This interview shows the frightening reality of what the neo-libs of our National government want to roll out here. It has already begun in two big ways – NCEA/National Standards, and the promotion of charter schools.
Governments of this ilk want docility and compliance. They want narrowness of thinking and standards that leave little room for depth of thought, or breadth of understanding. People schooled like that swallow propaganda and do what they are told (1984) and authorities can easily push through agendas to suit themselves and their cronies.
We need to stand up and defeat this pernicious agenda.
Schools need the arts – music, dance, painting, drama. They also need proper programmes that promote awareness of the world and the implications for the environment of certain activities, so that alternatives are looked at.
If we do not push back against this crappy approach to what is cynically called a ‘good’ education, then we are doomed to become bots in a neo-lib world of crushingly oppressive monotony. An overstatement? I don’t think so!
It’s worse than that, my point is shown up rather well by what Gosman put up as a question.
Exceptionalism, and ideology become the replacement for critical thinking , the engagement of ones brain to solve complex issues, and creativity.
People keep banging on a bout a golden age of television, but all I’m seeing is some fancy film trick transferred to the small screen, without much in the way of engaging people to think. A reflection or a reality in the face of a population whose education is in perpetual decline? Time will tell.
Except the evidence for your hypothesis is seriously lacking. We are currently living in the greatest age of innivation and creativity and the US is at the forefront of much of this.
Neoliberalism has invaded our thinking and has all but taken over the education of our children, which means that a whole generation has been impregnated and will grow up with neoliberal indoctrination. We raise and educate our children to become self-managers or “entrepreneurs of the self” (Foucault) and teach them that everything has a price and thus anything can be had/owned if one is willing (and able, because of the ‘right’ choices) to pay that price.
Education is seen as a means to an end, an investment, and each customer-student will need to extract as much value from his/her education as possible, to better him/herself so that (economic) success is (almost) secure in future. Of course, this breeds individualism and diminishes respect for others – who are oft viewed as competitors – and (thus) for authority; all success is only for and because of one self and his/her own efforts. NB The irony is that neoliberals frequently cry out a lot about Law & order
Even The Kiwi Dream is steeped in neoliberalism and corresponding economic benchmarks with its emphasis on home ownership, a stronger economy with more jobs and higher wages, and world-class education (!) and the success of our kids, for example.
No (automatic) respect for authority is an excellent place to start with education.
An understanding that respect is to be earned and not given.
An understanding that respect must have a moral and intellectual justification.
So, I watched the first 20 seconds, and here’s an activist who looks like he left school yesterday listing the complaints that young activists have had about every country’s education system since at least the 1960s. Didn’t fill me with the urge to watch any further, but I have to say it is pretty funny to see RT, of all possible TV channels, berating the American education system for inculcating obedience and deference to authority. Oh, the irony…
As I said about Gosman, you seem to be in the same ilk. Going for exceptionalism, putting your prejudices first, and repeating the party line – rather than engaging your brain. Ironic enough for you…
If you engaged with the material, rather than just pontificate – I’d have somthing to work with. The above case is a classic example, you watch for 20 seconds, then pass judgement.
According to my sister, a teacher, the best educated people are people who have been home schooled. They’re more stable, have better artistic and creative capability, and they even do better in maths and science. And the parents also become better educated.
Given this perhaps we should be closing schools altogether and giving full support to home schooling.
Oh, great – a return to stay-at-home parenting. Which parent do you figure would be most likely to get saddled with the staying at home to be a teacher?
Ask Betty Friedan. Also, if both parents have careers they don’t fancy shelving, there’s plenty wrong with it.
At a more general level, there’s also lies, damned lies and statistics. Home schoolers tend to be intelligent and well-educated people highly-motivated to educate their kids to a high standard – and the results reflect that. If home schooling was instead something preferred by people at the bottom ends of the intelligence and education bell curves who didn’t really give a shit about education, your sister would be telling you how the worst-educated people are the ones who’ve been home schooled.
Plenty of families would like to try it. However, many are held back by the assumption that one parent (likely Mom) would have to stop working. But talk to homeschooling parents and you find that a number are attempting the ultimate “second shift”: building a career while running a small school operation at the same time.
It sounds crazy, but it’s doable for people committed to the approach. Catherine Gillespie, a marketing consultant, says that combining the two means she earns a good living while “getting to give my kids individualized educations that really meet their needs.”
Home schoolers tend to be intelligent and well-educated people highly-motivated to educate their kids to a high standard – and the results reflect that.
To some degree but, IMO, the results more reflect the environment that the children learn in one component of which is that their teacher is actually taking an interest in them.
And the parents will have to learn as well so even if they start off uneducated they won’t be by the time they’ve got a 10 year old child.
Lol 2: is it my responsibility to home doctor my kids as well, or is it OK to outsource that one?
And I feel real sorry for people who think their careers are all that matters. They have such a limited view of life.
Well, sure, they sound like terrible people to be around. Fortunately, not wanting to give up your career != thinking your career is all that matters.
And then there’s this:
Yep. And, funnily enough, all the parents they talk to who are home schooling their kids and working part-time are women. I’m picking the number of women who’d be enthusiastic about the prospect of having teaching added to their existing child-minding, housework and paid employment jobs would be a fairly small one.
Why are you so insistent that everybody has to work? Think about that one really hard because that is actually what you’re saying.
Why are you so insistent that only women can stay home to home school the kids? Perhaps having the men do it will help change the rape culture we have.
And, yes, having children is a responsibility. I think it’s a responsibility shared between society and the parents but the parents do hold a lot of that responsibility.
And then consider: How many parents with both working could find a couple of hours each day to teach their kids? Yeah, that’s all it takes. All that creativity that home schooled kids have comes from the fact that they spend most of their time playing. Using their minds in a creative manner all the time rather than having it regimented in a box.
Why are you so insistent that everybody has to work?
I am? And here I was thinking I was replying to your comment suggesting we should do away with the public education system so that parents have no choice but to educate their children themselves. I’m saying everybody who wants to work should be able to – there’s a difference.
But, since you asked – what is the case for people working for a living and contributing to their society beyond simply producing more humans? Because we’re not rabbits, that’s why. If the sum achievement of your life is that you made a few more like yourself, any bacterium or even virus could regard itself as superior. A human should aspire to something a little higher.
Why are you so insistent that only women can stay home to home school the kids?
It ain’t me that’s insisting, I’m just pointing out the society we have in the real, actually-existing world, as opposed to the one you’d prefer us to have in the realms of ideology.
How many parents with both working could find a couple of hours each day to teach their kids?
I get the feeling that child-rearing for you is a strictly theoretical concept. For what it’s worth, parents who both work spend the majority of their time caring for and, yes, educating their children. That 45 hours of the week they outsource it is a fraction of the total – even if you just count the awake hours it’s a lot less than half.
And I am sure that the innovative “Number 8 wire ” approach to things came out of the little country schools which have mostly been closed down now … vanishing with it the “Number 8 wire” innovators.
I recall a physics experiment that required some shielding: MIT grad students used titanium and all sorts of exotic materials, at great cost and delay.
Otago replicated the results with cardboard painted black. They might have required two layers of it, though…
Yeah, you don’t number 8 wire a bridge construction. People die. But it can be appropriate and quicker than conventional solutions. That’s the benefit of diversity.
The “number 8 wire ” mentality is the ability to think outside the square. Lateral thinking like this is on the wan and is something that our modern schools have noted and that they are trying to find ways to nurture. With Home schooling there is more opportunity because there is more time to expand a child’s way of thinking and looking at things. Lateral thinkers are a great asset to a country.
PS. My grandfather did build a bridge with number 8 wire – a swing bridge that he could ride his horse over and drive his modified tractor over ! No body died!
Any Aucklanders out there who want to hang with the ecologically minded, it’s Eco-Day in New Lynn today. A good track-meet for everyone involved in any campaign of any kind on the left.
New Bill Would Give Israeli Government Full Control of Broadcast Media
Under legislation being prepared by Communications Ministry, all figures of authority would be appointed by politicians.
Yes indeed, we’ll give you all the news that we want you to hear and not the news that you need to know, a depressing world wide phenomenon. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.776094
Interesting to see Phil Twyford indicating that Labour would lower inbound immigration numbers.
Would be good to see Labour clarify that – there’s plenty of inroads National can make into specific ethnicities if Labour causes anxieties into their traditional immigrant base.
Even migrants are complaining about the free for all immigration policy in Auckland – those migrants on minimum wages especially – people can no longer even travel around the city to work, god knows whats going to happen with any more people and climate change with all the houses and roads being flooded and falling off cliffs. For every 100 new arrivals we have 2 housing consents at 1 million dollars a pop and 7 houses being out of use due to climate change. Do the maths!
The dimwits at Auckland Transport are in a nolib meeting about how efficient they are and Phils going on about a billion dollar sports stadium! The Natz want more people in because there is no housing or transport crisis that the free market and deregulation can’t fix… apparently and I guess the hospitals and schools and police just have to suck it up more public funding in 2070…
So eloquent SaveNZ, as an Aucklander I couldn’t have explained our situation here any more clearly. In dumb speak, we are up the shit and there’s no clearing the blockage any time soon. In the past 3 years I read or heard recently we have had the population of Tauranga squeezed into our city – doing the sums even for a lackwit anybody can see what a disaster we are heading for. An old fella in the library (older than me) said to me this morning, “don’t worry the Chinese will fix it all up for us” (sarc) .
Mr Goff doesn’t have a dog show getting any funds out of Central Government. He was saying in a recent interview that our arterial roads now carry more on a daily basis than transit roads and maybe the Government should heed this and place this burden on Transit for funding, I thought to myself dream on Mr Goff. Our city fathers with the exception of Robbie have had no vision for city planning and Government love the money which comes into the city but loathes to help us out.
Every winter Sarah* and Mike make the choice between groceries, or clothes for their children.
Born 14 weeks early, Destiny has a weakened immune system and gets sick easily. Last winter, she missed a whole term of school due to sickness.
Poverty has been labelled the key driver for respiratory illnesses that are weighing on New Zealand’s economy to the tune of $6 billion each year, according to figures from the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation.
But with a family of eight, the $500-odd they get from Work and Income and Mark’s part-time job as a teacher aide only goes so far, Sarah said.
David Farrar makes an obvious point:
Maybe have fewer kids?
I am all for a welfare system that allows a couple, no matter their income, to support say a couple of kids. But six kids? Surely there should be some personal responsibility about having more kids than you can afford.
That’s a fair point.
But the couple already have eight kids, and those kids didn’t chose to be in large family. The State has no choice but to help support them.
But perhaps the State could also do more to educate and encourage people to be sensible and responsible about how many babies they have before they become such a problem.
Farrar flies regularly around the world on holidays he then blogs about.
Surely there should be some personal responsibility about having more overseas flights than the planet can afford. Maybe have fewer flights?
Perhaps two?
For goodness sake, Pete.
Get a life.
I thought very carefully about how many children to have, considering things like world population and how to give what kids I had the best opportunities with my resources.
Good for you. How about leaving everyone else to make their own choices about how many children they have; you and Farrar both;
“perhaps two”
How magnanimous!
Is this what you are talking about? Only have children you can afford? Sensible Family planning?
Are you then also talking about
sexual education – the biological kind with how babies are made and born,
the fund kind – sex, how to, with whom and why, and how to consent
Birth Controll – the pill, the morning after pill, IUD, condoms?
Vasectomies and Hysterectomies on demand – non of that ‘but what if you want to have children later’ ‘or your husband/wife might want to have children later”
abortion – legal and on demand
or are you one of these compassionate conservatives that advocate abstinence only, and intercourse only for those who are married and then only when procreating?
How would you want for people to sensibly plan their families? And do you think out PM did, and could our PM afford his children if he were not living and has lived most of his life carefully maintained by the tax payers largesse?
You are a fucken idiot Pete George – you just want everyone to be the same boring beige as you – thank the gods you are irrelevant – people like you and your insipid views are what is wrong with this world imo.
You know the lie that really gets my goat from the right, is inflation. The refuse to acknowledge that housing has been a run away inflationary nightmare, that has forced the majority of working people, and great swaths of the middle class – into debt.
But then again, when they can lie about simple things.
You can call it what you like but de facto it’s eugenics with a plutocratic paternalistic rationale.
Let me remind you of a couple who have eight kids and are opposed to birth control. They were so short of money their dad, a lifelong state employee and beneficiary who liked to pretend that he was a farmer had to resort to corrupt double dipping – stealing from the taxpayer – to pay for the lifestyle they wanted.
If only they’d been better educated…
You know who I’m talking about, but no, it’s the poor who have to be ‘educated’ to know their proper place – for their own good of course.
Hang on, it might be six… but all larvae look alike, so it’s hard to count. In any case, if it is a callous resources versus children debate and all children are mere economic/ecological units, then all Americans should be sterilised immediately based on their ecological footprint. As should the rich; the world certainly can’t carry more Trumpspawn.
Anyway, that’s my modest proposal. We’ll discuss infant cannibalism later.
“all larvae look alike”
Speciesist.
A blowfly mum knows each and every one of her maggots by their distinctive features; a cheeky look here, a cute curl of a lip there, their various likes and dislikes, favourite foods they dive into, others they turn their noses up at. Plus, names.
In one of Pratchett’s Discworld stories he mentions the dreaded Star-Toad With a Million Young. It’s method of killing is truly horrible: it shows its victims pictures of its children until their brains implode.
Even though you overcounted the kids, no it’s not a fair fucking point.
Between blended families, changing circumstances and what have you, who the hell knows where we’ll be in three years. House burn down and insurance fuck you around? Factory goes under and you both lose your jobs?
You and farrar can shove your kid-rationing up your respective arseholes.
Simply put, the planet, and New Zealand, cannot afford for people to be so irresponsible as to have 6+ children, regardless of their personal circumstances.
ok, so what are you going to do about it: forced sterilisation? Take the kids off them? Let the kids get sick or starve? What about a brady bunch scenario? Would they have an excuse you deem worthy enough to not sniff at then?
How’s this for an option: economically developed countries tend to have low birthrates, some even below population maintenance. Developing nations have high birthrates. Maybe if we addressed global, regional and local income inequality, the birthrate problem will take care of itself.
Good point people in existing relationships who were supporting their children without any financial help get assistance for a set period of time.
What it boils down to though is if you can afford to have one kid, have one, two have two, etc
Just don’t keep having kids and expecting the taxpayer to pay you.
Climate change, automation and extended life are going to be major issues in the near future governments really have to start to think about how many new people they bring into the mix.
How many people on the DPB currently had all their kids while on the DPB?
CC is a real imperative to move to a steady or declining population. But that has nothing to do with individual family size. It’s to do with the ecological footprint that NZ and the planet can sustain. Given NZ is still increasing in population, how do you propose to stop people having kids? Because I’m pretty sure that it’s not the odd woman on the DPB with 6 kids that is causing that rise. So I’d love to hear the plan for restricting NZ’s population, esp the middle classes and 1% era who use up the most resources and pollute the most.
I do think people will soon have start to seriously think about automation, sure there’s a hardwired biological urge to breed, but what sort of life are they setting their children up for?
It’s getting pretty tough now with everyone needing a degree to even make the first cut for 90% of jobs, massive loan and a shrinking job market, there will be tough times ahead.
I have no doubt 50% unemployment will be the norm in the next 20-25 years, there’s going to be massive social upheaval as society adapts to that.
I have no doubt 50% unemployment will be the norm in the next 20-25 years,
Only if we allow the capitalists to remain in charge.
If we don’t and change the system the 50% unemployment will be 50% in R&D.
R&D is a numbers game. The more people you have in it the more ideas you have to look at and thus the more workable ideas will be found and developed.
Unfortunately, NZ puts the numbers into doing more of the same old stuff rather than developing new ideas and that is the result of the capitalists trying to do things on the cheap.
President Trump ordered a military strike on Syria Thursday night in response to a recent chemical attack. By Friday afternoon, a supportive PAC was fundraising off of the strike.
“Last night, President Trump ordered military action against Syria in response to their chemical weapons attack,” an email from the Great America PAC, first flagged by Dave Levinthal at the Center for Public Integrity, read.
“59 United States tomahawk missiles destroyed the airfield used to store Syria’s toxic weapons and aircraft involved in the Sarin gas attack.
Wait59 Tomahawks? 59? 59 TLAMs is enough firepower to level a city center – and yet didn't disable a runway? I call bullshit— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) April 8, 2017
(THREAD) The evidence that Trump's completely ineffectual military strike on Syria was just an empty political gesture is now overwhelming. pic.twitter.com/hI6sBgIQX1— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 7, 2017
[…]
(9) Incredibly—bizarrely—Trump somehow struck Syria with _59 Tomahawk missiles_ without articulating even a _single_ coherent strategic aim. pic.twitter.com/G3G6Md25SB— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 7, 2017
[…]
(UPDATE) Reuters confirms Syria has continued launching strikes from the base Trump hit. This was the most ineffectual US strike in decades. pic.twitter.com/eiKzXoWfEa— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 7, 2017
(PICS 1) Notice that the airfield is still usable. Only one of five aircraft shelters was destroyed. "Damaged" shelters mean intact planes. pic.twitter.com/C1ezEitfgz— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 7, 2017
TLAMs are not really designed to destroy runways. They are used to destroy buildings, aircraft, and vehicles. To destroy a runway requires a concrete penetration bomb to crater the runway. But it is still relatively easy to repair. It is easier to destroy associated infrastructure and of of course the aircraft.
Nevertheless airbases are actually difficult to knock out completely. They are simply too dispersed, with lots of blast protecting revertments around each building and each aircraft park. Thus each building/aircraft requires a separate direct hit.
What was the supposed outcome, and was it achieved. In the meantime, lets praise dear leader and his awesome weapons. Would be a shame if no one would use them ey?
i only point out that the discussion about the weapons used is pointless. The question should be what was supposed to be achieved by this campaign and was it achieved. All the rest is weapons porn for arms aficionados and rather pointless.
I’m not really that surprise that air operations have resume at that airbase as it tells me the Syrian Airforce has really good Post- Attack Recovery Drills and flying old Soviet era aircraft such as the Su-22 which is built like a tank and almost flies like one operating from that Airbase. Soviet era aircraft were designed to fly from rough or semi prepare runways or airfields unlike most western built combat aircraft.
If you’ve got a spare couple of hours, a fascinating youtube discussion by some of the United States best alternative/realist thinkers in my opinion. Very relatable to New Zealand too.
“This summit brought together an amazing panel that consisted of John Michael Greer, James Howard Kunstler, Chris Martenson, Frank Morris, and Dmitry Orlov to talk about issues ranging from politics, the economy, the food we eat, immigration, labor, poverty, minorities, war, and much more. Please be sure to like and share and stay tuned for more dynamic events from The Center For Progressive Urban Politics!”
A U.S. Navy strike group will be moving toward the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula, a U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday.
The moves comes as concerns grow about North Korea’s advancing weapons program. Earlier this month North Korea tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile which only traveled a fraction of its range.
The Carl Vinson strike group, which includes an aircraft carrier, will make its way from Singapore toward the Korean peninsula, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — A group with alleged historical links to Nazi Germany has told NBC News it was “proud” when President Donald Trump’s deputy assistant wore its medal.
Controversy has swirled around Sebastian Gorka, one of Trump’s top counterterrorism advisers, ever since he attended the president’s Jan. 20 Inaugural Ball wearing the honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organization Vitezi Rend.
NBC News traveled to Hungary to dig deeper into Gorka’s ties with the group, speaking with members of the organization as well as with locals who knew him when he lived there.
“When he appeared on U.S. television … with the medal of the Vitez Order … it made me really proud,” Vitezi Rend spokesman Andras Horvath said in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Vitezi Rend is also known as the Order of Vitez.
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 ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. 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 ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
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 ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
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 ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
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 ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
No wonder great swaths of the USA public are uncritical.
Which country has driven innovation around the aworld for the past Century and longer?
India
What innovations has India come up with in the past 100 years?
Oh please don’t be that dumb Gosman, it’s too early in the morning for you to play any racist games.
He’s not playing games, adam. He’s simply dumb and racist.
+1 Morrissey
lamb korma
scotland’s done its share as well
This interview shows the frightening reality of what the neo-libs of our National government want to roll out here. It has already begun in two big ways – NCEA/National Standards, and the promotion of charter schools.
Governments of this ilk want docility and compliance. They want narrowness of thinking and standards that leave little room for depth of thought, or breadth of understanding. People schooled like that swallow propaganda and do what they are told (1984) and authorities can easily push through agendas to suit themselves and their cronies.
We need to stand up and defeat this pernicious agenda.
Schools need the arts – music, dance, painting, drama. They also need proper programmes that promote awareness of the world and the implications for the environment of certain activities, so that alternatives are looked at.
If we do not push back against this crappy approach to what is cynically called a ‘good’ education, then we are doomed to become bots in a neo-lib world of crushingly oppressive monotony. An overstatement? I don’t think so!
It’s worse than that, my point is shown up rather well by what Gosman put up as a question.
Exceptionalism, and ideology become the replacement for critical thinking , the engagement of ones brain to solve complex issues, and creativity.
People keep banging on a bout a golden age of television, but all I’m seeing is some fancy film trick transferred to the small screen, without much in the way of engaging people to think. A reflection or a reality in the face of a population whose education is in perpetual decline? Time will tell.
Except the evidence for your hypothesis is seriously lacking. We are currently living in the greatest age of innivation and creativity and the US is at the forefront of much of this.
Neoliberalism has invaded our thinking and has all but taken over the education of our children, which means that a whole generation has been impregnated and will grow up with neoliberal indoctrination. We raise and educate our children to become self-managers or “entrepreneurs of the self” (Foucault) and teach them that everything has a price and thus anything can be had/owned if one is willing (and able, because of the ‘right’ choices) to pay that price.
Education is seen as a means to an end, an investment, and each customer-student will need to extract as much value from his/her education as possible, to better him/herself so that (economic) success is (almost) secure in future. Of course, this breeds individualism and diminishes respect for others – who are oft viewed as competitors – and (thus) for authority; all success is only for and because of one self and his/her own efforts. NB The irony is that neoliberals frequently cry out a lot about Law & order
Even The Kiwi Dream is steeped in neoliberalism and corresponding economic benchmarks with its emphasis on home ownership, a stronger economy with more jobs and higher wages, and world-class education (!) and the success of our kids, for example.
What’s purpose is served by creating armies of know all angry kids who have no respect for authority and want to spend their lives fighting society?
Unemployment and misery is the only thing you’ll find if you want to go down that pathway.
And you know this, how? A feeling, a vibe, or some other mystical skill you have developed?
Or are you saying – Oh wait you did not watch the video – come back when you have, and we will carry on the discussion.
No (automatic) respect for authority is an excellent place to start with education.
An understanding that respect is to be earned and not given.
An understanding that respect must have a moral and intellectual justification.
Sounds to me like revolution will be found going down that pathway.
Lol at you lefties and this revolution wankery.
So, I watched the first 20 seconds, and here’s an activist who looks like he left school yesterday listing the complaints that young activists have had about every country’s education system since at least the 1960s. Didn’t fill me with the urge to watch any further, but I have to say it is pretty funny to see RT, of all possible TV channels, berating the American education system for inculcating obedience and deference to authority. Oh, the irony…
Same.
As I said about Gosman, you seem to be in the same ilk. Going for exceptionalism, putting your prejudices first, and repeating the party line – rather than engaging your brain. Ironic enough for you…
As usual, your comment attempts remote amateur psychological assessment, but doesn’t bother actually addressing the points in the comment.
If you engaged with the material, rather than just pontificate – I’d have somthing to work with. The above case is a classic example, you watch for 20 seconds, then pass judgement.
According to my sister, a teacher, the best educated people are people who have been home schooled. They’re more stable, have better artistic and creative capability, and they even do better in maths and science. And the parents also become better educated.
Given this perhaps we should be closing schools altogether and giving full support to home schooling.
Oh, great – a return to stay-at-home parenting. Which parent do you figure would be most likely to get saddled with the staying at home to be a teacher?
And there’s something wrong with that?
Ask Betty Friedan. Also, if both parents have careers they don’t fancy shelving, there’s plenty wrong with it.
At a more general level, there’s also lies, damned lies and statistics. Home schoolers tend to be intelligent and well-educated people highly-motivated to educate their kids to a high standard – and the results reflect that. If home schooling was instead something preferred by people at the bottom ends of the intelligence and education bell curves who didn’t really give a shit about education, your sister would be telling you how the worst-educated people are the ones who’ve been home schooled.
Then perhaps they shouldn’t have children if they’re not willing to accept the responsibility?
And I feel real sorry for people who think their careers are all that matters. They have such a limited view of life.
And then there’s this:
To some degree but, IMO, the results more reflect the environment that the children learn in one component of which is that their teacher is actually taking an interest in them.
And the parents will have to learn as well so even if they start off uneducated they won’t be by the time they’ve got a 10 year old child.
Then perhaps they shouldn’t have children if they’re not willing to accept the responsibility?
Lol 1: you should get together with Pete George downthread.
Lol 2: is it my responsibility to home doctor my kids as well, or is it OK to outsource that one?
And I feel real sorry for people who think their careers are all that matters. They have such a limited view of life.
Well, sure, they sound like terrible people to be around. Fortunately, not wanting to give up your career != thinking your career is all that matters.
And then there’s this:
Yep. And, funnily enough, all the parents they talk to who are home schooling their kids and working part-time are women. I’m picking the number of women who’d be enthusiastic about the prospect of having teaching added to their existing child-minding, housework and paid employment jobs would be a fairly small one.
Why are you so insistent that everybody has to work? Think about that one really hard because that is actually what you’re saying.
Why are you so insistent that only women can stay home to home school the kids? Perhaps having the men do it will help change the rape culture we have.
And, yes, having children is a responsibility. I think it’s a responsibility shared between society and the parents but the parents do hold a lot of that responsibility.
And then consider: How many parents with both working could find a couple of hours each day to teach their kids? Yeah, that’s all it takes. All that creativity that home schooled kids have comes from the fact that they spend most of their time playing. Using their minds in a creative manner all the time rather than having it regimented in a box.
Why are you so insistent that everybody has to work?
I am? And here I was thinking I was replying to your comment suggesting we should do away with the public education system so that parents have no choice but to educate their children themselves. I’m saying everybody who wants to work should be able to – there’s a difference.
But, since you asked – what is the case for people working for a living and contributing to their society beyond simply producing more humans? Because we’re not rabbits, that’s why. If the sum achievement of your life is that you made a few more like yourself, any bacterium or even virus could regard itself as superior. A human should aspire to something a little higher.
Why are you so insistent that only women can stay home to home school the kids?
It ain’t me that’s insisting, I’m just pointing out the society we have in the real, actually-existing world, as opposed to the one you’d prefer us to have in the realms of ideology.
How many parents with both working could find a couple of hours each day to teach their kids?
I get the feeling that child-rearing for you is a strictly theoretical concept. For what it’s worth, parents who both work spend the majority of their time caring for and, yes, educating their children. That 45 hours of the week they outsource it is a fraction of the total – even if you just count the awake hours it’s a lot less than half.
And I am sure that the innovative “Number 8 wire ” approach to things came out of the little country schools which have mostly been closed down now … vanishing with it the “Number 8 wire” innovators.
Good.
We’re no longer a pioneering country cut off from the rest of the world, that do it cheap and half-arsed way of thinking is a liability, not an asset.
It can definitely be an asset.
I recall a physics experiment that required some shielding: MIT grad students used titanium and all sorts of exotic materials, at great cost and delay.
Otago replicated the results with cardboard painted black. They might have required two layers of it, though…
Yeah, you don’t number 8 wire a bridge construction. People die. But it can be appropriate and quicker than conventional solutions. That’s the benefit of diversity.
The “number 8 wire ” mentality is the ability to think outside the square. Lateral thinking like this is on the wan and is something that our modern schools have noted and that they are trying to find ways to nurture. With Home schooling there is more opportunity because there is more time to expand a child’s way of thinking and looking at things. Lateral thinkers are a great asset to a country.
PS. My grandfather did build a bridge with number 8 wire – a swing bridge that he could ride his horse over and drive his modified tractor over ! No body died!
🙄 good grief.
+1
Where is your citation Bastard?
Did you read the bit where I said ‘my sister’?
Any Aucklanders out there who want to hang with the ecologically minded, it’s Eco-Day in New Lynn today. A good track-meet for everyone involved in any campaign of any kind on the left.
Having a go at a sorcerer is probably a pretty bad idea for the National Party. How about another tornado at your upstream headquarters?
MSD = GCSB is not so far off. A question begging many answers.
Wake up.
How dare you try to challenge God
Er, What?
Only god round here is Lpent.
New Bill Would Give Israeli Government Full Control of Broadcast Media
Under legislation being prepared by Communications Ministry, all figures of authority would be appointed by politicians.
Yes indeed, we’ll give you all the news that we want you to hear and not the news that you need to know, a depressing world wide phenomenon.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.776094
“He’s just a conniving hateful bloated punk who despises mankind.”
No, not Cameron “Fat Slob” Slater. Sean Penn is talking about Steve Bannon…..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/08/sean-penn-confirms-steve-bannon-was-a-bitter-hollywood-wannabe_a_22031754/?ncid=edlinkauhpmg00000003
Interesting to see Phil Twyford indicating that Labour would lower inbound immigration numbers.
Would be good to see Labour clarify that – there’s plenty of inroads National can make into specific ethnicities if Labour causes anxieties into their traditional immigrant base.
Even migrants are complaining about the free for all immigration policy in Auckland – those migrants on minimum wages especially – people can no longer even travel around the city to work, god knows whats going to happen with any more people and climate change with all the houses and roads being flooded and falling off cliffs. For every 100 new arrivals we have 2 housing consents at 1 million dollars a pop and 7 houses being out of use due to climate change. Do the maths!
The dimwits at Auckland Transport are in a nolib meeting about how efficient they are and Phils going on about a billion dollar sports stadium! The Natz want more people in because there is no housing or transport crisis that the free market and deregulation can’t fix… apparently and I guess the hospitals and schools and police just have to suck it up more public funding in 2070…
So eloquent SaveNZ, as an Aucklander I couldn’t have explained our situation here any more clearly. In dumb speak, we are up the shit and there’s no clearing the blockage any time soon. In the past 3 years I read or heard recently we have had the population of Tauranga squeezed into our city – doing the sums even for a lackwit anybody can see what a disaster we are heading for. An old fella in the library (older than me) said to me this morning, “don’t worry the Chinese will fix it all up for us” (sarc) .
Mr Goff doesn’t have a dog show getting any funds out of Central Government. He was saying in a recent interview that our arterial roads now carry more on a daily basis than transit roads and maybe the Government should heed this and place this burden on Transit for funding, I thought to myself dream on Mr Goff. Our city fathers with the exception of Robbie have had no vision for city planning and Government love the money which comes into the city but loathes to help us out.
Stuff Close to 500 Kiwi kids on charity waiting list for basic needs:
David Farrar makes an obvious point:
That’s a fair point.
But the couple already have eight kids, and those kids didn’t chose to be in large family. The State has no choice but to help support them.
But perhaps the State could also do more to educate and encourage people to be sensible and responsible about how many babies they have before they become such a problem.
Farrar flies regularly around the world on holidays he then blogs about.
Surely there should be some personal responsibility about having more overseas flights than the planet can afford.
Maybe have fewer flights?
Perhaps two?
For goodness sake, Pete.
Get a life.
I don’t have any problem with my life.
I thought very carefully about how many children to have, considering things like world population and how to give what kids I had the best opportunities with my resources.
Good for you. How about leaving everyone else to make their own choices about how many children they have; you and Farrar both;
“perhaps two”
How magnanimous!
Of course people should make their own choices, especially about something as fundamental as how many children they have.
It is best to be a well informed choice about the possible consequences and what will be best for the children, and for the world.
And it should include an understanding that everything they would like may not be provided for them by the State.
It would be irresponsible to tell them or give them the impression that others will step in and provide everything if they can’t manage it themselves.
People will be caught out by changed circumstances – but the risk to children can be mitigated by sensible family planning.
Is this what you are talking about? Only have children you can afford? Sensible Family planning?
Are you then also talking about
sexual education – the biological kind with how babies are made and born,
the fund kind – sex, how to, with whom and why, and how to consent
Birth Controll – the pill, the morning after pill, IUD, condoms?
Vasectomies and Hysterectomies on demand – non of that ‘but what if you want to have children later’ ‘or your husband/wife might want to have children later”
abortion – legal and on demand
or are you one of these compassionate conservatives that advocate abstinence only, and intercourse only for those who are married and then only when procreating?
How would you want for people to sensibly plan their families? And do you think out PM did, and could our PM afford his children if he were not living and has lived most of his life carefully maintained by the tax payers largesse?
You are a fucken idiot Pete George – you just want everyone to be the same boring beige as you – thank the gods you are irrelevant – people like you and your insipid views are what is wrong with this world imo.
Io Pan!
Yep – sad tired weak right wingers lay their usual disproved lies down like some revelation – pathetic.
You know the lie that really gets my goat from the right, is inflation. The refuse to acknowledge that housing has been a run away inflationary nightmare, that has forced the majority of working people, and great swaths of the middle class – into debt.
But then again, when they can lie about simple things.
You can call it what you like but de facto it’s eugenics with a plutocratic paternalistic rationale.
Let me remind you of a couple who have eight kids and are opposed to birth control. They were so short of money their dad, a lifelong state employee and beneficiary who liked to pretend that he was a farmer had to resort to corrupt double dipping – stealing from the taxpayer – to pay for the lifestyle they wanted.
If only they’d been better educated…
You know who I’m talking about, but no, it’s the poor who have to be ‘educated’ to know their proper place – for their own good of course.
Well said, rhinocrates – and in plain English!
What does “English” translate to, or look like in Chinese? –I always want to learn.
围栏
Thanks Robert, Now we all have become more wise. Mutcha Gracaisis..
I see what you did there.
你聰明的男孩,你
笑脸
Cute, nicely put.
Hear hear!.
Hang on, it might be six… but all larvae look alike, so it’s hard to count. In any case, if it is a callous resources versus children debate and all children are mere economic/ecological units, then all Americans should be sterilised immediately based on their ecological footprint. As should the rich; the world certainly can’t carry more Trumpspawn.
Anyway, that’s my modest proposal. We’ll discuss infant cannibalism later.
“all larvae look alike”
Speciesist.
A blowfly mum knows each and every one of her maggots by their distinctive features; a cheeky look here, a cute curl of a lip there, their various likes and dislikes, favourite foods they dive into, others they turn their noses up at. Plus, names.
In one of Pratchett’s Discworld stories he mentions the dreaded Star-Toad With a Million Young. It’s method of killing is truly horrible: it shows its victims pictures of its children until their brains implode.
@ rhinocrates (7.2) … very descriptive English 🙂
Excellent rhino, comment of the day.
Bravo.
Even though you overcounted the kids, no it’s not a fair fucking point.
Between blended families, changing circumstances and what have you, who the hell knows where we’ll be in three years. House burn down and insurance fuck you around? Factory goes under and you both lose your jobs?
You and farrar can shove your kid-rationing up your respective arseholes.
Simply put, the planet, and New Zealand, cannot afford for people to be so irresponsible as to have 6+ children, regardless of their personal circumstances.
ok, so what are you going to do about it: forced sterilisation? Take the kids off them? Let the kids get sick or starve? What about a brady bunch scenario? Would they have an excuse you deem worthy enough to not sniff at then?
How’s this for an option: economically developed countries tend to have low birthrates, some even below population maintenance. Developing nations have high birthrates. Maybe if we addressed global, regional and local income inequality, the birthrate problem will take care of itself.
How about no financial help, no DPB etc.
That will soon focus people’s thinking.
You could start now be saying that the DPB/WFF is only available for the next 10 years after that you’re on your own.
Are you suggesting the DPB/WFF policy dictates the birth rate there? Because I suggest that belief might be ‘barking’.
May as well just chain women to the kitchen and factory and be done with it. If I wasn’t on the phone I’d link to the new Handmaids Tale short.
Good point people in existing relationships who were supporting their children without any financial help get assistance for a set period of time.
What it boils down to though is if you can afford to have one kid, have one, two have two, etc
Just don’t keep having kids and expecting the taxpayer to pay you.
Climate change, automation and extended life are going to be major issues in the near future governments really have to start to think about how many new people they bring into the mix.
How many people on the DPB currently had all their kids while on the DPB?
CC is a real imperative to move to a steady or declining population. But that has nothing to do with individual family size. It’s to do with the ecological footprint that NZ and the planet can sustain. Given NZ is still increasing in population, how do you propose to stop people having kids? Because I’m pretty sure that it’s not the odd woman on the DPB with 6 kids that is causing that rise. So I’d love to hear the plan for restricting NZ’s population, esp the middle classes and 1% era who use up the most resources and pollute the most.
I do think people will soon have start to seriously think about automation, sure there’s a hardwired biological urge to breed, but what sort of life are they setting their children up for?
It’s getting pretty tough now with everyone needing a degree to even make the first cut for 90% of jobs, massive loan and a shrinking job market, there will be tough times ahead.
I have no doubt 50% unemployment will be the norm in the next 20-25 years, there’s going to be massive social upheaval as society adapts to that.
Only if we allow the capitalists to remain in charge.
If we don’t and change the system the 50% unemployment will be 50% in R&D.
R&D is a numbers game. The more people you have in it the more ideas you have to look at and thus the more workable ideas will be found and developed.
Unfortunately, NZ puts the numbers into doing more of the same old stuff rather than developing new ideas and that is the result of the capitalists trying to do things on the cheap.
What a load of lies you tell, and yet still utterly fail to conceal your vile ethics of hatred, judgement and betrayal.
The only valid defence for your behaviour is that you are suffering from a physical amygdala-based disability.
Are you a catholic?
Oh, do tell us exactly how many kids you can afford to have. No rounding, we want to know the number and how certain you are able to be about it.
Is it 1.41421?
Or 2.71828?
Or maybe 3.14159?
Volunteer your family and friends then bm – let’s start there – you could dob them in to the Ministry cos you think it’s such a great idea.
punish the children for the sins of their parents, eh?
Nah, I’d rather we defend children against you, without regard to the consequences for you.
BM – you’re a wuss. That’s too long a timeframe. Legalise cannibalism instead. “Eat a hungry kid today” could be the motto.
+1
No shame.
President Trump ordered a military strike on Syria Thursday night in response to a recent chemical attack. By Friday afternoon, a supportive PAC was fundraising off of the strike.
“Last night, President Trump ordered military action against Syria in response to their chemical weapons attack,” an email from the Great America PAC, first flagged by Dave Levinthal at the Center for Public Integrity, read.
“59 United States tomahawk missiles destroyed the airfield used to store Syria’s toxic weapons and aircraft involved in the Sarin gas attack.
What are your thoughts?”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/07/pro-trump-pac-raising-money-off-syria-strikes.html
My thoughts are mostly about the kind of people who’d use this as a cash-generating opportunity, but this also struck me:
…destroyed the airfield used to store Syria’s toxic weapons and aircraft involved in the Sarin gas attack.
That’s a couple of pretty bold claims there – my thoughts are “This fuck’s lying to us.”
Jim Wright called bullshit, too.
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/850529542125088768
Tomahawks can be nuclear or conventionally armed. These were conventionally armed.
By the way, Trump has stock in the manufacturer, Raytheon. Their share price just went up sharply.
http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/syria-airstrikes-tomahawk-missile-boeing-raytheon-stock/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tomahawk-maker-raytheon-leads-rally-in-defense-and-energy-stocks-premarket-2017-04-07
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/according-to-his-most-r-firing-59-missiles-into-syria/
https://www.scribd.com/document/315632622/Donald-Trump-form-278e-disclosure-2016
A political stunt.
[…]
[…]
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/850380219961815040
He’s just taking advice from the best of them:
The US has carried out 7,000 plus airstrikes in Syria since 2014 and HRC, a private citizen since late 2012, is relevant?.
/
https://www.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/0814_Inherent-Resolve
someone said something very pointed today.
If Hillary wins – we will be at war within 6 month.
3 million more voted for Hillary.
We are at war, it must be that we and Hillary have won.
and of course it is very very important what she said. Never mind that she literally can say what she wants, it would not matter one iota.
TLAMs are not really designed to destroy runways. They are used to destroy buildings, aircraft, and vehicles. To destroy a runway requires a concrete penetration bomb to crater the runway. But it is still relatively easy to repair. It is easier to destroy associated infrastructure and of of course the aircraft.
Nevertheless airbases are actually difficult to knock out completely. They are simply too dispersed, with lots of blast protecting revertments around each building and each aircraft park. Thus each building/aircraft requires a separate direct hit.
all Hail Trump, the defender of the free world.
bit of a weird response to a fairly straightforward comment about what different weapons do in the context of current events
A knife is a knife is a knife.
What was the supposed outcome, and was it achieved. In the meantime, lets praise dear leader and his awesome weapons. Would be a shame if no one would use them ey?
They’re the same weapons every PotUS since Reagan has had. What’s your point?
point being
what was to be achieved with this rather pointless ‘attack’
and was it achieved.
as for my comment about the awesome weapons and why not use it?
Here have dear leader ask himself
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html
i only point out that the discussion about the weapons used is pointless. The question should be what was supposed to be achieved by this campaign and was it achieved. All the rest is weapons porn for arms aficionados and rather pointless.
I’m not really that surprise that air operations have resume at that airbase as it tells me the Syrian Airforce has really good Post- Attack Recovery Drills and flying old Soviet era aircraft such as the Su-22 which is built like a tank and almost flies like one operating from that Airbase. Soviet era aircraft were designed to fly from rough or semi prepare runways or airfields unlike most western built combat aircraft.
If you’ve got a spare couple of hours, a fascinating youtube discussion by some of the United States best alternative/realist thinkers in my opinion. Very relatable to New Zealand too.
“This summit brought together an amazing panel that consisted of John Michael Greer, James Howard Kunstler, Chris Martenson, Frank Morris, and Dmitry Orlov to talk about issues ranging from politics, the economy, the food we eat, immigration, labor, poverty, minorities, war, and much more. Please be sure to like and share and stay tuned for more dynamic events from The Center For Progressive Urban Politics!”
Trump’s gunboat diplomacy.
A U.S. Navy strike group will be moving toward the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula, a U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday.
The moves comes as concerns grow about North Korea’s advancing weapons program. Earlier this month North Korea tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile which only traveled a fraction of its range.
The Carl Vinson strike group, which includes an aircraft carrier, will make its way from Singapore toward the Korean peninsula, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-navy-korea-idUSL1N1HG0LO
Actual nazis proud of Trump’s nazi.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — A group with alleged historical links to Nazi Germany has told NBC News it was “proud” when President Donald Trump’s deputy assistant wore its medal.
Controversy has swirled around Sebastian Gorka, one of Trump’s top counterterrorism advisers, ever since he attended the president’s Jan. 20 Inaugural Ball wearing the honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organization Vitezi Rend.
NBC News traveled to Hungary to dig deeper into Gorka’s ties with the group, speaking with members of the organization as well as with locals who knew him when he lived there.
“When he appeared on U.S. television … with the medal of the Vitez Order … it made me really proud,” Vitezi Rend spokesman Andras Horvath said in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Vitezi Rend is also known as the Order of Vitez.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sebastian-gorka-made-nazi-linked-vitezi-rend-proud-wearing-its-n742851
As expected.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/05/actor-don-cheadle-just-revealed-trump-refers-black-women-golfing/