The Standard: totally not racist and not at all a totally tone-deaf echo chamber of white people
[That’s another silly comment in a series of silly comments and you (should) know better. Your comments got moved to OM but you didn’t get booted off the site. As such, it is just a minor action to keep the flow of comments tidy, relevant and on-topic. My advice is to not read more (too much) into it – Incognito]
The comments got moved from a place where they were relevant to a place where they were not. That’s bad moderation. Do better.
[FYI, I did not move your comments but I fully agree with the move. Secondly, you don’t decide what Moderators here should or shouldn’t do, which means you don’t criticise or litigate moderation; asking for clarification, for example, is generally (but not always!) fine. Thirdly, I care little about the cause of disagreement for want of a better description but I do care about behaviour. That was bad commenting behaviour. Finally, it would be a silly choice IMO if you opt for a ban. Please do better – Incognito]
I've stretched my bubble gum as far as it will go I think, and just puffing a bit – the bubble is getting bigger – wow splatter all over my mouth. Good for another go. Got to keep pushing the envelope, I mean the gummy, and they make the strength and ingredients very long-lasting these days. I haven't anything more important to do than blow bubbles and people get quite amused at my antics.
It is all a delaying tactic I must confess. I actually do have more important things to do but stay on hoping for some advance in the nature of progress, or the progress of nature, whatever.
I didn't move it either but I think the original comment was under one of my posts (wilding pines). It came late in the piece when I tend to let things slide more. It didn't make much sense in context and seemed a jabby, throw away comment that was trying to make a point but doing it badly. Can't really complain about it now being out of context when you didn't bother to make your point clearly*
And yeah, please don't have a go at moderators.
*TS does tend to reflect Pākehā values, but I'm still not sure why the wilding pine post or discussion specifically warranted comment.
Big issues with winter grazing, some practices are just filthy and heartbreaking.
Damien is doing something about it
Images of cows up to their knees in mud, unable to lie down and rest and calving in these conditions is unacceptable to me and I’ve heard loud and clear from the public that it’s unacceptable to them too.
But, but… Kindergartens South website it says "we are fortunate to have land with trees and grassy areas attached to our kindergarten where tamariki / children are able to build strong ecological identities and are able to make connections from home."
Hardly. With 329 million, even a tiny percentage of the population doing crazy stuff would still appear statistically significant to outsiders. Despite how mad it appears to us, I feel revolution is still some way off, and would require a near-total collapse of the financial systems before that was to occur.
I disagree. Firstly, most revolutions and civil wars involve a small percentage of the population only, particularly at the beginning. Secondly, most revolutions and upheavals begin before people notice.
Let's look back in ten years time and see what history has to say about this and when it started..
I would suggest pretty much every crowd at an event and every mall shopper will have this risk in their mind today and tomorrow and onwards… another indicator it is underway… the population is cowering
I saw a graph of mass shootings this year, USA at 400+ at number one, followed by 2 in India, then NZ at number 3 with one mass shooting. I also happened on an American's IG page the other day and it was just pictures upon pictures of guns, even celebrating his kids 5th birthday with guns. They really do have a problem uniquely theirs.
trump…… offers support and condolences in the wake of the latest mass shootings…. meanwhile, elsewhere in the USA, ICE is doing the biggest round up of immigrants in ten years.
Australia when remonstrated with about uplifting of Kiwis from their homes to detention centres brings up the terms of rapist, sex offender etc as if it applied to all, as a justification. We have got Little America right on our doorstep. NZ is going to be the Mexican immigrant wave when it suits the Oz government to go lower.
Couldn't sleep last night following those images of children suddenly bereft of their parents – many of whom had been in the US for many many years working and productive people. Insane and inhumane.
The arrests targeted chicken processing plants operated by Koch Foods, one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. Last year, Koch Foods paid out $3.75 million to settle an Equal Employment Opportunities Commission class-action suit charging the company with sexual harassment, national origin and race discrimination, and retaliation against Latino workers at one of its Mississippi plants. Labor activists say it’s the latest raid to target factories where immigrant workers have organized unions, fought back against discrimination or challenged unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
ps This is not the infamous Koch Bros – but another group.
That's fkn shameless, brazenly repeating a Queens loofah-faced shitgibbon lie. Google Obama child separation and you'll be deluged with stuff showing how wrong that statement is. Here's just one:
Who gives a fuck? Seriously, you read about kids getting left at school because their parents have been rounded up, and the best response you can come up with is Obama did it too.
And it's obvious that this isn't a continuation of Obama's policies – because if Obama had enthusiastically followed the midnight raid programme, dolt45 would be creating DACA on steroids and naturalising everyone who gets across the border.
infused It seems you are spreading lies. Do you think you are at the right address when you come here? I think that a higher standard of communication is required. Isn't there somewhere you can go who will swallow all your rats?
"Intensive winter grazing is a vital practice used in Clutha-Southland by farmers. Without it, there would be serious repercussions for the area and as a flow-on effect our rural towns, such as Gore, Winton and Lumsden."
Walker said farmers have made dramatic improvements in how they graze stock, including the fencing of waterways, the buffer zones around critical source areas and grazing crops strategically."
"Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker, who is the associate spokesperson for agriculture, said "the protesters at Ihumātao are standing in mud – why is it only farmers being targeted and not them?"
?
"Walker said winter grazing working group was "more money down the drain" and "another orchestrated attack on farmers by this Government".
"In light of the winter grazing photos released, the Government has chosen to establish yet another group to address the issue. Instead of getting around a table and having discussions to see what work is being done, or can still be done, they react as soon as a vegan movement shouts live cattle exports or an environmentalist shouts winter grazing."
Disgraceful thinking – shows the mentality and lack of education about the important matters for the country and ethical standards that all farmers sons should learn about. Their schools are too busy drilling scientific and business-related knowledge into them during formal learning hours and in the rest how to keep fit and be competitive in sports. Nothing about the philosophic understanding that an advanced developed nation would know. All competition and person advancement using the money system, not human collaboration.
I put up the link again about the UK study on the education of the wealthy and aspirational there and how parents don't care and love their children enough to give them the emotional ties that would result in a strong individual who is empathetic and understanding of others.
Britain’s public school system has for generations produced a high proportion of its political leaders, despite the number of children attending these schools representing a tiny fraction of the larger population….
But a British psychotherapist says schools such as Eton produce damaged individuals and very poor leaders suffering a form of “privileged abandonment.”
Dr Nick Duffell is the founder of the boarding school survivors organisation, he himself went to Oxford and taught at a boys’ boarding school, and is the author of The Making of Them: The British Attitude to Children and the Boarding School System, and more recently, Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion…
"For New Zealanders, one "immediate and striking recommendation" was to alter diets from being high in meat and dairy, to being more balanced with plant-based food choices. This would use less land and water and emit fewer greenhouse gases, Hayward said."
Eat plants to help the climate, IPCC report suggests
The report suggests a lot of other things as well:
"The report makes clear that much of the onus is on industrial, transport and other emitters to urgently cut greenhouse emissions to give food growers the friendly climate they’ll need to feed a growing and increasingly affluent global population.
Agriculture itself is in a tricky position: its existence as an industry is non-negotiable if people are going to continue to eat."
affluent countries need to lower their standard of living. Low hanging fruit: eat seasonally, eat local food. These drop emissions, but also sharpen the mind around what is involved in producing food for everyone, not just the people with the most money.
Considering affluent (OECD) countries are responsible for the bulk of emissions they indeed should be making the most radical lifestyle changes….that involves far more than eating habits
yep, I was just responding to food issue, because it's coming up a lot at the moment, and eating plants from the other side of the world isn't much of an improvement for NZers over eating NZ farmed meat.
Also using that as example of how affluent countries can do something meaningful. Thinking that the whole world can have our lifestyles is a madness, utter madness. We have to give away some of our privilege. It won't hurt us, it might make us a better country.
Meat is not actually mentioned in the report,its land use changes ie deforestation, (south america asia and africa.)
There seems to be a lot of creative reporting in the press (mostly due to the hard reading of the report under a legal framework)
you would struggle to find that land use changes are both a source and a sink (the emission imbalance due to deforestation)
Land is simultaneously a source and a sink of CO2 due to both anthropogenic and natural drivers, making it hard to separate anthropogenic from natural fluxes (very high confidence). Global models estimate net CO2 emissions of 5.2 ± 2.6 GtCO2 yr-1 (likely range) from land use and land-use change during 2007-16. These net emissions are mostly due to deforestation, partly offset by afforestation/reforestation, and emissions and removals by other land use activities (very high confidence) (Table SPM.1)23.There is no clear trend in annual emissions since 1990 (medium confidence) (Figure SPM.1). {1.1, 2.3, Table 2.2, Table 2.3}
The natural response of land to human-induced environmental changes such as increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen deposition, and climate change, resulted in global net removals of 11.2 +/– 2.6 Gt CO2 yr–1 (likelyrange) during 2007-2016 (Table SPM.1). The sum of the net removals due to this response and the AFOLU net emissions gives a total net land-atmosphere flux that removed 6.0+/-2.6 GtCO2 yr-1 during 2007-2016 (likely range). Future net increases in CO2 emissions from vegetation and soils due to climate change are projected to counteract increased removals due to CO2 fertilisation and longer growing seasons (high confidence). The balance between these processes is a key source of uncertainty for determining the future of the land carbon sink. Projected thawing of permafrost is expected to increase the loss of soil carbon (high confidence). During the 21st century, vegetation growth in those areas may compensate in part for this loss (low confidence). {Box 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.5.3, 2.7; Table 2.3}
They also want limits on urban expansion ie removal of agriculture land for housing etc.
The foremost take home message is the need to increase the sink capacity.
been reading a new book called "what the fast", by some AUT experts based off south auckland population studies and recent science into "low carb healthy fat" food. lots of healthy recipes
"There are now over 500 million people living in desert areas that would not have been considered deserts before the 1980s. A full quarter of the world's ice-free land mass is subject to land degradation as a result of human activity."
I wonder how they define "land degradation" and whether they consider agriculture to be improving of degrading what was forested land?
"Under this Bill, Parliament will no longer determine the question to be considered, which means there will be no opportunity for any public input through the select committee process. Rather, the referendum question will be set by Order-in-Council, (that means a regulation passed by the Executive Council on the recommendation of the Cabinet, which, in turn, means that the Cabinet will effectively decide the question to be considered, without any external scrutiny)."
I'm agnostic on this. I can see merit in using efficient practical politics to produce a cabinet consensus on the questions to be put in the referenda. Parliament's process could be messier & more time-consuming. But if it turns out to be quicker & gets the result more efficiently, why not run the cabinet decision past parliament anyway? Doing so would flush out any short-comings – which cabinet could consider as amendments – or confirm the merit of their decision.
As we get to Day +4 after the police rarked things up at Ihumatao, Newsroom have done an interview with the Ihumatao camp's liaison with the police who notes that;
"As part of reducing that footprint Tawha asked if mana whenua could move their presence to the Kaitiaki Village – an area for which they’ve been served eviction notices by Fletcher Building.
Many school groups had bookings to do tours of the stone fields in the coming weeks and SOUL was keen to continue the educational kaupapa there, she said.
“He said he’d talk to Fletchers, and I said we’d have to talk to our people – that was it.”
A decision was made to halt the talks for the day until both negotiators could consult their respective parties."
That night the cops flooded the site, presumably because someone high up heard about the request and made a massive assumption about intentions, completely messing it all up in the process.
Obviously District Commander Rogers stands by her statement that kaitiaki had already occupied that space and that they acted on "information" that they were going to retake the village.
Matthew Hooton has it that Julie Ann Genter should resign over her handling of communications to do with the Wellington transport plan."Genter is a disgrace to her party and herself and should either release her letter in full or resign," he says.
Nothing unusual in that, simple politics and perspectives.
Something that puts a perspective on the perspective is his bit, "It has even been reported that Julie Ann Genter and another Green MP threatened to resign if the tunnel went ahead before the tram."
It has been reported? Is that bit added to give substance or merely chucking toys out of the cot because things aren't as he wishes?
It has been reported? If I were to report that Matthew Hooton is a fuckwit with mental health issues someone can pick that up and use that in a headline story in the country's biggest media outlet saying, " It has even been reported that Matthew Hooton is a fuckwit with mental health issues?"
Already today on Newstalkzb news I've heard two politicians reported as saying something was or wasn't a case and then the final word being given to MP Sarah Dowie speaking directly on tape, that what they said couldn't be believed as if hers was the definitive and authoritative version of reality.
I wish these pollies could be allowed to get on with plans that have been thought about and that offer a way forward and improvements without some carping shit coming along and throwing cow pats or other messy missiles at them in an attempt to start a stoush and stop the solution.
Doing the process properly is important though. I expect oppositions to hold governing parties accountable on such stuff. Murky spindoctors, not so much.
How opposition parties choose to hold the governing parties accountable and for what is extremely important. When the opposition acts like a murky spindoctor they are traitors to the citizens of the country. Now that is the sort of emotive term that can bring the termites out of the woodwork!
The artical on spinoff is interesting… tbh I find it a bit disapponting that the new govt is as bad as the old govt when it comes to accountablity and wearing of 'hats'.
Cant understand the secrecy either everyone knows and understands that the Greens are pro public transport and for very good reason. They shouldnt be ashamed of using whatever leverage they have at their disposal to achieve what are very important changes in the NZ transport system.
WTF? How is it that jailhouse snitches can in any way be considered evidence reliable enough to be introduced at a trial without solid corroboration from non-jailhouse evidence?
Frankly, if I were ever on a jury considering uncorroborated jailhouse snitch evidence, I'd view it as evidence the prosecutors were trying to do a frame-up.
Are Regional Councils useful and worth the money to run them or are they majorly a law unto themselves and a millstone to the Councils in their area trying to get stuff done that their constituents expect them to be in charge of?
Arrowtown has a lot of air pollution.
Otago Regional Councillor Michael Laws had himself called it to report burn-offs dropping ash on properties, and said the regulatory committee was ignoring increasing complaints, leading to people being more reckless with burn-offs.
"It gives you an example of the bizarre priorities of the Otago Regional Council and their policy team, that they're trying to stop people burning wood in the dead of night, to stay warm, in their wood burner – but they refuse to do anything about the daytime pollution which is likely to have a more deleterious effect on communities," he said.
Recently we have heard about Wellington buses, largely the work of the regional council there. I see dv is concerned about that.
Numerous problems are arising. Should regional councils go or are they mostly okay, and problems should go to combined committees with a larger group coming from the concerned councils who can push for needed improvements to contested plans and systems?
I was recalling the change over a couple? years ago. Then went with the cheaper option, paid drivers less. Lost drivers etc. Many buses cancelled AND flyer NOT included in metlink software ETC !!!!!!
ORC are having real difficulties. A large part of the problem is that they are Dunedin based and dominated due to population representation of the ward system, when most of the Council's work is in Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes which have little representation. ORC didn't have an office in Queenstown for 3 years after the sole staff member here died. It's a hangover from the goldrush days perpetuating Dunedin's economic model of clipping the ticket (raping and pillaging in some cases) of the Central Otago economy.
Now that the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes economy equals, and probably exceeds Dunedin's, especially if activity derived in Central is omitted from Dunedin, maybe it's time for a local government re-organisation around community of interest.
A possible starting point could be DCC becoming a unitary covering the Taieri and Shag catchments, with the remainder of Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes amalgamating and also becoming unitary, or having a seperate Catchment Authority covering the Clutha catchment.
ORC also have a huge problem with water permits that expire in 2021 and have to be renewed. Generally these permits grossly over-allocate the catchments. Since the permit holders (farmers mostly) are reluctant to accept a reduced allocation progress on renewals has been glacial at best to current situation of effectively back to square one. Government intervention is probably inevitable.
That is good backgrounding Graeme thanks. Perhaps there need to be a series of meetings from gummint around the country and some new borders for local authorities drawn up.
There was a strong call I think Nick Smith led, for Nelson and Tasman to amalgamate in a Top of the south grouping but I don't know how the city and country can co-ordinate. We have Nelson – Richmond (Tasman's main town) urban areas separated by playing grounds, settled suburbs and some industrial and farming area. This is a bit like Napier and Hastings.
Richmond is the growing area for housing with quite a big industrial estate. It is the headquarters for Tasman District Council which is a Unitary Authority. It abuts onto the Marlborough District Council and the West Coast District Council and Canterbury.
The Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council was one of 13 regional councils established through the passing of the Local Government Act 1987. The council was established in the 1989 local government reforms, but disestablished only three years later in 1992, when its functions went to the unitary authorities of Nelson City Council, Tasman District Council, and Marlborough District Council.[1] Kaikoura District had belonged to the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council but with the 1992 reform was transferred to the Canterbury Regional Council.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson-Marlborough_Regional_Council
Central government had a go at having a combined Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council but that was for just a few years. The Marlborough council has plenty to do with the port at Picton within its area, and the unsettling possibility of a new port being established further down the coast which only was abandoned when there were hefty earthquakes in the area. (It being a waste of capital, infrastructure and investment in Picton was not the important point – I think it suited the trucking firms and self-drive tourists mostly.)
In the south the issues are around population shifts, being the rise of the former "hinterland" and the decline of the cities. Dunedin and Invercargill are going backwards and Central Otago forwards rapidly. Where resources should be going into Central and Northern Southland they are increasingly being drawn back into the cities to maintain services there. Lumsden and Wanaka / Central Otago / Queenstown maternity being an illustration of this.
But dramatic changes are happening with the population growth in Queenstown, Wanaka, Cromwell and Alexandra. The regional airport is now Queenstown with 10 international flights a day to 3 cities, Dunedin has less than 1 to 1 city (Brisbane), and that's marginal. Most of the passengers through Queenstown airport are going to / from somewhere outside Whakatipu, 40% from Wanaka / Central. Southland, Waitaki and South Westland are significant contributors as well. Consequently the shit has hit the fan and QLDC (75.1% shareholder in airport) has put the brakes on the airport's expansion plans as the natives were getting restless, and that's putting it diplomatically, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396263/queenstown-airport-expansion-plans-on-hold-after-public-vitriol
Local and regional government structures tend to be historically based and the entrenched interests don't take kindly to reduced circumstances. Change is inevitable but it could be an interesting ride.
The bullshit maternity "hub" decisions are based on the bullshit "debt" Southern DHB has accrued because of the bullshit funding model over the last couple of decades.
The issue you allude to with QLDC is the permanent population vs the tourist population (and I mean "permanent" not "been there ten weeks and calls themselves 'local'" syndrome) is interesting and needs to be accounted for. But what's basis for elevating Lakes District Hospital into tertiary status?
But what's basis for elevating Lakes District Hospital into tertiary status?
Probably none, but there's a very rapidly developing case for a tertiary hospital to serve the Central Otago / Queenstown region. The time / distance thing becomes crippling, both for the patient, and the provider.
We are currently immersed in a situation with a friend who has kidney failure coupled with onset of diabetes. The lady is in her early 70's and has alway lived life at 100 mph. She also is also caregiver to her 86 yo husband who suffered a very serious head injury about 20 years ago. They married when she was 17. His head injury means he cannot drive, and is pretty slow and unsteady at getting around.
She has been in hospital care for two months now, with an in and out bit at the start. Over that time she's had two trips to Dunedin, one down by air and one by road, but both back by road, and one to Invercargill for a test that took 10 minutes, but resulted in a week's stay there until she was able to return to LDH. In the meantime he has soldiered on as best he can, not knowing if he'll ever see his wife again. He's had a few falls and the stress of the situation has knocked him back a lot, and worrying about him isn't helping her recovery either.
While the care she has received is exemplary, along with the support he's getting from agencies, it's difficult to see how this is efficient, and humane, due to the distance and time involved. Multiply this out over probably hundreds of patients in varying circumstances a month along with the socialised costs, and there's got to be a better way of doing it.
Keep regional councils and adjust them to account for geographical spread. Put the main office in Alex if needed. Decentralise the district councils. I'm sure the Upper Clutha would be happy to separate from Queenstown, because of the large difference in communities and needs that QLDC is ignoring.
Amalgamation, along with strong community boards should get the best of both. Right now we need a strong hold on the rapidly changing regional issues, not more parochialism.
The other side of QLDC "ignoring" Wanaka is that Wanaka residents are quite happy to come to Queenstown to use the airport, and contribute a considerable proportion of the considerable aircraft noise issues Whakatipu suffers, but get rather upset at the thought of their share of the noise being created in their own geography.
Cromwell has become the defacto base for infrastructure servicing and is the logical place to base administrative services as well. A regional hospital would fit there as well, unfortunately at the expense of Dunedin and Invercargill.
Tthe noise and other problems with over use of flying are pretty much all on mass tourism. Maybe criticise Upper Clutha and Cromwell people for making a living from tourism.
As I understand the Wanaka/Queenstown issues, it's about voting population and representation. If smaller areas want to stay quieter and have a say in how their communities are run (and this applies to many place in NZ), then that way of structuring councils needs to change to be more democratic.
There's just as strong, maybe stronger, an argument that we are as much 'over localed' as over touristed. Wanaka's 40% share of ZQN passengers is mostly business and locals travel, there's not much tourism there compared to Queenstown, and virtually none in Cromwell or Central. On flights I'm on and in visits to the airport I'd put the passenger mix at around 50%, or maybe more, local or other than tourist.
Our region has experienced massive population growth, both from those that are sleeping in their own bed, and those that are hiring someone else's bed for the short to medium term. This growth is stretching the community and infrastructure and things are starting to give.
Thank you. It would be nice to see these issues getting wider discussion and leadership. There's potential for things to get out of control on multiple fronts resulting in unfortunate outcomes.
Laws is an idiot of epic proportions who somehow now seems to pop up occassionally on the right side of things. In this case, he's wrong. Ill health from woodfires at night in the winter is because of the long term exposure, over months. High country burnoffs last a day. There are really good reasons to not allow farmers to do them, but this isn't one of them (and if it was, farmers can burn when the wind is blowing the other way).
Can't see how we could get rid of regional councils, they do different things than city and district councils and as bad as regional councils can be I'd hate to see them taken over by townies who have a different set of priorities. The big problem with regional councils is that not enough people vote, so farmers get to stack them with people aligned with their values.
Michael Laws is unfortunately only the current iteration of 'different' representative Dunstan has had on ORC, a past example was Jerry Eckoff and there will undoubtedly be many more.
It's hard to say ORC is farmer dominated at a representative level, there's only 5 out of 12 with direct farming connections, most of the rest are technocrats closely related to the functions of the council, and half the councillors represent the Dunedin constituency, not many resource hungry farms there.
However at a submission level rural interests loudly predominate, and pay for the best consultants.
Agricultural burning is a fraught activity 'round these parts. It doesn't matter how careful you are, how well approved you've got the burn (that can involve up to 6 agencies, virtually none of which seem to know what the others are doing) and how well you think you've picked 'the day', it can all turn to custard and you're hosting lots of people in big red trucks with flashing lights, angry ORCs, and if you're really lucky a couple of helicopters.
Mostly it's disposing of development and land clearance waste. Removing D. Fir shelter belts has produced a few good plumes this winter. Our 'turnout' was disposing of the mess from gorse clearance and willow maintenance. We've got about 10 km of deer fence we have to defend from DOC's willows, so there's an ongoing trimming program which generates a lot of slash. And that's just one med – large property, the district's covered in large, elderly and often inappropriate trees. Many of which are downright dangerous. Also just had to deal with about a ha of very large, increasingly leaning silver poplars that were in their third (at least) phase of self coppice. That generated a very large pile of firewood logs and a good sized pile of slash
Slash = lignin habitat and food for fungi, the generators of soil health and wealth; why rob them of the stuff they need and instead, put it up in the air as heat and gas?
Like I said, it's a fraught exercise. The grief from the episode I described has resulted on a marked change in practices from the farm manager and owner concerned, granted we did close the airport for a little while. The remains are now composting well.
Following a "very stressful" night Elliot said he was relieved on Friday morning to find the massive blaze on his land between Kurow and Waimate, which began from a controlled burn, had largely "burnt itself out".
About 50 firefighters, nine appliances and two helicopters were called at the height of the blaze on Thursday, and a two man team monitored the fire throughout the night."
I was thinking farmers dominating regional councils across the country (farmers and allies), but even with the ORC they seem to have a large influence on what the council does (eg water or dairying).
Which is odd on both counts given more people live in cities now. We need more people voting and better support for progressive candidates.
"None of the local candidate nominees were presenting their plans at high schools, where there would be a lot of first time voters, Laker said.
"You only see signs around town and that is only a face and a name. It doesn't tell you what they are running for. "
Well, Ms Laker, your high school admin don't allow local body candidates to speak to students, donchaknow! I tried and had to jump through hoops to get anywhere at all as far as talking to students was concerned.
In any case, were you completely unaware of the efforts to have a climate emergency declared by some of your your regional councillors? It was on the front page of The Southland Times, twice! (The Southland Times is published on-line – you're on-line, right?)
The influence is at the submission and submission support level. I manage a couple or small water schemes and get to observe and engage through a recent consent renewal. It's quite a machine.
I'm not a huge fan of the ORC – even in Dunedin their treatment of public transport is abysmal. Dunno the pros and cons of splitting it or relocating head office, though.
I got no particular prob with councils trying to educate people concerning the desirability of burning well seasoned wood in their woodburners so long as they did so politely but beyond that they can go fuck themselves
Councils had to make changes according to a register of pollution days and how bad. I think there were big changes and much better readings but still there will be obligations to keep to.
Why public systems are better then those in the private sector in the long run. Few can be trusted completely these days, and to the private sector you are just a body to insert the consumer virus into, that they hope will promote a fever to spend on their product.
Don't know if it's confirmation bias on my part, but I'm intrigued by the divergence between different weather models this winter, and the volatility of forecasts, especially MetService's.
I don't think previous winters have have had forecasts and weather patterns as erratic as this winter in the Wakatipu.
They’re called ‘slugs’, and the defaults are always in 8 bit (ie 256 characters) rather than something that is 32 or even 16 bit. It is easier to store, compare and search on for computers.
This column is part one of three on Ihumātao. This part traces the historical injustices behind Ihumātao. Part two outlines the legal progress and rising opposition against the Fletchers Residential development, the contradiction between justice for Māori and preserving Māori as an artefact, and how the Crown has divided mana whenua. Part three examines the political implications of Ihumātao.
Won't happen, and Corbyn's an idiot if he truthfully believes that's going to happen.
If Boris loses a no confidence vote, under the fixed parliament legislation, he faces a second chance ballot a couple of weeks later. Lose that, and it goes to a general election.
The only way Corbyn has a legitimate chance of taking over is, after the first vote, he has the numbers to form a government, which is highly unlikely, even with the cons single, solitary majority.
Whilst conservative members may not want a bar of a no deal brexit, even the most europhile of their numbers won't cross the floor and vote Corbyn's labour in. I can see them wanting a snap election to stop the pm, but never propping up the opposition and certain expulsion, deselection and self inflicted career ending suicide.
“If the PM loses the motion of no-confidence, then under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act he would have another 14 days to win another vote.
If he fails to secure the vote then a general election would be called on a date advised on by the PM.
However, if another candidate can secure the confidence of the Commons then, under cabinet rules, Mr Johnson would be expected to resign and recommend the Queen appoints the other person.”
It depends on the NI MP's backing a Labour led coalition that kept the UK in the customs union and single market and then went to a general election including a referendum on accepting the deal. If the referendum failed and the Tories won they would have a mandate for a no deal Brexit. Or not.
Even with the unionists it would still need a tory to knife their career, and with Corbyn's pro IRA history, the odds on getting the orange order vote is pretty slim.
A couple of errors by me in the exchange above, notably around the second confidence vote and still needing a tory to jump ship in the unlikely event of a unionist shift.
This was on the BBC today, which explains the confidence vote.
There's been studies that we've done in New Zealand and also some work done overseas, especially in the UK, that are coming together to show blackcurrants in New Zealand have some activity around helping exercise recovery and helping your body cope with the stresses of exercise."
He said there were three ways recovery occurred – managing stresses, regulating the inflammatory pathways in the body so that tissue repair was promoted and the boosting of immunity. He said studies suggested New Zealand blackcurrants had higher levels of Polyphenol, which promoted this recovery. But he said more research was needed to scientifically validate the claim New Zealand blackcurrants were superior to other blackcurrants in this respect.
Frozen currants were just as good as fresh ones, he said. The study received funding from the government.
This Japanese firm did not require our production in 2018 and so the growers had to hastily look what to do. Why don't NZs make things themselves. If we as a country supported our own growers, they would be sure of a certain level of sales, and then could develop an overseas interest for exporting to increase business. And note that the Wikipedia item says that Suntory changed to artificial sweeteners as a result of a sugar tax in the UK. But people wanting a natural juice that is sweetened may prefer some sugar, or honey, compared to the laboratory equivalents, and may be affected adversely by them.
What makes the New Zealand blackcurrant better than others?
It's the ultra-violet sunlight that really benefits the New Zealand blackcurrant-growing environment, said Ms Cushman. "That stimulates the berry fruit into producing very high concentrations of poly phenols, the bio-actives that give blackcurrants their physiological benefits. "We are also blessed to have good varieties that thrive in the New Zealand conditions," she said.
Curranz launched the New Zealand blackcurrant product as a sports nutrition supplement, first in the UK, but now also in other countries, including New Zealand, Ms Cushman said. The company will be supplying High Performance New Zealand Olympic athletes for the next Olympic cycle.
"It is a big breakthrough for the Kiwis because British athletes have been using the black currant supplements and winning and it was embarrassing that New Zealand sports people were missing out"
We need to protect our own country's business. The idea that we are big world players is quite wrong; No matter how much we make or import we are always small.
Eco Maori has seen a story about the state of Indias Awa it is not good poverty and plastic waste is a big problem there .
Please clean up your rivers to leave the taonga wai treasure water for your mokopuna grandchildren. Aotearoa has banned single use plastic bags it is a minor inconvenience but well worth it not seeing plastic bags blowing all around the country side the effects of the ban on single use plastic bags can already be seen we will eventually ban most plastics in Aotearoa
Plastic, poverty and paradox: experts head to the Ganges to track waste
India’s most sacred river is also its most polluted, with plastic a major culprit. Now moves are afoot to monitor the flow of rubbish and assess its link to poverty
Drop a plastic bottle into the Ganges and where does it end up? An all-female team of engineers, explorers and scientists is about to find out by undertaking the first expedition to measure plastic waste in one of the world’s most polluted waterways
Following the Ganges upstream from where it empties in the Bay of Bengal to its source in the Himalayas, the National Geographic-backed expedition aims to better understand how plastic pollution travels from source to sea and provide solutions for reducing the amount that ends up in the world’s oceans.
The river is, therefore, a perfect starting point for measuring how plastic travels from land into rivers, and from rivers into the ocean, says National Geographic fellow and University of Georgia associate professor Jenna Jambeck, who is co-leading the expedition.
“We know there’s plastic in these river environments and that the plastic is heading into the ocean,” says environmental engineer Jambeck, whose previous research found that 8 metric tons of plastic waste entering the sea every year.
Wow a mean weather system is effecting the South Island lets hope that it doesn't make to big a Mess.
I think the Idea that moving the cars to a different location in the Auckland region if its works and saves money run with it work smarter not harder is one of my philosophys the other is keep it simple it looks like this Idea fits both.
What about the suppression order against Eco Maori what a joke.
Cool teaching tamariki how to eat healthy foods at a kindergarten very good I have dropped sugar our of my diet and I have lost 10 kg and feel much better sugar should be banned too the gasoline tanks of our cars.
Ka pai to the volunteers who have helped clean up the Awa river mess of a old dump down South Island.
Cool Idea including models with access needs in a fashion Show that should help lift there wairua.
A huge power cut in Britain that is not good at all lucky I harvest my power straight from Te Ra.
Thats heaps of Sharks in Australia they are beautiful creatures that need to be treasured and protected from over exploitation by greedy people.
Its not on having tamariki starving when Te Papatuanuku produce enough food and resources for all we have to change so food is not wasted 30% of food is wasted.
The rulers need to learn to share their lollipops sharing will be part of the changes needed to combat Human Caused Climate Change
World hunger on the rise as 820m at risk, UN report finds
Eliminating hunger by 2030 is an immense challenge, say heads of UN agencies
More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.
The number of people with not enough to eat has risen for the third year in a row as the population increases, after a decade when real progress was made. The underlying trend is stabilisation, when global agencies had hoped it would fall.
Millions of children are not getting the nutrition they need. The UN says the pace of progress in halving child stunting and reducing the number of low birthweight babies is too slow, which jeopardises the chances of achieving another of the sustainable development goals.
Nearly half of all child deaths in Africa stem from hunger, study shows
Read more
The report is from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
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 ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
This episode of A View From Afar was recorded LIVE on May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, May 5, 2024 at 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Assistant Professor, Bond University Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures At the crux of the critical response to Luca Guadagnino’s new movie Challengers is one word: “sexy”. The film charts a love triangle between three up-and-coming tennis players: Tashi (Zendaya), ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy, ADFA Canberra, UNSW Sydney For years, First Nations people have been telling governments they want to be listened to. In particular, they want more ownership of the programs and services that are supposed to help them. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Why do trees have bark? Julien, age 6, Melbourne. This is a great question, Julien. We are so familiar with bark on trees, that most of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Nasser, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Technology Sydney PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important ligament in the knee. It runs from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia) and helps stabilise ...
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 I covered the May 2 United Kingdom local government elections for The Poll Bludger. The Blackpool South parliamentary byelection was also held, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna Grant-Smith, Professor of Management, University of the Sunshine Coast The federal government has announced a “Commonwealth Prac Payment” to support selected groups of students doing mandatory work placements. Those who are studying to be a teacher, nurse, midwife or social ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you love a dark comedy: Bodkin (Netflix, May 9)An English podcaster, an Irish podcaster and American podcaster walk into a pub and…make a TV show? ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”. Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong ...
How worried should we be about the cloud? This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. I currently have a few thousand unread emails languishing in my inbox, mostly old marketing newsletters and piles of unread science journal press releases. I have a similar number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies College of Arts and Sciences Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication Studies, Northern State University Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Asian governments not only have to deal with the virus but also with the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murakami Wood, Professor of Critical Surveillance and Securities Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa The skyline of Riyadh, the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.(Shutterstock) There is a long history of planned city building by both governments ...
The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin today at 12:45pm May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment of ...
The Boil Up’s Lucinda Bennett considers the oyster – from freshness to pearls to the joy of shucking your own. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. In Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘Eight Bites’, a woman begins her last supper before bariatric surgery with “a cavalcade ...
Asia Pacific Report A group of 65 Auckland University academics have written an open letter to vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater criticising the institution’s stance over students protesting in solidarity with Palestine. They have called on her administration to “support” the students who were denied permission to establish an “overnight encampment” by ...
The Student Volunteer Army is on the march, generating approximately 1.6 million hours of volunteering from roughly 35,000 secondary school students in just five years. For Rebekah Brown, the pathway to volunteering started with her singing coach. With a passion for the arts, the suggestion to volunteer at Acting Antics, ...
Keeping up with online communication can be exhausting, so Fran Barclay enlisted the help of Meta’s new ‘intelligent assistant’ to respond to all her messages. Could her mates tell the difference? For centuries, technology has ruled the ways in which we communicate. From the dawn of written language, to the ...
Jamie Arbuckle, a councillor who has become an member of parliament, says he has settled into having two roles so comfortably he's going to keep both pay cheques. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jose Antonio Lara-Hernandez, Senior Researcher in Architecture, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images The COVID-19 pandemic and the hybrid work patterns it fostered have changed the way we think about office space, and central business districts in general. While fears ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law, UNSW Sydney There’s a good reason your local volunteer-run netball club doesn’t pay tax. In Australia, various nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying income tax, including those that do charitable work, such as churches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Deller, Casual Academic, Creative Writing and English Literature, Flinders University NetflixComedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told. In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink ...
The workplace can be a minefield of bad comms and passive aggression. Kinksters can help you navigate it. A friend and colleague recently gave me a compliment I loved. They told me I’d always been good at emotional communication and making people feel comfortable. “But I feel like it’s really ...
Even if some students are now just texting on their laptops. Stewart Sowman-Lund writes in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Councils from Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City will meet this Friday to work together on a plan for a Greater Wellington region water deal. ...
Renowned musician, advocate, and proud born and raised daughter of Tauranga, Ria Hall, is announcing her candidacy for Mayor of Tauranga and Pāpāmoa Ward for the upcoming election on July 20th. ...
The new Aotearoa histories curriculum is rich with potential. There’s still work to be done, but the education minister’s criticisms about ‘balance’ miss the mark, argues primary school teacher Jessie Moss. In 2015, Ōtorohanga College students presented to parliament a petition signed by more than 10,000 people calling for a ...
For too long our so-called national bird has maintained its stranglehold on the economy of regional New Zealand. Thanks to the fast track legislation, we will have our revenge. Theories abound on what ails New Zealand’s economy. National leader Chris Luxon has posited that we’re negative, wet, whiny, and inward-looking; ...
Late one afternoon in March 1860 a man in a thin green velveteen jacket and a wide-awake hat arrived on foot at a sheep station named Glenmark, about 65 kilometres north of Christchurch. The man was in his mid-fifties but he looked older. Several people who met him that day ...
If building one of Auckland’s possible waterfront stadiums was funded privately, it would need to hold a sold-out Ed Sherran concert every weekday for 25 years. That’s Rob Hamlin’s finding – he’s a senior marketing lecturer at the University of Otago. “It’s not going to happen; forget about it,” he ...
Comment: The debate over the future relationship between news and social media is bringing us closer to a long-overdue reckoning. Social media isn’t trying to kill journalism, because social media has never really cared about journalism. Social media is resolutely in the attention business. News propels some attention — perhaps ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 6 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
For the past 12 years, Georgia-Rose Brown has balanced on the brink of making an Olympic Games – but always landed gracefully on the wrong side. Reaching the Olympics is a dream the gymnast has harboured since she was a six-year-old; a dream that would dwindle every four years, yet ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A new Commonwealth Prac Payment will provide students with $319.50 a week when they are on clinical and professional placements. The payment will be means tested and start from July 1 next year, which ...
Asia Pacific Report About 500 people honoured Palestinian journalists in the heart of the New Zealand city of Auckland today for their brave coverage of Israel’s War on Gaza, now in its seventh month with almost 35,000 people killed, mostly women and children. Marking the annual May 3 World Press ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
This is the whitest white-person thread of all time
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
The Standard: totally not racist and not at all a totally tone-deaf echo chamber of white people
[That’s another silly comment in a series of silly comments and you (should) know better. Your comments got moved to OM but you didn’t get booted off the site. As such, it is just a minor action to keep the flow of comments tidy, relevant and on-topic. My advice is to not read more (too much) into it – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 3:23 AM.
The comments got moved from a place where they were relevant to a place where they were not. That’s bad moderation. Do better.
[FYI, I did not move your comments but I fully agree with the move. Secondly, you don’t decide what Moderators here should or shouldn’t do, which means you don’t criticise or litigate moderation; asking for clarification, for example, is generally (but not always!) fine. Thirdly, I care little about the cause of disagreement for want of a better description but I do care about behaviour. That was bad commenting behaviour. Finally, it would be a silly choice IMO if you opt for a ban. Please do better – Incognito]
"The bin" would have met general approval, imo.
Racists don’t like being told they’re racists.
So they're not realists then, racists?
I've stretched my bubble gum as far as it will go I think, and just puffing a bit – the bubble is getting bigger – wow splatter all over my mouth. Good for another go. Got to keep pushing the envelope, I mean the gummy, and they make the strength and ingredients very long-lasting these days. I haven't anything more important to do than blow bubbles and people get quite amused at my antics.
It is all a delaying tactic I must confess. I actually do have more important things to do but stay on hoping for some advance in the nature of progress, or the progress of nature, whatever.
See my Moderation note @ 2:09 PM.
I didn't move it either but I think the original comment was under one of my posts (wilding pines). It came late in the piece when I tend to let things slide more. It didn't make much sense in context and seemed a jabby, throw away comment that was trying to make a point but doing it badly. Can't really complain about it now being out of context when you didn't bother to make your point clearly*
And yeah, please don't have a go at moderators.
*TS does tend to reflect Pākehā values, but I'm still not sure why the wilding pine post or discussion specifically warranted comment.
Kindy awash with cow farm muck
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114862464/mud-and-sediment-from-winter-grazing-runoff-closes-rural-southland-kindergarten
Big issues with winter grazing, some practices are just filthy and heartbreaking.
Damien is doing something about it
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/agriculture-minister-establishes-winter-grazing-taskforce
But, but… Kindergartens South website it says "we are fortunate to have land with trees and grassy areas attached to our kindergarten where tamariki / children are able to build strong ecological identities and are able to make connections from home."
In the meantime, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396287/early-childhood-education-standards-too-low-researcher.
Parents cannot trust the early childhood licensing and regulatory system to ensure the quality of their child's centre…
America is clearly in a state of civil war, or revolution, with a mass shooting every day…
Or does everyone keep turning a blind eye and claim it's just a nutters with guns thing ..
it has started. where and when will it end
Hardly. With 329 million, even a tiny percentage of the population doing crazy stuff would still appear statistically significant to outsiders. Despite how mad it appears to us, I feel revolution is still some way off, and would require a near-total collapse of the financial systems before that was to occur.
I disagree. Firstly, most revolutions and civil wars involve a small percentage of the population only, particularly at the beginning. Secondly, most revolutions and upheavals begin before people notice.
Let's look back in ten years time and see what history has to say about this and when it started..
I would suggest pretty much every crowd at an event and every mall shopper will have this risk in their mind today and tomorrow and onwards… another indicator it is underway… the population is cowering
I saw a graph of mass shootings this year, USA at 400+ at number one, followed by 2 in India, then NZ at number 3 with one mass shooting. I also happened on an American's IG page the other day and it was just pictures upon pictures of guns, even celebrating his kids 5th birthday with guns. They really do have a problem uniquely theirs.
trump…… offers support and condolences in the wake of the latest mass shootings…. meanwhile, elsewhere in the USA, ICE is doing the biggest round up of immigrants in ten years.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/hundreds-arrested-largest-immigration-raids-decade-190808014646924.html
He's driving the same narrative as the shooters are using and it's revolting.
Yes he needs to be removed from office… Trump claimed the mexicans were rapists and murderers etc, so some Trump follower went and shot them…
total madness
Australia when remonstrated with about uplifting of Kiwis from their homes to detention centres brings up the terms of rapist, sex offender etc as if it applied to all, as a justification. We have got Little America right on our doorstep. NZ is going to be the Mexican immigrant wave when it suits the Oz government to go lower.
and right on cue… https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/114870450/man-in-us-anthem-attack-on-boy-convinced-trump-ordered-it
I don't think this shit can be ignored anymore
Yes I posted this last night:
Couldn't sleep last night following those images of children suddenly bereft of their parents – many of whom had been in the US for many many years working and productive people. Insane and inhumane.
https://twitter.com/AlexLoveWJTV/status/1159264049105973248
It gets worse!
ICE Raids Targeted Company Whose Workers Won Discrimination Lawsuit
ps This is not the infamous Koch Bros – but another group.
Amoral pricks.
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1159558146047795200
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/iraqi-man-dies-deportation-trump-administration-1643512
Beyond amoral. Knowingly deliberately evil.
Young Heinrich's work.
This is the sick prick behind it all.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/13/stephen-miller-uncle-david-glosser-immigration-separation
Uncle of Trump adviser Stephen Miller voices 'horror' at immigration policies
This article is more than 11 months old
David Glosser says despite family ties, he cannot justify keeping silent about ‘virtual kidnapping of thousands of children’
Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Tue 14 Aug 2018 00.47 BSTLast modified on Tue 14 Aug 2018 17.21 BST
Shares
369
Stephen Miller’s uncle, David Glosser, described ‘dismay and increasing horror’ at Trump’s immigration policies. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The Geheime Staatspolizei at work.
https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1159480496470089728
https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1159522767798013952
You know this happened and started under Obama right?
[Please explain your ambiguous comment and demonstrate it was not deliberately misleading or lying – Incognito]
That's fkn shameless, brazenly repeating a Queens loofah-faced shitgibbon lie. Google Obama child separation and you'll be deluged with stuff showing how wrong that statement is. Here's just one:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/23/trump-falsely-says-obama-started-family-separation/1540733001/
Who gives a fuck? Seriously, you read about kids getting left at school because their parents have been rounded up, and the best response you can come up with is Obama did it too.
And it's obvious that this isn't a continuation of Obama's policies – because if Obama had enthusiastically followed the midnight raid programme, dolt45 would be creating DACA on steroids and naturalising everyone who gets across the border.
BULLSHIT!
This did not happen under Obama.
These ICE raids began under Bush. Obama put a stop to them and these are the first raids of this nature in a DECADE!
Stop spreading bullshit lies!
infused It seems you are spreading lies. Do you think you are at the right address when you come here? I think that a higher standard of communication is required. Isn't there somewhere you can go who will swallow all your rats?
See my Moderation note @ 2:32 PM.
Americans are beginning to ask themselves the same question..
https://twitter.com/roblogic_/status/1159503465665765376?s=21
National's MP Hamish Walker puts his foot in it.
"Intensive winter grazing is a vital practice used in Clutha-Southland by farmers. Without it, there would be serious repercussions for the area and as a flow-on effect our rural towns, such as Gore, Winton and Lumsden."
Walker said farmers have made dramatic improvements in how they graze stock, including the fencing of waterways, the buffer zones around critical source areas and grazing crops strategically."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/108107742/walker-raises-concerns-about-new-farming-rules?rm=a
Yeah hamish… that's why the minister is doing something, because there is no problem…. lolz. I guess hamish doesn't get out much, or he is blind.
https://twitter.com/DamienOConnorMP/status/1158921011892330497
but we need to keep making a mess..
because otherwise the economy will suffer..
brainless
Keep up Mr.Guyton…they have a long term plan.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/ox-rice-field.html
Flow on effect eh Hamey? Hur hur. Liddle kiddies can go get shat on.
"Dramatic" improvements!
"Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker, who is the associate spokesperson for agriculture, said "the protesters at Ihumātao are standing in mud – why is it only farmers being targeted and not them?"
?
"Walker said winter grazing working group was "more money down the drain" and "another orchestrated attack on farmers by this Government".
"In light of the winter grazing photos released, the Government has chosen to establish yet another group to address the issue. Instead of getting around a table and having discussions to see what work is being done, or can still be done, they react as soon as a vegan movement shouts live cattle exports or an environmentalist shouts winter grazing."
?
wow no wonder he's a gnat – he thick bigtime
Disgraceful thinking – shows the mentality and lack of education about the important matters for the country and ethical standards that all farmers sons should learn about. Their schools are too busy drilling scientific and business-related knowledge into them during formal learning hours and in the rest how to keep fit and be competitive in sports. Nothing about the philosophic understanding that an advanced developed nation would know. All competition and person advancement using the money system, not human collaboration.
I put up the link again about the UK study on the education of the wealthy and aspirational there and how parents don't care and love their children enough to give them the emotional ties that would result in a strong individual who is empathetic and understanding of others.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018707127/dr-nick-duffell-why-boarding-schools-produce-bad-leaders
Britain’s public school system has for generations produced a high proportion of its political leaders, despite the number of children attending these schools representing a tiny fraction of the larger population….
But a British psychotherapist says schools such as Eton produce damaged individuals and very poor leaders suffering a form of “privileged abandonment.”
Dr Nick Duffell is the founder of the boarding school survivors organisation, he himself went to Oxford and taught at a boys’ boarding school, and is the author of The Making of Them: The British Attitude to Children and the Boarding School System, and more recently, Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion…
True New Zealand hero, John Sato
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/08-08-2019/john-sato-i-am-not-a-bleeding-heart-or-a-do-gooder-but-i-can-feel-for-people/?fbclid=IwAR2j9M26l8vHbiUTQdE7CpZvNZS_PuCw6S9C6AyxgkVmVcY8dvvKKkZQ4w8
Thanks for that link Jenny, a real NZ hero alright.
"For New Zealanders, one "immediate and striking recommendation" was to alter diets from being high in meat and dairy, to being more balanced with plant-based food choices. This would use less land and water and emit fewer greenhouse gases, Hayward said."
Eat plants to help the climate, IPCC report suggests
The report suggests a lot of other things as well:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/114866294/everything-we-do-affects-our-climate-experts-react-to-climate-change-report
Somewhat more complicated than that….
"The report makes clear that much of the onus is on industrial, transport and other emitters to urgently cut greenhouse emissions to give food growers the friendly climate they’ll need to feed a growing and increasingly affluent global population.
Agriculture itself is in a tricky position: its existence as an industry is non-negotiable if people are going to continue to eat."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/08/08/746091/waste-less-food-eat-more-plants-defend-soil-ipcc
It's complicated alright. So many things will have to change.
affluent countries need to lower their standard of living. Low hanging fruit: eat seasonally, eat local food. These drop emissions, but also sharpen the mind around what is involved in producing food for everyone, not just the people with the most money.
Considering affluent (OECD) countries are responsible for the bulk of emissions they indeed should be making the most radical lifestyle changes….that involves far more than eating habits
yep, I was just responding to food issue, because it's coming up a lot at the moment, and eating plants from the other side of the world isn't much of an improvement for NZers over eating NZ farmed meat.
Also using that as example of how affluent countries can do something meaningful. Thinking that the whole world can have our lifestyles is a madness, utter madness. We have to give away some of our privilege. It won't hurt us, it might make us a better country.
Given the 80/20 rule it likely would make us a better country but I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for acceptance of such thought
Meat is not actually mentioned in the report,its land use changes ie deforestation, (south america asia and africa.)
There seems to be a lot of creative reporting in the press (mostly due to the hard reading of the report under a legal framework)
you would struggle to find that land use changes are both a source and a sink (the emission imbalance due to deforestation)
Land is simultaneously a source and a sink of CO2 due to both anthropogenic and natural drivers, making it hard to separate anthropogenic from natural fluxes (very high confidence). Global models estimate net CO2 emissions of 5.2 ± 2.6 GtCO2 yr-1 (likely range) from land use and land-use change during 2007-16. These net emissions are mostly due to deforestation, partly offset by afforestation/reforestation, and emissions and removals by other land use activities (very high confidence) (Table SPM.1)23.There is no clear trend in annual emissions since 1990 (medium confidence) (Figure SPM.1). {1.1, 2.3, Table 2.2, Table 2.3}
The natural response of land to human-induced environmental changes such as increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen deposition, and climate change, resulted in global net removals of 11.2 +/– 2.6 Gt CO2 yr–1 (likelyrange) during 2007-2016 (Table SPM.1). The sum of the net removals due to this response and the AFOLU net emissions gives a total net land-atmosphere flux that removed 6.0+/-2.6 GtCO2 yr-1 during 2007-2016 (likely range). Future net increases in CO2 emissions from vegetation and soils due to climate change are projected to counteract increased removals due to CO2 fertilisation and longer growing seasons (high confidence). The balance between these processes is a key source of uncertainty for determining the future of the land carbon sink. Projected thawing of permafrost is expected to increase the loss of soil carbon (high confidence). During the 21st century, vegetation growth in those areas may compensate in part for this loss (low confidence). {Box 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.5.3, 2.7; Table 2.3}
They also want limits on urban expansion ie removal of agriculture land for housing etc.
The foremost take home message is the need to increase the sink capacity.
Tree trunks could be sunk in cold lakes.
They could be sunk to create a sink.
The Newsroom story makes that point well
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/08/08/746091/waste-less-food-eat-more-plants-defend-soil-ipcc
Ever increasing humans in ever decreasing circles…
A Standard blast from ~2 years' past – https://thestandard.org.nz/750816-2/
some 70 billion tons of CO2 ago
been reading a new book called "what the fast", by some AUT experts based off south auckland population studies and recent science into "low carb healthy fat" food. lots of healthy recipes
https://whatthefatbook.com/product/what-the-fast/
"There are now over 500 million people living in desert areas that would not have been considered deserts before the 1980s. A full quarter of the world's ice-free land mass is subject to land degradation as a result of human activity."
I wonder how they define "land degradation" and whether they consider agriculture to be improving of degrading what was forested land?
Is the coalition govt really Putinesque? Dunne thinks so. Yet his reasoning actually reads better than one might expect. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@politics/2019/08/09/743756/rewrite-this-putin-esque-referenda-bill
"Under this Bill, Parliament will no longer determine the question to be considered, which means there will be no opportunity for any public input through the select committee process. Rather, the referendum question will be set by Order-in-Council, (that means a regulation passed by the Executive Council on the recommendation of the Cabinet, which, in turn, means that the Cabinet will effectively decide the question to be considered, without any external scrutiny)."
I'm agnostic on this. I can see merit in using efficient practical politics to produce a cabinet consensus on the questions to be put in the referenda. Parliament's process could be messier & more time-consuming. But if it turns out to be quicker & gets the result more efficiently, why not run the cabinet decision past parliament anyway? Doing so would flush out any short-comings – which cabinet could consider as amendments – or confirm the merit of their decision.
The wording on the canabus (sp?) referendum is Yes or No. Accept or not the Bill.
Only works if you have the bill ready.
But he retired didn't he?
Dunger wouldn't know a Pootin if he got shot in the face by one franko.
As we get to Day +4 after the police rarked things up at Ihumatao, Newsroom have done an interview with the Ihumatao camp's liaison with the police who notes that;
That night the cops flooded the site, presumably because someone high up heard about the request and made a massive assumption about intentions, completely messing it all up in the process.
Obviously District Commander Rogers stands by her statement that kaitiaki had already occupied that space and that they acted on "information" that they were going to retake the village.
Matthew Hooton has it that Julie Ann Genter should resign over her handling of communications to do with the Wellington transport plan."Genter is a disgrace to her party and herself and should either release her letter in full or resign," he says.
Nothing unusual in that, simple politics and perspectives.
Something that puts a perspective on the perspective is his bit, "It has even been reported that Julie Ann Genter and another Green MP threatened to resign if the tunnel went ahead before the tram."
It has been reported? Is that bit added to give substance or merely chucking toys out of the cot because things aren't as he wishes?
It has been reported? If I were to report that Matthew Hooton is a fuckwit with mental health issues someone can pick that up and use that in a headline story in the country's biggest media outlet saying, " It has even been reported that Matthew Hooton is a fuckwit with mental health issues?"
Already today on Newstalkzb news I've heard two politicians reported as saying something was or wasn't a case and then the final word being given to MP Sarah Dowie speaking directly on tape, that what they said couldn't be believed as if hers was the definitive and authoritative version of reality.
Just another day of media with shit standards.
This seems to be the basis of the claim: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/114828737/city-councillors-claim-green-party-agreement-used-as-leverage-to-get-agreement-on-lets-get-wellington-moving
I wish these pollies could be allowed to get on with plans that have been thought about and that offer a way forward and improvements without some carping shit coming along and throwing cow pats or other messy missiles at them in an attempt to start a stoush and stop the solution.
Doing the process properly is important though. I expect oppositions to hold governing parties accountable on such stuff. Murky spindoctors, not so much.
How opposition parties choose to hold the governing parties accountable and for what is extremely important. When the opposition acts like a murky spindoctor they are traitors to the citizens of the country. Now that is the sort of emotive term that can bring the termites out of the woodwork!
Someone needed to sort the Wtn transport mess.
Fortunately its paywalled so most people won't be able to read it.
The artical on spinoff is interesting… tbh I find it a bit disapponting that the new govt is as bad as the old govt when it comes to accountablity and wearing of 'hats'.
Cant understand the secrecy either everyone knows and understands that the Greens are pro public transport and for very good reason. They shouldnt be ashamed of using whatever leverage they have at their disposal to achieve what are very important changes in the NZ transport system.
WTF? How is it that jailhouse snitches can in any way be considered evidence reliable enough to be introduced at a trial without solid corroboration from non-jailhouse evidence?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/114434812/jailhouse-snitches-the-crowns-high-dependency-on-low-credibility-witnesses
https://www.innocenceproject.org/safeguarding-against-unreliable-jailhouse-informant-testimony/
Frankly, if I were ever on a jury considering uncorroborated jailhouse snitch evidence, I'd view it as evidence the prosecutors were trying to do a frame-up.
Are Regional Councils useful and worth the money to run them or are they majorly a law unto themselves and a millstone to the Councils in their area trying to get stuff done that their constituents expect them to be in charge of?
Arrowtown has a lot of air pollution.
Otago Regional Councillor Michael Laws had himself called it to report burn-offs dropping ash on properties, and said the regulatory committee was ignoring increasing complaints, leading to people being more reckless with burn-offs.
"It gives you an example of the bizarre priorities of the Otago Regional Council and their policy team, that they're trying to stop people burning wood in the dead of night, to stay warm, in their wood burner – but they refuse to do anything about the daytime pollution which is likely to have a more deleterious effect on communities," he said.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396307/smokey-burn-offs-add-fuel-to-fire-over-air-pollution-issue
Recently we have heard about Wellington buses, largely the work of the regional council there. I see dv is concerned about that.
Numerous problems are arising. Should regional councils go or are they mostly okay, and problems should go to combined committees with a larger group coming from the concerned councils who can push for needed improvements to contested plans and systems?
dv You may have been thinking of this that has come out today 9/8 in the Scoop.
Regional Council seeks $415m for “essential” new trains to carry more people
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=121184
I was recalling the change over a couple? years ago. Then went with the cheaper option, paid drivers less. Lost drivers etc. Many buses cancelled AND flyer NOT included in metlink software ETC !!!!!!
That was decided by the previous regional council to the current one under the national governments edict that lowest tender MUST win.
Yep, and surprise there have been problems.
ORC are having real difficulties. A large part of the problem is that they are Dunedin based and dominated due to population representation of the ward system, when most of the Council's work is in Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes which have little representation. ORC didn't have an office in Queenstown for 3 years after the sole staff member here died. It's a hangover from the goldrush days perpetuating Dunedin's economic model of clipping the ticket (raping and pillaging in some cases) of the Central Otago economy.
Now that the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes economy equals, and probably exceeds Dunedin's, especially if activity derived in Central is omitted from Dunedin, maybe it's time for a local government re-organisation around community of interest.
A possible starting point could be DCC becoming a unitary covering the Taieri and Shag catchments, with the remainder of Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes amalgamating and also becoming unitary, or having a seperate Catchment Authority covering the Clutha catchment.
ORC also have a huge problem with water permits that expire in 2021 and have to be renewed. Generally these permits grossly over-allocate the catchments. Since the permit holders (farmers mostly) are reluctant to accept a reduced allocation progress on renewals has been glacial at best to current situation of effectively back to square one. Government intervention is probably inevitable.
That is good backgrounding Graeme thanks. Perhaps there need to be a series of meetings from gummint around the country and some new borders for local authorities drawn up.
There was a strong call I think Nick Smith led, for Nelson and Tasman to amalgamate in a Top of the south grouping but I don't know how the city and country can co-ordinate. We have Nelson – Richmond (Tasman's main town) urban areas separated by playing grounds, settled suburbs and some industrial and farming area. This is a bit like Napier and Hastings.
Nelson is a character town that is a Unitary Authority.
http://www.nelson.govt.nz/council/council-structure/unitary-authority/
Richmond is the growing area for housing with quite a big industrial estate. It is the headquarters for Tasman District Council which is a Unitary Authority. It abuts onto the Marlborough District Council and the West Coast District Council and Canterbury.
The Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council was one of 13 regional councils established through the passing of the Local Government Act 1987. The council was established in the 1989 local government reforms, but disestablished only three years later in 1992, when its functions went to the unitary authorities of Nelson City Council, Tasman District Council, and Marlborough District Council.[1] Kaikoura District had belonged to the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council but with the 1992 reform was transferred to the Canterbury Regional Council.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson-Marlborough_Regional_Council
Central government had a go at having a combined Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council but that was for just a few years. The Marlborough council has plenty to do with the port at Picton within its area, and the unsettling possibility of a new port being established further down the coast which only was abandoned when there were hefty earthquakes in the area. (It being a waste of capital, infrastructure and investment in Picton was not the important point – I think it suited the trucking firms and self-drive tourists mostly.)
In the south the issues are around population shifts, being the rise of the former "hinterland" and the decline of the cities. Dunedin and Invercargill are going backwards and Central Otago forwards rapidly. Where resources should be going into Central and Northern Southland they are increasingly being drawn back into the cities to maintain services there. Lumsden and Wanaka / Central Otago / Queenstown maternity being an illustration of this.
But dramatic changes are happening with the population growth in Queenstown, Wanaka, Cromwell and Alexandra. The regional airport is now Queenstown with 10 international flights a day to 3 cities, Dunedin has less than 1 to 1 city (Brisbane), and that's marginal. Most of the passengers through Queenstown airport are going to / from somewhere outside Whakatipu, 40% from Wanaka / Central. Southland, Waitaki and South Westland are significant contributors as well. Consequently the shit has hit the fan and QLDC (75.1% shareholder in airport) has put the brakes on the airport's expansion plans as the natives were getting restless, and that's putting it diplomatically, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396263/queenstown-airport-expansion-plans-on-hold-after-public-vitriol
Local and regional government structures tend to be historically based and the entrenched interests don't take kindly to reduced circumstances. Change is inevitable but it could be an interesting ride.
The bullshit maternity "hub" decisions are based on the bullshit "debt" Southern DHB has accrued because of the bullshit funding model over the last couple of decades.
The issue you allude to with QLDC is the permanent population vs the tourist population (and I mean "permanent" not "been there ten weeks and calls themselves 'local'" syndrome) is interesting and needs to be accounted for. But what's basis for elevating Lakes District Hospital into tertiary status?
Probably none, but there's a very rapidly developing case for a tertiary hospital to serve the Central Otago / Queenstown region. The time / distance thing becomes crippling, both for the patient, and the provider.
We are currently immersed in a situation with a friend who has kidney failure coupled with onset of diabetes. The lady is in her early 70's and has alway lived life at 100 mph. She also is also caregiver to her 86 yo husband who suffered a very serious head injury about 20 years ago. They married when she was 17. His head injury means he cannot drive, and is pretty slow and unsteady at getting around.
She has been in hospital care for two months now, with an in and out bit at the start. Over that time she's had two trips to Dunedin, one down by air and one by road, but both back by road, and one to Invercargill for a test that took 10 minutes, but resulted in a week's stay there until she was able to return to LDH. In the meantime he has soldiered on as best he can, not knowing if he'll ever see his wife again. He's had a few falls and the stress of the situation has knocked him back a lot, and worrying about him isn't helping her recovery either.
While the care she has received is exemplary, along with the support he's getting from agencies, it's difficult to see how this is efficient, and humane, due to the distance and time involved. Multiply this out over probably hundreds of patients in varying circumstances a month along with the socialised costs, and there's got to be a better way of doing it.
Keep regional councils and adjust them to account for geographical spread. Put the main office in Alex if needed. Decentralise the district councils. I'm sure the Upper Clutha would be happy to separate from Queenstown, because of the large difference in communities and needs that QLDC is ignoring.
Alexandra is outside QLDC area
Central Otago District Councils towns are Alexandra,Cromwell Roxburgh and Ranfurly
The lakes part of QLDC is Hawea and Wanaka areas but quickly following the Clutha gets into Cromwell and Central Otago
I meant move ORC main office to Alex.
Amalgamation, along with strong community boards should get the best of both. Right now we need a strong hold on the rapidly changing regional issues, not more parochialism.
The other side of QLDC "ignoring" Wanaka is that Wanaka residents are quite happy to come to Queenstown to use the airport, and contribute a considerable proportion of the considerable aircraft noise issues Whakatipu suffers, but get rather upset at the thought of their share of the noise being created in their own geography.
Cromwell has become the defacto base for infrastructure servicing and is the logical place to base administrative services as well. A regional hospital would fit there as well, unfortunately at the expense of Dunedin and Invercargill.
Tthe noise and other problems with over use of flying are pretty much all on mass tourism. Maybe criticise Upper Clutha and Cromwell people for making a living from tourism.
As I understand the Wanaka/Queenstown issues, it's about voting population and representation. If smaller areas want to stay quieter and have a say in how their communities are run (and this applies to many place in NZ), then that way of structuring councils needs to change to be more democratic.
There's just as strong, maybe stronger, an argument that we are as much 'over localed' as over touristed. Wanaka's 40% share of ZQN passengers is mostly business and locals travel, there's not much tourism there compared to Queenstown, and virtually none in Cromwell or Central. On flights I'm on and in visits to the airport I'd put the passenger mix at around 50%, or maybe more, local or other than tourist.
Our region has experienced massive population growth, both from those that are sleeping in their own bed, and those that are hiring someone else's bed for the short to medium term. This growth is stretching the community and infrastructure and things are starting to give.
Nice work there
Thank you. It would be nice to see these issues getting wider discussion and leadership. There's potential for things to get out of control on multiple fronts resulting in unfortunate outcomes.
Stretch your legs and write a Standard post on QLDC/ORC election issues.
Go on.
Laws is an idiot of epic proportions who somehow now seems to pop up occassionally on the right side of things. In this case, he's wrong. Ill health from woodfires at night in the winter is because of the long term exposure, over months. High country burnoffs last a day. There are really good reasons to not allow farmers to do them, but this isn't one of them (and if it was, farmers can burn when the wind is blowing the other way).
Can't see how we could get rid of regional councils, they do different things than city and district councils and as bad as regional councils can be I'd hate to see them taken over by townies who have a different set of priorities. The big problem with regional councils is that not enough people vote, so farmers get to stack them with people aligned with their values.
Michael Laws is unfortunately only the current iteration of 'different' representative Dunstan has had on ORC, a past example was Jerry Eckoff and there will undoubtedly be many more.
It's hard to say ORC is farmer dominated at a representative level, there's only 5 out of 12 with direct farming connections, most of the rest are technocrats closely related to the functions of the council, and half the councillors represent the Dunedin constituency, not many resource hungry farms there.
However at a submission level rural interests loudly predominate, and pay for the best consultants.
Agricultural burning is a fraught activity 'round these parts. It doesn't matter how careful you are, how well approved you've got the burn (that can involve up to 6 agencies, virtually none of which seem to know what the others are doing) and how well you think you've picked 'the day', it can all turn to custard and you're hosting lots of people in big red trucks with flashing lights, angry ORCs, and if you're really lucky a couple of helicopters.
Why are people lighting fires in arid Central Otago?
Because they don't know how to farm any other way (or are willfully ignorant on it).
Mostly it's disposing of development and land clearance waste. Removing D. Fir shelter belts has produced a few good plumes this winter. Our 'turnout' was disposing of the mess from gorse clearance and willow maintenance. We've got about 10 km of deer fence we have to defend from DOC's willows, so there's an ongoing trimming program which generates a lot of slash. And that's just one med – large property, the district's covered in large, elderly and often inappropriate trees. Many of which are downright dangerous. Also just had to deal with about a ha of very large, increasingly leaning silver poplars that were in their third (at least) phase of self coppice. That generated a very large pile of firewood logs and a good sized pile of slash
Slash = lignin habitat and food for fungi, the generators of soil health and wealth; why rob them of the stuff they need and instead, put it up in the air as heat and gas?
Like I said, it's a fraught exercise. The grief from the episode I described has resulted on a marked change in practices from the farm manager and owner concerned, granted we did close the airport for a little while. The remains are now composting well.
"
Following a "very stressful" night Elliot said he was relieved on Friday morning to find the massive blaze on his land between Kurow and Waimate, which began from a controlled burn, had largely "burnt itself out".
About 50 firefighters, nine appliances and two helicopters were called at the height of the blaze on Thursday, and a two man team monitored the fire throughout the night."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/114870627/firefighters-battle-night-long-blaze-in-meyers-pass-near-kurow
I was thinking farmers dominating regional councils across the country (farmers and allies), but even with the ORC they seem to have a large influence on what the council does (eg water or dairying).
Which is odd on both counts given more people live in cities now. We need more people voting and better support for progressive candidates.
"We need more people voting and better support for progressive candidates."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/114576077/young-voters-in-the-south-show-lack-of-interest-in-local-government-elections
"None of the local candidate nominees were presenting their plans at high schools, where there would be a lot of first time voters, Laker said.
"You only see signs around town and that is only a face and a name. It doesn't tell you what they are running for. "
Well, Ms Laker, your high school admin don't allow local body candidates to speak to students, donchaknow! I tried and had to jump through hoops to get anywhere at all as far as talking to students was concerned.
In any case, were you completely unaware of the efforts to have a climate emergency declared by some of your your regional councillors? It was on the front page of The Southland Times, twice! (The Southland Times is published on-line – you're on-line, right?)
"Well, Ms Laker, your high school admin don't allow local body candidates to speak to students, donchaknow!"
What?!? Is that all high schools?
The one's I approached in Invercargill.
The influence is at the submission and submission support level. I manage a couple or small water schemes and get to observe and engage through a recent consent renewal. It's quite a machine.
Lhaws is an arse.
I'm not a huge fan of the ORC – even in Dunedin their treatment of public transport is abysmal. Dunno the pros and cons of splitting it or relocating head office, though.
I got no particular prob with councils trying to educate people concerning the desirability of burning well seasoned wood in their woodburners so long as they did so politely but beyond that they can go fuck themselves
Councils had to make changes according to a register of pollution days and how bad. I think there were big changes and much better readings but still there will be obligations to keep to.
Why public systems are better then those in the private sector in the long run. Few can be trusted completely these days, and to the private sector you are just a body to insert the consumer virus into, that they hope will promote a fever to spend on their product.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/396251/australian-medical-app-faces-fines-for-selling-patient-data
Weather wars,initial conditions and analysis from the same models.
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/storm-brews-forecasters-disagree
https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/after-attacking-us-metservice-now-agrees-with-us
https://twitter.com/MetService?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Don't know if it's confirmation bias on my part, but I'm intrigued by the divergence between different weather models this winter, and the volatility of forecasts, especially MetService's.
I don't think previous winters have have had forecasts and weather patterns as erratic as this winter in the Wakatipu.
Storm in a teacup possy.
Ahh you have read Einstein teacup .
https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/1.3393055
w00t lol 😝 … whaleoil.co.nz now redirects to Matt Blomfield’s site
https://twitter.com/jonogaluszka/status/1159643968574857216?s=21
Check out this dude! 8 years old and looking after everyone. Awww.. ❥
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114883701/ihumtaos-8yearold-mori-warden
Side note: What are Stuff doing with spelling “mori” like that? Surely they can afford software to spell Maori correctly.
I think the macrons are the culprit
Yeah that would be it. They'd have an autogenerated address from the headline that trims address-breaking characters, e.g. the headline "Ihumātao: Why Ardern and the Government couldn't order police out" goes to the address https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/114786683/ihumtao-why-ardern-and-the-government-couldnt-order-police-out. Note the missing "ā, "'", and ":" in the address.
They’re called ‘slugs’, and the defaults are always in 8 bit (ie 256 characters) rather than something that is 32 or even 16 bit. It is easier to store, compare and search on for computers.
ah cheers.
Very interesting
Recommended reading thankyou Marty
There's still fight in the UK against Boris and the Cons.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn-will-tell-the-queen-were-taking-over-if-boris-johnson-loses-a-vote-of-no-confidence/08/08/
Tell the Queen ?
hehehe too funny. The system means its the Queen who asks – on the advice of the existing PM.
Won't happen, and Corbyn's an idiot if he truthfully believes that's going to happen.
If Boris loses a no confidence vote, under the fixed parliament legislation, he faces a second chance ballot a couple of weeks later. Lose that, and it goes to a general election.
The only way Corbyn has a legitimate chance of taking over is, after the first vote, he has the numbers to form a government, which is highly unlikely, even with the cons single, solitary majority.
Whilst conservative members may not want a bar of a no deal brexit, even the most europhile of their numbers won't cross the floor and vote Corbyn's labour in. I can see them wanting a snap election to stop the pm, but never propping up the opposition and certain expulsion, deselection and self inflicted career ending suicide.
Edit:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49285670
“If the PM loses the motion of no-confidence, then under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act he would have another 14 days to win another vote.
If he fails to secure the vote then a general election would be called on a date advised on by the PM.
However, if another candidate can secure the confidence of the Commons then, under cabinet rules, Mr Johnson would be expected to resign and recommend the Queen appoints the other person.”
It depends on the NI MP's backing a Labour led coalition that kept the UK in the customs union and single market and then went to a general election including a referendum on accepting the deal. If the referendum failed and the Tories won they would have a mandate for a no deal Brexit. Or not.
Even with the unionists it would still need a tory to knife their career, and with Corbyn's pro IRA history, the odds on getting the orange order vote is pretty slim.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/corbyns-links-to-proira-group-were-investigated-by-the-police-37230971.html
Most likely outcome will be a general election if enough tory worms turn.
There will be a few Tories who will not seek re-election under BJ and who could choose to leave having made a difference/blocking Brexit.
Still a lot of ducks to line up in a row.
There is a quote Churchill made about taking anyone as an ally against Hitler that the Unionist could make to justify using Corbyn to block Brexit.
A couple of errors by me in the exchange above, notably around the second confidence vote and still needing a tory to jump ship in the unlikely event of a unionist shift.
This was on the BBC today, which explains the confidence vote.
What is a vote of no confidence?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46890481
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396328/blackcurrants-benefit-exercise-mood-and-recovery-study 9 August 2019
There's been studies that we've done in New Zealand and also some work done overseas, especially in the UK, that are coming together to show blackcurrants in New Zealand have some activity around helping exercise recovery and helping your body cope with the stresses of exercise."
He said there were three ways recovery occurred – managing stresses, regulating the inflammatory pathways in the body so that tissue repair was promoted and the boosting of immunity.
He said studies suggested New Zealand blackcurrants had higher levels of Polyphenol, which promoted this recovery. But he said more research was needed to scientifically validate the claim New Zealand blackcurrants were superior to other blackcurrants in this respect.
Frozen currants were just as good as fresh ones, he said. The study received funding from the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribena 2 Feb 2018 Major blackcurrant buyer Ribena cuts NZ contracts
This Japanese firm did not require our production in 2018 and so the growers had to hastily look what to do. Why don't NZs make things themselves. If we as a country supported our own growers, they would be sure of a certain level of sales, and then could develop an overseas interest for exporting to increase business. And note that the Wikipedia item says that Suntory changed to artificial sweeteners as a result of a sugar tax in the UK. But people wanting a natural juice that is sweetened may prefer some sugar, or honey, compared to the laboratory equivalents, and may be affected adversely by them.
But note: 6/2/2018 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/349725/health-benefits-of-nz-blackcurrants-tapped-into
What makes the New Zealand blackcurrant better than others?
It's the ultra-violet sunlight that really benefits the New Zealand blackcurrant-growing environment, said Ms Cushman.
"That stimulates the berry fruit into producing very high concentrations of poly phenols, the bio-actives that give blackcurrants their physiological benefits.
"We are also blessed to have good varieties that thrive in the New Zealand conditions," she said.
Curranz launched the New Zealand blackcurrant product as a sports nutrition supplement, first in the UK, but now also in other countries, including New Zealand, Ms Cushman said.
The company will be supplying High Performance New Zealand Olympic athletes for the next Olympic cycle.
"It is a big breakthrough for the Kiwis because British athletes have been using the black currant supplements and winning and it was embarrassing that New Zealand sports people were missing out"
We need to protect our own country's business. The idea that we are big world players is quite wrong; No matter how much we make or import we are always small.
It has been
0
days without an incident of John Key Derangement Syndrome
[lprent: And
0
hours since the occurrence of Jacinda Ardern Derangement Syndrome (also known as ‘good ole misogynist itch’)
If you want to make a point, then perhaps you could play with your teeny dick off my post…]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
What's SirPonyboy been up to now shggy?
Amazing how moving a reply out from under the post that’s being replied to changes the context, geniuses.
So there was a context. Thanks for explaining something that was of no importance to anyone with even half a brain.
https://youtu.be/QAB6aXOfUmU
More rats rats being thrown at Eco Maori.
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/tgIqecROs5M
Eco Maori has seen a story about the state of Indias Awa it is not good poverty and plastic waste is a big problem there .
Please clean up your rivers to leave the taonga wai treasure water for your mokopuna grandchildren. Aotearoa has banned single use plastic bags it is a minor inconvenience but well worth it not seeing plastic bags blowing all around the country side the effects of the ban on single use plastic bags can already be seen we will eventually ban most plastics in Aotearoa
Plastic, poverty and paradox: experts head to the Ganges to track waste
India’s most sacred river is also its most polluted, with plastic a major culprit. Now moves are afoot to monitor the flow of rubbish and assess its link to poverty
Drop a plastic bottle into the Ganges and where does it end up? An all-female team of engineers, explorers and scientists is about to find out by undertaking the first expedition to measure plastic waste in one of the world’s most polluted waterways
Following the Ganges upstream from where it empties in the Bay of Bengal to its source in the Himalayas, the National Geographic-backed expedition aims to better understand how plastic pollution travels from source to sea and provide solutions for reducing the amount that ends up in the world’s oceans.
The 2,525 km-long Ganges is a river of extreme paradox: though worshipped by 1 billion Hindus and relied on as a water source for roughly 400 million people, it is contaminated with industrial runoff, untreated sewage and household waste. It is also one of 10 rivers responsible for 90% of the plastic that ends up at sea.
The river is, therefore, a perfect starting point for measuring how plastic travels from land into rivers, and from rivers into the ocean, says National Geographic fellow and University of Georgia associate professor Jenna Jambeck, who is co-leading the expedition.
“We know there’s plastic in these river environments and that the plastic is heading into the ocean,” says environmental engineer Jambeck, whose previous research found that 8 metric tons of plastic waste entering the sea every year.
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/05/plastic-poverty-and-paradox-experts-head-to-the-ganges-to-track-waste
Kia Ora Newshub.
Wow a mean weather system is effecting the South Island lets hope that it doesn't make to big a Mess.
I think the Idea that moving the cars to a different location in the Auckland region if its works and saves money run with it work smarter not harder is one of my philosophys the other is keep it simple it looks like this Idea fits both.
What about the suppression order against Eco Maori what a joke.
Cool teaching tamariki how to eat healthy foods at a kindergarten very good I have dropped sugar our of my diet and I have lost 10 kg and feel much better sugar should be banned too the gasoline tanks of our cars.
Ka pai to the volunteers who have helped clean up the Awa river mess of a old dump down South Island.
Cool Idea including models with access needs in a fashion Show that should help lift there wairua.
A huge power cut in Britain that is not good at all lucky I harvest my power straight from Te Ra.
Thats heaps of Sharks in Australia they are beautiful creatures that need to be treasured and protected from over exploitation by greedy people.
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
It's sad that the Kua is closing after 15 years of teaching Te reo Maori Eco Maori hopes that their is plans to fill the void of this Kua closure
The final 33 students finished today Eco Maori hopes that they can climb up to greater hights on their ladders of LIFE.
There are 2 sides to a story the Ihumatao issue with tangata being called racist.
It's awesome to see Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa in Australia tau toko te tangata at Ihumatao.
The Australian Tangata Whenua have been treated very badly by the Australian government. Ka kite ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Some Eco Maori Music for the Minute.
https://youtu.be/u9Dg-g7t2l4
Its not on having tamariki starving when Te Papatuanuku produce enough food and resources for all we have to change so food is not wasted 30% of food is wasted.
The rulers need to learn to share their lollipops sharing will be part of the changes needed to combat Human Caused Climate Change
World hunger on the rise as 820m at risk, UN report finds
Eliminating hunger by 2030 is an immense challenge, say heads of UN agencies
More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.
The number of people with not enough to eat has risen for the third year in a row as the population increases, after a decade when real progress was made. The underlying trend is stabilisation, when global agencies had hoped it would fall.
Millions of children are not getting the nutrition they need. The UN says the pace of progress in halving child stunting and reducing the number of low birthweight babies is too slow, which jeopardises the chances of achieving another of the sustainable development goals.
Nearly half of all child deaths in Africa stem from hunger, study shows
Read more
The report is from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/15/world-hunger-un-report