Bernie Sanders’ critique of Clinton is not that she’s cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches, but that she’s a creature of a fundamentally corrupt system, who comfortably operates within that system and accepts it as legitimate. Clinton has had trouble countering that critique because, well, it’s true. It’s not that she’s been bought, it’s that she bought in.
I think that sums it up well. I’d say that it applies a lot to the Labour Party caucus as well.
It is hard to know where to start with our child PM over the last week….
It seems his bullshit and wave, in the absence of self-direction, is merely winding up tighter and faster like a small child before bedtime…. faster and faster, smarter and smarmier, wave and wavier, round and around, and around again ……. fzzzztttt! Pop bang splatter in another soon-to-be moment of yuck and shit…
My goodness DTB…..that is spot on for a truth that circles. Everybody knows it’s there. How fortunate there’s a Bernie Sanders. To articulate what a healthy community is about.
WONDERING WHY MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOESN’T COVER TPP ?
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….” Noam Chomsky
The TPP isn’t on that spectrum. That’s because 4 of the 6 corporations which control 90% of US media are known to be lobbying for the TPP.
– COMCAST, “the parent company of NBC and MSNBC, has a team of at least ten lobbyists seeking to influence the TPP on ‘International IP Protection.’” MSNBC recently cancelled The Ed Show ostensibly for running anti-TPP commentary: http://bit.ly/1DLN82j
– TIME WARNER INC., “the parent company of CNN, has at least four lobbyists working to influence the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Disclosures show the TW lobbying team has attempted to influence both Congress and the U.S. Trade Representative office on the deal.”
– TWENTY FIRST CENTURY FOX, “a subsidiary of News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has a team of three lobbyists working to influence the TPP.”
– DISNEY CORPORATION, “parent company of ABC News and Fusion, is lobbying on the TPP regarding intellectual property enforcement.”
“At least six original signatories have to have successfully ratified the agreement.
Those six signatories, between them, must represent 85 percent of the total GDP of the twelve originals signatories.
That last clause is important. The United States and Japan between them represent just shy of 80 percent of the GDP of the twelve original TPP signatories (specifically, the U.S. represents nearly 62 percent of TPP GDP and Japan accounts for 17 percent). Basically, the TPP can’t come into force if either of these states fail to ratify the agreement in their domestic legislatures because there would be no way for the remaining signatories to fulfill the 85 percent of GDP requirement (even if the United States and all states but Japan ratify, the eleven would stand at 83 percent of GDP).”
I think I read somewhere it needs to have at least Japan or the US to go ahead.
Edit: just saw you post.
Seems a bit ridiculous to be completely reliant on one country.
If the US didn’t sign, I’m sure the other countries would just get back around the table and sort out another deal.
There is going to be a free trade deal of some nature, including the US would be good but if they don’t want to be part of it, it’s their loss.
They will sign for geopolitical reason, to walk away allows China to fill the vacuum, the whole reason the U.S. got involved In the TPPA was to maintain thier relevance iin the Asia pacific
It needs to be ratified by at least 6 countries that add up to more than 85% of the combined GDP of the 12 signatories. Which in practice means Japan and the US both have to ratify before it can come into force.
Of course! Unlike the conformist politicians out there, who think signing a bad deal is good because other’s do so. Current politicians are too scared to stand on their own two feet and say NO to job losses, health increases, copywrite increases, environmental pollution, dishonouring treaty agreements, becoming tenants in our own country, being sued by corporations but not being able to sue corporations in the same bogus courts.
BOO to John Key and the National party!
Signed in a casino behind closed doors shows what a piece of crap it is!
The Herald reports this morning on a tragic motor accident near Te Kowhai with the two drivers dying as a result.
There is a long glowing profile (including a photo of this victim’s wife) on the success and “importance” of this victim.
“He was involved in a head on crash in his BMW with a 17 year old driving a Toyota Corolla.”
The feeling one gets as one reads the article is that it is probably the 17 year old’s fault. Certainly no reference in the article to the loss for his family, friends and community.
The report eventually indicates that the driver of the BMW was overtaking a truck when the accident occurred.
The story on the front page – I saw as walking along the main street this morning.
“NZ now safer for our kids
WHAT UTTER BULLSHIT*
I did not and will not link to the article – anyone with than more half their brain functioning will recognise it for what it is. Johnys in a bit of trouble so we had better publish a “puff piece” showing how good his gov’t is.
What can you expect the Herald is owned by Australians – an Australian fund manager and Rupert Murdoch. see below
APN News & Media Limited is an Australian and New Zealand[1] media company. Divisions include newspaper publishing, online publishing, broadcast radio and outdoor advertising in Australia and New Zealand. APN’s two largest shareholders are the Australian fund manager Allan Gray Australia[2] and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.[3] Irish company Independent News & Media and Denis O’Brien’s Baycliffe held an approximately 30% stake in the company before selling it in March 2015.[4]
Yep, saw that, and I’m waiting for our local rag to give out the name of the 17 year old killed by the BMW driver.
This is local.
We live on SH 39…a popular by pass between the North and the South West for trucks and cars. There are no passing lanes, and there are at least 40 bends that are posted 75km/hr.
But we live on that road…and every single time one of my kids heads off into town or to go to work I wonder if this is the day some fwit from Auckland in a beemer is going to take them out while trying to pass a truck. (google BMW accident SH 39)
One day I will film the near misses that happen outside our place on a holiday weekend or during the ski season.
You have to hunt for important stories hidden below nonsense about clickbait on ‘celebrities’,
‘Wall St stocks and oil have slumped again amidst growing talk of recession risk for both the US and the world.
In Friday trading (Saturday NZT), the Dow Jones fell 1.3 per cent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 1.9 per cent and the Nasdaq 3.3 per cent.
That took losses for the week to 3.1 per cent for the S&P 500 and 5.4 per cent for the Nasdaq.
In a world braced for a hard landing in China, the US recovery was meant to be coming to the rescue.
But Wall St’s dismal start to the year has sparked fears that it may have stalled and that the US Federal Reserve may have moved too soon to raise rates.
In New Zealand, the extended period of low dairy prices is the biggest concern. Last week, Fonterra cut its farmer payout forecast to $4.15 from $4.60 per kilo of milk solids. The next day, prices in the global dairy trade auction fell another 7.4 per cent.
ANZ economists responded by cutting their forecast for the payout to $3.95.
The average breakeven for most farmers is estimated at $5.40 per kg.
The Reserve Bank has indicated that it is likely to cut rates further this year if international conditions continue to weaken.
At this point that looks more likely than not.’
‘ANZ is forecasting a longer, deeper trough in dairy prices.
The bank has dropped its forecast price for milk solids this season by 30 cents to $3.95 a kilo.
It now “tentatively” expected a price of $5 a kilo in 2016-17, which is 50c to 75c less than it had previously been predicting.
Farmers would be losing about $1.50kg on their production over the two seasons, it said.’
Hunt – as in find something that is right out there in the open on the front home page?
Gee, don’t you think they would find somewhere a bit more ‘difficult’ than the front page to put it if they really didn’t want people to see it?
Like not publishing it at all for instance….
Yes Paul. One of the rare occasions I was moved to submit a comment there. I can guarantee the bulk of the comments were scathing… so many gaping holes in her arguments one hardly knew which to chose to comment on.
I’ve noted it’s happening more and more frequently on the MSM online outlets. They ask you to “have your say” and then don’t publish any of them. What about an OIA to find out what is going on or are they exempt.
” What about an OIA to find out what is going on or are they exempt.”
You can’t use the OIA. Official Information is only that held by the Government, in most of its many guises.
Our Government doesn’t own the Herald.
And even if it did own the Herald, it would likely be exempt, like Radio NZ.
Even some entities one would expect to be OIA-able are not, like primary health organisations, which get all their money from DHBs and MOH.
Paul (8) – NZH isn’t opening any comments to articles which might touch on FJK and his humiliation this week, through people power, with ordinary Kiwis fighting the signing of the odious TPPA.
Something to be said for digital media isn’t there? Yeah right!
Keep the masses ignorant, keeps them compliant and controllable by the despotic powers that be!
I’ve been around for almost seven decades and I’ve never known msm to be under such tight direct government control as it is now, not even in Muldoon’s time and that’s really saying something!
For some reason the NZH does not let any or hardly comments through during the weekend and I suspect that they have a shortage of Moderators on deck. The comments will appear slowly on Tuesday. The only exception seems to be comments to Sideswipe!
Lake Waikopiro, next to Lake Tutira, has been confirmed as having dangerous levels of cyanobacteria.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) staff noticed people swimming at Lake Waikopiro this week and decided to take water samples. Results came back yesterday showing potentially toxic cyanobacteria was present above guideline safety levels, although below the levels of the larger Lake Tutira, which was reported in mid-January and remains unsafe.
HBRC has sent samples to the Cawthron Institute in Nelson, and is waiting on results of tests to assess if toxins have been released into the water or not.’
‘Trout dying in Tutira’s toxic water
Dozens of dead fish were found along the shores of Lake Tutira by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s science monitoring team yesterday.
“We saw potentially over 100 pan-sized trout,” said Vicki Lyon, a water quality and ecology resource technician.
Prior to these latest deaths, the lake’s monitoring buoy recorded surface water temperatures approaching 33C — the warmest water ever recorded in the lake.
Phycocyanin levels, which indicate the presence of cyanobacteria, peaked at around the same time. Cyanobacteria is the toxin that led to the death of 4-year-old labrador Marley after she drank from the Tukituki River last month.’
Impossible.
As Andre says above
‘It needs to be ratified by at least 6 countries that add up to more than 85% of the combined GDP of the 12 signatories. Which in practice means Japan and the US both have to ratify before it can come into force.’
And hypothetically, a ‘TPPA like arrangement.’ would be a forced trade agreement not a free trade agreement, thereby limitIng NZ’s sovereignty and democracy. The only change would be a lesser amount of ISDS claims as the highly litigious US corporations would not be in the game.
the only winner in a TPPA like arrangement are the transnational corporations not any particular country…i.e the US is projecting 10s of thousand job losses
Who knows? It sounds more like a dickhead myth to me polmulgated by idiots in the media (few of whom appear to have looked at the TPPA in any depth) and David Farrar’s focus groups than anything else.
The only place I ever consistently hear that particular view (that all free trade is bad) is here, and even then only from a few people.
At work amongst all of the engineers, I don’t hear it. Generally they export and like free trade deals. But the ones I’ve talked to about it are deeply suspicious of this particular deal (the TPPA) because it doesn’t look like a free trade deal at all. It looks like the opposite.
In the political circles I still move in, most supported the China FTA albeit some pretty reluctantly, and virtually none of the same people support the TPPA.
My parents tend to be deeply suspicious of free trade deals. But they also tend towards admiring NZ First when they aren’t voting Labour. And they remember the aftermath of the depression when the fragile free trade systems collapsed causing untold misery.
I have to date supported all free trade deals from CER through WTO to the bilateral ones of recent decades. But the TPPA has less than a third of it about slightly freeing up trade. The rest is about restraining trade mostly for the benefit of specific interest groups.
It isn’t worth supporting because it looks to me like a PR fool just stuck a ‘Free Trade’ badge on it to make a dud deal full of advantages for interest groups to make it look better. It reminds me of the worst of the corn laws in what it tries to do. Or any pork barrel bill from the US congress.
//——
Tell me amongst the TPPA supporters would you say that the majority support it because of their religious economic beliefs? That anything with a sticker saying it “free trade” is good? Because that is the impression of get of the mindless fools that I have run across.
Many people have looked at the TPPA, found aspects that look to them to be highly flawed and detrimental, and therefore oppose getting into it. I’m one of them.
But when you get an ignorant bigot of a reporter shoving mic in front of you on a hot day while you are walking, it is kind of hard to explain that to the fool disrupting a protest.
One of the key problems I have with free trade (in it’s general sense) is that it forces countries like NZ to be commodities exporters (let’s for sake of argument include tourism in that). In the world of post-carbon, Peak Oil and CC, that’s insane. Yes, we could shift to exporting things that worked within those constraints (and I hope we do), but I think the free trade culture itself promotes profit drive motives above everything else. Which means we should be regulating, and bang, there goes the free bit.
My past (and probable future) employment has been with companies that depend on international trade both for input materials and sale of finished goods. So I’m very much for removing barriers to international trade.
My problem with the TPPA is that the trade aspects of it look like a very thin veneer over the bulk of the agreement, which is mostly an expansion of corporate privilege and power.
Of the 11 countries involved in the TPPA, we already had agreements with
Australia
Brunei
Chile
Malaysia
Singapore
with the TPPA there’s these countries added to the mix
Canada
Japan
Mexico
Peru
Vietnam.
USA
Why would all the other countries we already have free trade agreements want to join up to an arrangement which is more about corporate privilege and power and less about free trade. ?
Why sign up to a deal which is worse than the deal that you’re currently in?
carrot and stick…..the corporates weild more power than national bodies…just as our esteemed(?) leaders say we can’t afford to be the odd one out so do the others…and that fear is played on …the reality is the transnationals need markets , stable and (reasonably) affluent ones at that….its about time the boot was on the other foot, way past time…..and the pricks need to start paying their way
Shows how much power our one multinational company has over our current government when for such tiny gains Fonterra still held MFAT’s balls in its hand.
didn’t do them any good though….they were monstered in the deal and got virtually nothing….Fonterra may be our only international player of any scale but they pale into insignificance compared to the overseas owned corporations
Why sign up to a deal which is worse than the deal that you’re currently in?
If you are in a job and earning okay with future hopes, wouldn’t you think more than twice about saying no to the boss?
Many workers have been forced by their employers to go away on weekend group-building exercises to weld them into a team and had to undertake meaningless activities on numbers of occasions, taking them away from their families, in their own supposedly personal free time. Why accept that deal?
The desire is to weld employees (client countries of the USA) into a conformist lot of yes-men and women. Those who don’t participate can expect to be marked as undesirable. All part of the precarious world where we live freely, under the threat of being left out of whatever. And even being in leaves you out of pocket, or advantage, or resources, or anything that big corporations might decide to denude you of. The Emperor’s Clothes perhaps?
I really don’t like speculating about other people’s motives, particularly on a topic as complex as this.
But in this case it looks to me like maybe the TPPA grew too big, and fear of the risks of being outside of the agreement became the dominant motive for staying in the agreement. Possibly coupled with fear of too much loss of face from pulling out on the part of individuals that had already invested a lot of political capital into the agreement.
a parting thought for you BM…..TPPA is like game of blackjack…the corporations are the dealer…the minimum bet is $1000……NZ has a stake of 2k, the other members increasingly more…..whos going to win?
not at all…but then there is no such animal as a completely free trade deal….it would require both (or all) parties to be equal in every way,
however, there are trade deals where the benefits for both parties outweigh the inevitable costs….TPPA is the complete antithesis of that
‘The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes special protections for corporations that offshore American jobs to low-wage countries. The TPP would not only replicate, but actually expand, the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) extraordinary privileges for firms that relocate abroad, and eliminate many of the usual risks that make firms think twice about moving to low-wage countries. The TPP’s offshoring incentives include a guaranteed minimum standard of treatment in the offshore venue and compensation for regulatory costs.
The NAFTA-style offshoring incentives that the TPP would expand have contributed to the net loss of more than 57,000 American manufacturing facilities and nearly 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs – one out of every four – since NAFTA took effect. The U.S. Department of Labor lists millions of workers as specifically losing their jobs to offshoring and import competition since the Fast-Tracking of NAFTA, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NAFTA expansion deals – and that is under just one narrow program that excludes many whose job loss is trade-related. Studies estimate that the U.S. economy could have supported 7 million more manufacturing jobs if not for the massive trade deficits that have accrued under current U.S. trade policy.’
(Reply to BM @ 10) There is more than one strand of thought in the USA. The people who oppose the TPPA there seem to have much the same concerns as those who oppose it here. What is of concern about the USA, here, there and elsewhere, are the ambitions of those aligned with the US corporations, the constraints they seek to impose on governments in order to lock in their own dominance, and subterfuge they have employed to do it.
This was a straightforward recount of events by a Hawkes Bay paper.
It is not an opinion piece.
As you appear a slavish supporter of the TPPA, negotiated by trade ministers with the input of 600 international corporations, can you explain why it’s good for NZ?
And remember it’s not a free trade deal.
So think of other reasons.
(subtitle courtesy of McFlock, with thanks)
A good point, Paul. TPPA is not a free trade deal at all, as has been stated many times. In fact, when you look at all the ‘free-trade’ deals this country has been involved in or part of, the benefits have yet to ‘trickle’ down to the man in the street, except for cheap Chinese junk in our hardware shops. Most of the benefits from free trade have been captured by the top 1%, with inequality growing to obscene proportions.
So maybe, just maybe, free-trade deals are not the panacea they are portrayed to be by their promoters. Perhaps we should be looking at ‘Fair’ trade deals.
Are you really saying globalisation and trade over last 50 years has not delivered higher standards of living and taken more people out of poverty than ever before. Show me a closed society that has been successful. Its a fact corporates now deliver by far the majority of our services and goods, it is no longer the state, thus trade is inevitable if you wish the nz economy to thrive Most of the fear about TPPA is fear of change which is understandable , ie we will loose what we have, this is not the case as with other trade deals the TPPA will over deliver on the positive side, companies and individuals will take advantage of it to the advantage of all that is not envisaged in current economic modelling
Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster) 12.1.1.1
Granted, the capitalist system has been successful – up to a point. Now, IMO, the balance has shifted too far in favour of large multi-national enterprises. Inequality is rampant, and poverty and underemployment is growing in New Zealand and worldwide. All the indications are that the corporate system is going to come crashing down – probably this year in an almighty market crash, or dismantled after the US elections (if Bernie wins).
The neoliberal nirvana has almost played out its time. It really is not a question of if but when it all comes tumbling down and, more importantly, what is going to replace it.
Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster) 12.1.1.2
Granted that capitalism has been successful, but only up to a point. IMO, the system is now all out of balance, with too much power being concentrated in the hands of too few. Inequality is rampant and middle class poverty is growing worldwide.
There will be a rebalancing, of that you can be certain. Probably this year, with a market slowdown of massive proportions, or maybe next year (if Bernie becomes president).
Perhaps then this country will be in a position to renegotiate the TPPA to make it a ‘fair’ trade agreement, instead of a corporate welfare agreement.
[r0b: there are a bunch of strange characters in your new name, causing your comments to go to moderation. Please delete and retype your name for your next comment…]
A constant theme on this site is the msm are full of the proverbial. the media push doom and gloom because it sells. Fact China is still growing at 6 pc per year as it recalibrate its economy and is very unlikely to implode, the U.S. is growing and unlikely to see recession, Europe appears to be over the worst of it and while growing slowly is growing Corporates are not necessarily seeing or agreeing with what the media like to portray What stats are you quoting poverty is growing world wide, this is clearly not the case, to the contrary millions of people have been taken out of poverty over the last 20 years, just look at Asia as an example.
Not hard to find information on the shrinking middle-class in USA – http://boingboing.net/2015/12/10/america-shrinking-middle-clas.html
Also, I lived in China for three years about a decade ago – and the disparity in wealth was shocking and extreme. And if you believe the ‘official’ stats on China – well, you’re gullible in the extreme.
[r0b: There are a lot of junk characters (possibly invisible) at the end of your new name. In your next comment please delete and retype your name, or your comments will keep going to moderation]
Thanks Dialey – that is a very good, very clear outline of the issue. It looks to me as if the people showing the most enthusiasm for this deal are the ones who think they will have a part to play in managing the power transfer or trumpeting the propaganda, which I guess is true in most cases of colonisation.
Some background reading for those who look at today’s turbulence in the world, and then think of the centuries of human development, thought and philosphy and wonder if any of it has ever reached our leaders, businesspeople and politicians and their and our parents who trained us in our prejudices and common goals.
Founded during the interwar period, the School consisted of dissidents who were at home neither in the existent capitalist, fascist, nor communist systems that had formed at the time. Many of these theorists believed that traditional theory could not adequately explain the turbulent and unexpected development of capitalist societies in the twentieth century. Critical of both capitalism and Soviet socialism, their writings pointed to the possibility of an alternative path to social development.
I wonder where those people ended up? Not a happy or popular position to adopt in early 20th century Germany. Reminds me of old song Something’s Got to Give.
When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Something’s got to give…
Lyrics Freak
The people express their electoral will by giving the Opposition a massive constitutional majority.
The President then uses the outgoing assembly to load the Supreme Court with Pro-Socialist Judges.
The Supreme Court then dismisses 4 opposition legislators in order to reduce the opposition majority below the constitutional level.
The Supreme Court then appoints a pro-socialist majority to the Electoral C omission, despite Constitution stating that the Assembly should select the appointees, and that they should be non-partisan.
President then subverts the elected Assembly by ruling by decrees.
A question for the apologists here for the Venezuelan Socialists. Do you support these actions?
Lost sheep is simply highlighting that the society and economic system you aspire to has been tried many times and without fail ended up in abject failure and human misery
Yes: social democracy is the most successful political system that has ever been tried. Your flaccid attempts to smear say something about you and nothing whatsoever about your targets.
It’s worthless and tiresome and a perfect expression of everything the National Party represents.
Ropata, I am pointing out that the democratic will of the Venezuelan people is being subverted by their President. He is the one kicking them when they are down.
@OAB. Social Democracy is a very successful system, but we are talking about Venezuela, which has a Socialist system.
Socialism is one of the worst systems ever invented, as Venezuela is demonstrating.
Ropata, OAB, do you support the actions of the Venezuelan President I note above?
When did you stop pashing Augusto Pinochet’s corpse?
You see how this works? Shall we have a “debate” according to your witless point-scoring wank system? You seem to think you can demand answers of people, and I’m here to tell you that Pinochet pashers like you deserve jack shit.
How typical of a Pinochet pasher to hate a system that increases literacy and decreases child mortality. I guess literate healthy people are harder to abduct and torture to death.
Is that red herring rant meant to disguise the fact that, again, you are not willing to make an honest answer to a straightforward question OAB?
It’s very simple. Do you support the actions of the Venezuelan Socialist President?
Yes or no will do. Only take you a couple of seconds. Whats the problem?
It’s very simple: do you support throwing people out of helicopters into the sea? And when did you stop fucking your pet pig?
Is this witless pigfucker argument the best you can do, Pinochet-pasher?
Speaking of cancelling election results, ECAN. Do you support the anti-democratic actions of the NZ Prime Minister? You do, don’t you: so you’re in no position to be looking askance at Venezuela, because you support a government that appoints cronies, cancels elections, and can’t even get literacy and child mortality right. You poxy hypocrite.
Meanwhile, the NZ Left has lots in common with social democrats the world over, and you haven’t got an answer to that other than to support torturers.
You demand answers from people all day every day OAB. What is wrong with answering one or two yourself?
And in this case it would only take one word to confirm you do not support the authoritarian actions of a President subverting the democratic will of the people?
I have to admit, your refusal to so does lead me to suspect you actually support those actions, but are unwilling to be honest about it.
I must admit that that says something about you and nothing whatsoever about me, and if you haven’t worked out my opinion of authoritarians by now you’re inattentive as well as a massive hypocrite.
Oh, and don’t flatter yourself that this means I regard your opinions in this context as remotely credible. You supported Pinochet, after all.
My interest in Venezuela largely stems from my youthful vigorous opposition to Pinochet’s murderous regime.
See. I am happy to confirm my opposition.
Unlike yourself, who cannot bring yourself to confirm your opposition to the current President’s subversion of the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.
I can only conclude you have a double standard. You do not object to authoritarianism when it is imposed in the name of Socialism.
You didn’t explicitly deny your support for Jorge Rafael Videla. I can only conclude that you want to throw your political opponents out of helicopters into the sea.
3 replies OAB? This one is weighing heavily on your conscience obviously.
And/or do you think that if you make enough replies it will hide your refusal to address a straightforward question honestly?
Seriously. I thought the policy on this site was that commenters should be willing to argue a point when reasonably requested to do so?
And I have observed YOU YOURSELF on numerous occasions demanding answers of others and (abusively) berating those you felt were not giving sufficiently open or honest answers to your questions. So on both those standards, what about your refusal to engage with a reasonable question eh?
My question to you was reasonable.
We have previously debated the subject at hand, and you entered this particular discussion voluntarily.
The material I referenced was factual.
It concerns questions that you and others on this site commonly debate (support for authoritarian governments).
I posed the question in a polite spirit of goodwill.
You evidently have plenty of time free to debate.
It is a question you could answer with 5 seconds effort. So on what grounds would you reasonably decline to address the point I raised?
Seriously, if the bar of ‘debate’ here is that commenters can simply ignore any point that challenges their position without justifying their refusal….what on earth is the value of ‘debate’ that occurs here?
If you were genuinely after my views on Venezuela, you’d read them and engage with the points I made
We had that discussion, and you know very well that you made no comment at all regarding the points I raise in 15 above.
Instead, you put words in my mouth and lie about my opinions.
As you refuse to clarify your opinion, I am forced to make assumptions about why that is, and what you might think.
It seems bizarre in the extreme that you complain about being mis-represented, but refuse to clarify your position!
It would just take one word. What possible issue is there with that?
No-one is forcing you to do anything. So the “possible issue” may be that your entire premise is a lie, characterised by sexual congress with porcine mammals.
Have you considered that? I had hoped that holding up a rhetorical mirror to your behaviour might give you a gargantuan clue. Apparently not.
One of your other prejudicial dishonesties was your description of people as “apologists”. You brought blank ammunition, and your powder’s wet.
My current assumption is that your unwillingness to indicate whether or not you support the authoritarian actions of the Venezuelan Government is because you do support them, but you know it would not be a good look at all to admit it.
If this is untrue, then just say ‘NO’.
I will be very happy to be corrected, and I will unreservedly withdraw my incorrect assumption.
If you do not, I will not ask you again. I will simply accept that this is the second time this week you have publicly exposed yourself as holding views you are not willing to admit to openly. Next time you have a problem with someone declining to debate your reasonable points, or accuse someone of a lack of honesty or transparency, I will remind you of this.
BTW, do you really think all that stuff about sex with animals enhances the validity of your arguments, or reflects well on you as a person? Let alone reflects well on this forum as a whole?
Why we can continue to treat Australia as our friend I do not know.
With “friends” like these who would want to be friendly with us?
The way Australia, particularly under the Dutton regime, has treated innocent asylum seekers, especially women and children, is indescribably inhumane and despicable.
Seems cruel but makes me wonder why our fire-fighters bother trying to help them. Have to remember there are many Australians also outraged by the actions of their backward leaders.
Have been wondering lately about what the age group bands are which write into this blog site. It seems to me that there could well be quite a lot of older folk (myself included at 70) who take an active interest in what is happening in our country – it may be me, but in my own experience there are many younger people who just show no interest in politics or current affairs at all – I have one of each, one who couldn’t care less and one who cares a lot. Is it because we probably are retired and have the time to muse and ponder and debate topics or is it just something else altogether. I know we grew up in the turbulent 60’s and were used to protesting and becoming passionate about being able to manage our own affairs – does that make our generation more active and vigilant or is it something else, maybe the preoccupation with iphones, electronic gaming etc which becomes an obsession quite often, shuts younger people off – shutting their ears off from the world. Mostly I see young people eyes glued to their phones walking down the street incommunicado to the world.
Just me wandering off in my own thoughts – but its a real problem for this country if kids are not being taught civics and modern history at school, not having conversations around the table at home about what’s going on in this country and not being able to get balanced debate in the MSM – it definitely will end up a dictatorship and the younger generations will be trapped in a nightmare police state with their eyes shut oblivious before they know it.
I’m 69 and suspect the average age here is fairly high 🙂
I think you’re right; youth is accustomed to immediate feedback and turn-over of ideas via internet and a range of media devices. The slow turning of the wheels of politics, endless discussion, sterile debate and the orchestrated response of MSM all comprise a major switch-off.
Until schools teach social and civic responsibility as mainstream subject the trend will continue. Its astonishing that the dangers facing our planet as well as our country are given no more than sanitised academic treatment.
My kids are both early 30 ‘s and have zero interest in or knowledge of politics.
It is my theory that people under 30 are more interested in the world than those between 30 and 45.
People born from 1967 onwards have no adult knowledge of the world prior to Rogernomics.
People born after 1990 have no adult knowledge of the world before the GFC, when it became apparent the neo-liberal world is not working.
It was heartening to see the large number of young adults involved in the Real Choice action shutting down Auckland from 9am Thurs. The earlier protests, eg in Dec 2012, seemed to have a noticeably lower percentage of youth IMO.
I am greatly encouraged at the growing political awareness of this age group and with the current use of technology, this could grow rapidly and exponentially. The flying dildo coverage went viral. Every young person in NZ will know what and why this happened, and it won’t be through the Herald.
The next step is to get other information through- maybe in a piecemeal fashion- in small byte-sized but riveting chunks. I am confident that this will happen now and that it will be initiated by young activists. The tide is turning.
Thank you all for responding – my two kids were born in the late 1970’s and were too young to experience Roger Douglas’ pain on the country. They haven’t had to take out student loans thanks to us but one kid is very aware of the unfairness around her. The other is a w…….. banker as much as I love her to bits and making huge money and is politically unaware.
I do think TMM’s comment about getting bite sized chunks of riveting information out to these kids so preoccupied with their hand pieces would be excellent. Kids seem to want everything instantly these days and its no thanks to us as we have provided that environment to them, so bite sized would be the right size for them. I personally don’t like bite sized as I like to ingest the whole chunk slowly – but that’s age I suppose.
Education is down the tubes and is deficit in its subject matter but that again is a Government agenda and what governments prefer, people dumbed down, the more ignorant and docile the better for them, but thanks it’s great that one can ponder and discuss thoughts on this blog site.
Most commenters on the Standard tend to be over 50 – I think stats put up by lprent at one stage showed that the most engaged readers (the ones who spend hours here) were older.
Facebook is particularly popular with those aged 30s and 40s (and a lot of discussions there are political), and a number of social media platforms are popular with those under 30.
The under 30s are interesting; the engaged are a minority, unfortunately, but they could be the most well informed and empowered perhaps of any generation at their life stage; they keenly evaluate information, read history, write engagingly, question assumptions, and stand up to authority. I’m pretty sceptical about claims it was ever that much better (but it has certainly been exacerbated by neoliberalism).
Younger people are more likely to work during the day which is less conducive to commenting during the hours that are busiest on the Standard.
but its a real problem for this country if kids are not being taught civics and modern history at school…
They are being taught those things in school. What they’re not seeing is active participation in the political process by their parents and contemporaries. They don’t see the good behaviour and so they don’t emulate it.
Some will be actively put off it by their own social group.
it definitely will end up a dictatorship and the younger generations will be trapped in a nightmare police state with their eyes shut oblivious before they know it.
The thing about police states is that they’ve always collapsed in one way or another. Revolution seems to be quite common.
in my 50s…my adult children are varyingly interested in politics although not in the involved activist sense…what is noticeable is their views tend to be further to the right than my own but that is in some sense unsurprising given the society they have grown up in, (one curious feature is their response to lay offs…they are quite indignant so theres hope for them yet.lol)…and they have never experienced recession in their living memory, so have no reference for when “the market economy” turns….there is no teacher like experience and I suspect they won’t have long to wait
We seem to have developed an almost pathological obsession with political polls. There always is one important election happening somewhere in the world, e.g. the US Presidential Elections, or locally, e.g. the Northland by-election or the Auckland mayoral election, and the 2017 General Election is, for some reason, never far from our minds.
Polls before elections influence voters’ behaviour. Some people like to vote for the anticipated winner. Polls can trigger or influence so-called strategic voting. This is sometimes called the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty, which means, in simple terms, that the measurement influences what’s being measured. (BTW this article Grading Teachers by the Test makes good arguments against performance-based incentives in education, one of which is based on the Heisenberg Principle of incentive design)
Polls are particularly popular with MSM and can lead to biased framing of a story or situation (‘headlines’). Usually, only the two largest parties or two main candidates (‘frontrunners’) get invited to the main televised debates; minor parties play second fiddle and small, new ‘protest’ parties get virtually no airtime. All based on polls, of course.
A much-loved ‘theory’ is that many polls are manipulated (‘rigged’). I believe that the reality is more concerning!
In New Zealand politics often resembles a The X Factor contest that is guided if not driven by popularity stakes – this includes the number of viewers watching the spectacle – and heavily influenced by focus group polling and other types of beta-testing and ‘test audiences’.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that New Zealand politicians, and particularly the current Government, make policies, laws, law amendments, and decisions in general that are at least partly (?) based on polls.
This sets up a fascinating feedback loop that goes under many different names and that may give the appearance of malicious manipulation. However, it is no other ‘manipulation’ than teaching to the test where the whole system, students and teachers alike, are focused on a metric that needs to be achieved. This is a special example of Campbell’s law. What all this means is that polls become less valid as an objective measurement of public opinion or ‘the will of the people’ if you like. Here’s another take on this. Obviously, trying to win a popularity contest is not a good strategy for governing a country – it is perverting the political process.
All this leads to a few important questions:
Quiz Question #1: why are most polls within earshot of the actual results?
Quiz Question #2: why do the polls hardly move from the ‘equilibrium’ bar a few fluctuations?
Quiz Question #3: what can be done to change the poll results?
Quiz Question #4: why do we pay so much attention to polls?
Quiz Question #5: how best to measure, represent and act on the will of the people besides that snapshot poll once every three years?
It is hard to escape the conclusion that New Zealand politicians, and particularly the current Government, make policies, laws, law amendments, and decisions in general that are at least partly (?) based on polls.
They will be to some degree but chances are they’re basing them more Focus groups. This will allow them to ask more detailed questions and get feedback from things like body language that can’t be measured in via online or telephone polling.
One thing about focus groups is that they don’t cover the range of the population that polls can cover and so the result is more biased. The other is that the results of the focus group can help massage the message to be more favourable. It can allow advertisers and political parties to direct the response.
Agreed, that’s why I used the word “pervert”, which conveys much of the contempt I hold for the current practices in NZ not to mention DP in all its gory.
Interesting!
Yes I remember the promise of quotas for local content. And interesting that Australia didn’t agree, and one only has to see the huge difference now between Aussie and NZ TV that is partly the result.
I have a feeling that that deal was done in secret so the incoming Labour govt had campaigned on quotas but didn’t know about the details of the agreement.
‘Debt, defaults, and devaluations: why this market crash is like nothing we’ve seen before
A pernicious cycle of collapsing commodities, corporate defaults, and currency wars loom over the global economy. Can anything stop it from unravelling?
A global recession is on the way. This truism of economics holds at any point in which the world is not in the grips of a contraction.
The real question is always when and how deep the upcoming downturn will be.
“The crash will come, but it would be nice if it came two years from now”, Thomas Thygesen, head of economics at SEB told over 200 commodity investors and analysts in London last month.
His audience was rapt with unusual attention. They could be forgiven for thinking the slump had not already arrived.
Commodity prices have crashed by two thirds since their peaks in 2014. Oil has borne the brunt of the sell-off, suffering the worst price collapse in modern history. Brent crude has fallen from $115 a barrel in the summer of 2014, to just $27.70 in mid-January.’
Very informative article regarding financial abuse by Kyle MacDonald particularly with regards to Govt funding of NGO’s and the control of community welfare programmes with respect to workers speaking out about problems within their sphere of expertise.
Today the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a ceremony at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma physics in Greifswald in Germany, pressed a button that caused a two-megawatt pulse of microwave radiation to heat hydrogen gas to 80 million degrees for a quarter of a second.
No, she was not setting off some new kind of hydrogen bomb. She was inaguriating the fusion reactor Wendelstein 7-X, the world’s largest stellarator, by generating its first hydrogen plasma.
I missed this John Key said “I had a speech I was going to deliver at Waitangi this morning, which we actually decided to rewrite in the middle of this week this week (sic) which was really quite factual but reasonably straight forward – rebutting basically every single point that had been made by (sic) single person who had been opposed to the TPP.” – there’s still time for this speech, maybe a post on The Standard? (I am assuming he’s saying “rebutting basically every single point that had been made by (b) single person who had been opposed to the TPP
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
RNZ Pacific The Fiji Meteorological Service has a heavy rain warning still in place for the whole of the country after a weekend of flooding, although some floodwaters have receded. Flood and flash flood warnings and alerts are also in place, including a warning for all flash flood-prone areas, small ...
Responding to Grant Robertson’s recent admission on a Q+A with Jack Tame that his only regret from his time in office was that he didn’t take on more debt, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson, Alex Murphy, said: “Grant Robertson has now admitted that he ...
Comment: Re-elected Russian President Vladimir President has declared victory ahead of a fifth term in power, after an election that offered no credible alternative candidates. Following the death of his main opponent Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison last month, thousands of Russians followed Navalny’s plea to cast a symbolic ...
Every week that passes seems to tighten the fiscal noose for Christopher Luxon and co – a noose, moreover, of their own making.“Don’t tell me what you value: show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” This phrase, a favourite of US president Joe Biden’s, resonates ...
Analysis by Geoffrey Miller – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Geoffrey Miller. Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are ...
Auckland may be the largest city in Aotearoa, but it’s the small community-led organisations within it that make the city thrive. The Spinoff spoke to two council-funded organisations who are doing their bit.“Torrent.” That’s the word one 40-year resident of Dundale Avenue used to describe what became of the ...
Commenting on the introduction of the living wage for all employees and contractors at Kāpiti Coast District Council, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “The problem with blanket living-wage policies is that they ...
With the upcoming SailGP event in Ōtautahi/Christchurch looming, there is mounting apprehension regarding the safety of Hector's dolphins, an endangered species unique to New Zealand waters. The event, scheduled to take place in an area frequented by ...
Ohhhhh young people; is it really the end of marriage, capitalism, and God?
And would that be so bad?
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/06/this_is_the_end_of_marriage_capitalism_and_god_finally/
Hillary Clinton: “Name one time I changed due to Wall Street money.”
Elizabeth Warren: OK, allow me.
http://usuncut.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-tells-how-wall-street-changed-hillary-clinton/
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/07/the-daily-blog-open-mic-sunday-7th-february-2016/#sthash.Y3SLA2mq.dpuf
Hillary Clinton Has a Henry Kissinger Problem
I think that sums it up well. I’d say that it applies a lot to the Labour Party caucus as well.
It is hard to know where to start with our child PM over the last week….
It seems his bullshit and wave, in the absence of self-direction, is merely winding up tighter and faster like a small child before bedtime…. faster and faster, smarter and smarmier, wave and wavier, round and around, and around again ……. fzzzztttt! Pop bang splatter in another soon-to-be moment of yuck and shit…
Very mature insight there. Like a toddler waking up grumpy and not sure why
My goodness DTB…..that is spot on for a truth that circles. Everybody knows it’s there. How fortunate there’s a Bernie Sanders. To articulate what a healthy community is about.
WONDERING WHY MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOESN’T COVER TPP ?
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….” Noam Chomsky
The TPP isn’t on that spectrum. That’s because 4 of the 6 corporations which control 90% of US media are known to be lobbying for the TPP.
– COMCAST, “the parent company of NBC and MSNBC, has a team of at least ten lobbyists seeking to influence the TPP on ‘International IP Protection.’” MSNBC recently cancelled The Ed Show ostensibly for running anti-TPP commentary: http://bit.ly/1DLN82j
– TIME WARNER INC., “the parent company of CNN, has at least four lobbyists working to influence the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Disclosures show the TW lobbying team has attempted to influence both Congress and the U.S. Trade Representative office on the deal.”
– TWENTY FIRST CENTURY FOX, “a subsidiary of News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has a team of three lobbyists working to influence the TPP.”
– DISNEY CORPORATION, “parent company of ABC News and Fusion, is lobbying on the TPP regarding intellectual property enforcement.”
Media Matters Report:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/tpp-media-companies/
__________________
These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America
http://read.bi/1g44Y8R
__________________
#StopTPP #FlushtheTPP
If the US didn’t sign, but the TPPA still went ahead with the other 11 countries, would you be happy with that arrangement?
It can’t go ahead without the US.
Why not?
for the document to be implemented it requires the ratification of the US and Japan
“At least six original signatories have to have successfully ratified the agreement.
Those six signatories, between them, must represent 85 percent of the total GDP of the twelve originals signatories.
That last clause is important. The United States and Japan between them represent just shy of 80 percent of the GDP of the twelve original TPP signatories (specifically, the U.S. represents nearly 62 percent of TPP GDP and Japan accounts for 17 percent). Basically, the TPP can’t come into force if either of these states fail to ratify the agreement in their domestic legislatures because there would be no way for the remaining signatories to fulfill the 85 percent of GDP requirement (even if the United States and all states but Japan ratify, the eleven would stand at 83 percent of GDP).”
http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/heres-what-needs-to-happen-in-order-for-the-trans-pacific-partnership-to-become-binding/
It that US or Japan, or do both need to sign up?
I think I read somewhere it needs to have at least Japan or the US to go ahead.
Edit: just saw you post.
Seems a bit ridiculous to be completely reliant on one country.
If the US didn’t sign, I’m sure the other countries would just get back around the table and sort out another deal.
There is going to be a free trade deal of some nature, including the US would be good but if they don’t want to be part of it, it’s their loss.
both .see link,
They will sign for geopolitical reason, to walk away allows China to fill the vacuum, the whole reason the U.S. got involved In the TPPA was to maintain thier relevance iin the Asia pacific
It needs to be ratified by at least 6 countries that add up to more than 85% of the combined GDP of the 12 signatories. Which in practice means Japan and the US both have to ratify before it can come into force.
Of course! Unlike the conformist politicians out there, who think signing a bad deal is good because other’s do so. Current politicians are too scared to stand on their own two feet and say NO to job losses, health increases, copywrite increases, environmental pollution, dishonouring treaty agreements, becoming tenants in our own country, being sued by corporations but not being able to sue corporations in the same bogus courts.
BOO to John Key and the National party!
Signed in a casino behind closed doors shows what a piece of crap it is!
A very good article on TPPA by Bill Rosenberg
is a good concise appraisal, but will be dismissed by the proponents due to the authors background
The Herald reports this morning on a tragic motor accident near Te Kowhai with the two drivers dying as a result.
There is a long glowing profile (including a photo of this victim’s wife) on the success and “importance” of this victim.
“He was involved in a head on crash in his BMW with a 17 year old driving a Toyota Corolla.”
The feeling one gets as one reads the article is that it is probably the 17 year old’s fault. Certainly no reference in the article to the loss for his family, friends and community.
The report eventually indicates that the driver of the BMW was overtaking a truck when the accident occurred.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11585960
Dreadful reporting by the Herald
One rather gets the feeling they published it because of who his wife was.
That really is bloody awful reporting as you say.
The item has just been updated, and a little clearer now. Still got to read the whole thing to find out the circumstances though.
Homicides and Car Accidents are far more important than the TPPA?
Homicides and Car Accidents are far more important than the TPPA?
Be fair.
Murder and car accidents are lower in their estimation than Beyonce singing at the Superbowl.
More of the same from granny.
The story on the front page – I saw as walking along the main street this morning.
“NZ now safer for our kids
WHAT UTTER BULLSHIT*
I did not and will not link to the article – anyone with than more half their brain functioning will recognise it for what it is. Johnys in a bit of trouble so we had better publish a “puff piece” showing how good his gov’t is.
I call the article bullshit for very obvious reasons:
a. When for a growing number of children the car is their home
b.A child is admitted to a New Zealand hospital every second day with injuries arising from either assault, neglect or maltreatment,
c. need I go on?
Thank you Herald for spoiling my day.
*my apologies for shouting but that is what I felt like doing at the time I read the headline
What can you expect the Herald is owned by Australians – an Australian fund manager and Rupert Murdoch. see below
APN News & Media Limited is an Australian and New Zealand[1] media company. Divisions include newspaper publishing, online publishing, broadcast radio and outdoor advertising in Australia and New Zealand. APN’s two largest shareholders are the Australian fund manager Allan Gray Australia[2] and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.[3] Irish company Independent News & Media and Denis O’Brien’s Baycliffe held an approximately 30% stake in the company before selling it in March 2015.[4]
Yep, saw that, and I’m waiting for our local rag to give out the name of the 17 year old killed by the BMW driver.
This is local.
We live on SH 39…a popular by pass between the North and the South West for trucks and cars. There are no passing lanes, and there are at least 40 bends that are posted 75km/hr.
But we live on that road…and every single time one of my kids heads off into town or to go to work I wonder if this is the day some fwit from Auckland in a beemer is going to take them out while trying to pass a truck. (google BMW accident SH 39)
One day I will film the near misses that happen outside our place on a holiday weekend or during the ski season.
Slow the fuck down for god’s sakes.
Be patient.
Typical worshipping of the rich that we get from conservatives. We saw the same when that business person killed the 15 yo that was tagging his fence.
You have to hunt for important stories hidden below nonsense about clickbait on ‘celebrities’,
‘Wall St stocks and oil have slumped again amidst growing talk of recession risk for both the US and the world.
In Friday trading (Saturday NZT), the Dow Jones fell 1.3 per cent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 1.9 per cent and the Nasdaq 3.3 per cent.
That took losses for the week to 3.1 per cent for the S&P 500 and 5.4 per cent for the Nasdaq.
In a world braced for a hard landing in China, the US recovery was meant to be coming to the rescue.
But Wall St’s dismal start to the year has sparked fears that it may have stalled and that the US Federal Reserve may have moved too soon to raise rates.
In New Zealand, the extended period of low dairy prices is the biggest concern. Last week, Fonterra cut its farmer payout forecast to $4.15 from $4.60 per kilo of milk solids. The next day, prices in the global dairy trade auction fell another 7.4 per cent.
ANZ economists responded by cutting their forecast for the payout to $3.95.
The average breakeven for most farmers is estimated at $5.40 per kg.
The Reserve Bank has indicated that it is likely to cut rates further this year if international conditions continue to weaken.
At this point that looks more likely than not.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11585955
‘ANZ is forecasting a longer, deeper trough in dairy prices.
The bank has dropped its forecast price for milk solids this season by 30 cents to $3.95 a kilo.
It now “tentatively” expected a price of $5 a kilo in 2016-17, which is 50c to 75c less than it had previously been predicting.
Farmers would be losing about $1.50kg on their production over the two seasons, it said.’
Tough times ahead.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/76628607/anz-forecasts-more-pain-for-dairy-farmers
You have to hunt for important stories
Hunt – as in find something that is right out there in the open on the front home page?
Gee, don’t you think they would find somewhere a bit more ‘difficult’ than the front page to put it if they really didn’t want people to see it?
Like not publishing it at all for instance….
I was looking online.
I see the NZ Herald are not publishing any of the comments to du Plessis’s disgraceful article. Wonder why?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11585760
Yes Paul. One of the rare occasions I was moved to submit a comment there. I can guarantee the bulk of the comments were scathing… so many gaping holes in her arguments one hardly knew which to chose to comment on.
I’ve noted it’s happening more and more frequently on the MSM online outlets. They ask you to “have your say” and then don’t publish any of them. What about an OIA to find out what is going on or are they exempt.
Maybe the solution is to phone up Garner on his dreadful talk back show.
And ask if he’s read the tpp legal files.
” What about an OIA to find out what is going on or are they exempt.”
You can’t use the OIA. Official Information is only that held by the Government, in most of its many guises.
Our Government doesn’t own the Herald.
I suspect that was the point. The fact that private business can’t be held to account.
Our Government doesn’t own the Herald.
In theory – NO.
In practice – YES
And even if it did own the Herald, it would likely be exempt, like Radio NZ.
Even some entities one would expect to be OIA-able are not, like primary health organisations, which get all their money from DHBs and MOH.
I suggest because mainly personal rants and bile from the same twisted people
Paul (8) – NZH isn’t opening any comments to articles which might touch on FJK and his humiliation this week, through people power, with ordinary Kiwis fighting the signing of the odious TPPA.
Audrey Young’s latest piece for instance is inviting comments, but still not open for debate. That’s from being published on Waitangi Day.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11585424
Something to be said for digital media isn’t there? Yeah right!
Keep the masses ignorant, keeps them compliant and controllable by the despotic powers that be!
I’ve been around for almost seven decades and I’ve never known msm to be under such tight direct government control as it is now, not even in Muldoon’s time and that’s really saying something!
For some reason the NZH does not let any or hardly comments through during the weekend and I suspect that they have a shortage of Moderators on deck. The comments will appear slowly on Tuesday. The only exception seems to be comments to Sideswipe!
Clean Green New Zealand
‘Toxins now found in smaller lake
Lake Waikopiro, next to Lake Tutira, has been confirmed as having dangerous levels of cyanobacteria.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) staff noticed people swimming at Lake Waikopiro this week and decided to take water samples. Results came back yesterday showing potentially toxic cyanobacteria was present above guideline safety levels, although below the levels of the larger Lake Tutira, which was reported in mid-January and remains unsafe.
HBRC has sent samples to the Cawthron Institute in Nelson, and is waiting on results of tests to assess if toxins have been released into the water or not.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11585905
‘Trout dying in Tutira’s toxic water
Dozens of dead fish were found along the shores of Lake Tutira by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s science monitoring team yesterday.
“We saw potentially over 100 pan-sized trout,” said Vicki Lyon, a water quality and ecology resource technician.
Prior to these latest deaths, the lake’s monitoring buoy recorded surface water temperatures approaching 33C — the warmest water ever recorded in the lake.
Phycocyanin levels, which indicate the presence of cyanobacteria, peaked at around the same time. Cyanobacteria is the toxin that led to the death of 4-year-old labrador Marley after she drank from the Tukituki River last month.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11582290
I really hope water is going to be big election issue in 2017.
Is it farming or cc/ high temps causing this. ?
Both. Some viscious circles going on too.
Would the left be happy if a TPPA like arrangement went ahead, but the USA wasn’t part of it?
Impossible.
As Andre says above
‘It needs to be ratified by at least 6 countries that add up to more than 85% of the combined GDP of the 12 signatories. Which in practice means Japan and the US both have to ratify before it can come into force.’
And hypothetically, a ‘TPPA like arrangement.’ would be a forced trade agreement not a free trade agreement, thereby limitIng NZ’s sovereignty and democracy. The only change would be a lesser amount of ISDS claims as the highly litigious US corporations would not be in the game.
the only winner in a TPPA like arrangement are the transnational corporations not any particular country…i.e the US is projecting 10s of thousand job losses
So, there should be no free trade deals?
Is that the position of the TPP protesters, all free trade is bad?
You’re asking for a single opinion from a mass movement? Are you a complete nut?
It is like asking National party members what their opinion is about their organisation’s institutional racism. You get all sorts of responses.
Ok, would you say that’s the majority view?
what do you mean by ‘free trade deal’? See how that works? What lynn said.
Who knows? It sounds more like a dickhead myth to me polmulgated by idiots in the media (few of whom appear to have looked at the TPPA in any depth) and David Farrar’s focus groups than anything else.
The only place I ever consistently hear that particular view (that all free trade is bad) is here, and even then only from a few people.
At work amongst all of the engineers, I don’t hear it. Generally they export and like free trade deals. But the ones I’ve talked to about it are deeply suspicious of this particular deal (the TPPA) because it doesn’t look like a free trade deal at all. It looks like the opposite.
In the political circles I still move in, most supported the China FTA albeit some pretty reluctantly, and virtually none of the same people support the TPPA.
My parents tend to be deeply suspicious of free trade deals. But they also tend towards admiring NZ First when they aren’t voting Labour. And they remember the aftermath of the depression when the fragile free trade systems collapsed causing untold misery.
I have to date supported all free trade deals from CER through WTO to the bilateral ones of recent decades. But the TPPA has less than a third of it about slightly freeing up trade. The rest is about restraining trade mostly for the benefit of specific interest groups.
It isn’t worth supporting because it looks to me like a PR fool just stuck a ‘Free Trade’ badge on it to make a dud deal full of advantages for interest groups to make it look better. It reminds me of the worst of the corn laws in what it tries to do. Or any pork barrel bill from the US congress.
//——
Tell me amongst the TPPA supporters would you say that the majority support it because of their religious economic beliefs? That anything with a sticker saying it “free trade” is good? Because that is the impression of get of the mindless fools that I have run across.
Many people have looked at the TPPA, found aspects that look to them to be highly flawed and detrimental, and therefore oppose getting into it. I’m one of them.
But when you get an ignorant bigot of a reporter shoving mic in front of you on a hot day while you are walking, it is kind of hard to explain that to the fool disrupting a protest.
TPPA looks more like an MAI reboot.
One of the key problems I have with free trade (in it’s general sense) is that it forces countries like NZ to be commodities exporters (let’s for sake of argument include tourism in that). In the world of post-carbon, Peak Oil and CC, that’s insane. Yes, we could shift to exporting things that worked within those constraints (and I hope we do), but I think the free trade culture itself promotes profit drive motives above everything else. Which means we should be regulating, and bang, there goes the free bit.
It ain’t a Free Trade Agreement it is completely the opposite – False Advertising by the NACT’s?
The TPP isn’t a free trade deal.
The TPPA is not a free trade deal.
It’s a forced trade deal.
My past (and probable future) employment has been with companies that depend on international trade both for input materials and sale of finished goods. So I’m very much for removing barriers to international trade.
My problem with the TPPA is that the trade aspects of it look like a very thin veneer over the bulk of the agreement, which is mostly an expansion of corporate privilege and power.
I was just looking at our free trade agreements
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_free_trade_agreements
Of the 11 countries involved in the TPPA, we already had agreements with
Australia
Brunei
Chile
Malaysia
Singapore
with the TPPA there’s these countries added to the mix
Canada
Japan
Mexico
Peru
Vietnam.
USA
Why would all the other countries we already have free trade agreements want to join up to an arrangement which is more about corporate privilege and power and less about free trade. ?
Why sign up to a deal which is worse than the deal that you’re currently in?
carrot and stick…..the corporates weild more power than national bodies…just as our esteemed(?) leaders say we can’t afford to be the odd one out so do the others…and that fear is played on …the reality is the transnationals need markets , stable and (reasonably) affluent ones at that….its about time the boot was on the other foot, way past time…..and the pricks need to start paying their way
So, is it just the USA corporates causing all the issues or is this corporate shenanigans across all the countries involved in the TPP.?
think you know the answer to that….take a look at the ISDS cases
Shows how much power our one multinational company has over our current government when for such tiny gains Fonterra still held MFAT’s balls in its hand.
didn’t do them any good though….they were monstered in the deal and got virtually nothing….Fonterra may be our only international player of any scale but they pale into insignificance compared to the overseas owned corporations
totally.
Fonterra are pulling New Zealand down every day.
They simply haven’t learnt how to do more than be driven by the margins of their Asset Management Plans.
I’d like to see a policy platform from an opposition party review its monopoly act.
Why sign up to a deal which is worse than the deal that you’re currently in?
If you are in a job and earning okay with future hopes, wouldn’t you think more than twice about saying no to the boss?
Many workers have been forced by their employers to go away on weekend group-building exercises to weld them into a team and had to undertake meaningless activities on numbers of occasions, taking them away from their families, in their own supposedly personal free time. Why accept that deal?
The desire is to weld employees (client countries of the USA) into a conformist lot of yes-men and women. Those who don’t participate can expect to be marked as undesirable. All part of the precarious world where we live freely, under the threat of being left out of whatever. And even being in leaves you out of pocket, or advantage, or resources, or anything that big corporations might decide to denude you of. The Emperor’s Clothes perhaps?
I really don’t like speculating about other people’s motives, particularly on a topic as complex as this.
But in this case it looks to me like maybe the TPPA grew too big, and fear of the risks of being outside of the agreement became the dominant motive for staying in the agreement. Possibly coupled with fear of too much loss of face from pulling out on the part of individuals that had already invested a lot of political capital into the agreement.
a parting thought for you BM…..TPPA is like game of blackjack…the corporations are the dealer…the minimum bet is $1000……NZ has a stake of 2k, the other members increasingly more…..whos going to win?
not at all…but then there is no such animal as a completely free trade deal….it would require both (or all) parties to be equal in every way,
however, there are trade deals where the benefits for both parties outweigh the inevitable costs….TPPA is the complete antithesis of that
‘The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes special protections for corporations that offshore American jobs to low-wage countries. The TPP would not only replicate, but actually expand, the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) extraordinary privileges for firms that relocate abroad, and eliminate many of the usual risks that make firms think twice about moving to low-wage countries. The TPP’s offshoring incentives include a guaranteed minimum standard of treatment in the offshore venue and compensation for regulatory costs.
The NAFTA-style offshoring incentives that the TPP would expand have contributed to the net loss of more than 57,000 American manufacturing facilities and nearly 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs – one out of every four – since NAFTA took effect. The U.S. Department of Labor lists millions of workers as specifically losing their jobs to offshoring and import competition since the Fast-Tracking of NAFTA, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NAFTA expansion deals – and that is under just one narrow program that excludes many whose job loss is trade-related. Studies estimate that the U.S. economy could have supported 7 million more manufacturing jobs if not for the massive trade deficits that have accrued under current U.S. trade policy.’
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=6475
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Threatens America’s Recent Manufacturing Resurgence
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-manufacturing/409591/
See my response here.
(Reply to BM @ 10) There is more than one strand of thought in the USA. The people who oppose the TPPA there seem to have much the same concerns as those who oppose it here. What is of concern about the USA, here, there and elsewhere, are the ambitions of those aligned with the US corporations, the constraints they seek to impose on governments in order to lock in their own dominance, and subterfuge they have employed to do it.
Not me. The whole things bloody stupid and is designed only to make the rich richer. It does nothing for the other 99%.
1000 marched against the TPP in Hastings
Huge turnout in the Bay on a working day.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11584749
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503462&gal_cid=1503462&gallery_id=157532
More evidence of the Herald suppressing Anti TPPA stories Paul? /sarc
This was a straightforward recount of events by a Hawkes Bay paper.
It is not an opinion piece.
As you appear a slavish supporter of the TPPA, negotiated by trade ministers with the input of 600 international corporations, can you explain why it’s good for NZ?
And remember it’s not a free trade deal.
So think of other reasons.
Maybe we need a post to demonstrate the TPP Is not a free trade deal.
(subtitle courtesy of McFlock, with thanks)
A good point, Paul. TPPA is not a free trade deal at all, as has been stated many times. In fact, when you look at all the ‘free-trade’ deals this country has been involved in or part of, the benefits have yet to ‘trickle’ down to the man in the street, except for cheap Chinese junk in our hardware shops. Most of the benefits from free trade have been captured by the top 1%, with inequality growing to obscene proportions.
So maybe, just maybe, free-trade deals are not the panacea they are portrayed to be by their promoters. Perhaps we should be looking at ‘Fair’ trade deals.
[lprent: 🙂 ]
Are you really saying globalisation and trade over last 50 years has not delivered higher standards of living and taken more people out of poverty than ever before. Show me a closed society that has been successful. Its a fact corporates now deliver by far the majority of our services and goods, it is no longer the state, thus trade is inevitable if you wish the nz economy to thrive Most of the fear about TPPA is fear of change which is understandable , ie we will loose what we have, this is not the case as with other trade deals the TPPA will over deliver on the positive side, companies and individuals will take advantage of it to the advantage of all that is not envisaged in current economic modelling
Granted, the capitalist system has been successful – up to a point. Now, IMO, the balance has shifted too far in favour of large multi-national enterprises. Inequality is rampant, and poverty and underemployment is growing in New Zealand and worldwide. All the indications are that the corporate system is going to come crashing down – probably this year in an almighty market crash, or dismantled after the US elections (if Bernie wins).
The neoliberal nirvana has almost played out its time. It really is not a question of if but when it all comes tumbling down and, more importantly, what is going to replace it.
Granted that capitalism has been successful, but only up to a point. IMO, the system is now all out of balance, with too much power being concentrated in the hands of too few. Inequality is rampant and middle class poverty is growing worldwide.
There will be a rebalancing, of that you can be certain. Probably this year, with a market slowdown of massive proportions, or maybe next year (if Bernie becomes president).
Perhaps then this country will be in a position to renegotiate the TPPA to make it a ‘fair’ trade agreement, instead of a corporate welfare agreement.
[r0b: there are a bunch of strange characters in your new name, causing your comments to go to moderation. Please delete and retype your name for your next comment…]
A constant theme on this site is the msm are full of the proverbial. the media push doom and gloom because it sells. Fact China is still growing at 6 pc per year as it recalibrate its economy and is very unlikely to implode, the U.S. is growing and unlikely to see recession, Europe appears to be over the worst of it and while growing slowly is growing Corporates are not necessarily seeing or agreeing with what the media like to portray What stats are you quoting poverty is growing world wide, this is clearly not the case, to the contrary millions of people have been taken out of poverty over the last 20 years, just look at Asia as an example.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/what-oxfam-wont-tell-you-about-capitalism-and-poverty/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/12/19/its-not-capitalism-that-causes-poverty-its-the-lack-of-it/#2715e4857a0b2c617f301b8b
Not hard to find information on the shrinking middle-class in USA – http://boingboing.net/2015/12/10/america-shrinking-middle-clas.html
Also, I lived in China for three years about a decade ago – and the disparity in wealth was shocking and extreme. And if you believe the ‘official’ stats on China – well, you’re gullible in the extreme.
[r0b: There are a lot of junk characters (possibly invisible) at the end of your new name. In your next comment please delete and retype your name, or your comments will keep going to moderation]
Awesome, love your new handle 🙂 Definitely clarifies things and educates at the same time.
ha ha, good solution Tony.
A colonial gal’s view of TPPA, protests, Te Tiriti, and the media coverage – my latest blog post: http://abrainydeal.me/2016/02/08/tpp-is-the-new-imperialism/
Great write-up, democracy is indeed in the process of colonisation and conquest by corporations, but that is by manufactured consent of the governed
Related cartoon…
Thanks Dialey – that is a very good, very clear outline of the issue. It looks to me as if the people showing the most enthusiasm for this deal are the ones who think they will have a part to play in managing the power transfer or trumpeting the propaganda, which I guess is true in most cases of colonisation.
Some background reading for those who look at today’s turbulence in the world, and then think of the centuries of human development, thought and philosphy and wonder if any of it has ever reached our leaders, businesspeople and politicians and their and our parents who trained us in our prejudices and common goals.
This I thought was interesting. The Frankfurt School Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
I wonder where those people ended up? Not a happy or popular position to adopt in early 20th century Germany. Reminds me of old song Something’s Got to Give.
When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Something’s got to give…
Lyrics Freak
Frank Sinatra’s version – some light relief?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNoEGTZzaAE
The people express their electoral will by giving the Opposition a massive constitutional majority.
The President then uses the outgoing assembly to load the Supreme Court with Pro-Socialist Judges.
The Supreme Court then dismisses 4 opposition legislators in order to reduce the opposition majority below the constitutional level.
The Supreme Court then appoints a pro-socialist majority to the Electoral C omission, despite Constitution stating that the Assembly should select the appointees, and that they should be non-partisan.
President then subverts the elected Assembly by ruling by decrees.
A question for the apologists here for the Venezuelan Socialists. Do you support these actions?
Why do you continue to kick the Venezuelan people while they are down?
Is politics just a game to you?
Lost sheep is simply highlighting that the society and economic system you aspire to has been tried many times and without fail ended up in abject failure and human misery
Norway, you tiresome fuckwit.
Really OAB a monolistic society up to its knees in oil and on europes door step
Can you list the successes and failures
Angry little puppy today
Yes: social democracy is the most successful political system that has ever been tried. Your flaccid attempts to smear say something about you and nothing whatsoever about your targets.
It’s worthless and tiresome and a perfect expression of everything the National Party represents.
Your response is a slogan, not a list 😀
Your allegation is a smear, motivated by hate, which has left you so twisted by bias you can’t even find a list of social democracies.
Another OAB cut and paste when challenged 😀
no your stupidity has been exposed and smacked down yet again, yet you lack the basic comprehension skills to argue the point properly
That’s funny, coming from someone whose fatuous smears are copied directly from Gosman.
Ropata, I am pointing out that the democratic will of the Venezuelan people is being subverted by their President. He is the one kicking them when they are down.
@OAB. Social Democracy is a very successful system, but we are talking about Venezuela, which has a Socialist system.
Socialism is one of the worst systems ever invented, as Venezuela is demonstrating.
Ropata, OAB, do you support the actions of the Venezuelan President I note above?
When did you stop pashing Augusto Pinochet’s corpse?
You see how this works? Shall we have a “debate” according to your witless point-scoring wank system? You seem to think you can demand answers of people, and I’m here to tell you that Pinochet pashers like you deserve jack shit.
How typical of a Pinochet pasher to hate a system that increases literacy and decreases child mortality. I guess literate healthy people are harder to abduct and torture to death.
Is that red herring rant meant to disguise the fact that, again, you are not willing to make an honest answer to a straightforward question OAB?
It’s very simple. Do you support the actions of the Venezuelan Socialist President?
Yes or no will do. Only take you a couple of seconds. Whats the problem?
It’s very simple: do you support throwing people out of helicopters into the sea? And when did you stop fucking your pet pig?
Is this witless pigfucker argument the best you can do, Pinochet-pasher?
Speaking of cancelling election results, ECAN. Do you support the anti-democratic actions of the NZ Prime Minister? You do, don’t you: so you’re in no position to be looking askance at Venezuela, because you support a government that appoints cronies, cancels elections, and can’t even get literacy and child mortality right. You poxy hypocrite.
Meanwhile, the NZ Left has lots in common with social democrats the world over, and you haven’t got an answer to that other than to support torturers.
Is that a yes or is it a no?
Would only take you a couple of seconds to answer honestly. What is the problem?
Oh. Silly me. I guess the answer is honestly. That’s sooooo difficult….
I’ve got nothing to say to a Pinochet pashing, election cancelling torture lover like you.
You demand answers from people all day every day OAB. What is wrong with answering one or two yourself?
And in this case it would only take one word to confirm you do not support the authoritarian actions of a President subverting the democratic will of the people?
I have to admit, your refusal to so does lead me to suspect you actually support those actions, but are unwilling to be honest about it.
I must admit that that says something about you and nothing whatsoever about me, and if you haven’t worked out my opinion of authoritarians by now you’re inattentive as well as a massive hypocrite.
Oh, and don’t flatter yourself that this means I regard your opinions in this context as remotely credible. You supported Pinochet, after all.
My interest in Venezuela largely stems from my youthful vigorous opposition to Pinochet’s murderous regime.
See. I am happy to confirm my opposition.
Unlike yourself, who cannot bring yourself to confirm your opposition to the current President’s subversion of the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.
I can only conclude you have a double standard. You do not object to authoritarianism when it is imposed in the name of Socialism.
You didn’t explicitly deny your support for Jorge Rafael Videla. I can only conclude that you want to throw your political opponents out of helicopters into the sea.
PS: What are you whining about: I told you a debate according to your witless point-scoring wank system was a waste of time.
I mean, do you know that what you’re doing is called a “pigfucker” argument? Or are you ignorant of that too? Nah, you fuck pigs.
…my youthful vigorous opposition to Pinochet’s murderous regime…
Now that’s an interesting admission. What made you switch to Pinochet’s side?
3 replies OAB? This one is weighing heavily on your conscience obviously.
And/or do you think that if you make enough replies it will hide your refusal to address a straightforward question honestly?
Seriously. I thought the policy on this site was that commenters should be willing to argue a point when reasonably requested to do so?
And I have observed YOU YOURSELF on numerous occasions demanding answers of others and (abusively) berating those you felt were not giving sufficiently open or honest answers to your questions.
So on both those standards, what about your refusal to engage with a reasonable question eh?
My question to you was reasonable.
We have previously debated the subject at hand, and you entered this particular discussion voluntarily.
The material I referenced was factual.
It concerns questions that you and others on this site commonly debate (support for authoritarian governments).
I posed the question in a polite spirit of goodwill.
You evidently have plenty of time free to debate.
It is a question you could answer with 5 seconds effort.
So on what grounds would you reasonably decline to address the point I raised?
Seriously, if the bar of ‘debate’ here is that commenters can simply ignore any point that challenges their position without justifying their refusal….what on earth is the value of ‘debate’ that occurs here?
If you can’t honestly acknowledge the basic point about pig-fucker arguments, what use are you?
If you were genuinely after my views on Venezuela, you’d read them and engage with the points I made.
Instead, you put words in my mouth and lie about my opinions. You rancid dishonest shitheel.
Now go fuck your pet pig.
Oh, and by your own admission, you support torture. You used to oppose it, and then you changed sides.
Why was that?
If you were genuinely after my views on Venezuela, you’d read them and engage with the points I made
We had that discussion, and you know very well that you made no comment at all regarding the points I raise in 15 above.
Instead, you put words in my mouth and lie about my opinions.
As you refuse to clarify your opinion, I am forced to make assumptions about why that is, and what you might think.
It seems bizarre in the extreme that you complain about being mis-represented, but refuse to clarify your position!
It would just take one word. What possible issue is there with that?
I am forced to make assumptions…
What possible issue is there with that?
No-one is forcing you to do anything. So the “possible issue” may be that your entire premise is a lie, characterised by sexual congress with porcine mammals.
Have you considered that? I had hoped that holding up a rhetorical mirror to your behaviour might give you a gargantuan clue. Apparently not.
One of your other prejudicial dishonesties was your description of people as “apologists”. You brought blank ammunition, and your powder’s wet.
My current assumption is that your unwillingness to indicate whether or not you support the authoritarian actions of the Venezuelan Government is because you do support them, but you know it would not be a good look at all to admit it.
If this is untrue, then just say ‘NO’.
I will be very happy to be corrected, and I will unreservedly withdraw my incorrect assumption.
If you do not, I will not ask you again. I will simply accept that this is the second time this week you have publicly exposed yourself as holding views you are not willing to admit to openly. Next time you have a problem with someone declining to debate your reasonable points, or accuse someone of a lack of honesty or transparency, I will remind you of this.
BTW, do you really think all that stuff about sex with animals enhances the validity of your arguments, or reflects well on you as a person? Let alone reflects well on this forum as a whole?
National appoints their friends and relations to Boards and important positions all the time
Do you support this?
Why we can continue to treat Australia as our friend I do not know.
With “friends” like these who would want to be friendly with us?
The way Australia, particularly under the Dutton regime, has treated innocent asylum seekers, especially women and children, is indescribably inhumane and despicable.
+1
Seems cruel but makes me wonder why our fire-fighters bother trying to help them. Have to remember there are many Australians also outraged by the actions of their backward leaders.
Have been wondering lately about what the age group bands are which write into this blog site. It seems to me that there could well be quite a lot of older folk (myself included at 70) who take an active interest in what is happening in our country – it may be me, but in my own experience there are many younger people who just show no interest in politics or current affairs at all – I have one of each, one who couldn’t care less and one who cares a lot. Is it because we probably are retired and have the time to muse and ponder and debate topics or is it just something else altogether. I know we grew up in the turbulent 60’s and were used to protesting and becoming passionate about being able to manage our own affairs – does that make our generation more active and vigilant or is it something else, maybe the preoccupation with iphones, electronic gaming etc which becomes an obsession quite often, shuts younger people off – shutting their ears off from the world. Mostly I see young people eyes glued to their phones walking down the street incommunicado to the world.
Just me wandering off in my own thoughts – but its a real problem for this country if kids are not being taught civics and modern history at school, not having conversations around the table at home about what’s going on in this country and not being able to get balanced debate in the MSM – it definitely will end up a dictatorship and the younger generations will be trapped in a nightmare police state with their eyes shut oblivious before they know it.
I’m 69 and suspect the average age here is fairly high 🙂
I think you’re right; youth is accustomed to immediate feedback and turn-over of ideas via internet and a range of media devices. The slow turning of the wheels of politics, endless discussion, sterile debate and the orchestrated response of MSM all comprise a major switch-off.
Until schools teach social and civic responsibility as mainstream subject the trend will continue. Its astonishing that the dangers facing our planet as well as our country are given no more than sanitised academic treatment.
My kids are both early 30 ‘s and have zero interest in or knowledge of politics.
It is my theory that people under 30 are more interested in the world than those between 30 and 45.
People born from 1967 onwards have no adult knowledge of the world prior to Rogernomics.
People born after 1990 have no adult knowledge of the world before the GFC, when it became apparent the neo-liberal world is not working.
It was heartening to see the large number of young adults involved in the Real Choice action shutting down Auckland from 9am Thurs. The earlier protests, eg in Dec 2012, seemed to have a noticeably lower percentage of youth IMO.
I am greatly encouraged at the growing political awareness of this age group and with the current use of technology, this could grow rapidly and exponentially. The flying dildo coverage went viral. Every young person in NZ will know what and why this happened, and it won’t be through the Herald.
The next step is to get other information through- maybe in a piecemeal fashion- in small byte-sized but riveting chunks. I am confident that this will happen now and that it will be initiated by young activists. The tide is turning.
Thank you all for responding – my two kids were born in the late 1970’s and were too young to experience Roger Douglas’ pain on the country. They haven’t had to take out student loans thanks to us but one kid is very aware of the unfairness around her. The other is a w…….. banker as much as I love her to bits and making huge money and is politically unaware.
I do think TMM’s comment about getting bite sized chunks of riveting information out to these kids so preoccupied with their hand pieces would be excellent. Kids seem to want everything instantly these days and its no thanks to us as we have provided that environment to them, so bite sized would be the right size for them. I personally don’t like bite sized as I like to ingest the whole chunk slowly – but that’s age I suppose.
Education is down the tubes and is deficit in its subject matter but that again is a Government agenda and what governments prefer, people dumbed down, the more ignorant and docile the better for them, but thanks it’s great that one can ponder and discuss thoughts on this blog site.
It is the 35- 50 group who are the generation who believe the koolaid about trickle down etc,
I’m 36 and have never believed it – it didn’t work in the 1800s, or any time since!
Yes, the tide is turning.
Far more people now know abut the TPPA and know about the fact our government can be sued by overseas corporations.
Most commenters on the Standard tend to be over 50 – I think stats put up by lprent at one stage showed that the most engaged readers (the ones who spend hours here) were older.
Facebook is particularly popular with those aged 30s and 40s (and a lot of discussions there are political), and a number of social media platforms are popular with those under 30.
The under 30s are interesting; the engaged are a minority, unfortunately, but they could be the most well informed and empowered perhaps of any generation at their life stage; they keenly evaluate information, read history, write engagingly, question assumptions, and stand up to authority. I’m pretty sceptical about claims it was ever that much better (but it has certainly been exacerbated by neoliberalism).
Younger people are more likely to work during the day which is less conducive to commenting during the hours that are busiest on the Standard.
They are being taught those things in school. What they’re not seeing is active participation in the political process by their parents and contemporaries. They don’t see the good behaviour and so they don’t emulate it.
Some will be actively put off it by their own social group.
The thing about police states is that they’ve always collapsed in one way or another. Revolution seems to be quite common.
in my 50s…my adult children are varyingly interested in politics although not in the involved activist sense…what is noticeable is their views tend to be further to the right than my own but that is in some sense unsurprising given the society they have grown up in, (one curious feature is their response to lay offs…they are quite indignant so theres hope for them yet.lol)…and they have never experienced recession in their living memory, so have no reference for when “the market economy” turns….there is no teacher like experience and I suspect they won’t have long to wait
Polls pervert the political process
We seem to have developed an almost pathological obsession with political polls. There always is one important election happening somewhere in the world, e.g. the US Presidential Elections, or locally, e.g. the Northland by-election or the Auckland mayoral election, and the 2017 General Election is, for some reason, never far from our minds.
Polls before elections influence voters’ behaviour. Some people like to vote for the anticipated winner. Polls can trigger or influence so-called strategic voting. This is sometimes called the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty, which means, in simple terms, that the measurement influences what’s being measured. (BTW this article Grading Teachers by the Test makes good arguments against performance-based incentives in education, one of which is based on the Heisenberg Principle of incentive design)
Polls are particularly popular with MSM and can lead to biased framing of a story or situation (‘headlines’). Usually, only the two largest parties or two main candidates (‘frontrunners’) get invited to the main televised debates; minor parties play second fiddle and small, new ‘protest’ parties get virtually no airtime. All based on polls, of course.
A much-loved ‘theory’ is that many polls are manipulated (‘rigged’). I believe that the reality is more concerning!
In New Zealand politics often resembles a The X Factor contest that is guided if not driven by popularity stakes – this includes the number of viewers watching the spectacle – and heavily influenced by focus group polling and other types of beta-testing and ‘test audiences’.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that New Zealand politicians, and particularly the current Government, make policies, laws, law amendments, and decisions in general that are at least partly (?) based on polls.
This sets up a fascinating feedback loop that goes under many different names and that may give the appearance of malicious manipulation. However, it is no other ‘manipulation’ than teaching to the test where the whole system, students and teachers alike, are focused on a metric that needs to be achieved. This is a special example of Campbell’s law. What all this means is that polls become less valid as an objective measurement of public opinion or ‘the will of the people’ if you like. Here’s another take on this. Obviously, trying to win a popularity contest is not a good strategy for governing a country – it is perverting the political process.
All this leads to a few important questions:
Quiz Question #1: why are most polls within earshot of the actual results?
Quiz Question #2: why do the polls hardly move from the ‘equilibrium’ bar a few fluctuations?
Quiz Question #3: what can be done to change the poll results?
Quiz Question #4: why do we pay so much attention to polls?
Quiz Question #5: how best to measure, represent and act on the will of the people besides that snapshot poll once every three years?
PS This is a very long (!) but very good (!!) recent read in The New Yorker Politics and the New Machine – What the turn from polls to data science means for democracy.
yep, turning elections into an entertainment spectacle sells more ads on TV
too bad for democracy!
They will be to some degree but chances are they’re basing them more Focus groups. This will allow them to ask more detailed questions and get feedback from things like body language that can’t be measured in via online or telephone polling.
One thing about focus groups is that they don’t cover the range of the population that polls can cover and so the result is more biased. The other is that the results of the focus group can help massage the message to be more favourable. It can allow advertisers and political parties to direct the response.
Advertising truly is psychopathic.
Agreed, that’s why I used the word “pervert”, which conveys much of the contempt I hold for the current practices in NZ not to mention DP in all its gory.
So, what can be done about it?
The Ram’s packed up his shit and the Monkey’’s taking over so a belated Happy Chinese New Year to all.
NZ has been previously affected by Investor State Disputes Settlement.
Interesting!
Yes I remember the promise of quotas for local content. And interesting that Australia didn’t agree, and one only has to see the huge difference now between Aussie and NZ TV that is partly the result.
I have a feeling that that deal was done in secret so the incoming Labour govt had campaigned on quotas but didn’t know about the details of the agreement.
Further evidence of the oncoming crash.
‘Debt, defaults, and devaluations: why this market crash is like nothing we’ve seen before
A pernicious cycle of collapsing commodities, corporate defaults, and currency wars loom over the global economy. Can anything stop it from unravelling?
A global recession is on the way. This truism of economics holds at any point in which the world is not in the grips of a contraction.
The real question is always when and how deep the upcoming downturn will be.
“The crash will come, but it would be nice if it came two years from now”, Thomas Thygesen, head of economics at SEB told over 200 commodity investors and analysts in London last month.
His audience was rapt with unusual attention. They could be forgiven for thinking the slump had not already arrived.
Commodity prices have crashed by two thirds since their peaks in 2014. Oil has borne the brunt of the sell-off, suffering the worst price collapse in modern history. Brent crude has fallen from $115 a barrel in the summer of 2014, to just $27.70 in mid-January.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12138466/when-is-the-next-financial-crash-coming-oil-prices-markets-recession.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/12144135/The-world-economy-is-shaky-and-funny-money-wont-fix-it.html
“As shares slide, investors are scrambling to get their hands on safe-haven assets such as German government debt today.
And that has driven the yield, or interest rate, on German bunds into deeper negative territory.”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2016/feb/08/uk-business-confidence-falls-global-recession-fears-markets-business-live
a house of cards
This is the Pharma Terrorist Shkreli at a congressional hearing.
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Borowitz-Shkreli-Congress-1200.jpg
Steven Joyce as an arrogant young man smirking ?
I’ll see you and raise you nine obnoxious Shkreli faces.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/martin-shkreli-faces_us_56b388d7e4b01d80b2456139
heh
Jemaine Clement Verified account
@AJemaineClement
Hey @rooshv @Cernovich
This poll might be the first time you guys win something!
https://twitter.com/AJemaineClement/status/696522819807551488
Very informative article regarding financial abuse by Kyle MacDonald particularly with regards to Govt funding of NGO’s and the control of community welfare programmes with respect to workers speaking out about problems within their sphere of expertise.
The Wendelstein 7-X has been fired up.
Today the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a ceremony at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma physics in Greifswald in Germany, pressed a button that caused a two-megawatt pulse of microwave radiation to heat hydrogen gas to 80 million degrees for a quarter of a second.
No, she was not setting off some new kind of hydrogen bomb. She was inaguriating the fusion reactor Wendelstein 7-X, the world’s largest stellarator, by generating its first hydrogen plasma.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/wendelstein-7x-really-starts-up
(previously on TS)
http://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-14122015/#comment-1108632
I missed this John Key said “I had a speech I was going to deliver at Waitangi this morning, which we actually decided to rewrite in the middle of this week this week (sic) which was really quite factual but reasonably straight forward – rebutting basically every single point that had been made by (sic) single person who had been opposed to the TPP.” – there’s still time for this speech, maybe a post on The Standard? (I am assuming he’s saying “rebutting basically every single point that had been made by (b) single person who had been opposed to the TPP
Japan’s Top-Economist debunks TPP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0sxoQBUFz0