” based on your own failure to understand basic English.
Exhibit B: forgetting the contents of a sentence that you’d cut&pasted just a few lines previously.
Whether you want to provide evidence for your nutty claims or not is no skin off my nose. Demanding that I do your work for you, on the other hand, is what I found to be fascinating. A bit like a borer grub, in many ways.
In short, nothing The Muffrey says has the slightest bearing on the case against compulsory vaccination, which is:
It would reduce the vaccination rate and therefore herd immunity.
Q. Do you believe what you wrote there ?
Q. Do you understand what I wrote there?
Compulsory vaccination would reduce the vaccination rate.
You failed to understand the comment. Notably the bit “But the scab I pick at is the complete moron who thinks he’s superior to everyone else” (my italics).
I understood it perfectly but am not surprised to see your attempt to explain it away
@ OAB – The vaccination rates are dropping regardless
The logic of the ‘us club’ is ex-cep-tion-al
If you had understood it, you wouldn’t have gotten my “core premise” wrong.
Your idiocy supports my core position that you are a moron who has an undeserved sense of superiority. You focussed too much on your sense of superiority and missed the other component of my position, which is that you are a moron.
The vaccination rates are dropping regardless.
Don’t worry, the resulting death rate will show people how fatally incompetent scumbag anti-vax liars are, and the vaccination rate will recover.
Meanwhile, on Earth, “We have a responsibility to make sure insurers maintain their solvency”.
Q. Still beating that drum eh ?
Q. Do you understand the relationship between the banks and insurance companies ?
Which drum would that be, you boring lazy plagiarist?
I’ll try to use more simplistic terminology for you:
Go and learn about the relationship between banks and the insurance companies specifically around conflict of interest between a number of primary business functions and operational strategy
See if you can identify where the conflict may encounter barriers preventing your fantasy of insurance industry driven prevention of environmental destruction
If you still don’t understand that relationship then read the section marked – The financiers of the war and military industrial complex and who are the primary beneficiaries
Please explain in greater detail why you think I believe that. I promise not to fall asleep. Honest.
The detail I have is the link you posted which is similar in content and subject and almost identical to links you have posted previously
Q. Perhaps you can explain what the purpose of the link(s) are as they relate to your personal opinions beliefs and understandings ?
While you’re at it perhaps you can describe the intent behind ‘meanwhile on earth’ just so we are clear on your mind set
Oh and don’t forget to do the reading
How did you manage to interpret my links and remarks that way?
Quite certain there was an offer for you to provide explanation of the link(s) as well as the ‘meanwhile on planet earth’ comment
Q. Was the oversight deliberate ?
Q, Why do you refer a request for information from someone as an “offer for you to provide explanation”?
Q. Is it because you view other people giving you information as you giving them a gift of your attention, rather than them giving you the actual gift of knowledge?
Q. Where did you get the idea that my reply to DtB is an invitation for you to exhibit shit comprehension skills?
can you please stop bolding everything murp – shouting doesn’t help your case, it is just fucking rude
it also makes you look like a moderator. Use italics or something else instead.
it’s a pretty funny indicator of how wound up murph’s getting though. They hardly ever do it when they think they’re winning 👿
yes I feel s/he has become more incoherent since you and OAB have vulcan nerve pinched him/her
Insults and profanity are indicators of those who are wound up
No comments to the response around a preferred abortion approach to the existence of another commentator or the questions just focus on the font type
The reactions are a regrettable indicator as if there was a requirement for more of those
TM: you’re not going to convert the faithful unfortunately, but your addressing to others and particularly various info and insights provided have indeed been useful.
@CR. Convert us into what? Homeopathic pigfuckers?
Homeopathic pig-fucking: when a pig sits in the household water tank that is then diluted 30 times before you have a wank in the bath tub
Having to scroll through all this bolded poop from the murphy makes me almost long for a return of phil ure’s ellipsis and pete’s beigeness…..almost
Nah! Scroll on just faster.
An excellent piece on the political economy of low-wage labour. Although it’s from the US, it’s highly relevant to here, with the growth of casualisation and zero-hours contracts:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/the-political-economy-of-low-wage-labour/
This from Macskasy over on TDB (not yet up on his Frankly Speaking blog) is a good summary of the Northland byelection. The TV3 poll and strategy have already been well examined on posts on TS. However this instance of implausible deniability is important and thus far unaddressed:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/07/northland-by-election-a-damning-poll-and-a-damnable-lie/#sthash.rdIJLyzb.dpuf
http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/peters-on-track-to-win-northland-seat-2015030518#axzz3TUGGbYCd
The whole lot of them knew Osbourne was Treasurer at the time and Chair at another
time. One of the Northland Executive’s gave it up publicly it was too late to select another candidate. That’s why Osbourne is covering his arse.
See Gower is still turning the taps on and now off on Peters.
I recall some commenters here saying that it was easier to let Sandra Lee take the Auckland Central seat in 1993 than dislodge Prebble from it. Perhaps it is a similar situation of a single faction having the NP Northland selection process all sewn up.
They have got it all sewn up, the popular farmer gets done over by a Carters patsy bean counter. This is a move to ‘super city’ Northland and Carter is lining up his ducks.
Osbourne adds about Sabin “I still have no idea what he has done”oh give us a break.
Poor Mr Osborne, he will trip and stumble and land very flat on his face if this keeps up … he has received a hospital pass woefully disguised as a safe seat.
It is always great for me to read or hear dr marilyn waring. she spoke with kim hill this morning. well worth the listen for all kiwis.
i have learned alot from the fact that my favourite NZer of all time was a National Party MP.
She was and remains a revolutionary. If she were a man she would have been knighted a long time ago. perhaps the damehood was offered and she turned it down.
kudos Marilyn for working so hard to speak truth to power and changing our world for the better.
I wouldn’t call her a “revolutionary”, but she’s an interesting character. She was possibly the most progressive MP in parliament during the Muldoon era. She was also the first more-or-less open gay MP.
It was quite interesting at the time watching how Labour and National handled homosexuality. When Muldoon gay-baited Labour MP (and former agriculture minister) Colin Moyle, Rowling dumped him like a hot brick and he had to resign his seat. Lange walked into parliament over Moyle’s corpse, something I thought at the time absolutely stank but which people seem to have forgotten.
By contrast, when the Truth newspaper ‘outed’ Waring, Muldoon just shrugged it off.
It was easier to be a gay MP in the National Party, even in a rural/conservative seat (she was MP for Raglan and they stuck by her when she was ‘outed’) than in the Labour Party at the time – and, of course, it was a National MP (Venn Young) who was the first MP to try to get the anti-gay laws reformed and among the staunchest anti-gay bigots were Labour MPs like Mick Connolly, Dr Wall (who also tried to tighten the abortion laws and force the Auckland clinic to close and get its most prominent doctor prosecuted) and others. Several Labour MPs wanted it to be a criminal offence to ‘promote’ homosexuality by any sort of suggestion that it was a part of the ‘normal’ spectrum of sexuality.
People forget, or choose not to remember, just how socially reactionary the Labour Party was in the 1970s.
I was a teenager through the third Labour government, and what a nightmare it was. (I joined the LP at high school and lasted about six months; it was far too right-wing .) Completely put me off ever voting Labour.
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/anti-working-class-to-its-core-the-third-labour-government/
All good points but the reaction to Marilyn Waring v Colin Moyle, may also have to do with some sort of bias (we can turn a blind eye to gay women, but NOT gay men). Likely part of the legacy of Queen Victoria. But also men who have the power (especially back in the 1970’s) are less threatened by a gay woman, whereas a gay man could be hugely threatening for them (especially if they were unsure of their own sexuality).
I take your point about Labour in the 70’s. They were socially conservative as was the great (but not perfect) Norman Kirk.
queen victoria never said women wouldnt be lesbians. that is a myth.
in my experience more men are frightened of gay men that women are frightened of gay women.
you must be very experienced @ Tracey. That’s my experience also. But ask any drag queen or gay guy on the game (or indeed city taxi driver) and you’ll find that the actual incidence of male-to-male is probably about the same as female-to-female.
(boy! or rather ‘boi’, have I come across one or two total “on the down low” fuckups – not necessarily personally, but once or twice as well)
EDIT: I think there might need to be a ‘ :p ‘ after “you must be very experienced @ Tracey – just so you know I’m not having a go.
I’m constantly amazed tho’ by the stereotypical ‘blokehood’, just as I am by various attitudes in the ‘gay community; – such as all that “what plays in Vegas, Stays in Vegas bullshit” whilst all the while those PLAYERS keep shitting on their conquests.
Not sure why in the 21st C this shud still be an issue – but it is
Side note – the “Not sure why in the 21st C this shud still be an issue” thing is just a figure of speech, but it does buy into a liberal concept of continuous progress in civilisation and society. Looking back at the scope of the last 5,000 years, of course it just ain’t so.
Except he wasn’t gay ankerawshark. He was the victim of a dirty set-up.
@ Philip Ferguson:
That’s nothing like what happened. I was there (no, not in parliament) and through a set of circumstances found myself in the thick of it. It was “Dirty Politics” 1970s style, and Moyle/Labour were the innocent targets. A lot of people were badly hurt (one way or another) in the fallout from that affair, so it behoves people to get the facts correct.
Happily stand corrected Tracy (re comment about Queen Vic ) and Anne.
Happy to have my mis-information corrected. Ta
her revolutionary-ness in my mind relates to her creating and advocating an alternative economic model which accounted for unpaid work and ecological factors. elements of which have been adopted widely outside nz.
standing before the ramparts of male structures and saying and acting to break them. i recall hwrald headlines when she cried while speaking in parliament and yet she was not silenced… which was the objective of the headline and mockery.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 100% Marilyn’s economic wisdom enjoys enviable international recognition not afforded her here at home. Tragic for us.
Yep, her work on economics is still far too radical for NZ. Imagine what NZ economic policy debate would be like now if she’d stayed in politics. Although it’s hard to see what party she could have belonged to given what happening post 1984.
Real change is going to have to be driven by organisations outside our formal political parties I think. Most of our political “leaders” are actually followers. Just look at Labour slowly coming around to the idea that maybe they need a different strategy in Northland. Followers, not leaders.
not followers paid lackeys
+100
I was lucky enough to find her “Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth” in the withdrawn pile in the library.
Reading it, it is hard to believe she was a National MP. But I guess National is a stranger kettle of fish now.
Indeed and it took the Canadians to do a Documentary on her and for TVNZ to play it at 2pm on a Saturday in the summer.
Who’s Counting?
Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics
some reviews
“Meeting Marilyn Waring on film will forever change your perception of justice, economics, and the worth of your own works. Watch this film.”
Gloria Steinem
“I give this film (and Ms. Waring, of course) every superlative…riveting, revealing, inspiring etc. It penetrates to the heart of the global, ecological, and social crisis that afflicts the world.”
Dr. David Suzuki
“A devastating critique of monetized economics, portrayed with compelling beauty and humor by Oscar-winning director Terre Nash. The film contrasts the vast, uncounted productivity of nature and women worldwide with United Nations-mandated national accounting systems rooted in military economics.”
Tranet
” Waring is one of the liveliest speakers I’ve ever heard…She also has an uncanny ability to put complex information into easily opened packages…If knowledge is power, WHO’S COUNTING is an empowering gift.”
Communities
https://www.nfb.ca/film/whos_counting
great link .. wonderful to see again, thx tracey
“By contrast, when the Truth newspaper ‘outed’ Waring, Muldoon just shrugged it off.”
Not how I recall it .. it was darker than that. Marilyn’s partner was the former wife of an All Black .. a dramatic and complete heresy if ever there was one.
My recollection is that Muldoon refused to deal with Truth to intervene prior to publication, as was common with potential libel issues in those days. He believed the story would damage and weaken Marilyn and let it run. It did not harm her, and consequently he wrought utu upon his own head as it evolved.
Also worth remembering how Muldoon used the SIS ( or whatever it was called back then, I forget) in the shadowing and despicable attacks upon Colin Moyle. Maybe this is the part of Muldoon that Key truly models himself upon.
See here for the malice of Muldoon.
“Robert Muldoon (National, Tamaki, leader of the Opposition) got wind of the incident but bided his time, saying during the 1975 election campaign that he “had something” if the campaign turned sour.” (Top drawer, Mr Key ??)
http://www.queerhistory.net.nz/MoyleAffair.html
good observation re Muldoon and Key
“It is always great for me to read or hear dr marilyn waring. she spoke with kim hill this morning. well worth the listen for all kiwis.”
audio up now http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/20169982/marilyn-waring-40-years-of-feminism
As I wrote recently, the three politicians in NZ that I admire a lot for their courage of conviction and admirable guts, against tremendous odds are
* Marilyn Waring
* Jim Anderton
* Winston Peters
~Waring had come especially to disagree with the National Party policy over the issue of a nuclear-free New Zealand and, on 14 June 1984, she informed the leadership that she would vote independently on nuclear issues, disarmament issues, and rape but would continue to support the Government on confidence.
That evening Muldoon decided to call a snap election to be held on 14 July
~ Although many ordinary members of the Labour Party (who were unhappy at the way the party’s parliamentary wing was behaving) backed Anderton, he became increasingly isolated in parliament. When Anderton disobeyed party instructions to vote in favour of selling the Bank of New Zealand (which Labour had explicitly promised not to do), he was suspended from caucus. In April 1989, believing that Labour was beyond change, Anderton resigned from the party. He later said, “I did not leave the Labour Party; the Labour Party left me.”
On 1 May, Anderton announced the creation of the NewLabour Party, intended to represent the “real” spirit of the original Labour Party. Its primary goals were state intervention in the economy, retention of public assets, and full employment.
~Peters disagreed with the party leadership on a number of matters, and frequently spoke out against his party regarding them. In October 1991, Bolger sacked Peters from Cabinet. Peters remained as a National backbencher, continuing to criticise the party. In early 1993, he chose to resign from the party and from Parliament. This prompted a by-election in Tauranga some months before the scheduled general election. He stood as an independent and won easily. Shortly before the 1993 election, Peters established New Zealand First and retained his Tauranga seat. Another New Zealand First candidate, Tau Henare, unseated the Labour incumbent in Northern Maori, helping to convince people that New Zealand First was not simply Peters’ personal vehicle.
In the 1996 elections, the MMP electoral system the party won 17 seats and swept all of the Māori electorates. More importantly, it held the balance of power in Parliament.
+100
This National Party government expands again its socialist credentials and communist leanings ………
Like farmers unable to attract free market financial support for their irrigation….
Like Chch CBD landowners scared of lowering property values….
Like Rio Tinto being unable to operator without welfare….
So too are Queenstown employers scared of the free market….. crying like babies to the gummint….. “wah wah wah we cant get anybody to do the cleaning on the minimum wage wah wah wah”…….
….. so instead of following the base rules of the free market and meeting the supply and demand dynamics by offering more money… they ask the gummint to allow in cheaper foreign labour….
Bludgers
Losers
Hypocrites
Slave-owners
They have no backbone. They cannot stand in the storm of the free market. They are weak. They are liars. They do not live by their words. They are poor specimens.
To quote the manic street preachers ‘ if you tolerate this then your children will be next…’
+1
+1
No free market ideologue who *actually operates a business* really believes in, let alone practices, completely free market economics.
Wasn’t Roger Douglas a failed pig farmer?
Phil
Well explains his outstanding troughing skills….oink oink.
VTO, your comment here inspired an article on Redline on the subject. See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=11221&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
Your comment is acknowledged at the end of the article.
Very good!
Yes, while he wrought misery on countless thousands here, he is earning – well being paid or troughing would be a better term! – shitloads of money advising governments in places like Mongolia how to inflict the failed experiment on their populaces.
What an utterly, utterly despicable creature. Someone without a single, redeeming feature.
Phil
Prebbo and Douglas completely f8cked up the Labour Party, along with 50% of Kiwis who fell by the wayside of their mad ideology. LP and NZ still hasn’t fully recovered 30 years later
I listened to some of this on the radio , no mention of training schemes for locals or paying them a wage that they can live on down there. Just wanting to expand the cheap labour supply.
Wondered if Queenstown will soon be filled with businesses owned off shore, staffed with people on work permits and patronised by tourists. Can’t see a lot of benefits there locally
You obviously don’t know Queenstown very well RedBaron.
The fact is that due to the very specific development path it has taken over the last 50 years or so, there simply are no Queenstown ‘locals’ to train for the vast majority of jobs available there.
Any Kiwi from outside Central Otago that turns up looking for a job is guaranteed one.
And yes there are quite a few off shore owned businesses, but there are far more kiwi owned ones, and they are doing a great job of liberating very significant funds from off shore visitors to the great benefit of not just Qtown, but the whole of the NZ economy.
You’d be laughed out of town if you came down and suggested the situation was otherwise!
No excuse. Meet the market. Pay the workers a wage that will attract.
Fail
Fail fail fail
I’ll ignore your comments about how well I know Q’town as they are wide of the mark.
When I say locals I am looking at a slightly wider definition than you appear to be.
To be more specific where are the training and employment courses followed by job offers in say Dunedin & Christchurch – where there is unemployment?
Where is the affordable employee housing that they can go to even if it is only a stepping stone to moving on to something of their own?
Do people even have the money to get to Q’town?
Interesting that immigration has a work permits office up at the junction but the government can’t be bothered funding the rounding up employers to sort out a training scheme.
And yes there are local businesses but most of the hotels and the like are foreign owned and would account for a significant portion of the wage earning force.
If you know Qtown well RedBaron, you know that QTown employers spread their net far and wide throughout the Southern regions and have very close contacts with all available points of contact for job seekers.
You would know that most Qtown employers are only too happy to provide training to suitable applicants, and that it is extremely common to assist suitable employees to get to and live in Qtown. You would even know that there are strategies in place and being developed to tackle the affordability of housing.
If you are unemployed in the South Island, or anywhere, you only need to type ‘Queenstown employment’ into google and you will find any number of jobs available for all kinds of occupations, including for unskilled workers.
If you do need training to get the kind of job you want, as above, it is highly likely a Qtown employer wil train you, but there are also any number of options available for that in any significant South Island City. (Why do you think there is not RB?).
Despite all that, if you know any Qtown business owner, they will tell you that for a long time now it has been absolutely impossible to attract and retain anything remotely like the required numbers of NZ workers to Qtown…
On the other hand there is a continuous stream of bright, enthusiastic and available workers from all round the World who are only too happy to take the opportunity to stay a while in Qtown.
It’s a practical world. Letting Qtown grind to a halt because of a lack of local employees would do far more harm to NZ than the current solution.
In the meantime, if you are a Kiwi and you want a job in Qtown, I guarantee you will be met with open arms.
Fuck are you an idiot lost sheep? Don’t you get the point here?
Free market rules.
Pay more.
That is what this National government is about. And it is entirely what Queenstown is about (we have a business operating from there so know first hand). Queenstown business owners are hard core right wing national party supporters, yet they cannot abide their own cry of free market.
It is a fail lost sheep. A big fucking fail. And it is a birdshit right on the top of their heads – what a bunch of wankers, calling for cheap foreign labour instead of paying market rates within NZ.
Pay more.
… the absolute hypocrisy makes the blood boil ….
I’m guessing that Queenstown has a higher proportion of illegal jobs than the rest of the country. By illegal I mean jobs with no employment contracts and that ignore employment law. Under those conditions it’s pretty easy to employ transitory people from overseas than Kiwis who need stability and job security. My comment comes from talking to workers not employers.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/314356/migrant-workers-exploitation-fears
Kerikeri is the same, weka. Another NAct stronghold.
If all these employers are so great then why can’t they get the employees that they need?
The answer is that they just aren’t that great.
But but but exploiting migrant workers proves that the market would give them all the labour they wanted if it weren’t for pesky minium wage and workplace safety regulations.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/314356/migrant-workers-exploitation-fears
Just to insert a few facts into sheepie’s assertations.
I went onto Trade me and looked at the current QT jobs. Over a third of the ads where labeled part time or temp and many of these were for only a few hours a week or some dodgy commission base. So no adequate permanent income.
Of the supposedly full time jobs around about a third of these where similar to the above- lucky to receive 40 hrs at the minimum wage.
So over 50% of the jobs didn’t pay for 40 hours at minimum rates.
Of the remaing ads the bulk paid close to the minumum wage.
The few that made it to over $50k a year were for skilled tradesmen and a couple of professional jobs.
And 40 hours/week isn’t enough to cover living in Queenstown.
Actually even living in QT at 40 hrs minimum wage would be difficult. Rents are not low.
I didn’t calculate to the last %, as usual with Trade Me there are the double ups. And of course the temp staff places were there in force taking the usual $5-$10 an hour off people’s wages before they hand them over. Frankly, there needs to be a lot more pressure put onto employers to up their game rather than just issuing work permits if the country is ever going to get the unemployment stats down.
Who was that little Natzi that changed the face of Queenstown a couple of decades back?. (Again, genuine question). I think he became a Mayor after a Natzi term or two. Was it Warren Freer? – I may be confused. He’d have to be a Shipley disciple tho’ dontcha think?
Btw … is there anywhere else nearby that’d be worth damming – either for irrigaton of hydro ‘tuneties;? I haven’t been down that way for a while, tho’ I imagine there’d be a converted barn with a Mother Earth with a cooking programme on TV I could probably crash at. Maybe not now I’ve said that.
Ex Nat MP Queenstown mayor was Warren Cooper. Warren Freer was one of the old LP socialists. He wanted to intervene in the economy to keep prices down for consumers, with his Maximum Retail Price scheme. Was rubbished for it of course by media and Muldoon’s Nat Party.
Does anyone remember the delightful little exchange between Warren Cooper (who had been a house painter before politics) and Sam Neill back about 2000 when there was a lot of debate about pristine landscapes being invaded by rampant development? Cooper told Neill to butt out and stick to acting. Neill replied that he’d be delighted to do so if Cooper would stick to house painting..
so 50% of queenstown businesses breaking the laws around payment of their workers (and those workers being migrant) is a myth?
No free market ideologue who *actually operates a business* really believes in, let alone practices, completely free market economics.
Wasn’t Roger Douglas a failed pig farmer?
Phil
Does anyone at all believe in a completely free market? Can’t say I’ve met one.
The government believes in the free market when it comes to catering for the poor and their housing in east Christchurch post-earthquakes.
The government does not believe in the free market when it comes to catering for the;
rich CBD landowners
farmers wanting water for their businesses
rio tinto when it comes simply operating their business
there is a pattern lost sheep – you should open your eyes and look at it
It’s like the “one law for all”.
The capitalists support it when it suits them and then favour different laws for different people when it doesn’t fit in with their interests.
Then they complain about the spread of relativism!
I still recall with amusement Village Idiot Gerry Brownlee banging on and on and on about “one law for all” when doing a bit of Maori-bashing in the early 2000s. Then the issue of civil unions came up and, hey ho big surprise, Gerry wasn’t at all in favour of one law for all but thought there should be different laws for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Because we have such a kiss-ass media, politicians often get away with this sort of hypocrisy.
Phil
Key’s National is a government that primarily works for the wealthy, the corporates and foreign interests.
FACT! I have no doubts about that.
No ifs and buts.
You’re probably right.
But a cluster of people *say* they do.
They particularly say they do whenever workers want anything. Then, we are told, ‘the market’ says ‘no’ – rather like the computer in the travel agency in that skit in ‘Little Britain’.
At some point I want to write an article on how all these human powers are attributed to ‘the market’ like our primitive ancestors attributed power to fetish objects, and indeed all kinds of inanimate objects.
‘The market’ determines CEO pay. No, it doesn’t. A bunch of pals sitting round in an office determine it.
‘The market’ determines the pay of the low-waged. No, it doesn’t. The well-heeled bosses, who give each other pay rises, determine the wages of the low-paid.
‘The market’ is a thing, not a rational, thinking being. ‘The market’ is just a set of human economic interactions. And we can opt for a different set of human economic interactions.
How odd and irrational to believe that ‘the market’, a blind set of human economic interactions, delivers better results than conscious human economic planning based on meeting human need.
And, of course, all firms plan. They are all totally in favour of planning when it comes to themselves. And against planning when it comes to the level of society.
Capitalism and capitalist ideology really is irrational.
A primer on how capitalist ideology works: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/how-capitalism-works/
And the wider context of how capitalism works and why, ultimately, it doesn’t: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/how-capitalism-works-%E2%80%93-and-doesn%E2%80%99t-work/
“Capitalism and capitalist ideology really is irrational”
Just like human beings. That is why, for all it’s imperfections, Capitalism works.
It is a system that allows all the various aspects of human nature to find a satisfactory expression to some degree, and as a result Capitalist societies have been capable of immense levels of successfully co-ordinated achievement.
In turn, that is why capitalist ideology is utterly dominant at this stage of human history.
Any theoretical system that fails to account for and accommodate the realities of human nature is doomed to fail. Real people will subvert it.
That is why Socialism has failed in the past and always will. It is predicated on the assumption that a majority of individuals within a society are willing to subvert their personal nature to Socialist ideology. They aren’t, and so the society doesn’t work.
🙄
Cry-baby can’t argue the point, has to clutch a strawman. Poor cry-baby.
Social democracy is not a theory; it’s a fact.
Honduras!
You are incapable of taking on a point directly OAB.
Throw up a Red herring as a flimsy excuse for a post, back it up with some ad hominem abuse, and then cut and run…..
You are a true bigot. I mean that in the nicest possible way, and I’m sure you will take it as a compliment.
Nonsense. as DtB says, your assertion that Capitalism “works” is false, and so you have to throw in a strawman about Socialism, when you know perfectly well that people here support a Parliamentary Social Democracy, such as the ones that made many countries great, including this one.
Right Wing false beliefs screwed it up. Own it. Take some personal responsibility you pathetic loser.
your assertion that Capitalism “works” is false,
How is it false OAB?
and so you have to throw in a strawman about Socialism, when you know perfectly well that people here support a Parliamentary Social Democracy, such as the ones that made many countries great, including this one.
Made them great on the basis of a Capitalist economic system, with Social Democracy being one of the many threads of political influence that Capitalism happily accommodates.
But what do you mean by Social Democracy? Do you see it as a gradual movement to a purely Socialist system?
If so, my contention is that a purely Socialist system will not succeed, for the reasons I give above.
If you can provide examples of Socialist societies that disprove my contention, please do so?
Right Wing false beliefs screwed it up. Own it. Take some personal responsibility you pathetic loser.
And that demonstrates yet again that you are a bigot. And also hints at the nasty side that underlines so many ideologues. What happens when people with your political intolerance get to power? Stalin.
Capitalism does a great job when it’s constrained by the requirement to do right by others: ie: Socialism.
Without Socialist regulation Capitalism eats itself.
You no answer to Piketty because he’s right.
Loser helps destroy collective bargaining, Can’t even own up to it. A coward too then.
@OAB
“Capitalism does a great job when it’s constrained by the requirement to do right by others: ie: Socialism.
As usual OAB your answer is so derivative it’s difficult to understand how it relates to the original point, but I will take that one as indicating that you agree Capitalism is the only workable economic system given the current state of human nature.
I agree completely there is a modifying influence of Socialist thought within Capitalist societies, but I would also include all the other strands of thought / morality / philosophy / culture that Capitalism can accommodate and be influenced by.
As I said above, the ability to embrace human nature in all it’s variation, complexity, and imperfection is Capitalism’s key attribute.
Rigid ideologies cannot encompass such a variation, and so inevitably they become oppressive.
“You no answer to Piketty because he’s right.”
Your entire counter argument is this and your previous statement that my assertion was ‘false’?
I will take that as a concession that you cannot offer any argument of substance, such as an example of a more successful system.
“Loser / coward”
Honestly OAB, save your childish and pointless abuse for people it might actually bother.
Lost sheep, in a thread about how free market capitalist employers are failing and so ask nanny state to hold their poor wee hands with some welfare, claims “Capitalism works”
ha ha ha – the best own goal ever
…
and back to the original point. Meet the market. Pay more money.
You seem to be under the impression that Capitalism works to a rigid set of rules VTO?
As i’ve been pointing out, adaptability is actually one of it’s great strengths.
In Qtown there are jobs available and people wanting to work in those jobs.
Rather than leave those jobs empty, or to keep in place a restraint that would cause a massive increase in the expense of visiting Qtown, a variation in rules has been made that allows those jobs to be filled, and for Qtown to stay viable and to keep pumping benefit into the economy.
That is successful adaptation, not failure.
“Rather than leave those jobs empty, or to keep in place a restraint that would cause a massive increase in the expense of visiting Qtown, a variation in rules has been made that allows those jobs to be filled, and for Qtown to stay viable and to keep pumping benefit into the economy.
That is successful adaptation, not failure.”
Queenstown can only “stay viable” if cleaners and the low-paid continue to be paid less than market rates and less than it costs to live there.
That is failure.
Complete and utter failure.
It is so not success. Keep ya blinkers on mate.
No point going to Qtown next weekend then VTO.?
Town will have ground to a halt because no one is willing or able to live there on cleaners and wait staff wages?
I’m picking it will be pumping.
so why the need to change the law?
Because it is a practical and sensible solution to a difficult problem.
And this does not violate any law of Capitalism, because Capitalism in general does NOT have a rigid insistence that there should be no interference in the market, and in fact NO specific Capitalist economy operates that way. It would be stupid to do so obviously!
It would be stupid to do so, because Capitalism works. No, wait…
You’ve got no argument to put up, but you still need to get the last word in OAB?
Guess that allows you to believe you ‘won’ the discussion?
Not my problem if you can’t see the massive oxymoron in your beliefs, and I’m still going to point and laugh.
I can keep you going all week OAB 😀
You must be seen to have last word. It’s pathological.
And all the sneering last words in the world don’t hide the fact that you have made no answer of any substance at all to my points. And you won’t.
There you go. I’ve rung the bell. Now see if you can resist responding.
r > g
It is your understanding that lacks substance.
Ta da.
You just can’t help yourself 😀
But while you are back here, why don’t you have a genuine shot at actually answering something directly?
Here’s a representative example from the thread above. It’s a clearly expressed, easily understandable and fair question directly related both to the thread topic and the post you made in which you stated “Social democracy is not a theory; it’s a fact.”
It can be answered as simply as yes or no, or it could be answered with any degree of complexity.
But my challenge to you is that you answer the point directly OAB. No red herrings, no abuse, no diversions, no ad hominem.
Just a straight forward clarification of the the question arising from your post.
Heck, if we can ease our way past this hurdle we might even be able to work our way up to conducting a genuinely rational debate!
so here goes….
“What do you mean by Social Democracy? Do you see it as a gradual movement to a purely Socialist system?”
I’ve sat through many fascinating (and quite a few more boring) discussions where highly intelligent people discussed the nuanced distinctions between social democracy and democratic socialism, and whether one is an incremental transition to the other.
I suspect they were significantly more enlightening than anything TLS will provide, but I’ll get the popcorn ready in case someone wants to play.
No, TLS, you are the ideologue, not me. Your witless slurs on Socialism, and wide-eyed sycophancy for Capitalism betray you.
You failed to back up your rash remarks and were then forced to admit that implementing pure Capitalism would be stupid.
I’ve made my position perfectly clear. As for transitions to some form of ideal, they’d better be gradual and make an improvement before they’ll get much support from me.
There are plenty of right wing policies to drag around the back of the barn and kill with an axe first.
Perhaps you could set up a lead McFlock? Where do you sit on the matter?
If someone else were to venture a wee flag in the sand OAB might not feel quite so shy about committing himself to a definite position?
(edit) I’ve been involved in many an entertaining skirmish on the topic myself, and just an observation, but I find it there is always one sticky point that comes up with Social Democracy theory.
It is that point where you either retain elements of Capitalism, or you cross over into pure Socialism.
It is a very narrow and hazardous bridge to cross in my experience.
You’ve got experience of crossing from SD to DS? Where?
Frankly, the topic is only suited for pubs, and/or when both parties know what they’re talking about and know the other does so in good faith.
Just boring on the interwebs otherwise, with little or no chance for new info, personal development, or even a halfway decent argument.
I’m sure OAB wouldn’t have introduced the topic if he thought it was too problematic for TS McFlock. That would be like suggesting Capitalism was a topic we could not prod.
So I await OAB’s discussion.
The topic was only introduced as a counterpoint to your false narrative. You remember, where you started inventing labels for the things you don’t understand.
“were then forced to admit that implementing pure Capitalism would be stupid.”
I wasn’t forced to admit that OAB, because at no stage did I say that i supported ‘pure Capitalism’. In fact, if you bothered to actually read my posts, you would have picked up that my core argument was that it was the ability of Capitalism to encompass and adapt to a wide variety of influences that was it’s core strength. Sigh. Perhaps that is too subtle a worldview for you.
I ran the rest of your replies through a solid materials detector, and among the smoke and mirrors, the total actual substance detected was as follows….
“As for transitions to some form of ideal, they’d better be gradual and make an improvement before they’ll get much support from me.”
I think this is as close to a definitive statement as I’ve seen you yet make. Fuck all concrete and sincere in other words.
But it’s a start, and something to work on.
So what is your ‘form of ideal’? Does that encompass elements of capitalism? If not, how is your ideal structured? See if you can nudge closer to something personal and genuine this time….
And I agree completely that for anything to be considered a ‘success’ or ‘working’, an improvement over what conditions were before the measures were taken is as good a definition as any.
This surely is where it becomes very difficult to deny that Capitalism has been successful?
For all the imperfections we can identify, the evidence that Capitalism works and has been successful is substantiated by even the briefest review of world history since 1650?
Capitalist economies have been the engine driving a period of advancement that utterly dwarfs the achievements of any other period in history under any other system. Consider the range of indicators you would use to say whether a society has improved or not over a period of time…
And then give me a rational argument that capitalism has not been successful?
And tell me what system has proved more successful, or in your opinion would be more successful?
the ability of Capitalism to encompass and adapt to a wide variety of influences
What a load of shite. Capitalists, when they can’t threaten capital flight at the slightest sign of pro-human policy, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to regulation.
As soon as they get a chance, they buy a National Party and destroy anything they can get their hands on: like you destroying collective bargaining, for example.
Pretending that Social Democracy is the same as Capitalism is the only argument you’ve got, and it’s utter bollocks.
“Pretending that Social Democracy is the same as Capitalism is the only argument you’ve got, and it’s utter bollocks.”
Even for you that is taking avoidance to a seriously whacky level OAB!
You are piss your pants running scared of ever being caught holding a definite position that could be challenged. An intellectual coward in fact. But then Bully’s usually are cowards at heart.
Oh dear, I seem to have stooped to your level 😀
Stooped? You’ve never attained OAB’s altitude.
Nor did you explain where, ‘in your experience’, you saw a transition from semi-capitalist social democracy into pure socialism.
“Stooped? You’ve never attained OAB’s altitude.”
I must be gutter scum indeed then McFlock, if a pathological obsession with bullying political opponents on an anonymous on line blog is your standard of excellence. sarc.
“Nor did you explain where, ‘in your experience’, you saw a transition from semi-capitalist social democracy into pure socialism.”
Well, no, because what I actually posted was that this is indeed an inevitably sticky, narrow and hazardous bridge to cross.
That is why I asked OAB, twice, (who introduced the subject), to define what exactly he meant by the notoriously variable term ‘Social Democracy’.
But as OAB has declined to clarify his beliefs with any more detail than ‘making an improvement’ I am happy to stick my neck out and stake a further concrete opinion.
At the point you cross into ‘Pure Socialism’, your system cannot be ‘Social Democracy’.
Unless you are accepting that the terms are synonymous? In which case there is a bit of apparent semantic contradiction to explain?
But if your vision of ‘Social Democracy’ is different from ‘ Pure Socialism’, then it should be a simple matter to explain what that difference is?
And whether that difference incorporates any elements of Capitalism?
In my experience the more ideologically rigid people who claim to believe in some form of ‘Social Democracy’ find it extraordinarily difficult to make concrete statements about those two points.
I believe the difficulty is in conceding that there is anything at all that is beneficial in Capitalism, while at the same time being unable to reference highly successful examples of non Capitalist systems?
But I’m happy to be proven wrong by those willing to venture a genuine rational argument?
That’s the thing with not being ideologically rigid. It makes it difficult for anti-human ideologues like TLS to figure out how to label me.
Diddums.
Except for the fact that it doesn’t as shown by all the poverty that it creates, all the recessions that increase that poverty even more while the rich get richer and the collapsed societies throughout history.
You mean all that in comparison to the record of non capitalist systems over the course of history?
Yeah, you know, the ones that keep going, don’t destroy the environment and generally don’t oppress people for the enrichment of a few.
are you saying that your proof that capitalism works is your assertion that socialism doesn’t> That’s a slender premise
No.
The evidence that Capitalism works is substantiated by even the briefest review of world history since 1650.
Capitalist economies have been the engine driving a period of advancement that utterly dwarfs the achievements of any other period in history under any other system. (Unless you can cite proof that is not true?)
And it rolls on. Just take a look at the reality of the current world.
Imperfect yes, but thankfully highly open to further modification.
The New Deal hasn’t registered with this leech who climbs the ladder then burns it.
Great look at what captalism has done for us since 1650. Right now the planet is burning up because of excessive pollution from our wonderful improvements and machinations. For every step forward there has been a sideways step, then a half step back but we never can go back to the point we were at earlier. We just don’t notice it because we are so drunk with our own cleverness.
Then we use our devices to record the destruction we have caused because it is important that some things should be measured and retained for statistics and information and that other things should be glossed over or ignored. Nothing is done in the full light of day. That’s why the GCSB is so anxious. They want to know more, but for us to know less.
And you harp on that ‘We don’t know how lucky we are boys.’
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/314356/migrant-workers-exploitation-
this is a great achievement for you to be proud of…
“Capitalism works.”
Interesting assertion. Care to cite some sources?
Goldman Sachs.
Halliburtons.
Blackwater Security.
Of course it works, especially when you get all that public money.
SERCO
Sheep shagger Enron,Hubbard,Merrill Lynch etc etc etc.
Money printing trillions of dollars.
Because of communism western countries brought in free healthcare free education,pensions welfare unions
Were aloud free and balanced press now communism has declined .
So has all the egalitarianism declined.
The Murdocracy is reigning supreme.
But its not Capitalism its Cronyism
Corruption is its heart.
Welfare for the super rich bailouts galore.
Arms dealers
Drugs dealers
Oil dealers
Money dealers
Propaganda dealers
Allowed to undermine any opposition that gets in their way.
Cronyism sheep shagger!
Lost sheep, in a thread about how free market capitalist employers are failing and so ask nanny state to hold their poor wee hands with some welfare, claims “Capitalism works”
ha ha ha – the best own goal ever
Thanks VTO. Your comment here inspired me to write an article for Redline on the subject. See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=11221&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
So much for bosses’ support for the ‘free market’
You gave us the wrong link.
Rock on brother!
Exceptional article
http://starspangledrodeo.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/our-tupuna-dreamed-future-for-all-of-us.html
re-think, re-feel, re-imagine, reveal, re-make…
Ka tuku mihi ki a koe, Marty. He korero miharo 🙂
Very interesting whakaaro. I hope that this is widely read.
Thanks so much for this link
Action Station is crowdfunding for a national campaign to bring TPPA out to the open air.
https://actionstation.nationbuilder.com/tppanodeal
Help if you can.
I have just got home from the Tauranga march, well organised and not a bad turnout for old conservative Tauranga.
Have just donated, thanks for the link, we must stop this bullshit.
REMINDER :
NATION WIDE MARCH TODAY AGAINST TPPA.
Hope you will join the march and send a strong message to this government to be careful and not sell NZ to big business and foreign interests.
Here is the link with all the information:
Please check the TIME and VENUE of the march for your city or a city close to you:
http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/events/
ALSO,
Please SIGN the petition to John Key here:
http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/take-action/defend-our-sovereignty/
[Also, More info on this thread:
http://thestandard.org.nz/kelsey-et-al-on-tppa-wn-4-akl-5-march/#comments
from twitter
Sunday Star-Times @SundayStarTimes 2 hours ago
Tomorrow in @SundayStarTimes, Nicky Hager and @rj_gallagher exclusively reveal the high-tech tools with which NZ spies on NZers in Pacific.
Matthew Hooton @MatthewHootonNZ 1 hour ago
@SundayStarTimes @rj_gallagher That is treason.
You know they’re worried when they start throwing around the t-word.
Yep, Hager is trying to overthrow the government! Shock horror! Someone ring the SAS and sort him out!
Treason – ha ha ha ha ha ha
how can that even apply in a globalised, USA’d, TPPA’d world where everything is one? It cant. Treason is no longer applicable. We are all our own individuals with no responsibility or obligation to any particular state. Fuck the state.
Treason – ha ha ha ha ha ha
Hooton seems to think that fighting for NZ sovereignty is treason – against the transnational corporate set.
Hooton
Part 5
Crimes against public order
Treason and other crimes against the Sovereign and the State
73 Treason
Every one owing allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
(a) kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to the Sovereign, or imprisons or restrains her or him; or
(b) levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.
Perhaps he meant Espionage?
Nah, see, the forces of socialism are “levying war” against New Zealand and we’re at war with “freedom of public information”, and criticising the present government is preeeeeeeetty much the same thing as “using force” to “overthrow” the government.
So Nicky Hager’s, like, three times a traitor.
Hooton actively supports Chinese economic control of this country.
That sounds more like treason to me.
I wonder how lucrative would a PR contract for a VicVichy-style puppet government would be?
He could surely ask that lucrative kind of advice from Shipley, Brash or Richardson … masters of the renmimbi .. they are treasonous in my mind.
Opening the burglar’s tool bag and showing the tools to the home owner is nothing like treason. Treason would be breaking Kiwi law in the service of a foreign power, like, you know, what FJK does.
Anyone know why Pete George is no longer stinking up the place?
Banned for a month a few days ago. Not nearly long enough IMO.
I really really miss the digressions on the burrow configurations of the lesser spotted beige hen and on and on:-)
It’s true, our community’s knowledge of all flora and fauna which are beige is being eroded by his absence.
We can still sing O Vole Mio together !!
Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which was once classified with the family Tiliaceae, more recently with Malvaceae, and has now been reclassified as belonging to the family Sparrmanniaceae. “Jute” is the name of the plant or fiber that is used to make burlap, Hessian or gunny cloth.
Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibers and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses of vegetable fibers. Jute fibers are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose and lignin. It falls into the bast fiber category (fiber collected from bast or skin of the plant) along with kenaf, industrial hemp, flax (linen), ramie, etc. The industrial term for jute fiber is raw jute. The fibers are off-white to brown, and 1–4 metres (3–13 feet) long. Jute is also called “the golden fiber” for its color and high cash value.
🙂
Enjoy the constructive discussions while you can over the next few weeks till the diffuser in chief returns.
Tory Cuckoo in Labour nests.
THIS January Jim Murphy, Labour’s leader in Scotland, made John McTernan into his chief of staff.
Here is a video of McTernan, last September at the Tory conference, offering advice to the Conservatives and praise to Margaret Thatcher.
McTernan was speaking at a breakfast meeting at a Tory-leaning think tank.
McTernan poured praise on Thatcher. He said: “She changed the economic structure for good. As in forever. But also for good. It’s a good thing she did what she did.”
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-c4b2-With-friends-like-this-Labour-hardly-needs-enemies#.VPotqIbXerW
The video is here: chilling stuff from a Blairite, who recently worked for Labour in Australia.
http://wingsoverscotland.com. The article is called the Cuckoo in the nest.
This is the reason that Labour will be wiped out in Scotland at the May election.
Labor in Oz eh, no surprises there as Shorten has stood aside and let Abbott slam through the same shit NACT has here and raise their risk profile.
All he had to do was give the senate enough doubt to turf the measures out as neither major party has the numbers with independents and cliveo self destructo party senators all over the place.
Australian ‘Thinker in Residence’
McTernan worked on the 2007 Australian general election that brought the former Australian Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to power.
In February 2011 he was appointed ‘Thinker in Residence’ for the Government of South Australia, working on health and education reform. He gave up this role when he became Julia Gillard’s communications chief. [5] He resigned from this position after Gillard was ousted as PM and replaced by Kevin Rudd.
http://powerbase.info/index.php/John_McTernan#Australian_.27Thinker_in_Residence.27
Labor in oz is a pale imitation of the golden era of hawke and keating who laid down the reforms to tax, introduced compulsory super etc that created savings with a solid tax base to fund health, education and infrastructure.
The puppets in charge now wouldn’t know reform if it bit them in the arse, all captives of the system doffing the cap to Murdoch since keating lost with the hobbled mining tax being an epic fail to claw back some of the resource pillage that’s been going on for decades.
Paul Keating wants the NSW government to sell off its electricity network and has been critical of Kabor for opposing it.
Seems to me that the Labour nests welcomed in the Tory Cuckoo very warmly and knowingly.
I worry that some of our NZ leadership think it is terribly clever to listen to the like of McTernan. I do not believe Andree Little would. There are some MPs who would.
New Zealand’s immigration controls: not in workers’ interests: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/new-zealand%E2%80%99s-immigration-controls-%E2%80%93-not-in-workers%E2%80%99-interests-%C2%A0/
And the way to deal with the importation of cheap labour is to organise them and ensure they know their rights. In any case, the ‘cheap labour’ often comes from countries where workers have a rather greater history of militancy than in NZ.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/67073141/Filipinos-charged-huge-fees-to-work-in-New-Zealand
That is really bad.
<blockquote> Business Immigration owner Lyn Sparks would not comment on the workers' complaints but said all the agency's processes and fees were legitimate. "We get licensed every year don't we," he said.
Maybe this is what shonkey meant by turning us into a trading hub, after all it’s just another commodity to be traded to a merchant banker.
The National Party approach to ethics: if it’s technically legal then it can’t be morally bankrupt!
And they will hire really expensive lawyers to make it all sound technically legal no matter how ethically wrong it is.
An Alaskan responds to Inhofe’s snowball stunt.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/Blue_In_AK/1622140_950192931681791_1609883701604960399_n_zpshaonh6gj.jpg
Saturday afternoon entertainment. Guess the strategy behind Hooton’s latest crazy tweets. SST will publish a report tomorrow from Hager and an Intercept journo on the tech used to spy on NZers/the Pacific. According to Hooton, “this is actual treason”. He then goes on to say that Snowden should be executed.
https://twitter.com/sundaystartimes/status/573944664081850368
https://twitter.com/MatthewHootonNZ/status/573949709938634752
True colours from a shill for sale. The PR game has no moral compass it’s all about the cash.
Mr Hooton is back to his old self then…
If he reads the Crimes Act, where treason is set out, he would find
“Part 5
Crimes against public order
Treason and other crimes against the Sovereign and the State
73 Treason
Every one owing allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
(a) kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to the Sovereign, or imprisons or restrains her or him; or
(b) levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.”
Holding the government to account for its lies = treason )to the Right – except when they are in Opposition).
After suffering ‘intense mental agony’, Hamiora Pere was hanged at the Terrace Gaol, Wellington, and buried in an unmarked grave. He is the only New Zealander to have been executed after being convicted of treason.
Hamiora Pere had been tried for treason in the Supreme Court in Wellington on 28 September. He was one of the first men charged under the Disturbed Districts Act, a temporary measure containing special provisions (such as smaller juries) for trying Māori who were deemed to be ‘in open rebellion’ and had committed ‘outrages and atrocities’. These trials were a legal landmark: the colonial government was asserting its ‘absolute sovereignty’ over all Māori.
The attorney-general told the court that Pere had joined Te Kooti’s force at Puketapu, on the eastern fringe of the Urewera Range, in August 1868. He had taken part in the bloody raids on Matawhero and Oweta in November, and in the subsequent battles at Mākaretū and Ngātapa. There was no direct evidence that he had killed anybody and a murder charge against him was withdrawn. The jury took less than 15 minutes to find him guilty of treason, for which the death penalty was mandatory but could be commuted.
Hamiora Pere was one of five Māori men captured after the siege of Ngātapa (many more had been summarily executed) to be convicted of murder and/or treason. The government seems to have decided to execute one of them, ‘by way of example and caution’ to any Māori who were still tempted to take up arms. There was compelling evidence against Wi Tamararo, who was convicted of murder on 27 September but avoided execution by hanging himself two days later. There were extenuating circumstances for the other three, who had been convicted of treason. That left Pere.
The fate of Hamiora Pere cast a long shadow. It was fictionalised in two novels published in 1986. Part of the back-story in Witi Ihimaera’s The matriarch, the trial and execution is the climax of Maurice Shadbolt’s Season of the Jew, in which a youthful Pere appears repeatedly as an informant of the central character, a colonial officer. In its 2004 report on the Turanganui a Kiwa claims, the Waitangi Tribunal recommended that the attorney-general ‘reassess the record … with a view to considering whether the decision to hang Pere was safe’.
Image: report of execution in Wellington Independent (Papers Past).
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/page/hamiora-pere-executed-treason
“Punishment of High Treason Act 1870
“2. From and after the passing of this Act the [Imperial Act 54 George III c146] shall be deemed not to extend to or be applicable in the administration of justice within the Colony of New Zealand.”
The Imperial Act referred to required the sentence in all cases of high treason to be “that such person should be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and be there hanged by the neck until such person should be dead and that afterwards the head should be severed from the body of such person and the body divided into four quarters” to be disposed of as the monarch sees fit.
The 1814 English statute was definitely the law in New Zealand by virtue of our English Laws Act 1858. The sentence has actually been imposed in this country, provoking the 1870 legislation. On 23 September 1869, after a jury had found Te Kooti associates Hetariki Te Oikau, Rewi Tamanui Totitoti and Matene Te Karo guilty of high treason, Justice Johnston unwillingly sentenced each to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
“The law which I am bound to administer leaves me no alternative, and it is my duty to pass upon you the highest sentence which that law allows. The sentence that I am about to pass on you is not my word, but the word of the law. I must now proceed to pass upon you, and each of you, that awful sentence which the law has prescribed for the offence of which you have been found guilty,” the Wellington Independent reported the Judge as saying. After passing sentence he then added: “I again say that I am sure nothing will be done but the hanging.”
None of the three was executed and their sentences were commuted to imprisonment. One person has been executed for treason in New Zealand. Although it was accepted that he had killed no-one, Hamiora Pera was also charged with high treason for actions in Te Kooti’s war and tried after the other three. He was found guilty and Justice Johnston reluctantly passed sentence, again assuring him that “nothing but death” would be carried into effect. While there has been extensive debate about his guilt, he was hanged in Wellington on 16 November 1869.
On 30 June 1870 New Zealand’s Parliament changed the punishment for high treason from hanging, drawing and quartering to hanging. This remained the law until the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1989 came into force on 26 December 1989.”
https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/lawtalk/lawtalk-archives/issue-842/that-was-the-law
I aslo though you could be charged with treason if you got too interested in the sovereign’s wife??!
Matty??
An interesting paper I found on the case for central banks raising inflation targets from 2 to 4%:
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2014/wp1492.pdf
It would reduce unemployment, and most importantly allow for better recovery from recessions, adding more economic stability. Recoveries from recessions would be faster and more robust.
I think it’d help us get closer to full employment.
Also we need to mandate that the Reserve Bank should pursue maximum employment and most favourable terms of trade.
Monetary policy cannot deliver increased employment. Only fiscal policy can do that. Also, despite central banks printing immense amounts of money into the financial economy, the world is collapsing into debt deflation. Many central banks around the world have interest rates set at 0% or even negatively, reflecting this reality.
I agree, and argued something similar on FB at the last election.
Bob Jones makes the point that we shouldn’t bother at all – free market prices should fluctuate, and legislating to prevent that using the Reserve Bank is basically equivalent to price controls.
This largely just shows Bob Jones knows next to nothing about macro economics.
Maybe not, but it’s still a valid point, and one which is not macroeconomic in nature.
Central bank interest rate policy is a macroeconomic policy question. Bob Jones thinks that in the absence of central bank targeting interest rates would result in market fluctuations round a ‘natural rate of interest’, but the result is likely to be that the rate of interest falls to zero instead.
If the reserve bank is not targeting interest rates, then the treasury is setting the interest rates. Here is an explanation,
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=4656
and also,
http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp-pdf/WP37-MoslerForstater.pdf
NICK GRANT TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2014 NBR
Key denies mass GCSB surveillance and collection, declines to discuss XKeyscore
5th para down
““There’s no mass collection either. Not of New Zealanders.”
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/key-denies-mass-gcsb-surveillance-and-collection-declines-discuss-xkeyscore-ng-162490
that’s ok then 😉
Tor supporters find GPS/mobile tracking device on activist’s car at tech conference
https://people.torproject.org/~ioerror/skunkworks/forensics/valencia-tracking-device/
Petrobras – wasn’t that the company that Bridges and Key were recently snuggling upto to drill for oil in our waters – Bridges? The one that got angry on Campbell Live defending his decisions.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31775677
Brazil Petrobras scandal: Top politicians accused
Petrobras is a technically advanced and shockingly corrupt company. Rich Brazilians and most politicians see the state as a mechanism by which to enrich themselves. Petrobras helps with this process and has paid heaps of bribes to construction companies and politicians. Possibly a little bit like Fletchers in Christchurch, but on a much bigger scale.
Although all parties are involved (except maybe the far left), the politicised Brazilian Federal Police and Congressional investigators are focussing on the President’s party, the PT. In reality, Petrobras has been illicitly enriching politicians since it was founded. However, many of the legal officials are linked to the opposition PSDB (social democratic party) which is like a more corrupt National. Therefore they are trying to limit investigations to the years that the PT (Workers’ Party) has held the presidency. I hope they are not successful.